Jewish penicillin

I'm still working on the second half of my books list (the one about the books I listened to this year...it's long, OK? And I have things to do! Sheesh! Leave me alone!) but had to throw in a pitch for my latest recipe on (Never) Too Many Cooks: Chicken soup with matzo balls.

There is nothing better. Period. Don't believe me? Try it yourself.

Officially an Adult

I always wondered when I would become an adult. Most kids do, I think. I'm not sure what exactly we think "becoming an adult" means, but we know it's bound to happen some time.

At first, I assumed that it would happen on a birthday. I'd wake up, 18 years old, and be an adult. When that didn't happen, I nudged it up to 21. No dice there, either.

So I pinned my hopes--so many hopes--on motherhood. And while the birth of my children changed me in ways I can't begin to enumerate, it only served--then as now--to make me feel even less capable, less grown up. I may act the part, but inside? I knew it was a sham.

And so I gave it up, that hope of adulthood.

Today, my mother called to ask me a cooking question. My mother. Called me. Asked ME.

Today, just shy of my 46th birthday, I am an adult.

It's everything I dreamed it would be.

Hey, Look! Over There! Latkes!

I don't hawk my posts on (Never) Too Many Cooks every single time I post one. But, you know. This one's awesome. Because it's about carbs. And oil. And rededication. And ancient history. And sorta miraculous long-burning lights during a time of year when darkness reigns.

But mostly? It's about carbs and oil. You know you want some. You know you do.

Mmmm. Latkes.

(In the photo above, the bronze shoes on the left are N's; the porcelained ones on the right are Em's. Baroy built the awesome display case they're in, years ago. And yes, my living room is pretty much orange. Goldish orange, or maybe orangey gold. I love orange. I love its warmth and its sweetness. Which has nothing to do with Hanukkah and latkes, but is true, nonetheless. There's a lot of warm orange in my house, and that makes me happy.)

Thanksgiving in Photos

Every year, we invite all the "geographical orphans" over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner--all the people who didn't, couldn't, wouldn't travel to their far-away relatives' homes for the holiday. It is, always, a huge amount of fun. And while I miss my family something fierce at these times of year, there is also something to be said for the family of your heart.

OK. Enough mush. On to the menu. As you can maybe see in the photo above, there was...

• Turkey (brined, of course)
• Gravy
• Cranberry sauce
  
• Vegetarian stuffing
• Sausage stuffing
• Twice-baked mashed potatoes
• Sweet potato souffle
• Crackling cauliflower
• Cornbread
• Biscuits (the drop kind)
• Turkey-shaped salad (see photographic evidence below!)
• Spinach salad
• Raw carrots and string beans for crudite/hors d'oeuvres
• Apple pie
• Pumpkin pie
• Homemade whipped cream (the only failure in an otherwise AWESOME dinner)

There was also a big surprise. See, a couple of weeks ago, Em had been on the phone with Uncle S, who moved to Boston earlier this year. She was taunting him about missing Thanksgiving, and (especially) about missing my cranberry sauce. He was crying foul, loudly enough that I could hear him through the phone, and she was giggling away. When they'd finished, he asked to speak to me.

"While Em and I were talking," he said, "I made reservations to LA on Thanksgiving Day. I'll be there before noon. Don't tell the kids."

"You're flying 3,000 miles for my cranberry sauce?" I teased.

"Of course! Totally worth it."

And so it was that, at around 10:30 on Thanksgiving Day, I sent Baroy to the grocery store to pick up some almonds.

"It's taking him a long time," Em said to me, about an hour later.

"Mmmm," I replied. "Maybe Vons wasn't open and he had to look around for a store?"

Then we heard the car pull up.

"Why don't you go and see if Dad needs help with the groceries," I said. "And take your brother."

Em look at me, puzzled. Help with a bag of almonds? Suddenly her eyes grew huge, and she sprinted toward the door. (I knew there had been a hint or two dropped, unintentionally, over the weeks, and she was putting them all together.)

And then there he was, and they were both screaming, "Uncle! Uncle!" and running into his arms.

And it became, for sure, a day for giving thanks.

As for the promised photos...


My friend J always comes up with some ubercreative addition to the Thanksgiving table. This year she outdid herself.






This is usually our living room coffee table, but on Thanksgiving, it becomes the side-dish side table.





