Bread, Wine, Salt

In October of 1997 I was on a ferry from Calais, France to Dover, England.  From Dover my friend and I had a long train ride to the North of Scotland.  After a month of hostels and backpacks and European men with questionable intentions, my friend and I were still friends, but we did not have eight hours of conversation left in us. I needed a book. I picked two books from the duty-free gift shop on the Ferry, and read them both on the train. One was The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian, number 18 in a popular series featuring the brave, dashing sailor Jack Aubrey and his friend the naturalist and intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin. The eighteenth book is not the best place to jump into a story, but O'Brian and his publisher knew that, and the new reader is helped along with crucial bits of backstory, so I didn't have trouble following it. I've forgotten the other book I bought that day, but in the nearly 16 years since I first read The Yellow Admiral I've be...

In June we had house guests. Since the last time we'd seen them they converted to the paleo diet. (Short version: no grains, no dairy, no legumes, lots of meats, veggies, nuts, and fruits, limited raw honey, dark chocolate.) We had to feed them, while also feeding my older son who won't eat meat unless it's bacon. Almost as soon as they were gone I had vegetarian friends come over for a play date, and I had to feed them lunch. And then the next day my mostly vegetarian friend and her utterly carnivorous husband and son came for a visit and I had to feed them, too.  I say "had to feed them" as if it were a trauma, which is wasn't. I like feeding people. I say "had to" because they were in my home over mealtimes so I was required by the laws of hospitality to offer them sustenance. Basic hospitality also required that I provide food that was acceptable to them. Hospitality doesn't say anything about judging their dietary choices. Why they ea...

It was my day to co-op at my sons' school, and I had a client meeting 25 minutes away in the afternoon. School ends at 11:30 and the meeting was at 1:00. Normally that would have been plenty of time to get the kids home, fed and safely deposited in the loving embrace of the playroom where they could occupy themselves and enjoy the benevolent neglect of their father who was working from home in the next room. But of course nothing is ever simple and I was the only co-oping parent instead of being one of two, and my older son's class let out a bit late due to some flower planting and a trapped possum. I got home much later than I had expected. I did at least have a plan. We had good cheddar and tortillas in the refrigerator, and in the fruit drawer of the pantry there were a couple of good baking apples. My goal was to make these as quickly as possible. I used an apple corer-slicer, but a knife would do just as well, grated my own cheese and had both boy...

My kids are unpredictable. Restaurant portion sizes are unpredictable. Put them together and I end up with one whole, huge grilled cheese sandwich in my fridge. I have this aversion to throwing away food, especially if I paid someone to cook it for me, so the grilled cheese sits in my fridge for a few days. Grilled cheese is not a food which ages well. I had to do something. That something turned out to be a super-simple savory bread pudding which used up the grilled cheese and two sausage links that were hiding out in my freezer, waiting to be forgotten. It's even pretty quick since it bakes a skillet already hot from the stove. It's adaptable to whatever crusty bread you might have lying around, and it will be great with or without those two lonely sausage links in your freezer. Savory Bread Pudding with Sausage, Cheddar and Apples 1 Tablespoon olive oil 1 small onion 8 ounces italian sausage 2 small tart apples 6 ounces leftover grilled cheese sandwich, or c...

Can someone better at photography than I am please explain why my sour cream is glowing? I promise it wasn't really glowing. Black bean and cheddar quesadillas on whole wheat tortillas, served with salsa and sour cream. Beans were cooked as described here . Everything else was store-bought. This was more than enough for the four-year-old, the 18-month-old and the spare toddler. The container is Ziploc brand. I don't pack many lunches these days. Older is only in school half-days and I'm at home during the day. Wednesdays are my only consistent lunch-packing days, as that's the lunchtime playgroup day. The lunches at playgroup vary widely, from nutritionally balanced to "Here, eat some raisins and goldfish." Honestly if I weren't posting lunches here I'd probably serve ravioli every week, and it's possible that the fruit wouldn't always be part of the plan. It's not that I don't serve my kids a variety of foods, it's...

I had plans for you, oh handful of people who read this blog. I had big, important plans. I had a list. And then the week went not so much wrong as agley. It wasn't Murphy's Law that got me, just Burns'. So I've been in survival mode, which doesn't make for great blogging. Do you need a picture and instructions for spaghetti with tomato sauce? I doubt it. But, as I go into another day of slapping dinner together, I do have some wisdom to impart. It's even something I learned during a graduate school seminar, so you know it's crucial to the future of humanity. Are you ready? Here we go: Pre-shredded cheese is crap. And not in a snooty, “processed food is EVIL” kind of way. It is demonstrably, scientifically, factually less delicious than block cheese. (This is graduate school level knowledge, remember?) There are two reasons. First pre-shredded cheese has anti-caking agents in it. I don't blame the food companies. They don't have a choi...