Veggies and Dip



Wouldn't it be funny to put out a huge bowl of whole root vegetables with your dish of dip? Just to see what people would do? No? Oh. For some reason, it seems hilarious to me. Then again, I was once arranging lodging for an especially difficult and prickly visiting poet who had requested an elaborate fruit bowl, and the idea of leaving her a whole watermelon with a plastic spork kept me entertained for nearly a week.

Anyways, the new food column is fancy holiday veggies and dip, and even if it might usually be enough to tear open a bag of baby carrots and bloop out a dish of ranch dressing, please go check it out. Oheveteli has already suggested that it's "not the sexiest topic" but oh, the possibilities are endless. Don't make me post the dirty dip photos.

Sweets for the Sweet

Okay, so I can't resist telling you that in the print edition of December's Wondertime magazine, there are seven of my best holiday-giving recipes--seven!--including, but not limited to, Salted Caramel Popcorn (to die for), Macaroon Marshmallows (to die for), and Lemon Rosemary Shortbread (to die for). Plus, 3 chocolate things and salty-sweet-spicy nuts (to die for). I'm sorry not to be more modest.


And thank you for responding so sweetly to my piece in this month's O magazine.

xo

I just spent 17 or so minutes trying to photoshop this picture so that it would look like I was on a wild ride with Barack Obama, because I am high-larious like that. But then, you know what? My expression here is the next best thing to a high-tech collage. Because that's how I feel, that face. I feel just exactly like that, all the time. Although I was a bit disappointed after I heard he was making thank-you calls on Wednesday; I waited by the phone and everything. But still. The bumper cars face.

Anyways, that's not why you're here. You're here for gingerbread, as well you should be. The recipe is here, and you should make it because it's delicious. That's how I feel.

Tofu

Hello! Thank you all for your ongoing support, even those of you who are offering it only grudgingly or with great, sighing crankiness. I will take it however it comes.

Meanwhile, I am having a ball trying to take pictures of our dinner that don't look like bad family reunion snapshots from the seventies. Maybe its my children's Leif Garrett hairstyle? Not sure. (Oh dear, when I went to Wikipedia good old heartthrobby Leif, the only picture they have is a balding mugshot from one of his multiple arrests in later life. Feathered hair would be the least of his problems these days. Oy.)

Anyways, the new recipe column is up here.

And thank you to anonymous, who posted the link to the chewy granola bar recipe on the King Arthur website. I have already made them, and we loved them, though at first the recipe seemed like it was going to produce only a panful of crumbs. They set up a great deal as they cool. It would help, however, if I used the right kind of oats and/or remembered to add the water they call for. Duh. Still, we used chocolate chips, dried cherries, and pecans, and they were quite heavenly. Perfect lunchbox treats.

Blah blah blah granola bars blah when do we vote already. I know. Tell me about it. I'm just trying to keep myself busy until I can go mark my ballot. Bring your kids to the booth: it's a great opportunity to show them the opposite of cynicism. Which is, I suppose, hope.

yours hopefully, xo, Catherine

More News from the Campaign Trenches

Birdy: "Instead of the whole big election, couldn't they just do eeny meeny miny moe?"

Meanwhile, while you're waiting--hopeful or panicking or some combination--why not make a big soothing panful of granola? The recipe is up here now.

Three bags of it have gone out to the comment-sweepstakes winners. I have a growing fear that I packed it while it was still warm and so what will arrive in the mail is a Ziploc full of soggy condensation, but surely you'll be too polite to say.

Also, I should mention, Ben turned 9. Nine years old. Which is halfway to eighteen, if you catch my drift. When I sighed aloud over this fact, Ben said, "Don't worry, Mama, I'm totally not going to college anyways." So phew.

And the Winner Is. . .

corrie71, who wrote simply, "My cats inspire me to relax and enjoy life more."

No. I'm kidding.

It was a grueling process, complicated by the fact that many of you quested heroically towards leaving a comment on family.com--without achieving any tangible success. Alas. And thank you. I counted your noble efforts.

In the end, there was a bowlful of comments to be sifted.


And pulled from.


And the winners are (I picked three):

laura (whose comments starts, "As lauri wrote. . .")
anonymous (whose comment starts, "Ok, it's done. Disney just loves to make us pay in every way. . .")
and imnoddin.

Write me to pick your prize: a gallon bag of homemade granola, an apple print t-shirt personalized with your name, or a year's subscription to Wondertime magazine.

Let me say here how dreadfully sorry I felt for Stacey, who was not able to post from Italy. Doubtless, you cried all the way to the trattoria, and then all the way through your gnocchi with gorgonzola and your giant glass of Chianti. Terrible, terrible.

Okay, today's new food column is here, and I apologize in advance for the photographs. Any and all tips welcome. . . Keep posting over there if you can. It is, as they say where I come from, good for the Jews.

xo Catherine

Thank You

You guys are the best. Truly. I knew I could count on you, but really. . . Especially given that so many of you are, it turns out, less than interested in food and cooking. Who knew? But I should mention here that the Dalai Mama columns will continue to appear in Wondertime magazine, the print edition. If you don't have a subscription, I really can't recommend that magazine to you enough (she wrote, with full, solemn objectivity). Seriously.

The sweepstakes is ending at midnight EST tonight, Sunday. I will announce the prize tomorrow. What will it be? A framed shard of the boob pinata? A collection of old nursing pads? Some numbingly boring something else? We'll see.

