Simple Pleasures

I'm so very happy.

When the endodontist finished the root canal, he purposely filed the remainder of the tooth down so it couldn't be used as a chewing surface before I have the crown put on... which would probably be no big deal, except that it leaves me with no chewing surfaces. I can bite the heck out of food, but can't chew.

So that's left me with a very limited diet. I can see where people who have fewer choices in food would end up with serious, life-threatening issues. Fortunately, I am not one of those people.

Grace Under Pressure

If my blog were a Monty Python movie, this would be the part where it arbitrarily cuts from the actual story to some sort of wierd incongruent intermission...

So The Plan was to do the whole Thanksgiving brouhaha at the Urban Princess' house. I was in charge of dessert (of course... heh *preen* ), so my only grocery efforts had been to procure ingredients for a pumpkin pie/pumpkin cheesecake hybrid and a chocolate pecan pie.

And then the kids got sick. And puked. And leaked diarrhea all over the floor (on the tile, thank the FSM!). Yeah. *shudder*

So I had to cancel plans with Her Royal Highness, Urban Princess. HRH UP, if you will. Or not. Whatever.

And that left us with no Thanksgiving. Not the meaningful part... That beauteous meal that is the gastronomical highlight of my year... I LOVE traditional Thanksgiving food. So much so that I was going to make a T-Day spread for my birthday dinner. There's just no way I can cope with eating something lesser tomorrow.

So after Mr. McG got home, I tossed mac and cheese at the people who could tolerate solid food and took off to the grocery store.

$70 later, here I am. My pumpkin cheesecake pies are in the oven, my brine is cooling (I'll put Mr. Turkey in the brine before I go to bed), and I have the basic timeline listed for tomorrow. I only have one oven, after all, so orchestration is imperitive. Immediately after the turkey hits the oven it's time to get the dinner rolls mixing (must be from scratch... bread is always worth it), then yams, then yukon golds boiling for mashed potatoes, then the dressing, the green bean casserole, and finally the cranberries. Complemented with a Ginger Orange Cranberry punch. Whew.

Damn I'm good.

I will be photographing the food. And maybe even a kid or two.

Plus, I'll freeze some leftovers to heat up for my birthday so I won't have to cook (except for the cake... but that's baking, which is much better than cooking).

Granola Bar Irony and Other Nonsense

For those who asked, I used Alton Brown's granola bar recipe, found here: Alton Brown's Granola Bar Recipe on Foodnetwork.com. My add-ins were pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried cherries and chocolate chips (which melted but I still stand by that choice).

I love these granola bars. Mr. Geeky likes them. The kids won't eat them. Heh.

Flashback to my childhood: My devoted mother almost never bought convenience foods. We rarely ate out. So my sister asked for "storebought" (i.e. Wonderesque fluff with pseudo-crust) bread for her birthday. At school I'd trade the homemade chocolate chip cookies for twinkies.

Lest anyone think I am crunchier-than-thou, I thought the rest of today's blog would begin my confession:

I prefer processed peanut butter over the "natural" kind. I have tried to cultivate a more "refined" preference, but I just hate the whole experience with natural pb. I hate how the oil on the top splashes out when I'm trying to stir it up and gets everything all greasy. I hate how it has to be stored in the fridge and is then so rock hard it tears up the bread and won't stick to celery. For the last several years I've bought the natural kind because I felt I should like it. Well I don't like it. When I was at the grocery store, last week, I bought Skippy and since then I've been stuffing the natural pb chunks chipped out of that last jar into the dog's Kong... but it turns out she doesn't like it either. I'm going to have to wash the peanut butter brick out of the dog's chew toy. Go figure.

I will pay extra for organic dairy products but I just can't spend the money required for organic/free-range meats. We are eating more vegetarian meals. Punctuated by fast food about once per week. And not high quality fast food, either. The kids love Mickey D's. I feel guilty about sending all those stupid happy meal toys to the landfill, but I throw them away anyway, when I'm pretty sure the kids won't miss them.

