recipe for AIR (bad language alert!)

Put air in a pretend salad bowl and eat it with an invisible spoon. Makes 1 serving for someone who ate so FUCKING much in the past week that I am still waiting for some kind of gluttony summons.

Oh, did you want a real recipe? For water? No? Okay. My most recent iteration of Kale slaw, called "Dinosaur Slaw" was in the November FamilyFun and is on the Parents website here (plus, that is the aproned and purple-clad torso of the very lovely Abigail Shirley Newman, aka Birdy). This is so good, you won't believe it: the hot dressing wilts the kale a little (rub it around with your hands, if you can stand to, to wilt it more), and it's all I want to eat right now. Please note, though, that it's sherry vinegar--not sherry, cooking or otherwise (I say this because even the food stylist was confused at the photo shoot). In a pinch, white-wine vinegar is fine. Red would probably be fine too! Also, please note that you might have to sign in there, but it's free. Report back if there are problems.

In other news, we went with my parents to the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it was completely fantastic. Pop art is so great for kids--there's so much to connect to, to be wowed by, to laugh at and wonder over. This Ellsworth Kelly installation, Spectrum VI, was not part of it--we just happened to walk past it--but boy was it right up my alley, like paint chips, but for a giant.

Ben and Birdy are in this picture! But you can't see them because they're camouflaged! 

Did you know that I collect color-sample charts? I do. I have, I think, six of them framed in the house. Some are old. One of them is tiny bags of beads and sequins in all different colors from the amazing Alabama Chanin.

Another is also from Alabama Chanin, and it's the cotton-jersey-swatch card:

Also (transition to this paragraph currently unavailable) I just finished Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman, and I loved it so much. She is like Tina Fey, as people say, but cruder in a way that wholly appeals to me. This is her on the "proper muff"she thinks every woman needs (yay!):

"A big, hairy minge. A lovely furry moof that looks – when she sits, naked – as if she has a marmoset sitting in her lap. A tame marmoset, that she can send off to pickpocket things, should she so need it – like that trained monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Oh I do love her. And this too, which I lifted from someone on facebook named "Crazy Dumbsaint of the Mind," who kindly gave me permission to put it here:

This is so brilliant and funny it kills me.

Some people here were surprised and angry with me around the election, but the thing is? I'm gentle and loving, I am, and I make a killer cream-cheese frosting and a beautiful holiday banner--but I'm also fierce and and pissed, and a total, unapologetic, old-school feminist with a marmoset in my lap. I know you know that, but it bears mentioning.

xo

The Annual Holiday Games Post

Oh, it's game season! For playing and giving. Money spent on a good game is money well spent, I think: the amount of play value is almost incalculable. As you may know, I’ve been recommending games for the holidays for a while now, so please allow me to refer you to this post, in which I link to all the other places where I’ve described games (and toys and books) in the past. There are also some holiday-gift recipes in the post. More game links are here, here, here, here, here, and here. Holiday books round-up here. For this year, let me start with the crazy gamer games and then move into the more conventional ones:

Seafarers of Catan is another of those games (like Acquire or, kill me, Risk) that does something weird to me, and I can’t pretend it’s good. And by weird I mean testosterone. During a recent game, I got so mad at Michael that I had the humiliating experience of the kids saying, “Mama, Mama, he wasn’t trying to screw you. You have to get over it or it’s really not going to be fun for you.” Sigh. Still, I always want to play. And the kids, who are better sports than I am, love it. Please note that you need to get the original (and very excellent) basic Catan first; this is, as we gamers say, an “expansion.”

It is so not okay to use as the theme of your game the Colonial occupation of an island nation, especially given that the indigenous people who weren’t wiped out by violence and disease were enslaved by the same brutal plantations that this game celebrates. So. If you are up for doing a little thematic intervention about the terrible politics of the game, then Puerto Rico is an excellent game, from the standpoint of gaming: complex, strategic, always interesting. My children are willing to play even given that I have to speak constantly about how offensive it is, so you know it’s a good game.

Chris Perry? Is that you?

I’ve mentioned Bohnanza before—the bean-trading game with bad art—but I’ve never mentioned it in the context of holiday gift-giving, for which it is excellent: easy to learn, fun to play, and not insanely expensive. Also, legumes! You won’t have the added pleasure of Ben’s thinking that the Soy Bean looks like a friend of ours, but you’ll still enjoy it.

It’s a total Chinese Checkers renaissance around here. We’ve been playing with  “super” version rules, which is insanely fun and, if you know the game, really eliminates that boring mid-game congestion that can sap your will to live. Do try to get the version of the game that comes with iridescent marbles. They’re so beautiful I always want to put them in my mouth (Maybe that’s not a selling point?). Our friend Ava, whose family has the same set as us, has named all the colors: Dragon, Gubble Bum, Mustard, Ocean, Fire, and, my favorite, Almond Bath Bubble.

