More food

Does anyone else out there love Amanda Hesser?  If you don't, don't tell me.  If you don't know who I'm talking about, she's this super skinny food writer (Ok, that's wierd.) for the New York Times.  In the Julie/Julia book and movie, she's the one who comes to Julie's apartment for dinner.  I just like the way she talks about food in restaurants or cooking, and her recipes are consistantly interesting and delicious.

Last weekend she wrote about a spicy morroccan orange salad that sounded
a) bizarre
b) really good and
c) composed entirely of things I had on hand.

Here it is. The items in italics are my modifications because I have problems with authority and can't really follow directions.  I don't think they detracted from the general flavor/intent of the dish.  I needed to use the avacado before it went bad and I didn't want to have to make a separate green vegetable (hence the spinach).  The Hooligans like goat cheese; I had to snatch it away from the big one before he ate it all with a spoon.

4 oranges, pith cut off and cut into 8 chunks apiece
1/4 t cayanne
1/4 t paprika (I used smoked)
3 T olive oil
2 T red wine
1 T white vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 bunch parsley
1/2 t minced fresh garlic
12 kalamata type olives, pitted and coarsly chopped
3 T chevre or feta, crumbled
1 avacado, chopped
1/2 bunch spinach, coarsly chopped

Throw all ingredients in a big bowl and stir it around until everything is thoroughly coated with spices, oil and vinegars, and juice from the oranges.  If the oranges aren't really good, don't bother.  Make something else.  I served this with oven roasted baby potatoes and grilled chicken.  I thought my head might explode--it was that good. One hooligan only liked the orange part of the salad and the other only liked the spinach.  They fought over the olives.  (The Hooligans will eat anything.  They're strange that way.)  We demolished it before I thought of taking a picture, but you can see it as it ought to be in the New York Times on line--the Dining and Wine section.

Lists

Last week was nuts. The Hooligans' school held its' auction on Friday. I try to help out, but I'm not efficient.  The powers that be gave me the job of making signs.  I love to cut and paste stuff.  (If I were efficient, I would probably be one of those scrapbookers.)

Ok, so, The Auction: 210 items, all needing signs.  The first batch was fancy.  I downloaded illustrative pictures.  I made snarky suggestions. ("Worried about how to amuse your little drama queen/king this summer?"--picture of child in tiara striking a pose--"Bid on this theater camp!!"  Collage, Glitter.  What fun.)  By the final week, though, I was just banging out the info on word and printing it in  24 font.  Cut, stick on tagboard.  Sniff Sniff. Glue stick has no fumes.  Boring!

Meanwhile inside my brain, or what's left of it....I was perseverating on all the things I'd rather be doing (gardening)...or needed to be doing (find/return library books).  I made many lists.  Then I made more signs.

The payoff at the auction:  We raised a lot of money which will pay for additional reading instruction, among other things, AND I got to be the first MC.  All of you will be shocked to hear that I love nothing more than having a microphone in my hand.  It makes me giddy--not unlike writing my blog.

I also really really like dressing up.  I decided that I could draw more attention to the auction if I made a spectacle of myself.  Anything for a good cause.  I wore a fabulous $10 thrift store ball gown, and a crown made out of tinfoil.  I was in good company:

The very tall MC is Marie Slugtoinette, the 2008 Slug Queen of Eugene, Oregon (Google it.).  She is way more extroverted than I am.  And that is saying something.  The Elegant MC in black is my friend Keri.  We had to put major peer pressure on her to get her to dress up.  She is a very good sport.  Doesn't she look great? Thanks Keri. She is even better at thrifting than I am, that is saying something, too.

The list below is an annotated compilation of my lists from last week.  I was looking through the scratchings on all these scraps of paper and I found them amusing.  Mayhap you will, too:

• Make copies of vital documents, Deliver to lawyer (we are updating our will--it seems that 7 years ago, we had another hooligan.)
• *Finish making signs for auction, Deliver to Susanne (Supreme Auction Goddess.)
• -Buy six baby chicks (Baby chicks--redundant.)
• -Call Klarissa and ask her to see whether her dad will take the old hens (It's butchering time on the farm)
• -Exercise (darn! Too busy)
• Shower
• Buy turtle food at the pet store.  Also the fish have ick.  Aren't there drops for that?
• -Finish sewing dress project
• -Choose new pattern for next project
• -Yarn for sweater coat project!
• -Spread remaining 3 cu. yards of mulch before the next downpour
• Find/Return library book
• *Call Zak (babysitter), did I pay him?
• *Re-schedule Sm. Hooligan's swim lesson
• *Forms to Lg. Hooligan's soccer coach
• -Is book group tonight?   I am hosting, if so, make dessert.  Better idea, buy a dessert.
• -Change Hooligans' sheets
• Book club is next week: Buy book, Read book
• *Drink coffee With Erika.  Anticipate her "staycation"  (Her spouse is the mother of all fathers described a few posts back)
• The dog smells.  Wash.
• Think of something for dinner, make it. (We ate a lot of cereal this week)
• *Grocery:  buy lots of snacks for the hooligans + 3 friends who will be here after school
• *Track down the 1098 forms that the accountant says she does not have.  Deliver.
• *Laundry:  multiple loads.  ignore.

