Rare Family Meals and A Cooking Brother

When my siblings and I gathered in San Antonio more than three years ago, I had the opportunity to eat some breaded trout my brother Nate had pan-fried. It was so delicious that I moved past my comfort zone of poaching or baking, and I tried to replicate it in my own kitchen. My experiment didn't turn out nearly as well.

When I got home in April from visiting my brother's family in the UK, I told my husband all about the dishes Nate had conjured up for my friend Holly and me, how he had spoiled us rotten. I can still recall the aroma and taste of the huge bowl of shrimp fried rice, the golden potatoes and bright onions, the stir-fried vegetables, and the banana bread. Ah, that banana bread! It had cranberries and walnuts and I'm pretty sure a fair amount of liquor, too. Every morning I went to carve myself a thick slice off the fragrant, moist loaf. I didn't need anything else for breakfast, though of course I couldn't say no to Natie's hash browns and sausage.

The first night at my brother's house, I helped Nate prepare supper, showering chunks of salt and spices that I have since forgotten onto the skin of some lovely little fish. Later that week we went to Borough Market in London, and Nate dashed around gleefully, collecting several of the bountiful culinary delicacies we encountered there. Another night he introduced me to prawns. I've never seen such ugly little buggers before. I tried my best to allow the least amount of skin from my fingers to touch them as I attempted to peel apart their hideous, whiskered bodies. The others laughed at me and shook their heads at my hesitation in clawing for culinary heaven. Then they caved and helped me peel a couple creatures, so they wouldn't have to watch the unattractive contortions of my face while enjoying a fine meal. Nate didn't have the prawns. He asked us how they were. When Holly and I began to gush, he laughingly halted us with, "Not you! I know you'll just tell me they're good. Her!" And he swiveled his pointed finger from us to Natalie who confessed, "They're a little dry but still very good." Nate cried, "Ah!"

Great chefs are always seeking perfection, I guess.

When I told Matthew about all the dishes Natie created, I may have been a bit heavy-handed in my hints that men can cook, too, and love it. Though Matthew gobbles up cooking competition shows, he has no passion for attempting their products, and I have always wondered, why watch them then? I love neither the reality cooking shows nor the reality of cooking, so we are a forlorn pair, eating steamed broccoli, canned beans, grilled chicken, and spaghetti more than is decent. However, gallant as my man is and eager to pacify my pleas (or demands) for him to cook sometimes, he did promise to prepare a few of Nate's recipes if I procured them.

His delectable food isn't all I remember about my time with Nate, but not being an accomplished and merry chef myself, I appreciate that gift in others, especially my big sisters and brother. They all claim to have learned at Mom's side growing up. I wonder how they learned, and I didn't. Where the heck did I, the baby of the family, wonder off to when the cooking started? A weird child, I probably spent those minutes telling myself and my stuffed animals stories in the bathroom mirror. At least I have taught myself to bake tolerably well as an adult, but one cannot survive on cake and scones alone. I wish I could! Instead, I think I'll ask my big brother for some recipes.

Just not the prawns.

Facebook and My Habitual Failure to Launch

My family and friends might not believe it, but I have thoughts, too - ideas and dreams even. I just don't share them on Facebook.

Call me lazy. Call me a social media klutz. Tell me I need a smartphone, so I can stay "connected". Just don't slam me for having no reflections on life, because I do, my friends. Here are the slew, and I mean slew, of things I meant to share on Facebook in July:

The Lamb Chop Litmus Test for Home Cooks

My husband made a lovely lamb chop dinner for Mother's Day. It had fresh mint and rosemary and a white-wine cream sauce. I loved it, and I tried to replicate it. It was NOT  the same.

Either I messed up the ratio of ingredients - easy to mend - or it's a surefire sign that my man is meant to do all the cooking from now on. I'm going with that last one.

The Bonsai Trial (Like So Many Others)

Yep, my beautiful bonsai is already dying. It took me barely a month to destroy it.

One night over dinner I was telling my husband how Daniel knocked me into it as I was attempting to revive it, and it skewered my fingers with some of its bone-dry needles. I cried out, "I knew this bonsai didn't like me! It's like, 'I'd rather die than stay here with you, Lady!' "

Berto held up a forkful of food and pointed. "Or you'd rather kill it than have to take care of it."

Matthew eyes widened as he added, waving his fork accusingly, "Now normally Berto's not right when he says stuff like that, honey, but you got to admit - that's got a ring of truth."