We pull our kitchen table (which has pull-out leaves) into the living room for Thanksgiving dinner. Can you see the white tablecloth on top of our 'nice' tablecloth? It's our "thankful tablecloth." Each year (we started in 2007, I believe), we take a Sharpie (pictured in the middle of the table here) and everyone signs their name and the year and writes what they're thankful for. It's a useful scrapbook! I forget where I got the idea, but I love it.







Our friends G and M brought their new puppy, Matilda, to dinner, and she and Snug had a playdate. Here's Matilda playing peek-a-boo with Em.





Snug kisses the cook--me. For the record: Yes, that's a shot outside on our patio. Yes, it's after the sun has set. Yes, I'm in short sleeves. Yes, I love Southern California.

Cranberry Sauciness

No time. Must sleep. But, first...

Cranberry sauce recipe, up at (Never) Too Many Cooks.

Don't say I never did anything for you. Because this? Is something.

Something special. For reals.

When Life Gives You Onions, Saute Them

My garden's been a disaster this year.

Since the Spring of Gorgeous Lettuces--and yes, they were--it's been the summer of my discontent. There are no tomatoes in my garden; not a single tomato plant made it up through the soil. Nor did any carrots. Two zucchini plants poked their heads through, but they produced nothing. Two bean plants made it up, as well, and even put forth about 10 scrumptious green beans before turning brown and giving up the green-bean ghost. The dill I planted barely broke through the ground before dying. And while one of my basil seeds actually turned into a reasonably productive basil plant, all I can say is, really? Only ONE basil plant? After all those sown seeds?

It's been sad. I'll go even farther and say it's been downright depressing. Most of what I've accomplished in previous years has been more or less accidental, rarely planned-for, rarely thought out. But it's happened, and we've enjoyed the fruits of my accidental gardening since we moved into this house.

And then I went back to work, taking whatever gardening mojo I'd had with me, apparently. Because what remains at my house--this Dead Zone, this place where no green goodness grows any more--seems to have resulted from my inability to do a daily garden check for areas that need a little TLC or even to do anything resembling regular weeding. We don't have a real irrigation system in my garden, which worked before, because I'd notice some wilting, and I'd do a little extra hand watering in addition to whatever hits the garden when we water the lawn every two to three days. Worst of all, I planted when I had time, not when the time was right...and that, I believe, was my true downfall.

I've become generally bitter about the whole thing, to be honest. In case you hadn't noticed.

Which is why I thank god for the onions.

Sometime in the late fall, I saw a bag full of onion 'bulbs' for sale at a local gardening shop. They were on serious sale; I think I paid $2 for them. I knew it was late in the season to plant them, and I didn't have room for them in my 'main' garden, so I stuck them in a rarely used patch of dirt toward the back of the yard--an area where the light isn't at all optimal for veggie-growing, and where the sprinklers barely reach.

I was pleased when I saw green shoots coming up this spring, despite the conditions. But the "70 days 'til ready for harvest" had long come and gone, and all I had to show for my initial investment were some green onions. I'd pull one or two now and then, but mostly I ignored my pathetic little patch of failed garden in favor of gnashing my teeth over my pathetic BIG patch of failed garden.

Which is why I became ridiculously excited, a few weeks back, to discover that a few of those now-wilty-looking green onions had, while my back was turned, become now-wilty-looking BROWN bulb onions...and good-sized ones, at that. But there were only a few, and while it was nice, it wasn't impressive.

Now it's impressive. Or at least it was last night, when I decided to pull the weeds that have grown amongst the onions, and realized that almost all the onion leaves themselves had browned and fallen over...which meant that they were all ready to be harvested. And so harvest I did--a good three-dozen-plus onions, most of which were the size of real, though small, onions, and a few of which were relatively impressive, fists-sized suckers. Once I'd pulled 'em from the ground (and arranged them for a couple of glamour shots, of course), I chopped three or four of them up, sauteed them in a little butter and olive oil, added chicken thighs and, later, rice, and served them to my grateful family, who might miss the sun-soaked stringbeans of yesteryear, but were nonetheless grateful for the tear-gland-assaulting onions of today.

And so all is not lost in TC's World of Accidental Gardening. MOST is lost, but not all. And for right now, that's good enough.

Like Regular People

There are entire weeks that go by in great rushes of activity, so fast that when I look back on them, I feel like I never got a chance to do anything 'regular.' You know, like clean the house. Or cook a full meal. Or sit down. Or breathe.