I won't cook or bake for myself. If Mr. Geeky won't be eating with us or if I'm by myself I will neither cook nor go out. I will eat one of those meals that comes packed in a little plastic tray. FYI - Ethnic Gourmet's Chicken Masala with curried brown rice and peas is actually quite good. Anyone looking through my trash would call my foodie bluff and I'd have to admit that I'm as lazy as anyone else. But then I'd totally tease them about digging through my trash, so it would all work out in the end.

Panem et Circenses, Remix

... iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses. ...
(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)

... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time
handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now
restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses. ...

So.

I made granola bars, this morning. Have I mentioned how much I dislike processed food. I admit I'm as tempted by the pretty boxes and cellophane and time-saving technology as any other descendant of hunter-gatherers. But I'm trying to wean myself away from all that perceived ease. It's just habit, after all. In reality it doesn't seem to be taking any longer to make simple foods from simple ingredients than it did to browse the grocery aisles, sort through boxes and compare prices, take them home, dispose of the first three layers of wrapping to store the stuff, before eventually having to unwrap final boxes and bags, do whatever final prep appeared necessary, and eat a mess of sodium, saturated and/or trans fats and weird chemicals, colors and flavors... all for supposedly easy meals and snacks.

So as the granola bars cool I'm contemplating the idea of ease.

What is easy? What isn't? Is "easy" a good thing or a bad thing?

I see two concepts here - ease as a form of simplicity and serenity versus ease as a purchased escape from all the crap already marketed as necessary and expected.

I've heard the argument, before, that people buy junk food because it's the most inexpensive and the easiest to prepare. Let's take the example of white bread. Usually store brand white bread can be purchased for anywhere between $1.00 and $3.00 per loaf, depending on sales or promotions. It costs me about $0.45 - $0.95 per loaf to bake my own bread. Now that I've made a lot of bread, it's very easy and requires little attention on my part - so most of the bread-making time is actually free for other things. Add in the health benefits and the extra oomph of fresh bread from the oven. No contest.

The biggest obstacle? I have to be home to do it. Easy. As long as I don't get distracted by all the circuses.

What are my circuses?

Classes so I can get paying jobs to buy stuff like newer cars, fancier clothes... and processed foods (because I wouldn't have time to cook the good stuff).

Suburban bourgeoisie classes and sports for my kids (you know the "educational" stuff you stick your kids with because all your friends are doing it).

TV and computer games that suck up my time as I obsess about decompressing from spending my days doing a billion things I think I ought to do, rather than just a few things I actually want to do.

It's all just a way to anesthetize oneself when the cacophony of reality gets too overwhelming.

Keen WUH???

Tonight's dinner was a new culinary adventure for us. I made quinoa.

I highly recommend it, and after reading about the nutrition profile, even Mr. Geeky McEngineer thinks it's worth adopting as one of the dietary staples. Good stuff.

And for those who care, it's a complete protein grain (well, technically it's a seed, not a grain) with no gluten. Thought I'd share.

I was proud of my kids. Brand new food. They never so much as batted an eyelash or squinted in skepticism - just dug in and offered fabulous critique on the finer points of comparison between the quinoa and more usual fare (wild rice, brown rice, barley, polenta, et al.).

Good times at the McEngineer dinner table.

Worthy Obsession

Buttercream. I will master it.

Oh yes. As Bayba is my witness, we will never be cakeless again.

And to think I didn't make it to the gym today. Oh well.

Let Them Eat Cake!

My daughter is now eight years old. Despite G-Rex being too sick to really enjoy her birthday, I spent the whole freaking day baking and decorating a cake for her.

Here's a helpful kitchen hint: If you're going to go to the effort of making a Swiss Merengue Buttercream frosting, COMMIT! Those boxed (pasteurized) egg whites may seem like a sweet convenience, but they do not make it from the thick foam stage to the soft peak stage. At all. Even when beaten for hours with the whisk attached to a 650W Professional Kitchenaid stand mixer. Go ahead and waste the egg yolks.