"It's not true! I love my Bonsai. My poor little, beautiful tree." I turned sad eyes upon it to prove my point.

But our little Ella Belle had the last word:

"Maybe it's not a tree," she said. "Maybe it's a bush."

That explains everything.

My Favo-right Meal

When I gave birth to Ella, I had the best meal I've ever had in my life; a nurse brought me a platter of cheese and fresh fruit. It hit the spot, and there is no spot worth hitting quite like the one belonging to a woman post-labor.

No, I don't love to cook, but I do love the ingredients of this brilliant, simple meal:

Cheese, two or three varieties
Crackers, two kinds (one should be fancy)
Fruit (grapes, melon slices and strawberries recommended)
Sliced meat - optional
Crusty bread - optional
Raw veggies - always a good idea
Wine - very good idea

Enjoy!

Happy

All you need to be happy is the opportunity to watch your kids, even the 11-year-old, dance to the Happy song.

You look old

I found my first gray hair. I mean, really, it was iron lady material, coarse and shiny. Matthew has always claimed that I would finally start dying my hair when it turned gray. I have always protested that I shall not if it comes in as I hope: a thick, stylish skunk stripe (wait...that does sound stylish, right?)

But this was just one wee hair, and as I bent over, peering into the mirror, Matthew had just the solution for it: he brutally yanked it out and cried, "There!"

**************

Ooops, that was only five - hardly a slew. Oh, well...maybe I'm just not social media material.

A Holiday Recipe - Mama Darlin's Sweet Potato Casserole

Something changes this time of year, and it's not the leaves in Phoenix.

Matthew thanked me last week for making a wonderful dinner of ham, parker house rolls and sweet potato casserole with salad and green beans. It was a rare feast.

I said with conviction, "I love cooking holiday dinners. Holiday dinners I get!"

"Every day's a holiday; every day's a holiday," he replied.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. I hate cooking daily meals....maybe if I could just bake everything....yet the dinners prepared at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter I absolutely adore. They're hard work, too - hours upon one's feet and miles of dishes before you sleep.

It's really about patriotic pride on Thanksgiving, standing apron to apron with countless other Americans who hope and pray for a moist bird. But I also love these dinners because I am a creature of nostalgia, always seeking an elixir to take me back to childhood, and the dishes I prepare are largely what my mother prepared - especially the rolls, pies and sweet potatoes. Add the fact that I appreciate the comfort of the tradition; I know exactly what to do. After all, I've been doing it for years, and it always turns out well (well, mostly...).

My mother's sweet potato casserole is one of those dishes that is always on my holiday table. It wouldn't be a feast without it. Because of this simple, rudely prepared but shockingly delicious dish, I have been lavished with praise and accosted with multiple recipe requests. Even the husband of a dear friend who witnessed its messy creation with a potato masher was astounded and appreciative when he finally tasted it. My son, Berto, has honored it by choosing it for his 5th grade's multi-cultural/pre-Thanksgiving school luncheon.

Now I am finally sharing it with you. Because of my son's severe nut allergies, I've changed it some. I present the original recipe, containing nuts and also more sugar and butter, and then my altered version. You can choose for yourselves which you prefer to try. Warning: I've heard marshmallows are out of culinary favor. Do not omit them! It's plain wrong.

Mama Darlin's Sweet Potato Soufflé

Filling:
1 40 ounce can yams                                                
3/4 cup sugar                                                  
1/2 cup melted butter                                     
2 eggs                                                                
1/3 cup evaporated milk                                 
1 teaspoon vanilla                                       


For the Topping:                                            
1/2 cup melted butter                                      
3/4 cup sugar                                                
1 cup cornflakes                                               
1 cup pecans        

miniature marshmallows                                            

Nut-Free Version

Filling:
3 cups cooked sweet potatoes/yams (2-3 large, cooked on high in microwave for about 12-15 minutes, innards scraped into casserole dish)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 melted butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup Cascadian Farms Oats and Honey Granola
1 cup cornflakes (optional)

miniature marshmallows

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mash all 6 ingredients (yes, even eggs!) for filling in a 2 quart casserole dish, mixing thoroughly around before baking for 20 minutes in the oven. Meanwhile, prepare topping by melting butter in a small bowl, adding brown sugar, and then stirring in nuts or granola (large pieces broken apart with fingers) and cornflakes, if desired (topping will be chewier). Remove casserole from oven and spread topping evenly over it. Bake 10-15 minutes more. Remove and spread marshmallows over center of casserole, leaving a 1 inch gap around the edge. Cook just until marshmallows are golden, about five minutes. Serve with parker house rolls, if at all possible, and enjoy!

