Vernal Equinox

Oh don't you love the spring? And the word vernal? It just has the greenest sound to it, even though that's probably because I'm mixing it up with verdant. But still. The hyacinths are pushing out the ground like alien pod life, and the cardinals are flirting in the forsythia (everyone in my family calls the female my "girlfriend," and says teasingly, "Hey Mama, your girlfriend's at the feeder!), and the evenings are long and lit. It is a glorious time. So maybe (brace yourself for the lame segue), you were thinking of making biscuits? Have I got the recipe for you!

I also wanted to say something here, which is this: I love FamilyFun magazine. I do. I have been writing for them since 1992, when, as my friend Ann and I love to recall over a few drinks, I sent in my bird-feeder prototype, and the tester who unwrapped it promptly cut her hand open on the decorations I'd cut from a Coke can. Classy! (Note: I have refined my ideas over the years. I swear.) Every year I look forward to writing the Valentine's feature; every year I look forward to making the April Fool's Day gag meal for the kids (last year it was meatloaf-and-mashed-potato "pie"! Bwa-ha-ha.); every year I get birthday cake ideas and holiday ideas and craft and game ideas. And I am only mentioning this here, now, because look--I know it's a totally different magazine from Wondertime, and nobody is as heartbroken about Wondertime as I am (with 1 or 2 possible exceptions), but if you open up your mind to FamilyFun, you might just love it. That's all I'm saying. Even though I know it's annoying to get that "Oh, by the way, we switched magazines on you!" card in the mail (I actually got one too! I was like: Yes, hello missing livelihood, I noticed.).

To inspire you: the dinner "pie" (tinted with beet juice!). I made the kids real strawberry pie for dessert so they wouldn't feel tricked in the bad way.

Who knew

That I looked like a cross between Abe Vigoda and Steve Landesberg in Barney Miller?

Here is Birdy's drawing:


Three faces are her doll Bitty Baby, and one is me. Can you guess which is which? When she was done, she squinted at it critically for a moment, tapping the pencil against her pressed-together lips, then added one more line to my forehead, and exhaled: "Perfect!" I'm submitting this drawing to Blue Cross when I make my case for why they should pay for Botox.


Meanwhile: perfect oatmeal cookies are here. I hope you are all well and thriving!

xo

I Won

the "The World's Most Beautiful Readers" contest, and my prize was you.

I don't know how to describe the experience of seeing all of your faces on facebook--this uncanny feeling of recognition, and yet so many of you I've never laid eyes on before. It was totally moving, utterly uplifting. Thank you so much. I really had no idea. I looked at you and your puppies and your babies and your bellies and your backyards and your cupcakes and your kids and your partners, and I was amazed. By what nice hair you all see to have, for one. And by your cats, many of whom could stand to lose a little weight, no? And mostly by your smiles. What a wild ride. Loretta, thank you again.

Okay, onto other matters, like more chicken, here. This is a foolproof and uproariously delicious recipe. You will not even need to clean your stove afterwards! But you may wake up thirsty in the night.

Speaking of waking up thirsty in the night: Birdy is sick again. With a fever again. She woke crying in the night, asking shakily but politely after "some ice cold water, please" and then would wake again periodically to say, "Mama, could you please pass me my ice cold water," which I found totally heartbreaking. Trader Joe's Mango & Cream Bars are our saving grace right now.


xo

The Face of Six

Birdy is 6 today. Birdy. My baby. Lots of you were pregnant at the same time as me, and you are doubtless feeling this too, this head-shaking kind of how-did-it-happen soaring and aching of the heart. Oh!

Here she is, with the doll's sleeping bag that our dear friend made for her. There's something so funny and sweetly old-fashioned about this picture. You'd never know that just one minute later she hiked up her dress and wagged her bottom at me, sing-songing, "Look at my bu-utt, look at my bu-utt." Such a delicate flower, that Birdy.

In other news, there is a facebook "fan" page up! Or maybe it is a "group" page? I don't know. Thank you so much, Loretta Craveiro who is not, I swear, *me* or even someone that I know personally. I am not sure what will happen over there, but I am grateful.