With judicious use of the freezer, I did manage to get the frosting thick enough to use, but right now that poor cake is still on its stand on the table (everyone was too sick to eat the darn thing) with melted turquoise goo dripping down its sides where the frosting used to be.

After all that, I have to chuckle a bit. Ultimately I did G's cake to save money. If my time was worth ANYTHING at all, there's no way we could have afforded that cake. $20 at the bakery doesn't sound so bad anymore. However, I do at least have the satisfaction of knowing that my daughter's cake has no trans fats and tastes better than anything at the bakery. Even if it took forever and isn't so purty.

Bloggin it... Just A Little Bit

I decided to order Bayba's birthday cake from Albertsons. The baker was kind enough to put a rush on a spur-of-the-moment order so it will be ready, tomorrow afternoon. I picked out a dinosaur theme. The little toy dinosaurs on the cake roar. Fo' real. Bayba's going to be stoked.

The baker said, "Oh, you must have a little boy!"

Heheheheh...

I said, "No. A girl actually."

She was smiling as she wrote down my order.

I can't wait to see Bayba's face when her roaring, candle-burning cake arrives at the table.

On the Menu

I've instituted a meal-planning change, recently. Each family member has a designated day of the week to choose what to have for dinner. In the case of the girls, they then get to help me shop for the ingredients and prepare the meal. (For J, I told him I'd take requests, but otherwise just plan on making his favorites... I'm guessing he wouldn't have quite as much fun meal-planning as the kids do.)

Friday's are J's dinners. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. This was the menu:

Salad
(Baby Spinach with dried cranberries, maple candied walnuts, red onions and feta, with a homemade poppyseed vinegraitte)
Sirloin Steaks
(marinated in a worcestershire/pepper brine before being seared to med rare)
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Broiled Acorn Squash Stuffed with Carmelized Granny Smith Apples

Mmmmmmmmm... It was good.

Surprisingly, the squash seemed to be the hit of the evening. I was afraid no one would eat it. Go figure. Thank goodness no one has thought to ask about dessert. I didn't bother with that. :o)

Ignorance

Yesterday I took A to the library so she could participate in toddler story time and I could collect the 23,000 books I'd reserved (I love being able to access the library via the internet... it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. The librarians who have to pull books for me almost every day may disagree.).

After the morning packed full of errands, I schlepped my toddler and my pile of books back home.

Have you ever been ravenously hungry as the first course of a gourmet dinner was served? Dinner could be a Big Mac and it would be divine (you're that hungry!), but you know that you can expect so much more that you can't help but be thankful for being painfully hungry because - hopefully - that will mean that you have the appetite to enjoy every course through dessert without ever feeling too full.

Maybe it's just me.

But that's how I feel when I bring a pile of books back from the library and sit down to contemplate them. And when it's the library, it's like going to a chef friend's house (yes, I've been fortunate enough to do this) where you could try exotic fare with no worries about the final bill... worst case scenario is that you don't like one particular offering so you move on to the next with no disappointment or obligation (probably just feeling thankful that you experienced something you might not have been adventurous enough to try elsewhere). Conversely, going to a bookstore is like going to a four star restaurant, where surveying the menu produces nothing so much as anxiety. Can you afford more than one course? Should you meekly select something a la carte and hope it will be OK (and that the waiter won't get all attitudey) or blow your budget trying a bunch of things you think you ought to like, but inevitably feel a little cheated because, even if it's fantastic, it's definitely consumable and it will end... and you'll be left with a blown budget and nothing much to show for it... and if it isn't wonderful, you'll be left feeling cheated and unsatisfied and (if you're anything like me) berate yourself for being so unsophisticated that you can't appreciate the foods that people with cultivated palates must love.