Some dishes bring comfort and nostalgia with each bite. For me this is one of them. Thanks, Mom. Love, Hoodoo

Easy, Whole-Wheat Coffee Cake

This recipe came from my mother-in-law. My husband brought it into our marriage from a collection of recipes his mother gave to him when he left for college. (I brought only my chocolate-cinnamon chip cookies for our sustenance.) Those recipes, along with cherished heirlooms that I later begged from my mother, have helped us survive on more than potatoes, cereal and pizza. Strangely, my mother-in-law didn't remember the recipe when I thanked her profusely for it, so...divine providence, then? Obviously, I love it, if one looks at the evidence of exhibit A:

I did, however, modify this recipe to my liking, as I do all of them. Though I love sweets, in general I believe that many recipes call for too much sugar and salt and not enough whole grain. Any time you add spice or cocoa to a recipe, you can get away with quite a bit of whole grain, because chocolate and exotic flavoring tend to override everything with their strong personalities. Anyhow, here is the original recipe and my slightly altered rendition:

Original Coffee Cake                                            Hillary's Whole-Wheat Version

1/4 cup vegetable oil                                            1/4 cup vegetable oil     

1 beaten egg                                                         1 beaten egg

1/2 cup milk                                                         1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cup sifted flour                                           1 cup whole wheat + 1/2 cup white flour

3/4 cup sugar                                                       1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder                                 2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt                                                  1/2 teaspoon salt or slightly less  

spicy topping                                                      Hillary's spicy topping

1/4 cup brown sugar                                            1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon flour                                                1/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon                               It's not spicy topping without it! (trust me)

I tablespoon melted butter                                   2 tablespoons melted butter

pecan pieces, if desired                                       not in this house!

Melt butter in a small bowl in microwave, measure in everything else and mix together with fork.

Now for cake batter...combine oil, egg and milk in mixing bowl:

or measuring cup

Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl:

Break up pieces of brown sugar and sift ingredients with (clean, obviously) hands:



I like to play with my food

Pour wet mixture into dry:

And gently mix together with a spatula:

The dough will be very sticky and hard to spread, but do your best as you pour it into a nine-inch square pan (the hardest part). Then sprinkle on your spicy topping as evenly as you like. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes (ovens vary, so check at 20-22 minutes to see how it's getting along). This coffee cake is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean or with crumbs, not batter.

I serve this on weekend mornings and have served it at most of our celebratory brunches for baptisms and confirmations with family and friends. It's easy, has a nice texture and is good without being too sweet. Thank you to my mother-in-law for passing it on to me, so I could pass it on to you. Try it and enjoy!

Ignacia's Kitchen : Banana Bread (just mix it up!)

 No Rules Banana Bread

(Makes 24 cupcakes)

Mix

·        ½ Cup butter OR ½ Cup oil (note from Hillary: I like oil, easy. Melted butter never seems to incorporate as well for me)

·        1 Cup sugar

·        2 eggs

·        2 Cups flour

·        1 tsp baking soda

·        ¼ tsp salt

·        1 Cup milk OR Buttermilk

·        2 Tbs lemon Juice (aprox)

·        1 Cup mashed bananas

Pour into chosen containers (I prefer cupcakes)

Bake

·        Bread Pan: 275 ºF for 1 hour

·        Cupcakes: 300 ºF for 35 minutes

Tips

·        Use a food mixer

·        Leave the pans in the oven after baked for a crunchier crust (pictured cupcakes are from the same batch, the darker ones stayed in the oven after oven was turned off)

 

·        Break eggs into a separate container to take out eggshells if you need, necessary if you are letting kids break the eggs

·        Add nuts if you want

·        Freeze bananas when they are getting too ripe for your taste, they will turn black outside while keeping the inside fresh

 

·        If you are using frozen bananas you do not need to mash them, they can be squished out of the peel

·        Cut frozen bananas into 1 inch long pieces and add to smoothies

 

My friend Ignacia returns to her home in Chile this week. She promises to send more recipes to me, especially for Chilean food as their Independence Day approaches in September.

I had planned a going away party for her, but my kids got sick, so all the moms in our group met instead at a Starbucks (so American of us). I wish we'd had these cupcakes to go with our espresso. 

Someday maybe - a dream but maybe - we'll all make it to Chile to visit her.