Change

Dear ones, as some of you may have already noticed, my Dalai Mama column over at Wondertime.com is shifting from a bare-all chronicle of nipple hair and urinating mice to a bare-all chronicle of dinner. I promise there will be useful recipes, even though yes, it's true, I did once make a 5-gallon jar of sauerkraut that bubbled fragrantly in our pantry for yeasty, fermented months on end. . . but trust me. Everyday dinners, wholesome and delicious cooking, seasonal, earth-friendly, budget-friendly, kid-friendly approaches--it's going to be all that! And more. And more Catherine Newman than Gourmet, if you know what I'm saying here. And what I'm saying is that I don't know how to take pictures of meat. But I'm also saying that the parenting stuff will be in there--you might just have to look harder for it.

Please, please stay with me. And please, please log on to family.com and leave comments, even if you need to give them your retirement account pin number and the deed to your home. I know, I swear. But that's what it's like, and I need your comments and your feedback, and I need it over there. I am trying to think of a good bribe to offer you for registering over there. How's this: register over there--it has to be over on family.com, where the plum cake is, not on wondertime.com, where the column has been until now--and leave a comment, then come back here and tell me. I will put all the names in a hat, pull one, and send someone a little as-yet-to-be-determined present. Is that crazy? You'll let me know.

So, the seal-poop wondertime post is here, the weepy commencement post is here, and the plum cake is here. You know I love you so much. I do. Thank you.

Common Sense

From a story on the current Times homepage: "It's not the first time the embassy has urged U.S. business travelers and tourists to stay away from Bulgarian strippers." Well, we all need a little reminder, right?

But what I really wanted to tell you was something I was going to show you--and it's our one-gallon jar of granola, full. Only I can't find the camera. I will be giving you the recipe soon, though not here, which is a kind of foreshadowing, if you know what I'm saying. Suffice it to say, the granola has more flax in it than you can shake a stick at, and my kids love it, and when I refill the jar, I just feel so happy. "It's like money in the bank," I sighed to Michael, while I was admiring it, and he laughed: “Bailout, shmailout. We got us a big giant jar of granola!”

Meanwhile, I hope you'll read my wondertime columns, which are here, here, and here.

And here's kids instead of granola.

Oh, and p.s. if you check out the comments from the last post, you will see that Brad Pedinoff, my summer camp boyfriend from 1983, wrote in. Honestly, the whole internet was worth inventing just for that.

Take care of yourselves!

xo

Birdy's Question

"If Obama wins the selection, will she get to live in the lighthouse?"

That's what we're hoping, sweetheart.

I have columns up at wondertime here, here, and here.

And here's a picture Ben took through a piece of pink Saran Wrap. Very Seventies-Rolling-Stone-Magazine, no?


I can't believe that we were on our way to the Cape when I last wrote. And now it's school and maple leaves crunching under shoes and socks and it's wild grapes everywhere and wild grape smell and wild grape jam in everybody's yogurt. Plus, my usual fall melancholy. Sigh.

Enjoy your weekend, friends. I hope you're well.

The Little Column that Couldn't

Okay, it's our last hurrah: we're off to Wellfleet. If you're on the Cape, look for me, okay? I'll be the one at Moby Dick's, laughing beerily beneath my lobster bib.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

Be well and happy!

xo

Below: Ben's "fancy drinks." Yes, he already has bartending inclinations. Yes, we bought maraschino cherries.

Preserving

So there I am, just scrolling around the Lehman's (aka How to Be Laura Ingalls Wilder if She Had Been Amish) website, looking for canning supplies and imagining myself grinding our own wheat, when I come upon this, which must win "Unlikely Title for a Book," if ever such a prize existed. But I do appreciate its encouraging inclusiveness.

We are in the thick of our CSA farm share, pickling and jamming and freezing as fast as we can before it's already the next week with more produce to haul away home and manage. My odd confession is that last year we froze too many peaches. Honestly. Who freezes too many peaches? But there they are in our freezer still. The last two of the one-gallon bags, with peach season already upon us anew.

And then there are the zukes. You are loves to send your recipes, and I am using them. I baked a huge cake that was very nearly an exact cross between Beck's potluck cake and Janet's cupcakes--with the spices and buttermilk from Beck's and the extra cocoa and vanilla from Janet's plus extra salt, because that's how I am--and it was lovely. Like a cross between gingerbread and birthday cake and, well, zucchini. And while we were camping, I followed Brooke's suggestion to cook sliced squash in a foil packet (I added salt, chopped garlic, and a large knob of butter) over the campfire, and they were marvelous: tender, smoky, meltingly sweet. We did fresh Chatham scallops the same way in a separate foil pouch, and they were to die for. Not that you're likely struggling with the issue of what to do with all your scallops. But still, I just thought I'd mention.

Camping was heavenly, even with all the thunderstorms (!). I like it more and more each year, as the children become more capable and independent. Plus, I miss the babies but not the swim diapers. Here's a shot of B and B with their best friends Ava and Harry. If you can see past the hair.


The latest wondertime columns are here and here.

Have fun and take good care of yourselves!

xo

Zucchinews

Dear ones, I knew I could count on you! I am compiling your recipes, and will report back as I try them. All those casseroles are always so appealing to me, the ones that are topped with a couple grated pounds of cheddar. Mmmmm. Seriously.

Okay, Michael turned 40, there's loads to tell you and ask you about, and we are leaving to camp on the Cape, oh, approximately minus 20 minutes ago. . . but I didn't want to leave without thanking you and telling you that new columns at wondertime are here and here.

Have a wonderful week! And think of us every time you hear a crack of thunder.

xo

On t-shirt skirts, not being a control freak, etc.

Hello, dear friends out there! I hope you are well and that your stems are strong in this wilty heat that has all our tomatoes keeling over to the ground like drunks.

Speaking of--here's what every photograph of me in Virginia looks like:


Except the ones where you can't see me because I'm inside a bag of potato chips or leaning out of the frame to get a bite of someone's hot dog. We had a wonderful time--especially after I gave myself over to the chaos of it. Eight cousins is a lot of cousins, and you would definitely not have walked into our condo and thought, "Oh, by mistake I have entered a silent meditation retreat." It was noisy and wild and really, really fun. Also, I kick serious ass at Beyond Balderdash, even if Michael's brother David did actually beat me.