This past week was juuuuust this side of ridiculous, which meant that there were these tiny swatches of regular time mixed in with the rushing times. Not that I cleaned, or anything--perish the thought!--but Baroy did find the time to replace a very yucky toilet seat (little boy+bad aim) with a shiny new one, and even to repaint the bathroom cabinets, which were peeling a bit. (OK, more than a bit. They were peeling in huge sheets of peelingness, if you must know. But 'a bit' makes me feel less bad about how long it took us to do something about it.)

Also, on Saturday, I had to return an overdue book to the library, and I took the kids with me and let them wander around for a while and take a few books out. Like regular people who have time for such things. (N took out a book called 'Caring for Your Pet Fish.' Out of all the books in the library...this is what he chose. No, we do not have a pet fish. He doesn't even really want a pet fish. And that, ladies and gentlemen, defines my son in a way no IEP writeup ever could.) Turns out, it was comic-book-giveaway day (at the library? Why? Because REAL BOOKS would be too appropriate?) which thrilled both kids to no end. So we left with books and comics and all the info we'll ever need about pet fish. Score!

But, hold on...it gets even more regular. Yesterday, on the way home from Religious School and the much-anticipated First Flush ceremony (new bathrooms...don't ask...), Em mentioned that she needed new sneakers, since the soles on the ones she has are getting pretty thin. I have done a full 180 in my mall-readiness (I used to practically live there, now I would rather drive 50 miles to a stand-alone store than try to find parking at the Galleria), so I tried to push her off with comments about needing to take N home because it wasn't fair to drag him around shopping...fully intending to convince Baroy to take her later in the day. But then N said, putting his foot up on the seat next to me, "I need new shoes, too, Mommy." And lo and behold, there was a hole in the sole of his sneakers wide enough for me to stick three fingers all the way through.

"How long have these been that way?" I asked, aghast.

"I don't know. A while."

Really, there are times when I'm THIS CLOSE to calling the Department of Child and Family Services on MYSELF. This was one of them.

So we stopped at the Galleria, and I cursed a lot about the traffic and the stupidity of people in a parking garage, and we went to Payless and found shoes for both kids. Well, after finding out the STUPIDEST THING EVER about how kids' sizing goes. Did you guys know this? Am I the only one just finding out? See, Em found the kids' shoes in her sizes to be just too young for her, and looking at them, I had to agree. She likes things plain and/or funky, not sequined and pink and with hearts on them. But she's a kid's size 4.5, and women's shoes don't really start until 5 or 6. So we were about to leave without buying her anything when she pointed to a display in the window near the cashier, saying, "See? THOSE are the kinds of sneakers I'd like!" And the girl at the register said, "Well, what size are you?" Em told her, and the girl replied, "OK...That makes you a 6 or a 6 and a half in women's."

WTF???

And, indeed, when we went back to the women's section, we found the shoes she liked. And, indeed, she needed a size 6.5, despite being a 4.5 in kids' sizes. How that translation makes ANY SENSE I'll never know. But there you have it. I had no idea. Maybe regular people do, but not me.

In any case, both kids were thrilled to have new shoes. N, especially, was glad to actually have a sole between his foot and the ground. Sigh.

Then we went home, and I made an excellent dinner (if I do say so myself) of shrimp and spinach picked fresh from my garden five minutes earlier (the spinach, not the shrimp) and sauteed in garlic and olive oil, served with rice pilaf. N, who would rather STARVE than eat shrimp OR spinach, had leftover fried chicken. We ate outside...because we could, and because Em loves eating outside...and thus we ended our semi-regular weekend.

Ta dah.

Hey, I said it was REGULAR. I didn't say it was INTERESTING.

The World's Saddest Pumpkin Cake

Last year, it just slid out of the very cool bundt pan with hardly a shake. This year, not so much...

The icing didn't do a lot to disguise the issues...

(Re: The sign. Moaning to Baroy about what had happened to the cake, I said, "It tastes awesome, but I can't just serve it without comment! I can't have people thinking I meant for it to look like this! I need like a sign or something..." This is what I came back to a little later. Baroy cracks me up. It's why I keep him. Well, one of the reasons.)

And for those of you who follow me on Twitter (I'm tinycoconut there, fyi), here's an extra photo of the done-two-hours-too-soon turkey in its Who-Framed-Roger-Rabbit swaddling:

Thanks, Butterball Turkey Talk Line! It stayed perfectly hot, and was still awesomely juicy! (Which is probably also thanks to Alton Brown and his now tried-and-true brining technique...Yes, I know brining is 'out' these days, but I'm sticking with it, 'cause I love the way the turkey turns out.)