Ignacia's Kitchen: Homemade Pizza…or should I say artisan pizza or a fancy named rustic pizza?

I love cooking but there are only two dishes where I like my version more than anyone else’s. Sounds egocentric, but I think it is not a big enough “portfolio” for a career as a chef.

I am happy my friend Hillary is having me as a guest again, so if you like my simple pizza, I would love for you to post the link and share…so she invites me again J.

Anyway, all of that to say that this is one of those two recipes:

Quantities for one round 13 inches or 12x10 inches pizza

·        Mix ¾ cup lukewarm water with

·        3 Tb olive oil

·        1 tsp salt

·        Right after mixing (before the water and oil separate)

·        Add 2 cups flour

·        Mix and knead for a couple of minutes

·        Add more water or flour to get a soft dough

·        Roll dough into desired shape

·        Pinch with a fork

·        Bake it at 400F until golden, for about 10 minutes

Meanwhile, grab you favorites toppings…or the one you actually have…tomato sauce and cheese are highly recommended but actually you do not need them.

·        When the dough is ready, add the toppings and bake for about 7 minutes

Sit, eat and enjoy!

YUM! Cheesy goodness

 

Tips:

·        Add more I like to mix extra ingredients for the kids to play and make fun shapes, then we bake it with the rest of the dough.

·        Add about ½ teaspoon of  dry seasoning to the water, oregano, basil, etc.

·        Use parchment paper if you do not feel like scraping the countertop and do not have a fancy knelling thingy

·        Bake the dough longer if you like the dough crunchier or less if you prefer it softer


My dear friend Ignacia is likely moving back to Chile soon. I am bummed, but I am also happy for her family, that they get to return to their home and family. Their friends in the US will miss them badly, but it is times such as these when you truly thank God for the Internet in all its modern wonder. It is so much easier to keep in touch across continents, and I trust that we will. I hope that we will - always.

As well as some wonderful memories and a scarlet rose plant, she has given me (and you) some excellent, not-too-complicated recipes. She is always generous like that. :-) May her family always be blessed!

 

Mini Cupcakes (recipe guest post by my friend Ignacia)

Pop-cake-like Mini Cupcakes

Ingredients

1. 3 eggs
2. ½ cup vegetable oil
3. 1-cup milk
4. 2/3-cup sugar
5. 1 ½ -cup flour
6. 1 Tbs baking power
7. ¾ cup 2 cocoa powder

You can substitute the cocoa for 2 Tbs vanilla extract OR 2 Tbs orange juice OR just skip it.

Mix and Pour

Mix the first 5 ingredients until they are dissolved (it is ok to over mix so you cannot be found guilty of using a mixer).

Add flour, baking powder and cocoa and mix until fairly smooth.

Pour into pan (I love silicone ones).

§  ¼ cup for cupcakes

§  1 Tbs for mini-cupcakes

Bake at 350 ºF

Cupcakes and layer cake: 20 minutes

Mini-cupcakes:  8 minutes (For mini cupcakes you do not need the pan; just use paper cups, wait until the oven is at 350ºF, pour the batter and put them in the oven quickly)

To make fun treats you can pop in Popsicle sticks (they seem safer than kebob sticks).

Decorate using you imagination
 

For the pictures I used vanilla frosting and one raisin for plain cake and frozen berries for chocolate cake.

For the base I used a shoebox lid cover in foil.

Blogger's note: These pictures are beautiful! My friend did a wonderful job, didn't she? Makes me hungry, though...

I want to say a big, big thank you to my dear friend Ignacia for contributing this post, especially since she knows I am way too lazy to do recipes in this blog (you know, all those pictures and all that cooking while trying to remember to take pictures). She even scouted out what recipes people search most often and came up with cupcakes. She's a good friend, mom and cook (a dynamic trio!), and I really hope she'll come back to inspire us again, not simply to eat, but to bake! Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and drop by her house to see if any cupcakes are left...

Bon appetit!

Just cook, dame! Cook? Damn!

Yeah, I know. I know. I'm being redundant....

Every time I stand in the kitchen around mealtime, I should start singing Adam Lambert's song, "What do you want from me? Uh, what do you want from me?"

It should be my culinary theme song. Because cooking a messy meal at the end of a busy day when the house looks like orcs pillaged it? It's like purgatory at the end of a hard life.

Have I said that before?

