Every time I go to update the blog, the cat has doubled in size again. Which means that I should update more regularly. Next time I write he will be the size of a large pony.

Meanwhile, recipes. I don't know what to say about these empanadas, except don't make them when you have people coming for dinner or you will have none left. There's my generous thought for the day.

This walnut-orange cake is delicious, and made with olive oil, which is an easy and wholesome way to bake a cake.

And this roast chicken is simply an excellent, basic roast chicken recipe. The skin becomes golden and crisp, and the meat is fragrant and juicy. Although I confess to being one of the only humans on the planet that likes dry chicken. I realize that it's more of a moral failing than a simple quirk.

I am thinking about Valentine's Day, which is a holiday that I love. Maybe because it's fun and pretty, with none of the make-good-memories-or-die pressure of the December holidays. Today I made Valentine's in Ben's classroom, and he was actually mildly embarrassed by my singing of Frank Sinatra songs to get the kids in a romantic mood. Only mildly, and only briefly, since he couldn't resist singing along. He was also mildly embarrassed by the giant book of stock art images I'd brought for the kids to cut up: acres of Renaissance-era nudity and medieval hell-type shenanigans. And, finally, he was mildly embarrassed when I spilled glue on my pants and said, "Oh, crappity crap." At least I didn't say "shit"! Until a minute later, when I *did* say it. Oh well. At least I didn't say "fuck"!

Hello! I have wanted to write with the links to new recipes on family.com.

But then Birdy was home sick all week. The poor girl had to spend all day every day with her cat. Misery all around.



Oh right. But the recipes.

These, for instance. Which are, apparently, lemon *squares*, not lemon bars (thank you for your corrective emails). In my cookbook, the recipe is in my mother's handwriting but is called "Robert's Lemon Bars." My brother works 16 hours a day and still finds time to make lemon bars. You do the math.

And this. Which is rated NC-Carnivore, if you catch my drift, you vegetarian sweethearts out there. But I cried again a little, just now, looking at the pictures.

And this. Which might seem silly--who needs a recipe for hot chocolate? But if you aren't making it with real chocolate, I encourage you to try it. I don't even really like hot chocolate? But this I like.

A couple other things. Books. Who recommended Without a Map here? Man that was a killer good book. And I am about to finish Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is about Haiti and Paul Farmer, and which is so good I wake up at 4 in the morning to read a few chapters. If you are in need of inspiration, I can't think of a better way to get it.

Randomly, some PR people sent me a giant box of Cabot cheese and a giant box of Olivia's Organics salads. I don't usually do promotional pitches here, but I had to laugh because we already buy and eat both Cabot cheese and Olivia's Organics salads. So I thought I'd say: they're both good. There. Now I can gorge guiltlessly on cheddar and arugula.

Enjoy your weekend. And please keep the book recommendations coming. There's no better midwinter tonic than a great read.

I will write a real blog update soon. But if you're thinking about Haiti, and I know that you are, I wanted to mention that Partners in Health seems like a fantastic organization, and might be a good place to give money to, if a relief donation is something you're able to consider. Tracy Kidder has written about them, both in his book, and in tomorrow's Times. I know that resources are tight, but all those photographs in the newspaper--those faces devastated by grief and pain and fear, all those kids--really focus my perspective. You know what I mean. xo

Stuffed

Hello, dear ones! Have your holidays been marvelous? Ours have been. Except for the overeating. I go on a clementine fast every day after dinner and it lasts all the way until morning. But somehow it's not getting the job done.

These recipes--beef stew and no-knead bread--are the least of my worries, in some ways. What with my mother's melt-in-your-coronary-artery linzer cookies. And our friend Jonathan's roasted pork. And my potato-fennel gratin that absorbed a shameless entire pint of cream. Sigh. But that stew is nice and regular, if you need a break from holiday feasting. It's not dietetic or anything (unless you serve it at a diner inside a cantaloupe half with a scoop of cottage cheese), but it's straightforward and excellent. And the bread? Try it. If you haven't tried no-knead bread before, try it. Try it even if you have. I have tinkered and tinkered, and it is a near-perfect recipe. Let me know how it goes, okay?