Here's what Ben looked like in sultry, historical Virginia:

And here's Birdy, looking more like an exhausted little Viking than a Colonial somebody:

The column that will post next Monday tells more about the trip, including Ben's critique of Jamestown's peculiar style of Colonial propaganda. (Have I piqued your curiosity? No?)
Meanwhile, please if you get a chance do read my other new wondertime columns here, here, and here.

And, onto the important matter of the Alabama Stitch Book skirt. I have sewed many of them, though I only have photos of Birdy's and mine. All have been made out of t-shirts thrifted from the Salvation Army.




The process is called "reverse applique," where you stitch around your design, then cut out the top layer to reveal the layer below. I am addicted to it. If there were photos of me at home, it would look like the top one, only the hand that wasn't holding the beer would be sewing. (Also, please note that in real life, I do not actually look like I have a pair of wee clementines hot-glued where a regular bosom should be.)

Okay. Take care, and send me your zucchini recipes. (Do you like how I sprang that on you right at the end?)

Putting the "pill" back in "pilgrim". . .

Hello, dear friends!

I'm mad, because I wanted to write a long, languorous post about all the delightful books I've been reading and the yum-summer recipes I've been making. Only I waited too long and now we're leaving to drive to Williamsburg, VA to meet up with Michael's family. Which me 20 hours of road-trip luck and 20 hours of road-trip food happiness and 4 days of contented Colonial bafflement. I'll let you know. I only wish I'd written with enough time to ask for advice. . .

Ben and Birdy already got a little taste of settlement at Ben's second-grade Colonial feast a few weeks ago. Talk about putting the "grim" back in pilgrim.


New columns are over at wondertime here, here, and here.

Take good care of yourselves!

xo Catherine

THOSE ARE MICHAEL'S TOES

(Not that mine are such paragons of loveliness, but they do have something a little less Hobbit-like about them.)

Toes

My latest wondertime columns are here, here, and here.

Did you think that maybe I'd drowned in my neti pot? Do you think that every May I'm going to write about my allergies and every May you're going to recommend the neti pot to me, and we're going to get old and grey that way, groundhog-daying our way to a snout full of salt water? I swear I'll be talking about my gall bladder any second now.

I will write again here soon. Meanwhile I hope you'll check out those columns, and thank you so much, as always, for your thoughtful comments and your patient indulgence.

And I'll leave you with a picture from Ben's pedicure shop. Come by any time.

Kerchoo.

Dear ones. The only excuse I can think of for my delinquency is the fact that my body's every drop of fluid has drained into my sinus cavity. We are a tribe of lame-os, us allergy sufferers. I'm sorry if you didn't already know that about yourself, but it's true. The walking around with a wad of Kleenex clutched in your hand, the fingers pinched around the bridge of your nose, the puffing eye sockets? It's a sign of faulty character.

But my only other excuse is a related one: I cannot tear myself away from our blooming dogwood for long enough to do anything but sneeze! Never in my life have I fallen so hard for a tree. I recommend moving in wintertime, simply so that you can have this kind of spring amazement.

Other things. . . I checked this book out of the library: food porn, rated triple x. I don't exactly cook out of it, but Ben and I do lie around in bed together looking droolingly at the photos and exclaiming. "Ooh," he says. "We should hollow out grapes and fill them with cheesecloth-molded goat cheese!" And I say, "Yeah!" And then we turn the page and he says, "Ooh! Deep-fried wild-mushroom risotto balls!"

I also just finished this book, by my new friend Katherine Center, and it was so compulsively readable that I kept saying to Michael, "One more chapter. One more, and that's it. I swear this time." Until I had devoured every last one. There's one of those hunkily perfect fictional men in it that you think about leaving your own actual real-life partner for, until you remember the impracticality of having a print boyfriend.

Also, allow me to recommend the Godspell soundtrack, on the offchance you haven't listened to it since the mid-70s, when you recorded yourself singing "Day by Day" into the microphone of your tape player. It is just as good as it ever was. The song "By My Side"? Mm. When we took the kids to see it the other week, I couldn't help noticing that all of us who spent our teenaged years singing angsty versions of "Prepare Ye"? All Jews. Go figure.

Speaking of music: thank you, as always, for your advice. I was amazed by how many of you had such fresh, original suggestions for me on the piano lessons front. It was incredibly helpful. On that front, I will take any and all allergy suggestions. . .

New wondertime columns are here, here, and here.

And, finally, a picture of my own hunkily perfect nonfictional partner performing his version of marathon-as-walk-in-the-park.

Ode to Dr. Seuss and Powdered Buttermilk

I don't mean to brag and I don't mean to boast, said Peter T. Hooper, but speaking of toast. . .

Okay, so maybe you don't know this book by heart? Oh, you should. It's a good one. Take my word for it. But what I was boasting about was this recipe, on wondertime, that was an appendage to a feature I wrote for the magazine on healthy snacking. Really, I can't sing my own praises enough here, because this popcorn represents the culmination of my lifelong quest to create a made-at-home snack that has that kind of tangy, addictive thing that turns your face and fingers a joyful, powdery orange if you know what I'm saying, even though this particular snack is actually white. But I mean, I practically had to buy myself an extruder so that I could make Cheetohs at home--and now I fantasize about that only very occasionally. Plus, and I'm not kidding, it's healthy. It really is super-dee-dooper-dee-booper. And it takes nothing like the air in the holes of Swiss cheese.

Do I sound a little tired? I feel a little tired.

There are new wondertime columns here, here, and here.

Happy spring, dear ones.

