Breakfast: 8 water crackers, with raspberry Bellavitano cheese; hard-boiled egg; slice of rosemary toast (open-face) with curried chickpea sandwich spread and raw spinach.
I make an appointment for kid at the orthopedist and we go there mid-morning. They confirm that the bone looks fractured, but not too badly. Talk about a cast, but decide on just a splint at the last minute. It's the left arm, thank goodness, and it should only take a few weeks for this minor crack to heal.
I make an appointment for kid at the orthopedist and we go there mid-morning. They confirm that the bone looks fractured, but not too badly. Talk about a cast, but decide on just a splint at the last minute. It's the left arm, thank goodness, and it should only take a few weeks for this minor crack to heal.
He is lurking around every corner. As we are driving back from the orthopedist's office (which is all the way in Germantown, 40 minutes away), I say to my kid, "You know it's been a tough week when your mom takes you out to lunch in the middle of the day... TWICE." Kid laughs and agrees. Then I take them to lunch, a low-key affair at the Woodside Deli. I have a grilled Swiss cheese sandwich with sauteed onions and mushrooms, on rye, with a cup of matzoh ball soup. And coffee. Kid has french toast with strawberries, and lemonade. Still a kid. We leave prematurely, half the french toast in a to-go box, because some man near us has begun talking loudly about Donald Trump and immigration policy to any table that will listen. When we get to the car, kid says, "gosh, that guy sure was nativist!" I didn't know they knew that word.
A note about pronouns. I am trying to use the "they" construction here on the blog, because it is kid's preferred form at the moment, and this is a public space, and it's good practice. I will say that I totally suck at it in real life, when speaking-- it's all "she" this and "her" that-- so nobody give me any Parent-of-the-Year awards just yet. I want to do and say the right thing, but somewhere on the way from my brain to my mouth, "she" jumps out anyway. Especially when there are other matters to think about at the same time, such as broken arms. I hope to improve.
After we get home from lunch, I go over to the Co-op for some supplies: organic 1% lactose-free milk, black currant jam, half and half, applesauce, quart of Brown Cow maple yogurt, Food Should Taste Good kimchi tortilla chips, 2 individual Liberte yogurts, Field Day organic wheat squares cereal, Field Day organic raisin bran, dried pineapple, cage-free white eggs, 3 lb. bag of mandarin oranges, organic strawberries, 3 avocados, 5 champagne mangos. $63.
Then, despite having just eaten lunch, I eat the whole bag of kimchi tortilla chips. I don't even like them that much. I also play Civilization while eating the chips, instead of writing, which is what I should be doing. I am at the end of my rope. The thought of doing anything else this afternoon is overwhelming. I even fall asleep, though only for ten minutes.
Dinner: somehow I manage to get back up and cook. First I make the Caramelized-Honey Nut and Seed Tart from October's Bon Appetit. The tart dough calls for a food processor, but I use my fingers and this works fine. For the mixed nuts and seeds, I use almonds, cashews, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds. This color mix is so, so beautiful, with the reddish color of the almonds and the green of the pepitas. Really I think I made this tart in the first place because the magazine photo is so gorgeous. I take pictures of the nuts in every stage until the battery runs out on my camera.
After we get home from lunch, I go over to the Co-op for some supplies: organic 1% lactose-free milk, black currant jam, half and half, applesauce, quart of Brown Cow maple yogurt, Food Should Taste Good kimchi tortilla chips, 2 individual Liberte yogurts, Field Day organic wheat squares cereal, Field Day organic raisin bran, dried pineapple, cage-free white eggs, 3 lb. bag of mandarin oranges, organic strawberries, 3 avocados, 5 champagne mangos. $63.
Then, despite having just eaten lunch, I eat the whole bag of kimchi tortilla chips. I don't even like them that much. I also play Civilization while eating the chips, instead of writing, which is what I should be doing. I am at the end of my rope. The thought of doing anything else this afternoon is overwhelming. I even fall asleep, though only for ten minutes.
Dinner: somehow I manage to get back up and cook. First I make the Caramelized-Honey Nut and Seed Tart from October's Bon Appetit. The tart dough calls for a food processor, but I use my fingers and this works fine. For the mixed nuts and seeds, I use almonds, cashews, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds. This color mix is so, so beautiful, with the reddish color of the almonds and the green of the pepitas. Really I think I made this tart in the first place because the magazine photo is so gorgeous. I take pictures of the nuts in every stage until the battery runs out on my camera.
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For actual dinner, I make Smitten Kitchen's Three Pepper Shakshuka Pita with Feta and Za’atar and Madhur Jaffrey's Spinach with Sorrel. Sadly, neither came out all that well. The Whole Foods was out of pitas (!-- out of spinach and pitas in one day?), so I bought lavash, which obviously don't make convenient pockets, and I ended up serving the shakshuka in the more conventional little dish with bread on the side. Also-- as several commenters suggested-- my eggs took a lot longer to cook than Perelman's did. This may be about pan depth, or what we mean by "medium-low" heat. Anyhow. Neither of these things are major problems, but the fact that the shakshuka didn't taste all that good was a major problem. I really like shakshuka. I wanted more-- much more-- seasoning: more salt, more za-atar, perhaps some other elements that were missing. As for the Spinach with Sorrel... well, it tasted truly weird. Not like sorrel, which has a lovely sour lemony taste. Maybe it was the fact that I was forced to buy frozen spinach, or that for $6 at the Whole Foods I could still only buy 1/4 of the sorrel the recipe called for... but neither of these things seem to me to explain the odd, almost bitter flavor. Also, I really do not prefer spinach cooked to be as mushy as Jaffrey's generally is. Half an hour of spinach cooking, really? Left to my own devices, I generally do about two minutes.
For dessert, we ate the nut-and-seed tart, even though by then, thanks to the entire bag of kimchi chips, I was so full I was about to die. The tart was good overall-- and so beautiful!-- but the crust needed work. A mouthful containing too much crust became bland, floury, and crumbly. If I were to make it again, I would add more salt and sugar to the tart dough, as well as probably more butter.
Snacks: 3 other cups of coffee, 1 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. I have run out of beer and wine that needs to be used up, which is probably a good thing.
For dessert, we ate the nut-and-seed tart, even though by then, thanks to the entire bag of kimchi chips, I was so full I was about to die. The tart was good overall-- and so beautiful!-- but the crust needed work. A mouthful containing too much crust became bland, floury, and crumbly. If I were to make it again, I would add more salt and sugar to the tart dough, as well as probably more butter.
Snacks: 3 other cups of coffee, 1 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. I have run out of beer and wine that needs to be used up, which is probably a good thing.