The * marks indicate that I actually got this done.  The - mark indicates something I'd have preferred to do. If there is no mark, it is now long overdue.

What I learned:

• We have too many pets.
• Turtles can survive a long time on limited rations.
• Fish are cheap.
• I got a letter from the library today:  I'm being sent to collections.

Butter, Bling, Poetry*

I was listening to The Splendid Table and heard this poem:
Butter

BY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

My mother loves butter more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into butter! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,

butter melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, butter better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

butter glazing corn in slipping squares,

butter the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, butter softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, butter disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

butter melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, butter licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to butter. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite   

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of butter.

I'm surprised there aren't more poems about butter.  My Great Aunt Kate (for whom I was named....) used to say "Everything that is good with butter, is always better, with a little more butter. " I believe she pre-dated Julia Child's program when she made this observation.  Great Aunt Kate was, according to Bad Grandma, a legendary character.  She was about 5 feet tall, and wore heels which fit my mother (5'10") at age 6.  She maintained bright red hair until she was 65. She wore mink coats and lots of bling.  She had no children, but considered herself an expert in childrearing and deportment.  She dispensed advice freely.  Much of the bling went to my mother and my aunt.  Bad Grandma isn't really the bling type.  She's more the LLBean type. She keeps the bling tucked away, and doles it out for important events such as weddings and births.  


My sister called me today to inform me that Senor Cupcake likes to lick the butter off his toast.  "You're just like your Aunt Kate,"  she told him.
   "Aunt Cake,"  he answered, "More."  


Butter may explain my little toast problem---toast is such a good vehicle for butter. It also may have something to do with the width and breadth of my...self.  I try to temper my width and breadth with exercise.  It's a fine balance:  butterlove vs. aerobicloathing. 

   

Food: all the other momblogs do it, so why not?

Last summer several Culinary events came together, resulting in the invention of Zucchiniburgers:

1) We bought some fraction of a free range cow.  The ground beef was really dry because that critter was wandering up and down some mountains or training for a 5k.

2)  I succumbed to the temptation to plant several zucchini vines.  They're so reliable!  It's so nice to come into the kitchen with a basket full of produce we actually grew! Except no one, not even our neighbors,  really likes zucchini.

3.  So I made a lot of zucchini bread, which is quite palatable if you add chocolate chips.  It occurred to me that the moistening properties of  the zucchini might transfer to our nasty dry hamburger meat.  And it would use up some of the zucchini surplus.  So here's what you do:

Grate a zucchini into a large bowl.  Add an egg.  Grate an onion in there if you feel like it.  Add about 2x as much lean ground beef (or turkey, or a combo).  Salt, pepper, worcestershire, whatever you usually put in hamburgers.  Mix it all up.  If it is really wet, add breadcrumbs until it binds.  Shape into patties, grill as usual.  Don't tell your kids and they won't notice.  

Where Credit is due:

The Man Who Lives In My House took the pictures in the previous post with the iphone hipstamatic app.  I was uncharacteristically agreeable about posing.  I'm usually concerned that being photographed will steal my soul, or expose my wrinkles, like this:

Bad either way.  Oh, and it's been asked before:  am I a lot older than my husband?  Well, if you call one year a lot, then yes. The charm of the hipstamatic lies in the way a bad quality photo makes us look GOOD.

Civics

The census came.

I read through it carefully.  Accuracy is important!

Well, I just don't believe this.  There's no category for "Hooligan!"

I labelled them "Other."

The Mother of all Fathers (Part one)

See this guy:

He is taking his three children--including that cute baby, to visit his parents.  For 6 days.

On a plane.  5 or 6 hours, plus layover. By himself.

The mother of those children is my friend.  I am working through my envy.  It's not her fault she scored the Mother of all Fathers for a husband.

(I have no business feeling envy:  I only have two children, and they go to school every day.  The Man Who Lives In My House did take the larger hooligan to visit his mother for weekends back in toddler times.  He will be most peeved if I do not give him credit.  When the Larger Hooligan was little, he called us both "mommydaddy."  He saw no reason to differentiate, except when nursing.)

My friend has visions of getting a lot accomplished:  When her family returns, the house will be completely re-modelled, she will have run a marathon, knitted matching sweaters for each family member, and there will be a lasagne in the oven--with homemade noodles. Or something.