Edited to add: Uh oh! Not everyone shares my eggy joy, apparently. S. Spaihts-Mohns, for example, feels that "This book is mostly an excuse for Dr. Seuss to list off a variety of wild and fanciful sorts of birds." Which really does force one to consider that Seuss was maybe some kind of deranged pervert. And coolmom titles her review, "scrambled eggs definitely NOT super!" (!) Luckily "A Customer," while not quite approaching my own enthusiasm, offers some nice, tepid redemption: "This is a good book if you like made up birds and their egg [sic]."

Cusp Season

Here's how I know it's the season between seasons: I wrote about posole just a mere couple of weeks ago, but by the time I saw it up on wondertime, I thought: Posole? How freakishly wintery! However, the recipe is now up--it's the middle link, below--and if you're somewhere like here, well then a grey spring day might be the perfect time to make just such a warming red stew as this. Because really--the asparagus are not exactly Pinocchio-ing out of the ground yet now, are they; you might as well go ahead and boil some pork all day.

Also linked below is the column about my five year old. You know. Who's five and everything.

I have new columns over at wondertime: here, here, and here.

2 more things

I was kidding, about 19 years. It's still only 18. That was my little joke about how long it had been since I last wrote. Har har har. Sorry.

And also this:


lest you imagined he was about to win some kind of short hair prize or anything.

xo

19

Michael and I celebrated our 19th anniversary. 19! I can't believe it's been a whole year since I wrote!

The subtitle for the last few weeks could be: Birdy coughs; Catherine gets up with her; Catherine stays up after Birdy falls asleep with a lollipop in her mouth and lollipop juice pooling into her hair, long into the night, starting and finishing many novels. And the sub-subtitle could be: Lynda Barry's novel Cruddy, I wish I knew how to quit you. It's like a cross between Catcher in the Rye and a David Cronenberg movie, and it so gruesomely absorbing that I'm miserable.

Michael's subtitle could be: What? I can't hear you! I'm still in the basement, vacuuming water! (Shop vac, I wish I knew how to quit you.)

And Ben's could be: Package of stick-on mustaches, I wish I knew how to quit you. (FYI, the sheriff no longer has long hair. But more on that another time.)


I have new columns here, here, and here.

Miss you guys.

xo

18

Michael and I celebrated our 18th anniversary yesterday. 18 years! As you know, or don't know and have perhaps wondered about, or revoltedly suspected, we were not married for most of them. I wrote about this particular stubbornness of ours in an esssay in the anthology The Bitch in the House. But then I took a job at Amherst College for the famously excellent benefits, balked over the insurance forms, and checked off "same-sex partner" for Michael, with "same-sex" crossed out. Doh! They called me back in immediately ("If we insured Michael, then we'd have to insure all your boyfriends, wouldn't we now?" they said, which made me feel deliciously trampy, if still underinsured). I called home in tears. "We have to get married!" I cried into the phone. "Otherwise they won't insure you." And Michael said cheerfully, "Honey--are you proposing to me?" And, in my own broke, Blue Cross way, I suppose I was. And so we were married by the town clerk, and suffice it to say, I didn't so much appreciate needing to complete a little safe-sex lecture and be tested for STDs, given that we'd skipped already through that particular leafy glade, having conceived penis-vagina type babies and all. But whatever. All that is a long way of saying that when people ask us what event it is we're celebrating on our anniversary, I hesitate. Should I mention that we used to call it our "bone-iversary"? Probably not.

New wondertime columns are here and here and because I'm so delinquent about posting, there will be yet another one up tomorrow!

xo

Pizza

That's what I'm doing. Making pizza for a wondertime food piece I'm working on. And oh it is good pizza. But oh there is flour everywhere. And also dough in my fingernails. Plus, if I don't get a yeast infection with all the spores floating around my kitchen I will drop to the tiles and kiss them.

Anyways, I am wanting to address some questions from the comments section. One about an old column--and I knew just the one you meant. The one about how you are constantly losing the very people you love most as your children grow up and change. . . And, embarrassingly, the way I tried to find it was by Googling. And all I could find was this, which I don't think is the one you meant. But then I had to stop, because I read something about Birdy's chubby white underchin and it made me cry. Oh how I miss my babies.

Have you made that caramel cake yet? What about Ann Patchett's new book, Run? Did you read it? And finally, who recommended Half Magic to me? We are reading and loving it--thank you so much.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

Take care of yourselves!

xo

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Hey, thanks for the excellent armchair holiday gorging. It was fabulous and fat-free! Except for all the bourbon-pecan-pie, which gave my cellulite a pang just to read about it.

It all seems so long ago now. . . what with the snow, and the snow, and the wart removing and the snow. I'm going to end up dreaming that I'm shoveling the wart off of Birdy's foot. Or else that I'm sticking one of those Dr. Scholl's pads to our driveway. But thank you for your advice, as always. We've duct-taped a banana peel over my eyes, and it's really helping me see the wart less.

A few recommendations: the caramel cake in this month's Gourmet magazine; the book The Austins for second-grade-type kids; the book Happy Little Family for 5-year-old-type kids; the CD "Firecracker" by the Wailin' Jennys.

Also this month's O Magazine, because there's a piece I wrote about Michael in it. Luckily, he read it and declared it "a total love letter." So, um, phew. Also, my friend Sam took the excellent picture of us. And by "excellent" I mean, of course, "turkey wattle neck." But it's really not his fault.