ADD Blogging

Last night I heard rustling outside the front window, and looked out to see one very large adult raccoon climb up into and then back down out of our tree...followed by SIX still-pretty-small offspring. I know I'm supposed to be horrified and freaked out, but they were so cute! Even Baroy was "aaaawwwww"ing all over the place.

It's 7:30 at night, and I cannot decide what to make for dinner. N didn't eat lunch until almost 3, so I'm OK for another half hour or so. But still. I really need to get a handle on this parenting thing. Apparently, nearly 11 years at this gig hasn't been enough.

I'm listening to The Brief, Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao on my iPod these days. This is how I know a book is totally kick-ass: I make up excuses to go for more than one long walk a day, just so I can listen to more of it. I can't tell you why I'm enjoying this book so much, but I am absolutely swept up in this story, and more than a little sad that I'm on the last disc. I hate when good books end.

It's easy to feed me; I eat anything and everything. It's my two guys who are a pain in the butt when it comes to dinner-making.

My new volunteer gig at my synagogue is putting together the monthly newsletter. To say that I'm already enjoying it more than I did heading up the religious school's PTA is a vast understatement. But there's an odd side to it. We're such an exceptionally small synagogue that I know the names--and, more often then not, the faces, the addresses and phone numbers, the children and/or parents of--every person who is on the lists of birthdays and anniversaries, thank yous and donations, condolences and yahrzeits. I now know who needs to light a candle for his grandmother in three weeks, and I know who gave a generous donation to the sisterhood fund. It all feels a little...voyeuristic, somehow

Speaking of yahrzeits, my first one for my father is fast approaching. In fact, his name was near the top of the yahrzeit list I just finished editing. This year, his yahrzeit falls on August 8 (because, as with all things Jewish, you don't commemorate a death based on the Roman calendar, but on the Jewish lunar-based calendar). This means I will be lighting the candle for him at sundown on August 7...which would have been his 70th birthday. That freaks me out a little, but mostly because it gives the whole thing a much larger significance and import than it's likely to have for me, to be honest.

Maybe I'll just make some fish sticks for N. Baroy and I can fend for ourselves.

The Greatest Grate-ist

I helped make 175 potato latkes today for a pre-Chanukah Shop-n-Nosh event this Sunday at my temple. I was in charge of the potatoes (among other things). The food processor was broken, and so I had to HAND GRATE approximately 70 potatoes. And because I am an obsessive-compulsive, those 'tatoes were grated down to the nub, down to within an inch of their lives. Or half an inch, really.

So it's actually pretty impressive that it wasn't until the second-to-last potato that I grated off all the skin on my thumb joint, don't you think?

Still, perhaps I won't share that story with the hundred-plus people who will be eating those latkes on Sunday...

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From potatoes to rice: If you aren't spending all of your free time here, you will be once you click that link. Especially if, like me, you really miss those SAT days. (Sadly, that's not even sarcastic. If all of life were about being book-smart and testing well, I'd be King of the World. Or Queen. Or something. But, until then, earning grains of rice for starving people will have to be my reward.)

While you're there, check out the link about the site's history of rice-earning. Pretty cool to see those numbers swell, no? Worth spreading the word about, methinks.

Homemade

In general, my working from home hasn't been quite the boon to the kids and the homefront that I'd thought it would. Because there is no outside-the-home office that I have to go to, there is also no inside-the-home place to get away from work. As I've complained about before, I'm always at the computer, always putting the kids off. And housekeeping? Even worse. Because if I'm going to take time away from working, I'm CERTAINLY not going to spend it vacuuming or dusting.

But every now and then, I pull myself away from the computer for a moment to give my brain a break, and I do something that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise. And that helps make me feel a little better about this whole enterprise, however tenuous is may be.

All of which is to say that, today, when my kids get home from school, they will each get to have a slice of fresh-from-the-oven, made-from-scratch banana bread for a snack. As they chow down, my inner Martha will smile, pleased with what she accomplished this morning while also answering emails and templating articles for the not-yet-relaunched website and compiling a Religious School PTA Parent Handbook.

And so, for jsut a few moments, all will be well...so long as Inner Martha keeps her eyes on the kids, and doesn't look at the stack of plates in the sink and the dirt-splattered floor and the dog hair piling up against the baseboards and...