Supper? From mwah? Here are the options:

Tuna, pickle and hard-boiled egg (crackers instead of bread on special days)

Oatmeal and scrambled eggs

Pancakes and scrambled eggs

Blueberry muffins (homemade!)and scrambled eggs

Eggs....fried? with oatmeal, pancakes or blueberry muffins

Spaghetti

Chicken noodle soup

Nachos, multiple ways

Bagged salad with Mystery Meat


How about dessert? Would you like some? Your choices:

Sliced apple (without skin)

Whole apple (with skin)

Orange, sliced

Orange, peeled and sectioned

Carrot chips

Carrot Sticks


I roasted a chicken a few months ago, a whole chicken. I even took out the organs and showed them to my kids for an impromptu science lesson. When my husband asked that evening what we were having for dinner, I answered somewhat briskly, "I made a chicken." Couldn't he smell it? Uh, yeah.

"But what are we having with it?"

"I don't know," I replied as I bustled off to address laundry. Then realizing he didn't grasp the enormous effort involved in removing the innards of a bird, slathering its cold, clammy skin with olive oil, butter and spices, and shoving vegetables into its business end, I called back emphatically,"I made a chicken!"

What do you want from me?

Matthew, not Gerald (how I traded a dream for my dreamboat)

I went to my ninth-grade prom for the food. Yes, I did. No surprise that I went stag, though it is a bit ironic considering I'm a girl.

Anyway, I got there expecting fancy fixings and was hugely disappointed with the trays of store-bought sandwich cookies, crackers and cheese. Pathetic. I was so discouraged by the offerings that when a boy actually asked me to dance, I replied grumpily, "Isn't that your girlfriend over there? Why don't you dance with her?"

My parents later asked how I enjoyed the dance. I responded with a tirade about the poor buffet. They laughed. So many times in my childhood they laughed...with me, of course; I was a merry child.

You see, as a teenager when I got only measly professions of so-so admiration while boys groveled at my sisters' feet, I was fine with it, because I was sure I would someday marry my perfect man. I wasn't thinking so much about good looks, adventure or stability. I was thinking about food and the avoidance of a certain kind of labor. For the perfect man for me, I was certain, was a French Chef named Gerald, or Gerard.

Why a French Chef named Gerald? Well...

Chef - because I needed to eat decently, something which I've always loved to do

French - well, aren't they the best? Why eat simply decent when you can eat extravagantly? Cheers!

Gerald - there's no good reason

As a child I was never at my mother's elbow learning how to cook. I was, however, at her elbow to ask when food would be ready, to snag a pinch of pastry dough, swipe some noodles, or to purloin a spoonful of pancake batter.

My sisters told me that I had the appetite of a horse, and I don't think they meant it as a compliment. It would have been practical, burdened with such a love of food, to want to learn the art of cooking. And I should have. My only excuse is that our kitchen was always so hot, and it seemed to be a place where by-standers were expected to work at preparing food or cleaning dishes.

I did eventually discover that I could make chocolate chip cookies - my one culinary skill. If push came to shove, I could subsist on cookies, canned Bean w/ Bacon soup and green beans, and bananas until I met Chef Gerald.

Then when I was twenty, I bungled the dream. I fell in love with a handsome business professional named Matthew, and he firmly believed in the adage Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. So he prepared his mom's spaghetti for me one evening; then he gave me the recipe. We got married and lived happily ever after a few months later.

Except....

six days a week for that first year of marital bliss we dined on microwaved potatoes, Tuna Helper and frozen pizza. On the seventh day we ate spaghetti and chocolate chip cookies.

Now almost thirteen years on in our union, things aren't that bad in the sustenance department. We eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, raw fruits and vegetables. When we feel creative we steam them (not the fruit). I have learned I can work a bit of magic with most things that require batter. Life would be easy if supper could be whipped up every night and poured into a mold, or if it could be breakfast fare - pancakes, biscuits, waffles, eggs. I can happily make breakfast for dinner every day, but I have to exercise caution in my zeal. Every once in a while, I see the look in my Man's eyes, hear the panicked cry of, "Hold the breakfast! Please!" 

It's just too bad that I was never at my mother's elbow, that I never learned to be a martyr of meal-planning. I preferred to be out running in nature, writing mysteries with a eye-patch-wearing-girl-detective, or even cleaning dishes to the tiresome business of putting two savory ingredients together. That's why this past Valentine's Day, the options for dinner were waffles, spaghetti or pizza. We ate pizza (for the memories, of course).

Yes, cooking should be a labor of love, and how I love my Man and my kids!

But every now and then - once or twice a day - I do wish I had a very altruistic cooking friend, Chef Gerald, in my life.