New columns are here, here, and here.

xo

Identity Politics and Acne

Oh, really, this is my perfect life, that one string of comments could tackle both of these issues simultaneously. I'm not even kidding. The mundane and the paramountly important, all rolled into a day. That's what life really is, and I appreciate your thoughts

I am going to resist getting further sucked into the, um, theological debate that has been raging, but I do welcome it, and I do feel that reading the comments--or the blog at all, of course--is always a choice. I'm grateful that you continue to make it. But heady politics is no reason to not send me a link to your fabulous butternut maple cream pie, or whatever. I'm just saying.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

We've had a warm and wonderful holiday so far. Have you? What's the best thing you've eaten? Do you pray? How would you treat the recurring wart on Birdy's foot? I want to know everything.

yours adoringly,
Catherine

Jew eat yet?

It's funny timing to log on today and see that there's a small storm brewing in the comments about the Jew thing, since had my digital camera been working, what I was going to post was a photo, with the caption "Jews for Jesus," of Birdy playing with the antique porcelain creche I bought yesterday at the Salvation Army. I could really have offended everyone that way! But it's lovely, that creche, and Birdy loves the story of a baby born in a manger, and it all seems perfectly in keeping with our vision of an easier, happier world to live in.

You don't know from Jews poking a little fun?

It's actually fine with me to say you were offended: I am still political enough, even in my old age, to value dialogue over silence, alienation, abandonment. I do think it's a good practice, though, not to make those comments anonymous.

Would I say to Ben "Jews say 'Oy'"? Sure. Or I would say something more like "Many do." It's part of the culture, part of the Yiddish language. Just like you would say that Mexicans say "si" for "yes." Would I tell him that Jews are greedy wealth-mongers who would take a pound of your flesh over, say, a bad subprime mortgage? No. That's a negative stereotype. Do Jews tend to make fun of themselves? Yes--it's part of a centuries-long survival strategy.

But let me just say: I am all for worrying about stereotypes. Some of them just happen to be embedded in complex ways within particular cultural practices. But let's talk about it (she said, like a person who used to teach critical thinking to college students. . . sorry.)

Newish columns are here and here.

xo

Foil Turkey

If my digital camera didn't always pull that Taxi Driver "You talkin' to me?" routine every time I tried to use it, I would use it tonight. I would make a tinfoil heart-bosom and post it here just to prove that no, alas, it was not me who came up with that brilliant foil turkey in the Wondertime Thanksgiving leftovers piece. I would also like to say that I've written about death and heartache and grief and paralyzing anxiety for 250 years now, and never have I gotten so many emails before as I have about the turkey soup. Go figure. You all like yourselves some turkey soup. I'm glad. (Somewhere online is a newspaper article where I am quoted talking about those very same leftovers, and I sound like a finalist in the World's Biggest Jew contest. "Better you should. . . " I start every sentence. "You don't know from . . . ?" I ask. "Oy," I say.)

Oy.

New Wondertime columns are here and here. And oh, right, I nearly forgot to tell you the name of that poet! Here--lean in close and I'll whisper it in your ear. What? You couldn't hear that? What? You don't want to contribute to my health insurance fund after I get fired from my job? Really, what could I have been thinking?

Oy.

I am not even getting to the part about the condo, which will have to wait until next week. But yes, I live in a condo that is also a cabin in the woods. Little House on the Prairie, but, you know, with the prairie mown by a management company.

I hope your Thanksgivings were full of thanks.

xo

I'd been wondering about that saying!

from Wikipedia: "Quince juice from organic farming is available in Germany (where quince is called "quitte") and its pleasant taste mixes well with other fruit juices. This is where the saying 'A quince for you, a quince for me, quinces we shall eat,' comes from."

New wondertime post here.

Also, remember those Thanksgiving recipes I was steaming over in July? They're here too. And if you think I'm making it all again now, for the actual real holiday, well, quinces we shall eat, if you know what I'm saying.

The Annual Pinata Episode


Okay, so there it is. Are you disappointed that it's so G-rated? I know. I'm sorry. Don't worry--plenty of the attending parents still tease me, year after year, about the boobyata. This year's model was--how shall I put this?--kind of soft. The kids had to bash the heck out it before any treats could be lured damply from its recesses. And even though I'd put the treats in bags to mitigate all that inevitable Lord-of-the-Fliesing after them? All the bags had broken open. On account of the damp bashing. Oy.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

When I called my parents last night, my dad had just been reading my latest column and he said lovingly, "You know, you really are kind of a downer." And that's true. I really am. Which is weird, because I swear I'm nearly pathologically cheerful in my actual daily life. Go figure.

Thank you again for all your honest weighing in on that gymnastics column. I appreciate your saying that you've felt that way and your saying that you've been the exhausted teacher and your saying that you worry you'd be judged in your fancy jeans. Which you so wouldn't be--I promise you that.

xo Catherine

Linksville

New wondertime columns are here and here.

I have to admit, I regretted things about that gymnastics one. The whole poor-me-without-my-granite-counters-waah thing really rubbed me the wrong way, for instance, despite the fact that it was I myself who wrote it! There's something about gossiping about people gossiping that's extra grotesque. So, I'm sorry about that. And also my apparent lack of compassion for what must be a ridiculously hard job: the shepherding of a dozen little leotarded people safely through chaos and incomprehension and various potential catastrophes. I do understand how hard that must be, I really do.

And in that second column, the link to Caleb Potter's blog is here.

And finally: babycenter has fixed the link to all the old "Bringing Up Ben and Birdy" columns, which are here now. Because I know you really want to go back and read about the fermented yak cheese we found in Birdy's neck folds that one time.

But did you really want to make nasturtium capers? Really? Oh, you're too good to me. Just pick off some combination of unopened buds and seed pods (or one or the other--but I used both), rinse them off, soak them in very, very salty water for a day or two, changing the water which will start to smell like one of those horrible sulphury hot springs (but with capers!), and then drain them, pack them in a very clean jar, and cover them with boiling vinegar. After a week, they are salty, pickly, spicy, and delicious. Perfect for pizza!

Mystery Solved!!!