Yep. That's what a trip to Barnes & Noble is for me. It doesn't keep me away. No matter what, I still love being surrounded by books and potential knowledge. But, unless I went in intending to buy one particular book, I've come to dislike purchasing time... and in most of my subjects of interest, B&N just doesn't carry specialized enough material (Powell's Books is a whole other beast for a whole different analogy). So if I spend money in B&N, chances are very good I'll leave with some buyer's remorse. No matter how much I love books in general.

So... back to my fresh-from-the-library stack of books...

The first was a dud. It was Someone's in the Kitchen With Mommy: More than 100 Easy Recipes and Fun Crafts for Parents and Kids by Elaine Magee, MPH, RD. OK, dud might be a bit harsh, but most of the recipes I contemplated required fake ingredients. I realize she's an RD, but if I'm going to take the time to cook good foods with/for my kids, I'm not using fat free egg product or diet margarine. That's not what I want to teach them about food. If you want to healthy-up a recipe there are many substitutions that can be made which replace fats with fruit, beans, etc. I'm not in this to add the latest chemical crap to my kids' food in the name of whatever current food fad is considered healthiest.

But hey... it's a library book. I didn't have to buy it. I get to take it back. I'm still happy.

Next I somewhat nervously began Pot on the Fire: Further Exploits of a Renegade Cook by John Thorne with Matt Lewis Thorne. Oh, rapture! John Thorne is such a brilliant essayist that I can forgive him his Amherst education (I'm deeply prejudiced against Amherst - mostly illogically - long story). Yes, his essays seem to orbit around a food or cooking method. But they're so much more. Subject matter aside, I rarely stumble across a writer who can evoke this kind of visceral, almost animalistic joy in me. I love words even more than I love food.

Which brings me to the title of today's blog entry: ignorance. Last night, I devoured a paragraph that brought me to a complete standstill. The kind of reading moment that freezes all the little brain cogs and you have to go back over it, three or four times, breaking down each word to suck the marrow out and try to reconstruct the essence of a concept just out of your reach. I knew I'd need to come back to it, so I actually defaced a sacred library book. I dog-eared the page and highlighted the paragraph with the first tool at hand - a jumbo washable crayon (red). Here it is:

"The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard once observed that, despite our persistent belief to the contrary, our ignorance is rarely a blank slate waiting to be written upon. Instead, it has the assured grip of deeply felt, fully formed (if unarticulated) assumptions that - no matter how hard we try to shake them - prove dismayingly durable, even regarding the simplest things."

Suddenly I'm digging through my psyche and knowledge banks, searching for all those little denials I know are hiding comfortably amongst the truths... examining all the things I think I know... yet knowing that my ignorances will probably not be so easily identified and dismembered. I can't quite explain why this is so exciting to me. I guess I'm just enchanted by finding a lucid description of an aspect of human nature that I could never quite describe.

My life is never so full and colorful as when I have a new concept to mull.

Life is good.

The Evolving Chef

After reading my old friend Rob's comment on my last blog entry, it occurred to me that my friends who formed their perception of me during the first half of my misspent 20's would be shocked by who I am, now that most of the rebellious crazy particles have been refined from my personality.

Yes, I cook. And I'm a very good cook, if I do say so myself. I also clean (that's the one that ought to really shock people). I have also learned that I am strong. I'm actually capable of having real relationships with people, now. I know how to trust. I can deal with being vulnerable.

Strange as it may seem, cooking is a manifestation of my willingness to set aside defensiveness and bravado so I can devote my energy to developing relationships with people I love. To cook for people you have to be willing to serve. Being willing to serve and nurture is often perceived to be a weakness. Especially for women.

So - years ago - I was so concerned about appearing tough and untouchable (or feeling tough and untouchable) that I refused to associate myself with any of the traits I thought were demeaning - the talents and activities I associated with subservience and femininity.