Fried and True

When my husband and I first got married he knew how to cook his mom's spaghetti, cornbread, cube steak and also tuna helper, and I knew...well, I knew how to make cinnamon-chocolate chip cookies. We were meant for each other.

For that first year we ate lots of frozen pizza and tuna and baked potatoes in the microwave - uh, microwaved potatoes, I guess - and cookies. Anyway, one night we thought we'd get creative and have hot dogs. And my husband trusted the woman who thought "sweet things" was a major food group to make them.

I went into the kitchen, got a frying pan out, and decided to make those hot dogs the way my family used to take them. I split them down the center, heated some oil in the pan, and splayed the dogs open-faced in it. I waited until they were nicely curled at the ends and seared to perfection.

I brought the finished product in a bun to my husband, and I was completely insulted by his horrified expression after all my hard labor.

"What the heck is this? What'd you do?"

"I fried them."

"Fried them?!"

I tried to explain to him about cultural influences, culinary ingenuity, and honored family traditions, but while I was talking he went to find a sauce pan and boiled himself a new hot dog. Therefore, I didn't have an opportunity to tell him about my barbecued bologna heritage, but I figured that was a revelation best saved for the future.

These many years later, I no longer fry hot dogs, and I don't even eat bologna unless I'm visiting relatives. I won't touch Tuna Helper, but I do feed frozen chicken nuggets to my kids occasionally. I know how to make cornbread, spaghetti and cube steak - ha! I'm crazy about spices, and if it were possible to OD on cinnamon and nutmeg, I would have gone to re-hab years ago. Our family eats lots of raw fruit and steamed or grilled veggies, but I still microwave the potatoes.

I've learned, sadly, that one can't bake a whole meal. I think it goes without saying that hot dogs are best left out of the frying pan. But please don't doubt the great and growing ambitions I have in the realm of my kitchen, because you can bet ya that one day I'll realize them when I get over my fear of raw meat, sharp knives and French cooking. Maybe someday soon I'll even share the few good recipes here that I execute easily and well.

Until then I'm sending you over to A Lady in France. She shares easy recipes (French recipes!) like this ONE, and she also tells wonderful stories like this ONE. Today, she happens to be sharing Part Two of a captivating story about Paris written by Daniel Hylton, my dad.

As for me, I must get cooking, literally. Tonight I'm making grilled chicken, Parker House rolls, and sweet potato souffle. Haha, so there, and wish me good luck!

4 Blessings on a Weds. - Julia Child

Life is good, and here are a few reasons why:

1) Julia Child

I do not own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I love Julia. Today she would have been 100.  And, truly, the only reason that I do not own her famed cookbook is because French cooking is too far above me, and I haven't the time currently to climb the cuisine heights to master it. I'm still biding my time at base camp, waving cheerfully at those on their way up, and relying on grilled meat, steamed veggies and canned beans for my family's sustenance.

Today on a radio program they were asking home cooks to call in with their cooking disasters in honor of Julia's birthday. Well, I've done it all - started a fire in the microwave, dumped a whole tray of chocolate chip cookies on the oven door, forgotten to add sugar, leavener, or half the butter, made snackle when I meant to make frosting, and served raw cinnamon rolls to my unsuspecting in-laws.

But, like many home cooks, natural or unnatural, I carry the light of Julia Child in my heart.

2) My husband would throw me across the Swiss border...

(movie spoiler alert!)

At the end of the movie Shining Through , Ed Leland (Michael Douglas) carries an unconscious Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith) over the Swiss Border while Nazis shoot at them. I recently watched the movie with my husband on Netflix, and I found it as romantic as the first time I saw it - just a young girl dreaming of a man who would do the same for me. Well, now I have that man, or I thought I did. I asked him the next day whether he would carry me across the Swiss border under enemy fire, and he replied, "No, I'd throw you across. Then you wouldn't slow me down, and we could both get across quicker."

It may not be as romantic, but it made me laugh uproariously. Eat your heart out, Michael Douglas!

3) City Parks

In a metropolis like ours, city parks prove as diverse as America itself. We have one in a rougher part of town with a beautiful meditation garden. There's one near South Mountain that has so little shade it ain't funny, but it also has some of the neatest, most life-threatening playground equipment that reminds me of my childhood. There are many with splash pads, ponds and kiddie trains. And there's one close to home with a wide open field, tall trees and great shade that makes you feel as if you're in a world without smog.

4) We ate, we played, and I lost all our spending money...