And in other other news, there are roasted chickpea snacks here, for all you salty-snack cravers out there who want something healthier than Cool Ranch Doritos. (When they discover that Cool Ranch Doritos are actually healthy, I will be eating them three meals a day.) We're brainstorming other seasoning ideas besides the curry powder, which is delicious, but not for everyone. Please let me know if you try anything delicious.

Enjoy the snow, if you're out here with us. Or whatever brightness comes your way!

xo

I Thought You'd Never Ask!

Anne Russell has kindly indulged me by asking after the puzzle. Oh, this old thing? This thing that represents senselessly wasted weeks of my life? Voy-la:


Michael read something recently about how it's great to play board games with your children precisely because they're so pointless: it communicates to your kids a desire to spend time with them for no other reason than to spend time with them. Of course, that totally suits me, given my profound love of board games (Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Chutes and Ladders, and Candyland excepted). But I figure it's the same with puzzles. Only, it's just me. And therefore both narcissistic and schizophrenic. Alas.

Moving on:


Pancakes! The best pancakes in the world. Which I posted, coincidentally, the day before IHOP's famous benefit pancake give-away! The last thing I ate at an IHOP were blueberry blini when I was pregnant with Birdy. And I left them in the parking lot, if you know what I'm saying.

xo

Happy Spring!

Okay, it's not really spring. But I have been repeating, "Look at the gorgeous light!" all week like a Pollyanna parrot.

Did you want to read about how revolting chicken is, followed by a recipe? I thought so! I've got just the thing for you.

And here, just for you, is a photo I excluded from the column. Parsley a little too sparsely. Or maybe not sparsely enough.

Maybe I could spend the 99 cents for a fresh bunch before trying to photograph it? No?

Romance

Oh my gosh, remember Birdy's valentines? Ben was just reminiscing about them and we got to laughing all over again. It seems like only yesterday that she was a chubby almost-four-year-old pummeling her little pals with sentimental snippings of death and devils. And now she's a skinny almost-six-year-old decorating bookmarks with doily bits. "No offense, but do your friends even read?" Ben asked, and although I called him on the tone, he did have a point. But that poor Birdy. She's sick, sick, sick with a fever--the kind where one minute they're lethargically nibbling dry Cheerios from a mug and the next they're lethargically drifting away into a fretful nap that they don't even wake up from when you sneak in to turn off Clifford. That's okay. "I know all these by heart," she'd said earlier about our little DVD of episodes. "They all end with sharing." Indeed.

Please go to family.com for my super-duper fancy-schmancy easy-peasy Valentine's Day recipe. And let them know you were there! They like to know that.


I took this picture just yesterday! Is that the face of a kid who's coming down with something? Actually, maybe it is. The smile doesn't quite make it the rest of the way up her face.

Thank You

As always, thank you. Your indignation over Wondertime's ending was just what I needed. I even forwarded it to all the folks there, because sometimes it feels good to wallow collectively. Your kindness is so helpful, and your words so inspiring. I will, of course, be all right.


Because I've applied for a Two-Thousand-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle Grant from the U.S. government!


Also, a Hanging Out With Birdy Grant. As soon as one of those comes through, we'll be all set!

Meanwhile, here's a new recipe over at Family.com. Remember how you wanted a school lunch recipe? That's what it is. While you're over there, you may notice my little Super Bowl recipe from yesterday; "little" is the operative word. I did not exactly go all out.

Hope you are thriving.

xo Catherine

Silver Linings

I know I can be kind of a Polyanna girl. But this morning? Our car was frozen to the driveway like it was in one of those Crazy Glue commercials from the 70s with that guy's construction helmet cemented to a pylon, and so we walked to school. And in the woods, it was as if the trees had been encased in glass. I have never seen anything quite like it, everything glittering and silver like we were in a magic forest inside a fairy tale. And on the way Ben invited a game called "Light Stepper" where you tried to tread softly to keep yourself atop the crust of snow--and of course the kids could do it, because they are as weightless and agile as cats or angels, while their father and I clomped through up to our knees. An ice storm is so treacherous and just so breathtakingly beautiful.