Oh you dears! I loved all those birthday messages! I also love when everyone's like, "I'm a libra too!" because that's just what I'm like. Thank you so much.

Now, only Keryn Page has solved the mystery of the Bjquatrocinco and she's solved it here
which is also where the latest Dalai Mama column is. Thank you, Keryn Page! And the rest of you with your "Bj" dirty minds and your dirty, dirty thoughts: get a room! And then I can send Ben over to talk to you through the door about various candies.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

xo Catherine

p.s. If you wanted to here about either a) my foraging for autumn olive berries, or b) my pickling of nasturtium seeds to make fake capers, let me know. I think that I should stop posting my weird homesteader practices here, though. I hear the crickets chirping out there. Also the loudly unspoken suggestion that I am losing it to my pioneer aspirations, which may be true.

. . . and I'll blog if I want to. . .

It's my birthday! And it has been since 12:03 last night, when Michael got up out of bed to make me a plate of Corn Chex nachos. Sure, necessity is the mother of invention: I'm not saying you're likely to make Corn Chex nachos if you've got, say, nice, whole, fresh tortilla chips instead of a few rubber-banded scrumpled-up bags of stale crumbs. But still. If you've never had dill havarti melted over a plate of cereal, you're missing out.

That's my little gift to you on this day!

It's been lovely, honestly. If you were to read my journals from 1982-1996. . . well, first you'd die of boredom. The melancholy! The broody obsessions! The seeing or not seeing him as I walked to or from my locker or the cafeteria and the subsequent exchange or nonexchange of greetings! But after they'd defribillated you back to life, you'd notice that I used to like to spend my birthday hurting my own feelings about how poorly understood I took myself to be. And I'm happy to report that I may be over that. "You're the best Mama that igzists" was enough to make my day. As was a little special attention from my main squeeze, even if it was accompanied by Ben's standing outside the door asking, about the Pinata treat bags he was filling for his own birthday later this month, "So, three pieces of gum and one peppermint patty?" And us answering breathlessly, "That's right sweetie!" Ah, life.

Thank you for those amazon reviews, and your wagon-circling indignation more generally. Only as I was hitting "post" last week did I realize I was trolling for a response, which you offered me so graciously. I appreciate it more than you can imagine.

The latest at wondertime is here, and also over at family.com. Where not one person has responded to my question about BJquatrocinqo. Really? Nobody? Anybody? No?

xo

Journey Cover Band, The Photo

Hey, how are you guys?

New wondertime columns are here and here. You will notice that there's a link there to family.com, where the column is also going to appear. If you comment over there--well. I'll owe you. Swistle, remember how you asked if it matters to be, about the commenting? It does matter! Next round's on me!

No more grapey outbursts from me this week, no more cannedventures. It's just back to business. You know, like plugging up the cracks in the beams whence tumble the varmint turds onto the children's bed. The usual. But I'll tell you this, if it's bats: I like the word "histoplasmosis" even less than I like the word "guano." Which isn't saying much. Not that I'm neurotic. Even if that's what someone wrote on Amazon. Which hurt my feelings despite the fact that it's in the actual book title. Sigh.

And the winning reassurance is. . . .

"It's very unlikely that you will get botulism!"

That actually made me laugh out loud. As long as it's unlikely, well then.

But so far so good. I have now canned nearly a gallon of wild grape jam, which nicely combines my fear a) that they're not really grapes but in fact deadly nightshade masquerading grapily, and b) that, unlikely as it is, we will get botulism.

Oh, but the grapes! You can smell them everywhere right now. And when you mention them to anyone, they say, "Oh! So that's what that grapey smell was!" And yes. That's what it was. It was the grapes. The smell of grapes combined with the rust-colored afternoon light is catapulting me into fall. It feels good.

I responded to some of the comments on the last post. I'm sorry about your fish troubles, honestly. Keep me posted.

Hope you're all well and happy. New wondertime columns are here and here. Please read and comment over there, if you can!

Obsessive Pioneer

All I can say is that if Pa could see me now, well, Ma Ingalls might have something to worry about. Because our shelves our now lines with rows of glass jars: blueberry jam, wild grape jam, pickled beans, bread and butter pickles, Kosher dill chips. (About those last: did the Jews actually have time to can anything? I can't imagine. Maybe we just put our pickle barrels on wheels and fled with them across the desert.) Eat your heart out, Pa. I'm all sweaty in my canning frock.

What I am is totally obsessed. Also totally going to die of botulism. Because I'm careful? But I'm not that careful. I'm kind of new to this whole canning thing, and part of me wants to do something called "the open kettle method" which is how my mother makes jam. Which all the books warn you against doing because you don't pasteurize the jars and will surely botulize your entire family. But it just seems so honest somehow. But part of me wants to eat pickles and live to tell.

Hey--wake up! We're still talking about canning!

No? Are we done talking about canning? Were you less bored when I merely waffled on and on about freezing peaches?

Okay. New wondertime columns are here and here. And thank you so much for your kind words about our fish. Both fish. Our fishes.

Summer

feels, oddly, like it's already ending, doesn't it? Or is that just me and my usual preemptive melancholy? Everything is flying by.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

Be well!

Some Clarification

So, the latest wondertime posts are here and here.

And I just thought I should mention that--well, you know all that Thanksgiving food I wrote about? That's what I was working on for one of my deadlines! (And they are killer recipes, by the way--you just wait until November comes! You'll fall to the ground, aswoon over the blessing that is your own leftover turkey.) I hadn't realized it was unclear until some of you wrote in kindly to say: "If you've got so much work, then maybe skip the whole gravy thing until you're a little less busy, you crazy head!" And I slapped my forehead. Because I am crazy. But I'm not that crazy. In my parallel magazine writing life, Thanksgiving comes in July. Hence the big deadline. Q.E.D. (A little geometry-proof humor for you there. I'm sure you all love a good geometry-proof joke as much as the next chortling nerd.)