And thank you so much for the book recommendations. Given that a bunch of you mentioned it, I rushed out and got The Glass Castle, and it totally blew me away. I could not stop thinking or talking about it, and now Michael's reading it too--just to spare himself, I think, from my overstimulated nattering. Thank you, too, for your enthusiasm about the books I mentioned. Thanks to our dear old BillyJoe6666--who told me about it--I recommended them via an amazon account that gave me credit for your purchases, so I thought that, once they send me the credit, we could do a little give-away of favorite books here. Stay tuned!

Have a joy-filled New Year. I leave you with another holiday-card out-take. "Just go ahead get it out of your system," I said. And so they did.

And a sleepy cheers to you, from the babiest of babies:

Angels We Have Heard on High

Can you believe we're already seven sausage slices into December? What? You don't have a salami advent? Us either. Alas.

But boy am I getting into the holiday spirit. Which you will see over at family.com if you read only about the eggnog cheesecake bars and skip the whole lice episode. Or kale slaw! I know! Festive or what? The column seems fixed now over there, so hopefully it will be updating regularly.

Meanwhile, I don't always understand the way it works, this receiving of gifts, but I wanted to thank you. I asked about great websites for kids, and your suggestions have been utterly fabulous. "Wow," Ben said. "These people really *know* me." I feel the same way. Already he's played Bookworm on popcap, a bunch of games on that sweet Orsinal site, something on the Vancouver 2010 site, and some strange car-crash thing on the edheads site. He has many more suggestions book-marked too--oh, and he completed the dance-mat typing lessons on the BBC, which we all loved. It's been so great to look with him at these tried-and-true favorites of yours. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In return, I am offering a holiday gift-book round-up. Some of these are books that I have mentioned so many times that you'd think I'd be over them by now--but I'm not, apparently.

For instance

I know. I have been talking about Children Just Like Me for, like, a hundred years. But it's such an incredible book, the way it shows kids from over the world--their schools and houses of worship, their homes and pets and favorite toys and meals--and it prompts loads of conversation about sameness and difference, about privilege and hardship, without ever bonking you over the head with a moral hammer. We still read it all the time, and it would make a great gift for any child up to the age of 10 or 11 or so. But I'm warning you: the kids in the book are so beautiful that you will be a little bit heartbroken.

Okay. Jame's Herriot's Treasury for Children is another book that I can't say enough good things about. Did you ever read his vet books for grown-ups? You might think you don't want to hear about this tweedy English guy pushing his gloved hand into the yonis of various birthing farm animals, but actually, you do. Nevertheless, this is a collection of his gentlest, least gynecological vet stories, and they're beautifully illustrated. Plus, a) there's a Christmas story about a cat and, b) you get to read the dialogue in a heavy cockney accent. You know. If you want to. We have given it as a present to many children, and everybody loves it.


Now, Christmas Tapestry I have to mention because we read it every year, and every year it makes me cry, and every year the kids say, "Oh, Mama, this book makes you cry every year!" and yes, it does. It's kind of heavy--we used to edit it a little when the kids were younger--because it refers briefly to the Holocaust (though not in very specific terms), but it is the most devastating and romantic fantasy about restoration and reunion that I can imagine. Also, a good mix of Jewish and Christian stories.

Okay, those are my recommendations for children. Though I also wanted to mention a few chapter books. The Children of Noisy Village, which Beck once recommended to me right here, and which we loved: it's by Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking), and it's a collection of rustic little tales of old-fashioned daily life in Sweden; think Little House on the Prairie, only with less death defiance and more lutefisk. Also The Great Brain series, which I loved and devoured as a ten-year-old, and then ten-year-old Ben loved and devoured 30 years later (annoyingly, they don't seem to exist as a boxed set). And The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton, which my ten-year-old mother loved and devoured and then, many, many decades later, her ten-year-old grandson loved and devoured (annoyingly, these also don't seem to exist as a boxed set in this country, though I was able to order one from the UK to send my nephews in Geneva. Shhhh.).