Booby-Trap is also enjoying a renaissance. I once recommended a newfangled version of it on amazon, but look on ebay! 12 bucks will get you the exact version we have, which is both delightful and esthetically pleasing. But if your kids are the sort to argue over potential turn-ending nanovibrations during pick-up-sticks, this is not the game for them.

Wait, this isn't a video game? They told me it was a video game.

This is Perplexus Epic. Do you need a large, clattery, and expensive ball of plastic in your house? Kind of! It’s a 3-D maze and, for us, it’s sort of a compromise—like a mechanical version of a video game, given that the kids don’t do a lot of screen stuff. It seems good for the old hand-eye coordination and logic-development, if you go in for those sorts of things. Plus, it’s great for odds and ends of time and, strangely, social: they watch each other play, even though you can’t begin to imagine why. If your kids are new to this large, clattery, expensive plastic phenomenon, then start with the original, less-epic Perlexus.

A total trip down candy-memory lane, right?

If a large, fun jigsaw puzzle is in your holiday-vacation plans, please allow me to recommend Candy Wrappers. We did it with our friends Meg and Pete over the summer, and I can’t think of one I’ve liked better. Oooh, except for this one, which is delicious in more of a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of way.

Eye Can Art Kits. Full disclosure: the lovely Eye Can Art folks sent us the Layered Wax Drawing Kit to test out, and Birdy loved it. The other kit that’s really catching our eye is the Sumi-e Ink Painting Kit. Ooh, and the cut-paper kit. The quality is absolutely fantastic, and the project we did was very thoughtfully conceived and explained.

That said, it’s a little bit on the expensive side, and you wish there were a little more in the can—ours had enough material to complete two projects—but you could supplement easily with inexpensive stuff from Michael’s.

Can you see how lovely this is? It's got layers of paper and wax and cray-pas, and it's stunning.

They’re offering a coupon code until December 17^th: “HOLIDAYKITS12 may be used on our website for $5 off your order at www.eyecanart.com. Limit one discount per order.”

Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun Another full disclosure: the publishers sent us this book. But I like it a lot or, I promise, I wouldn’t be mentioning it. (For instance, have you heard me recommending an energy bar made entirely of whey? Or a cookbook filled entirely with meatloaf recipes? I didn’t think so.) It’s huge, illustrated, a little campy, a little retro. The kids made a vibrating tongue-depressor harmonica/kazoo from it. They play a game from it called “the game” that is a total mind fuck. They love that it’s not gender-specific. This is from the press release: “Most of its 352 full-color pages are dedicated to activities — the best of the old (crafts, bicycle repair, science experiments), and the new (geocaching, yarn bombing, LED “graffiti”) — for boys and girls to do on their own and with their parents. It's a hands-on, DIY book with contributions from three dozen talented experts in their various fields.” Please note Birdy’s classic sign of approval: the million post-it notes.

Ben modeling a sardine sandwich for ChopChop.

ChopChop: Full disclosure: I edit this kids’ cooking magazine! But it’s so, so great that if you haven’t subscribed, you should! Ben and Birdy cook us whole, entire meals from it. If that’s not worth the $14.95 subscription price, I don’t know what is.

Stripy jar sweater not included.

Cuppow. A final full disclosure: I was not famous enough for these people to bother sending me a press sample, and STILL I LOVE IT ANYWAY. It’s a BPA-free plastic lid that turns a mason jar into a hot or cold to-go cup. Brilliant. There’s a wide-mouth one and a regular mouth one, and I bought them both and plan to buy more as gifts. (Note: Will you feel, dorkily, like you're drinking coffee from a grown-up sippy cup? Yes. Will that stop you? No.)

Also for grown-ups:

 This book is perfect, as I know I've mentioned.

And this book is perfect too.

What are you guys playing, reading, making, giving? And should we do a give-away on Amazon? Of what?
xo

Simplest Butter-Sauced Cabbage

Okay, I hear you, my fellow CSA sufferers luckyheads. Turnips, beets, soups, slow cooker recipes. I am on it. But I’m hearing “cabbage” too, and it reminded me that this is a recipe I always intend to share, even though it’s embarrassingly simple. It’s our go-to cabbage recipe, in fact, even though roasted cabbage is delicious and far more glamorous. 

But this is somehow comfortingly sweet and plain, and the children have always absolutely loved it. In fact, I asked Birdy to hold the dish for my photo, and then she ate all of it, and all the rest of it from the serving bowl too. Ah, cabbage. It’s like potato chips. Only without being anything like potato chips.