My husband and I had our first date night in months, and for a change we went to a casino. When I told my mom we were going for the buffet with crab legs, she told me that I would stay for the slots. I didn't believe her since I had never really understood the attraction.

For the date I wore new and quite uncomfortable heels and a sexy little red dress that probably had a "not for mothers with four kids" warning label on it. I wore it, anyway, and despite the fact that it fought to be a whole two inches shorter than I let it.

While we ate we watched a huge dust storm blow in, a typical enchanted summer's evening in our part of the world. The buffet was okay, but the slots were a blast. My husband played only a little, because in his words, "I have more fun watching you, because you're so cute." Of course I should have stopped when I was a couple bucks ahead, but I was fired up for the big pay off and spent us down to our last eight cents.  We left early to pick up our kids, but the quiet car ride was even romantic. We were satisfied.


P.S. I'm thankful for all your comments lately.

Plum Good

"If you love me, come kiss me and tell me I make the best plum sauce ever."

He came, kissed and pronounced with great care, "You make the best plum sauce I've ever had...yet."

"Better than the bottled stuff from the store we had at that party?"

"Sure, uh-huh."

This all transpired after our kids had gone to bed, because that is when all our very deep conversations do transpire. But it all sprang from cold stares at the dinner table and from my return to my good ole' southern roots (for purely selfish reasons).

At dinner I debuted my plum sauce for meatballs. The recipe called for plum jam. I'm not sure that actually exists, but I had plums, plums that my toddler had thrown around the floor and the fruit bowl, and I figured if I cooked them, it might kill off all the germs they'd collected from such disrespectful treatment. So along with some cornstarch, crushed red pepper, sherry, vinegar and soy sauce, I threw skinned, chopped plum into the pot. Then I added some chunks of onion that were pitifully lying around wondering if they would ever find their true purpose in life. And voila! Plum sauce.

Of course I had to make a few adjustments as it simmered for taste - a little more crushed pepper for a bite, a splash more of soy sauce, and a shower of sherry that my son accidentally dumped in - but when I tasted it that last time before bringing it to the table, I was sure I had something blue ribbon.

But my husband, before even sitting down, grabbed a bottle of spicy barbecue sauce from the fridge and set it by his plate.

"Why do you need that?" I demanded. "Did you try the sauce?"

"No, just in case I don't like it."

"Why do you need the barbecue when you haven't even tried the plum sauce yet?"

"Because I don't want to have to get up again."

"But you haven't tried it! You should just eat the plum sauce - all of you - because that's what I worked hard on. You always eat what the cook prepares first."

"I'm going to," Matthew responded calmly. "But if I don't like it, I don't want to get up again."

I ate the plum sauce. I even went to fetch the onion and plum chunks that I'd strained out and threw those on top of my meat and rice, and while I ate I made various noises of gastrointestinal satisfaction to encourage my fellow diners. The sauce was sweet and savory and had a bit of bite at the end. However, my son said it was o-kaaay, but not without the meat to take it down. My daughter said it was too spicy, my youngest two wouldn't eat it, and Matthew claimed he couldn't find the bite in it at all.

"Just eat it," I growled, pointing my finger menacingly around the table. And you can trust that I kept an eye on that barbecue sauce.

I was raised in the rural South where you always eat what the cook prepares, and you thank her profusely for it. If you are offered second helpings, you accept whether you are still hungry or not. And you never, ever, opt for something store-bought over something homemade. Barbecue sauce - hmph!

My dad used to help out on one of our neighbor's farms in Tennessee. For the farmhands' lunch Mr. W's wife made tons of food: all manner of vegetable, a big vat of gravy, at least two kinds of bread and meat and dessert. You had to stuff yourself. Why? Because the lovely woman went to all that trouble to fix a full southern meal for you. You just thanked heaven that there were several other farmhands to help eat it and that you would be going back to the field later to work it off, sweating lard from your pours....or else collapsing in a grits and gravy stupor behind the tractor.

I still feel angst about an incident several years back that really riled my southern sensibilities. I was at my sister's house, and I became very offended on her behalf as I was helping her serve her blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream on the side. When I asked a couple of guests if they wanted dessert they said, "We'll have some ice cream but not the cobbler."

What?! Excuse me? A. It's blackberry cobbler, and God Himself probably enjoys that. B. My sister handmade the crust and filling - everything except the blackberries - and it's delicious. And C. You NEVER take the store-bought side without the homemade dish. If you do, some ancient southern-cook-voodoo-doctor will stick a bunch of pins in your doll's gut and give you a righteous stomachache. And she'll dance around and cackle while you suffer.