I also wanted to mention that my friend Peter is now recording the posts, and if you listen, please weigh in on the sound quality, okay? (And by "weigh in" I mean, of course, "rave about his techno-studliness.")

xo

Hello!

I hope you're all eating lots of buttered corn and blueberries.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

More soon. . .

The Dress I'm Not Wearing to the Party

The most recent wondertime column is here, though another one should go up later today.

I also wanted to let you know that I was reading online reviews of local alteration places, and I decided against Julius the Tailor. Why did the reviewer give him only two out of a possible five stars? She explains: "I called and the person who answered said he passed away in march."

Now if somebody is actually just plain not alive, I'm feeling like two stars is kind of an odd rating. I'm feeling like zero stars would make more sense. Or maybe five, just out of respect. But two? "Eh. He's kind of a mediocre tailor. On account of being dead."

I was hoping to put a zipper in my dress with the long, busted zipper. (Marked down at Marshall's! Ten bucks is a great deal for a dress with a busted zipper, but only if you ever put a zipper in it. Currently all ten bucks has purchased me is a wad of unwearable fabric that sits accusingly on my bedroom chair, hogging up the air space.) But forget about the dress, I'll wear something else. Because we're leaving today to join my family in New York, where we'll celebrate my mother's 70th birthday. This mother, who is, believe me, more heart-stoppingly gorgeous now than she even was then. (I also can't help noticing that I am actually descended from a long line of baby-hair sniffers.)

A Placeholder

For the longer post I want to write. Thank you so much for your well wishes, about everything. I have felt so cheered by your comments, here and at wondertime.

Monday's column is here.

Somewhat predictably, my end-of-an-era sentimentality turned out to be a teeny bit premature, since the children seem to be migrating back to their queen bed. Which is fine with me. It's just the kind of thing I like to be wrong about.

I hope you're all enjoying the summer so far. xo

Come and See Me Some Time!

If you happen to be up in the Berkshires. This Saturday, June 23rd. At 7 pm. Which is when I'm reading with my dear, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Mattern and my virtual, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Niesslein. Jenn M's blog Breed Em and Weep is on some kind of sabbatical, which I completely disapprove of, but you can still go there and read all her stomach-achingly funny posts from before. Jennifer N's book Practically Perfect in Every Way is out now, and there's a fantastic excerpt here. Here's the information about the reading (below) from the site of our hosts, Inkberry, which looks like a wonderful organization. Did you know that I'd written for the New York Times? Me either! But I'm totally psyched about it. Maybe that's what I'll select my reading from! Come if you can. Party at the Holiday Inn!

A reading on Parenthood and the Pursuit of Perfection
North Adams Public Library, 74 Church St., North Adams
Saturday, June 23rd at 7:00 PM
Free
Jennifer Niesslein, Jennifer Mattern, and Catherine Newman will read from their writings on parenthood and the pursuit of perfection. Jennifer Niesslein is the author of Practically Perfect in Every Way: My Misadventures Through the World of Self-Help—And Back (Putnum, May 2007) and the co-founder of Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers. Jennifer Mattern is playwright, freelance writer, and author of the blog Breed ‘Em and Weep, which won best parenting blog in the Weblog Awards in 2006. Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir Waiting for Birdy and the weekly journal Bringing Up Ben & Birdy at BabyCenter.com. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and the anthologies The Bitch in the House, Toddler, I’ts a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons and It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters.

Meanwhile, there are columns on wondertime here and here.

I didn't write a Father's Day post, because I was too busy being a total crab apple, but here's photographic evidence from our friend Pengyew's birthday party on Saturday, taken by the extremely talented Sam Masinter:


Maybe my piece for the Times was about how hunky and delightful Michael manages to be, even with crab apples dropping all around him.

A Gift

So I don't mean to keep on and on about it, but I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I wanted to share something from it that I loved. Have you heard about the book? It describes the year that Barbara Kingsolver and her family tried to eat only local food, most of which they had grown and farmed themselves. But of course I read it as a book about gratitude and parenting, because that's just how I am.

Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus. No matter where I was in the house, that vividly resinous orangey scent woke up my nose whenever anyone peeled one in the kitchen. Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing. (page 287)

The latest wondertime column is here, and a new one should be up later today.

The Voice

Which is like a cross between Miss Long Island reading her shopping list and a goose honking by frantically after the rest of the V has taken off. And you can hear it here. It is, truly, worse than I thought. Like Meg already said here: "I imagined it a lot deeper." I'm going to smoke a few more cigars before the next taping session.

Last week's column is here.

I'm sorry to always be asking for advice, but does anyone know of a good resource (A book! What problem cannot be solved with a trusty book?) for kids who appear to be pathological nonswimmers? You know what I'm saying here? With the flailing and the dread and the torso craning itself out of the water? Thank you as always.

Allergy Relief

does not seem to be obtained from rogue biofeedback. Ever since Michael completed his massage program, I treat him like an all-purpose health-care professional: "Look at my wart," I say. I say, "Why is my knuckle sore like this?" Mostly I say, "What about this painful part of my back/foot/leg/bottom?" and so hands are laid on, groans of satisfaction are groaned, and I am grateful. But last night, as Michael was drifting off to sleep, I said, miserable, "Honey, help me with my allergies." Our pine trees have started their annual molt, and while the curtains of pale green dust blow in the windows, I am sneezing and red-eyed and scratchy-throated. When Michael said "How?" I said "I'm so susceptible to the whole mind-body thing, so psychosomatic. I'm probably a perfect biofeedback candidate. Try that." And so Michael put his hands on my chest, looked into my eyes, and said, "Take a break from your self, you crazy, overreacting immune system. It's just eensy particles of pollen! Mere molecules! Nothing to get hysterical about." And lo and behold, I laughed out a sneeze and wasn't cured at all.