And so it is, right? Many of you have heard of the Wondertime ending by now, and I can't tell you how much your support means to me. Thank you for your words here, and there, and your thoughts--it's such a gift. I am, like my fellow Wondertime folks, heartbroken and worried and overjoyed to have been a part of something so lovely. These are hard times for so many people, but buoyant ones too. Our Dogwood is encased in ice, and yet the spring buds are there already, glittering like glass beads, shining with promise.

God. Sorry. I am such a wreck.

Meanwhile: tamale pie! It's over at family.com, right here, where my food column will continue live a full and rich life. Please visit.

Take care! Drive carefully! Stay warm.

xo Catherine

p.s. I forgot to mention that I have a short piece in this month's Redbook magazine. About romance. Because you know how romantic I am.

A Long Time Coming

Don't worry, I haven't gone all unromantic on you. I was going to post a photo of the ballroom dancing (oh those smiles I could look at for the rest of my life!) or, to be funny, of the helicopter taking off (see ya!) or of the crowd in joyful tears, like we all were yesterday. But then, today, there is this--and this is what it's all about. We are so blessed.

Meanwhile, for a culinary non sequitur, there is borscht. Here. Plus, there are many more soup recipes in the February issue of Wondertime. Boy was my family eating a lot of soup while we were testing those: "What's for dinner?" was our favorite joke.

Love to you and yours.

xo

New Recipes

Gosh, I'm sorry I haven't written here in so long! I've been really, really busy.


But I do have two new recipes up at wondertime--one for corn chowder and one for a puffy oven pancake. They're both here.

There's something a little funky going on at family.com, where you can only see the two most recent recipes. But the whole archive is still up at wondertime, here.

Check in this week if you can--about what recipes you've tried, what's working, what you'd like to see more of. (First I wrote "more or less of," but then I worried that I was really courting your irritation with, say, photos of my kids in their pajamas or my various exhortations about salt.) And post over at wondertime if you're able. I'm always grateful for that.

I hope you're all settling happily into what feels like the "real" winter to me--that stretch after the holidays when it is all about the snow and the ice and the bright blue sky. Soon we'll smash our gingerbread houses with a hammer: a ritual that marks the official end of something here. (Our sanity, maybe?)

xo Catherine

Leftovers

Have your holidays been marvelous? Ours have. I have hardly even noticed the wax from the menorah candles splashing onto my freshly painted windowsill and leaving colored waxy dents in the smooth white. Ahem.

But otherwise, it's been love and joy and ham around here. The ham recipe is up at wondertime over here.

Soon, we'll be taking the tree down. Sigh. But until then, we'll enjoy our family's rich and varied history. Ahem.

Love and joy to you. xoxo

Happy Everything to You

Dear ones, there are new columns up at wondertime: Dinner Beans, for an unphotogenically humble meal, and Maple Snow Taffy, for an outrageous winter treat.

And my favorite holiday card outtakes, below--not the weird half-shut-eye ones, but the ones that just perfectly express who the kids are.

Wishing you peace and joy, health and happiness, and a new year filled with love.

xo

Vanilla

Dear ones. A very fun recipe for vanilla extract is up here, at wondertime.

Can we get a running list over there of your favorite recipes with vanilla in them? I was thinking that, for a gift, it would be fun to package the extract with a recipe.

Meanwhile, my ears are still stuffed, and all of the humor and nuance in my life seems to have drained straight into my eustachian tubes. Where there was once wit and laughter, there is now me tugging on my pinna and yawning with the kind of deranged intensity that makes people step away from you in line at the post office. Also, it's boring to talk about, as is indicated herewith.

xo

Welcome back,

dear friends. I have written about carrot salad, here, and--if you didn't get to it last week--about cranberry upside-down cake, here. I am loving this change to food and recipes, but I am sad that it leaves me frankly no occasion to tell you about what happened on Friday when I applied a neti pot to my clogged sinuses. All I will say is that Michael, who was in the bathroom with me when it happened, cried, "Holy cow!" as an entire universe slid out my nose and down the drain.

I am also finding little excuse to talk with you about how nine turns out to be the age of ages. Do you know what I mean? Does it last, this golden time? Oh, I want it to.

Love to you and yours.
xo

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