Simplest Butter-Sauced Cabbage

The amounts here really depend, as does the cooking time, on your cabbage: how fresh it is, how much there is. But what I recommend is a generous hand with the butter and salt, and then add enough vinegar that you can just start to taste it. Only make this with nice, fresh fall cabbage. Once the cabbage has been stored for a while, it won’t be so sweet and lovely.

Sweet, fresh green or white cabbage, halved, cored, and cut into 1-inch squares

Butter

Cider Vinegar

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Put the cabbage in a steamer basket over an inch of boiling water, cover it, and steam it until tender. Check it at 5 minutes, but it will likely not be done until closer to 10 (or longer, it's possible, especially if there's lots of it). You want it to be completely tender to your teeth, but not, you know, supersoft in that gross cabbage-y way.

Drain the cabbage very well, then put it in a bowl and add a nice big knob of butter, lots of salt and pepper, and 2 or 3 capfuls of cider vinegar (I don’t know why I measure it in the cap, but I always do). Toss it well, then taste a piece. It will likely need more salt and vinegar. Add whatever it needs, taste it, and repeat until it is sweet, just barely tangy, saucy, and delicious.

I only used half of it because I didn't realize that Birdy was starving for cabbage.

After my planet sent me down on an abduction mission, I became a handy kitchen device!

Before steaming.

After steaming.

The bottom of my cider bottle has something called a "mother" floating in it. You don't even want to know.

Don't skimp on the butter!

a deep poem and a boring promise

photo courtesy of Ben Newman

Happiness

by Birdy Newman

Happiness bubbles inside you

And then explodes

Into a shower of joy

A smile

Shining

On your face

And suddenly the whole world seems brighter

+++++++++++++

Love to you all. All of you. I am so glad you're here. Recipe coming soon. Any requests? xo

That's right, YOU!

Happy election day!
xo

VOTE!

photo courtesy of Ben Newman

Dear ones, I hope you are all safe and sound after Hurricane Sandy. I am checking in today just to say, "Vote tomorrow, please!"

It's amazing to have this barometer of the children's growth and development, isn't it? Four years ago, when Obama was elected for the first time, Ben was 9 and Birdy was 5. And four years before that, Ben was 5 and Birdy was 1. (I'm just showing off now, being such a crazy subtraction prodigy and all.) But I was remembering Ben asking, during that election 8 years ago, "So, if George Bush were driving in his car, and he saw me, would he try to run me over?" And I realized in that moment that perhaps we had not offered a very nuanced interpretation of good and bad.

But oh, I am feeling it, this hope again. Hope for justice, for fairness, for compassion and intelligence and the understanding that women must retain the right to make decisions about our own health and well-being, that healthcare is a right, that we must prosper together and the rich should not get richer at the expense of the poor. Among many, many other things. I know you understand.

I was explaining to the kids about the voting machines in Ohio--just the fact that, in two counties, in a swing state, the voting machines are owned by an investment firm that's done business with Tagg Romney, an investment firm whose executives are some of the biggest-ever donors to the Romney campaign. And the thing about kids? They understand intuitively, about fairness. "Even if they don't cheat," Birdy said, "It just feels like cheating already." Like if you happened to buy the field where your kid's big soccer championship was going to be held. What? I'm not influencing the game. Just standing here, owning the field, is all. You, yeah, you--this is actually my field. No, go ahead, keep playing. I'm just saying.

That culture of wealth and intimidation? It's not how I want my children to grow up. Which is why--spoiler alert--I'm voting for Obama tomorrow. Also, I worry that Romney would actually try to run the kids over.

xo

Wild (or not-so-wild) Mushroom Paté

Look, even foie gras just isn't that photogenic.

Hello from Hurricane Sandy headquarters! Okay, not headquarters exactly, nor hindquarters. Midquarters? We are all home, playing hooky, with big plans to watch the second half of Hair--which is as good, if not better, than I remember—if we still have power (the fact that Michael is right now braving the wind to bring home red wine and amaretto is great consolation for the fact that I didn't marry Treat Williams like I meant to). Otherwise (and, probably, additionallywise) we’re going to play Seafarers and Power Grid, which we’ve chosen for their thematic relevance to the situation at hand. I hope you’re all safe and dry and enjoying the silveriest lining of a day off. Unless you’re in, like, California. And then whatever. You’re in California.

Does the parsley help? Or is it like Walter Matthau in a Prada dress?