It still makes me bristle.

So, given my genteel upbringing, is it too much to ask of my own family to eat what I've labored over? Yeah, I don't always have all the ingredients. Sure, I throw things in on a whim to spice things up. And, okay, sometimes my curiosity leads me to make interesting choices (a pint of orange juice in ham and bean soup), but it's my labor of experimental love for my family. Sometimes it's great (and a once-in-a-lifetime meal, because you can bet I won't remember what I did), and sometimes it's not so good. But I expect them to eat it regardless, praise me grandly for my efforts, and extend their plates for seconds. That's the southern way, and until somebody else does most of the cooking in this house, it's my way, too.

All the world's a backyard...and it's full of weeds and mud

I was digging my nails into the soil with brutal determination, clawing at the thatched Bermuda grass to get at the weed stubs while my kids made a splash mud pad beneath the slide with the hose. I only turned to growl at them on every third or fourth weed I pulled, angry that they had yet again turned my yard work into messy, muddy happy hour.

My kids weren't really to blame for my bad mood, to be fair. They had only exacerbated it with their shenanigans. No, my bad mood was directed at the world at large. I was feeling bad about my fellow human beings, which people have the right to do with temporary abandon now and then. Just the day before, you see, I had read the news.

Then right after, I had read celebrity news. That's a little like wandering the sewers for pleasure, grinning like an idiot, sipping on a martini and smoking a fat cheap cigar. In the end, it all just reeks, you're definitely going to feel a little sick afterwards, and you'll never quite feel like you've cleaned off the filth.

So you can see how the pulling of the weeds became an analogy for my worldview. My yard, you see, is rife with weeds. They're choking out the grass and have long since gone to seed. I only managed this Spring to eradicate them from my plant borders. And I comforted myself as I campaigned against them in the wider yard that I was at least aerating my yard with my dogged labor.

Wish I could aerate the world sometimes.

As for my kids' labor of love, the mud bath, it was mostly my eldest son's doing. I should have known better than to take him up on his offer to water the ground, so I could pull the weeds more easily. The ground didn't get watered all that much. The concrete patio did, the slide did, and I did, but the place where I was actually laboring on two-foot tall weeds - not so much. Kids and a hose...well, that's bound to mean trouble. It means there will be running and screaming and terrorizing of siblings, followed by loads of mud, then the removal of caked shoes and browned socks so that bare feet can squelch in freshly dug holes in the yard. Everyone will end up soaked and grimy, and the baby will get in the midst of it all, mud plastered up to the knees on his overalls, his blue eyes wide at the promising prospect of this newly discovered joy.

I was in a foul temper, shouting at the kids to stop their mud slinging, when Matthew came home. I didn't rise from my weed-pulling to give him the kiss he deserved, so he retreated back inside to change out of his work clothes, only calling through the bathroom window, "So what's for supper?"

Supper-schmupper. I hate supper.

I paused, draping a muddy hand over my knee, and called out boldly, "Okay, I'm not going to hide it anymore - I hate making supper. After all that happens during the day..."

I trailed off, but Matthew already had his response ready.

"So when did you ever try to hide it?" he asked with a laugh.

"I've tried before," I answered grumpily. "I've made some good meals..."

I couldn't remember any examples off-hand, but I knew it was true. There had been a few solid meals here and there that didn't involve plopping all manner of stuff out of a can, forking salad out of a bag or shaking cheese and noodles from a box. But, really, people need to understand a fundamental truth for some of us humans - making a meal at the end of the day, it's like Purgatory after a hard life. A messy life where little leprechauns, cute as hell, follow you around and dump just picked-up toys out of the cupboard, unroll miles of paper towels in order to dance on them, dump their lunch on the floor with a what-you-gonna-do-about-it nonchalance, and spill gallons of milk and juice every day.

"I'll start supper," said Matthew, my hero. "I don't mind."

And, after all, why should he? I was pulling weeds. I haul out trash, too, and handle recycling - both typical "man duties". Hey, I prefer doing them myself; I'm a liberated woman (don't know exactly from what...), and I'm only trying to liberate Matthew as well, so that we can live in peace and harmony like a retro Coca-Cola commercial.

Besides, I still had more weeds to wrest from the yard and some little leprechauns to haul out of the mud and bathe. In my way, I was about to make the world a slightly better place. I just hoped there would be a good meal waiting for me when I was done.