Speaking of spring things, I wanted to thank you for your advice about shade perennials! We have hostas, bleeding hearts, lilies of the valley, vinca, violets, and ferns--all of which I love--and now we are the proud parents of a dead nettle, a primula, and a bugbane thanks to your wise counsel. I also have virtual sticky notes all over my computer screen that say things like "lamium: orchid frost." But I think I forgot to mention that I am an appallingly ham-handed gardener. I should be good at it: I'm crafty and a happy, capable maker of food. But I have no patience for plants unless they're dropping their gorgeous fruits and vegetables right directly into a basket that I'm holding out without even really bending my knees or putting down my beer. Alas.

And speaking of growing things, this book--Barbara Kingsolver's latest--is so fantastic that I read it every night before I even get into bed, while I'm still brushing my teeth. I am waiting patiently for her to invite me over for some of that asparagus bread pudding.

The latest wondertime columns are here and here.

Also, I seem to have waited until it was off the newsstand to mention that I've got a piece in the May O Magazine--this one about my bitchy wrinkles.

I hope you're all well and enjoying everything there is to enjoy.

The Annual Mother's Day Pimp-My-Book Post

I am writing the annual pimp-my-book post to say that this

might make a nice mother's day gift, no? Although I managed to wait long enough that now you'd have to triple-fed-ex it, which means that for a mere, uh, 35 or so dollars you could send one person a paperback book detailing another person's waxing and waning anxiety, which, as I write this, seems kind of like a bad deal compared to a nice gift certificate for sushi or botox or, ahem, a massage.

And speaking of Mother's Day! Perhaps, if you live in the Boston area, you could take your mum to the DeCordova sculpture park, and the two of you could reminisce about how cute you were when you were just a wee thing (Big Baby, by Nina Levy)


So cute and tiny, in fact, that your mother might have felt more or less like flinging her head over the balcony (Headlong, by Nina Levy):


The new post over at Wondertime is here, and there will be another one up later this afternoon.

Happy spring to all of you! If you have any advice about hardy shade perennials, please write!

Rock-a-bye

I had this idea for a post that I was going to call "shame" and it was going to be a photograph of the snow pants Ben wore all winter: the knees patched with thick strips pink duct tape and a close-up of the size (4-5) and also, maybe, of the chart on the wall where you can see that he has grown about 8-10 inches since he was 4-5. I was going to invite you to post your own shame photos in response (not that you would have any, right?).

But then I got sidetracked by this:

And because it is more or less the antithesis of shame--because every cell in Birdy's body passes through the loving and unsullied organ of her beautiful, blessed heart--I thought that maybe this photo would be better suited to a perfect early spring day, this perfect early spring day, when we are leaving the winter and its peculiar shames behind us.

p.s. The new wondertime column is here.

P.S.

The whole reason I wrote today was to check in with you about the shootings yesterday, but then I wrote something weird and deleted it and then, shy, said nothing at all. But really, it is one thing to have an abstracted apocalyptic sense of things, the way I do these days. And it is another to live out a flesh-and-blood tragedy, a grief of senseless and unfathomable proportions. Which is how grief always feels, of course. But this--this is something else. I am so sorry is all I really wanted to say. Or maybe something dumb, like "Kiss your kids."

My Thyroid Has Great Self Esteem, Thanks to You

Here's why I love you: when I post a paranoid column about my hypochondria and psychosomatic exhaustion and neurotic wasting of doctors' time and also my vague personality disorders, your write me lovingly to say, "Maybe you should get your thyroid checked!" It's like a virtual community of mothers. "They're just jealous!" you say to me. You say, "It's only because you're so passionate!" and "We would have done the same exact thing!" Thank you for that. I see why they call it "support." You know?

Meanwhile, an April Fool's Day post--of all the repulsive things--has lingered here for weeks. Malingered. Forgive me. I can only send you to this column and this one instead. And scare you with the very fierce and frightening Caped Growly Girl King.

I Wish I'd Thought

to switch my kids' underpants with their dad's! Boy would that have killed them. It makes me laugh just to think of it now, so I will have to file that bit of lingerie hijinks away for next year. (It's not called "lingerie" when it's a man's, now, is it? I see that it looks a little too Liberace for Michael's Fruit of the Looms.)

I have two columns over at wondertime that I haven't linked to: one about Birdy turning four, and one about her great and sudden love of Yiddish.

Happy Passover to you dear ones. And happy Easter. Happy Spring-interrupted-by-the-pouring-down-of-snow. And happy days of melancholy, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.

April 1, 2007

Ben's first telephone conversation with a peer (on speakerphone):

Friend: Hi Ben.

Ben: Hi.

[crickets chirping]

F: Do you have something in your house that looks like poop?

B: Probably!

F: You could put it on the ground and say you pooped!

B: Yeah!

F: Bye Ben!

B: Bye!

In a fit of festivity, I made the children fool eggs with whipped cream and apricot halves and sliced pound cake for toast, and Ben fell for it for approximately, let's see, zero seconds. "Why are these eggs so foamy looking?" he said. "This toast looks so weird." Birdy insisted that the egg tasted like whipped cream, and then we were never convinced she'd understood the whole thing. "My egg was so creamy!" she cried. "April fool!" Still! I did an April Fool's joke! Lame and cranky me! I like the bonus holidays like these, where anything is better than nothing. Nobody expects you to make a Luke Skywalker pinata or rent a team of Clydesdales or anything.

But more successful was the cramming of a long strip of toilet paper down the back of everyone's pants and groaning, "Oh gross! We've really got to teach you more about wiping."

How did you celebrate? Don't leave me hanging. Tell me.