I’m posting this recipe today because I have been going crazy picking the oyster mushrooms that are growing on a stump at Birdy’s school. I sneak out there all furtive-like, since I don’t want the children to see me. “Hey kids! Wild mushrooms are for picking and eating! What’s the worst that could happen?” The mushrooms are so big and plentiful that it seems silly to eat anything else right now.

But this is one of those recipes that I have been making for so long that I can’t believe I’ve never shared it with you before. (I haven’t, right?) It’s one of my holiday standards: I make it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is an oft-requested recipe (in fact, years ago, I had to reverse-request it, because Michael’s brother Keith has written it down, and I hadn’t) thanks to its unctuous, savory deliciousness. Plus, it’s vegetarian, which is always nice at the holidays, even though one year I (oops!) cooked the mushrooms in chicken fat and forgot to tell the relevant people. Sorry!

Stay safe and cozy and happy.

 Wild (or not-so-wild) Mushroom Paté

I am lifting that title from my friend Sally’s recipe for roasted mushrooms in the forthcoming winter issue of ChopChop. Can I plug ChopChop again here? The fun cooking magazine for families? I edit it, and it’s just fantastic—and would make a great holiday gift for anyone on your list. Subscribe here!

4 tablespoons butter, divided (Divided. By what? You’ll see!)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

Dried or fresh marjoram or thyme (1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh, a big pinch dried)

Kosher salt

3/4-1 pound sliced fresh mushrooms, any kind, wild or tame, in any combination

½ cup walnuts, toasted at 350 until fragrant but not burnt, 5-10 minutes

2 teaspoons sherry vinegar

3 ounces Neufchatel cheese (cream cheese is an okay substitution—but Neufchatel is a lot like it, made by Philadelphia even, but just with fewer glunky stabilizing agents)

Black pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Sauté  the onion with the herbs and a large pinch of salt until it is fully soft and quite brown, around ten to fifteen minutes. Scrape the onion into a food processor fitted with the steel blade.

In the same pan, assuming it’s not gone black anywhere, melt the rest of the butter over high heat and sauté the mushrooms, with a large pinch of salt, until they are tender and nicely browning, around ten to fifteen minutes. Mushrooms are funny: first they’ll give up a lot of juice, and seem like they’re steaming—but persist with the high heat. The juice will cook off and then the mushrooms will start to dry out a bit and brown up, which is what you want. Splash in the sherry vinegar, stir it as it sputters and steams, then scrape the mushrooms into the food processor.

Add the walnuts and cheese to the food processor, along with another large pinch of salt and significant grinding of black pepper, then process until nearly smooth, stopping to scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Taste the mixture for salt and vinegar. It should be very well seasoned and will likely need more salt: add it, along with more vinegar (a half teaspoon at a time) until it tastes perfect.

Serve with bread or crackers.

this and that

Birdy and I sat in the sunshine and painted. Heaven.

A few things:

1) This novel. It is so good, it's kind of insane. I kept looking at the author photo on the back: she's like, 15 years old, and it's her first novel, and the book reads like it was written by someone at the end of their long life. In a good way, even though friends of mine just laughed at me when I said, "It's about this old guy? And his orchard? Not just picking fruit, though." "Wow!" they said. "Excitement!" What it's like, a little bit, is Little House on the Prairie for grown-ups, and at first I read it fast, in great gulping streaks, like I was famished--until I realized how good it was, and that I was going to finish it too quickly, and then I slowed way down and rationed it. I envy you not having read it yet is all I can say.

2) I have a veggie-recipe piece in this month's FamilyFun magazine. Don't look at the photo, though, because I am vain of my hair, which seems to have been put up with the instructions, "See if you can make her look like a pinhead." Success!

3) I am the new Modern Manners columnist for Real Simple magazine! So any bad behavior on Ben and Birdy stays on Ben and Birdy, if you know what I'm saying, and what I'm saying is: Don't out me as a person with bad  manners. (Salad fork? Napkin? Wuh?) It's not really that kind of manners, don't worry. And there are some *excellent* questions in this month's issue. Juicy.

4) Ben is turning 13 in a week. What the?

5) Thank you for your kindness at the start of the week. That's all. Just thank you.

xo

Misery Bars

What is wrong with me? After all these years, do I really need to struggle against patience and fill with regret like I’m a bucket under a leaky ceiling and it’s a flash flood? It’s so much better these days, it is. Capable, older children; more and deeper rest; easier daily rhythms. But, oh, a day that starts with a flash of unkindness—like lightning that illuminates the gentle face of misplaced trust—that is not a good day.