Then I married the love of my life and had babies. Appearing strong didn't help me in the slightest. Actually being tough enough to raise a family was what mattered. For me, this personal strength requires the base of a strong, secure family... for which my husband is absolutely essential. Happy, thriving kids are a necessity. As it turns out (for us), the talents and skills my mother taught me - which I had rejected as overly domestic - are very handy for giving my husband the respite he needs from his work and giving my kids a stable, healthy place to learn and grow.

None of this requires gourmet food or a perfectly organized and sanitary home. I just find the whole process more enjoyable when I put my whole heart and mind into doing the best I can for my family. They deserve no less. So that's my sappy little explanation for how an angry distrustful girl who hated life found the joie de vivre.

With that, here's the pumpkin bread recipe some of my friends have requested (my friend Daisy confirmed, today, that it really is the best pumpkin bread ever).

Sara's Fabulous Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
15 oz. (about 2 C.) pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 C. vegetable oil
2/3 C. water
2 tsp. vanilla
3 C. white sugar
3.5 C. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1.5 tsp. salt
1.5 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
0.5 tsp. ground cloves
0.25 tsp. ground ginger
extra cinnamon/sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350'
2. Liberally butter 3 (7"x3") loaf pans and thoroughly coat them with the cinnamon/sugar mixture
3. Cream eggs and sugar until light and fluffy... use your stand mixer and let it really whip up
4. Add remaining wet ingredients (I usually leave this blending in the mixer at about speed 4)
5. In separate bowl, thoroughly combine all dry ingredients (sifting or whisking them together)
6. Stir dry ingredients into wet mixture JUST UNTIL BLENDED
(over-stirring will overdo the gluten structuring and make the bread tough)
7. Pour into prepared pans, sprinkle tops with turbinado sugar, and place on the center rack of preheated oven
8. Bake for 50 minutes, or until the loaves pass the clean toothpick test

When you take the bread out of the oven, DON'T let it cool in the pans. Immediately turn them out onto clean kitchen towels or cooling racks. This preserves the sugary crispness of the crust.

Back on Track

A, today, making pumpkin bread. (Updated after blog posted earlier.)

I seem to be nearing the end of this crazy cold/flu thing. What a relief! I'm finally getting my 2nd trimester energy (and accomplanying OCD ;o) back.

Today I braved the grocery store and bought all the necessities for the week's meals - including J's birthday dinner on Saturday. For his birthday I'm making a spicy sausage & spinach lasagna (the kind where you have to reduce the sauce for hours and your house smells divine), greek salad, pomegranate & kiwi salad, and a lemon layered poundcake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Today A and I are going to make the lemon curd to go between the cake layers. Yum!

Tonight's dinner is four cheese macaroni (the oven kind, not the box kind!), ham, salad and fruit. I'll be making some Pumpkin bread, in a few minutes, to have when G gets home from school.

Can you tell I'm just a little obesessed with food right now? Yesterday J took us out for lunch at Olive Garden. I can't believe how much I ate!!! I'm not losing weight any more! (Until March, anyway.)

I'm also reading two books. Dr. Sears new Vaccine book... and still creeping through On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I know way more about the chemistry of foods and their flavors than I ever thought possible. And I also feel much more confident about the approach I've taken to vaccinating my children. Good stuff.

But WHY Does It DO That?

I have a dirty little secret.









I'm obsessed with Alton Brown.

No, I'm not "into" him in any unfortunate way... I'm just ecstatic that there's someone out there like ME!

See, some people mistakenly think I'm some sort of Martha Stewart wannabe. I'm not! I'm not really into domesticity for impressing all my friends (which seems obvious to me - as I err on the antisocial side). I don't want to be a chef. In fact, I can't think of anything much more miserable than being forced to cook, sew, etc. on demand, day in and day out.


Oh wait. I do that.


But I don't like that part of my job.


Some might not guess this, as I do find great joy in creating perfection - primarily in the kitchen. I'm a very picky eater, and I hate to have to go to the effort of cooking something unless it's going to be fabulous.