Those are my picks for kids. And for grown-ups:


My mother and I love, love, loved the novel Brooklyn, though my father did not. Maybe it's more of a women's kind of book? But Colm Toibin is a devastatingly fantastic writer, and I have loved all of his books. This one is worth reading if only for the most harrowing sea crossing you can imagine. Also, because it too is like Little House on the Prairie, only set in an Irish immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn in the 1950s. If you can picture.


But maybe you wanted to give that special someone not a novel but a book of odd, melancholy drawings. Principles of Uncertainty, by the incomparable Maira Kalman, is one of the strangest and most beautiful books I have ever held in my hands. She is heartbroken and filled with gratitude all the time--a stranger's earnest fur hat can bring her to tears--and her grief-filled joy is always pitch-perfect. Always. I am giving this as a gift.



Or did you want to give a book of poetry? True, the white cover is not showing up very excitingly here, but Evidence by Mary Oliver is full of her stunning, grateful observations of love and the natural world, along with the the kinds of lines ("Tell me / what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?" is not in this book, but it could be) that have been changing lives for as long as she's been writing.


Or do you know someone who loves to cook? Local Flavors is a cookbook that I read cover to cover, like a novel. It is beautiful to look at, and full of fresh, delicious farmer's market recipes that are so sparklingly good you won't even miss the bacon. Also: grape chiffon pie. I just love her for having that recipe.

Please feel free to add more in the comments here about what you've been reading/loving/giving as gifts, book-wise. I am always so thrilled about your advice.

Meanwhile, I hope you are thriving and louse-free. xoxo

Cranberry Sauce

Oh, happy Thanksgiving, dear ones! I am thankful for your company on this journey. So, so thankful. I am also thankful that I decided not to make sweet potatoes this year. Just like that. "I'm not making sweet potatoes," I just said to Michael, two minutes ago. And he made a sad face. Too bad. He can be thankful that I've made them so many times before! Oops--that wasn't a very thankful thing to say, was it? No. It wasn't.

And will you be thankful for my recipe for cranberry sauce? Maybe. But only if you didn't already buy canned. It's fine to buy canned. Be thankful that you did.

I am also thankful for Mr. Outtakes.


Oh he sure likes to insinuate himself into photographs, that Flattypants Cat of ours.


Although this sad little scene I couldn't even blame on the cat.


Are you thankful that you didn't have to clean my stove top? I know I was! Ha ha. Thank you, Michael. I owe you.

Next week I'm going to offer some book and game suggestions for holiday giving--to grown-ups and kids both. And I'm wondering if you might offer me some advice: Ben is getting a little bit of computer time, newly, and I'm wondering about some great sites for kids. Mostly he plays little games on the American Girl site, and they are quite benign ("Fun for girls!" he likes to read from the banner, in his wry way, before playing). But do you have any thoughts about other fun games he could play? Cool things he could look at? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you!
xo

Well, hello there! How did it get to be the second half of November? Birdy just now said to me, "Wow, soon it will snow because it will be December!" And I said, "Uh oh." "What is it, Mama?" "I have to go order a turkey." This part of the year crashes in like a sleeper wave, and I will pop up in January, gasping and exhilarated and happy to be combing the seaweed out of my hair.

Meanwhile, as the weather cools, there is my world-famous (okay, at least 3 or 4 of my friends make this) instant oatmeal recipe over at family.com. And then there is the buttermilk birthday cake, which is up though not posting on the homepage. In it you get to ogle many parade-float style cakes we've designed over the years.

And did you want to see how the carnival fortune teller answered Birdy's question, "Will I go to college?" I like how her New York accent breaks through on the word "chariot." The funniest thing was how few of the kids realized that they actually *knew* her. "I do!" they'd cry, baffled and thrilled. "I *do* have two older brothers!" Or, even the kids she didn't know: "I am! I *am* kind towards animals! How did you know?" Eet voz a lucky guezz.

Edited to add: I thought it was so obvious, but before anyone says anything awkward about the fortune teller, I wanted to give you a hint that I'm in this video. And I'm not the one filming it.