If you are on your way out the door, on a Monday school morning, and someone asks you to hold up a granola bar so that she can photograph it, and this is a favor to that person, that person who made the granola bar and is therefore responsible for its crumbling, and that granola bar breaks in half and falls to the floor, should sharp words be flung at you like knives outlining your sleepy baffledness? I said two hands. Also, should there be a sharp addendum about your boots, and why you aren’t wearing them, even though the granola-bar photographer has reminded you at least a dozen times to wear your boots today? Your bright face will fall. And when, ultimately, you end up in her lap, in tears, do you feel like the lamb lying down with the lion, only not in a good way? I don’t know.  

I am quick to apologize, and that’s about all I can say for myself today. But I would like to find those hidden pockets of meanness and dynamite them.

Does it make you feel weird about the granola bars? Does it make you wonder, a) Will they cause misery in your own family? and, b) will they fall apart? I don’t believe they’ll make you unhappy, but you should cut the bars in half again, because they’re more stable as squares than oblongs. That’s what I do—and, in fact, if I had shown you the actual bars as I make them, instead of trying to get all Nature’s Valley on you, the whole scene could have been avoided.

Sigh.

These are the granola bars I’m making these days. They’re chewy and sweet and absolutely delicious—but they’ve got enough salt and tartness and crisped-rice to keep them from being ooey-gooey cloying. I’m making them instead of the Raw Energy Bars that I’ve been making for years because this is what Ben is grabbing as he heads out the door, and these just have a little more going on as a daily breakfast. Still, they’ve got a million ingredients, and if that’s annoying to you, you can either skip some of them (the rice cereal, seeds, almond extract, chocolate chips, and citric acid are easy omissions) or make the energy bars instead. Why, of all the moments, did I pick now to buy rice cereal and rice syrup? I really couldn’t say. If I wanted to poison everyone with arsenic, surely there are easier methods.

Sigh.

Chewy Cherry Granola Bars

Makes lots

I am using the good bones of this recipe, but then I am adding dates, crisped-rice cereal, and chia seeds instead of sesame (mostly because I like the way they get stuck in my teeth and then swell up into slippery pearls). Also, I upped the extracts and nixed the cinnamon, because that’s how I roll. And I added chocolate chips, because ditto. Citric acid is something I find handy to keep around because it adds tartness without adding any other flavor or any more liquid; obviously, you could leave it out. I also want to mention that I realize that these are expensive to make. But, they pack a serious nutritional punch--all those whole foods and energy-filled nuts and seeds--and so, to me, they feel like a justifiable expense. Plus, they're still much cheaper than buying the equivalent bars in the store.

Ingredients

1 cup whole almonds

1 cup pecan halves or pieces

1 cup old-fashioned oats

1 cup (+) crisped-brown-rice cereal (I use the Whole Foods brand)

2 tablespoons chia, flax, or sesame seeds

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

1/8 teaspoon citric acid (optional)

3/4 cup dried cherries (ideally tart ones)

½ cup pitted dates
½ cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup brown rice syrup or honey (spray your measuring cup with oil before measuring anything sticky—that’s a real Heloise’s hint!)

¼ cup coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Line a 9- by 12-inch baking pan (or a smaller one, for thicker bars) with parchment paper, with enough hanging over the side to cover the bars when they’re in the pan.

Put 1/2 cup each of almonds, pecans, and oats in a food processor (I bet a blender would work fine for this). Process until finely ground, then pour it into a large bowl. Roughly chop the remaining pecans and almonds (I do this in the food processor too), then add them to the bowl. Add the remaining oats along with the crisped-rice cereal, seeds, salt, and citric acid, then mix well.

Put the cherries and dates in the food processor with two tablespoons of the dry mixture, and pulse until they are coarsely chopped (the dry mixture keeps them from clumping together). Add the chocolate chips, pulse a couple more times (this will just barely break up the chips) and dump this mixture into the bowl. Stir very well.

Combine rice syrup or honey with the coconut oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the mixture melts and then foams, then cook it for 15 seconds longer. Stir in the extracts, then pour it over the oat mixture and mix thoroughly.

Pour the granola mixture into the prepared pan, and press it very, very firmly with your own oiled hands or with an oiled square of parchment paper. something with a flat bottom (may need to spray it with non-stick spray.) Wrap the overhanging parchment paper up over the bars and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours.

Pull the entire block of chilled granola mixture out of the pan, then cut them into bars (and, since they can be a little crumbly, you might want to cut the bars in half again into squares). Either wrap them individually in parchment or plastic wrap, or else store all the bars in a large airtight container. Either way, keep them in the fridge.

Wake me when you're done assembling the ingredients.

But then there's no actual cooking involved, which is kind of nice.

Just be sure to press them down hard. Or else the bars will be crumbly. And you'll speak sharply into the pink and open face of your dear person.