It may seem unrelated, but in highschool I hated chemistry. Balancing equations and doing mundane labwork bored me to tears.


At home, I persistently protested having to cook or bake anything.

But ask me a question about nutrition, and I can still spit out all sorts of crazy factoids about nutrition content, serving sizes, food pairings to maximize vitamin absorption or the completion of proteins... I kind of like baking - not just because I'm a total carb addict, but also because I love analyzing why a recipe works (or doesn't).


Enter Alton Brown and that love-hate relationship I have with TV.

A few weeks ago, while channel surfing one evening, I came across a geeky little show called Good Eats on The Food Network. As is usual, for me, I was nursing A off to sleep while J read G her bedtime stories. Good Eats totally hooked me. I don't really get into the recipe shows, but this was totally different. In each episode, Alton Brown focuses on a food (or recipe) and explains the science behind it. What makes it work? What ingredients can be freely substituted? Which ingredients must always be precisely combined? WHY? What tools are essential? Which tools are little more than expensive kitchen paperweights?


After getting addicted to Good Eats, I discovered he also does Feasting on Asphalt and hosts Iron Chef.


Yes, I now watch those faithfully.


So today I'm heading down to the library to check out the books I've reserved: All the works of Alton Brown as well as On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee (warning - this is a chemistry book, not a cookbook). Woo Hoo!















Oh, and I had that follow-up ultrasound, this morning. I know what kind of baby I'm having. ;o)

Supermom

Somehow it's afternoon, already. Sometimes it's almost shocking to me how fast time speeds past me.

I spent the morning getting everyone out of bed, dressed, and fed. G (my oldest) was extremely co-operative, and made it off to school with minimal fuss. A, the two-year-old... eh... Well, I was surprised, but she was actually dressed by the time my husband was ready to go. In fact, I have to say that the biggest whiner gumming up the works, this morning, was me.

I caught a cold about two weeks ago, as did everyone else in the family. However, everyone else seems to be feeling better. I'm not. It's gotten so bad that I'm using my epi inhaler, coupled with generous amounts of guaifenisen, multiple times per day. Asthma doesn't usually bother me - not since I was a kid. But when I'm pregnant, all bets are off. Allergies are 8,000,000 times worse, and so is asthma.

It's particularly self-pity-inducing because, until this cold hit me, I was riding that 2nd trimester high and getting SO much done. Now I have no energy.

Back to this morning... It's that lovely time of year, again, when we have to do vehicle inspections and licensing. So my husband and I (and A) drove down to the 'Couve and dropped off the minivan for it's tune-up. Traffic was heavy. It took forever. A was furious, screaming "Faster! Faster!" at the top of her speed-freak lungs.

J (husband) dropped off the van and hopped in the car with us and we hurried home. Fast forward to now.

My grand accomplishments for the day:

• Paid bills
• Convinced A to don her rain coat and walk with me to the mailbox to deposit said bills
• Emptied dishwasher
• Refilled dishwasher
• Collapsed on sofa and realized it was already time for lunch
• Ordered Dominos Lunchboxes online, because I can not stomach another PB&J... and I'm a sucker for gimmicks - especially when individual pizzas and hot chocolate chip cookies are involved... and I justify this because I've lost yet more weight, the past few days... and tomorrow I'm halfway through this pregnancy! There's nothing like pizza to promote weight gain!

All this "work" and I'm exhausted. If I get the weeks' meal planning done, grocery list written and downstairs mopped and vacuumed, I will consider myself Supermom.

Pathetic? Maybe.

But that leaves me time to squeeze in a few games of Memory with A and maybe some cuddle/homework time with G without feeling like I ought to be doing more, somehow. And crowning myself Supermom (the admitted irony just makes it that much better) will put me in a good mood while I serve the family leftover chicken/spinach soup and dinner rolls, this evening. Everybody wins.