Bread, Wine, Salt

The lovely Jodi from Jodifur  has reviewed my novel for The DC Moms, and there's a free copy being given away, so click here to read and enter !

Proper 6, Year C Luke 7:36-8:3 What are you ashamed of? What is your biggest sin, your greatest weakness, your deepest failure? What is there about you would horrify the person sitting closest to you? What would get you kicked out if only people knew? Now imagine that people did know, and you can imagine yourself as the unnamed woman in today’s Gospel story. Today’s Gospel reading takes place in the heart of Jesus’ ministry. It is surrounded in the text by miracles and parables. Jesus had just talked to the messengers from John the Baptist. His ministry was getting attention, but he had not yet angered people enough that they wanted him dead. He was a pop star at the top of the charts. Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus to a banquet at his home, both to find out more about Jesus’ teaching, and for the cachet of hosting a popular traveling Rabbi. At a formal banquet, the guests would have been lying on their left sides, propped up on their left arms, supported by cushions, leav...

I have a new post up about one of my local farmers' markets at The DC Moms .  Do you shop at producer markets? At three o’clock in the afternoon, when the market opens, it’s a great place to get fresh produce, meats , cheeses, breads and other goodies. RPFM is a producer only market, so you can chat with the farmers about what they sell.  It’s also a good place for an afternoon pick-me-up: iced coffee from  Zekes , or fresh lemonade from Migue’s Donuts, or  ice cream from Simple Pleasures . I hand my kids a few dollars and make them order their own treats, after we’ve rehearsed the “please and thank-you.” They like to help pick out berries, corn,  greens , melons, and apples as they come into season.  If there’s something perfectly ripe they want to eat it right away . . . 

Last week we had dinner at a friend's house. She made salmon, and Husband, who is not always a fan of fish that is not in the form of fish fingers (hold the custard) discovered that he could eat salmon and like it. Later that week as we were discussing what dinners we might eat, he pulled some salmon fillets out of the freezer and said I could do something with them, if I wanted. This dovetailed nicely with some rice cooker related research I'd been doing so I knew right away what I would do. My rice cooker is not currently big enough for salmon fillets (though I expect to change that soon enough) so I baked the fish instead, along with the rice and dandelion greens because why make more work for yourself that you have to? The brown rice takes a long time to cook, so keep the salmon in the fridge until just before you need it.  Keeping it cold will prevent it from drying out during baking. Lemon-Thyme Salmon with Brown Rice and Dandelion Greens feeds 4-6 Ingredients: ...

My author page is where you'll find fun tidbits like the alternate ending to Lunch in the Park.  Come check it out.

The Gladiator Arena I am a slacker-parent. In the years since I first claimed my slacker title, Lenore Skenazy created the term “ Free-Range Parent ” which not only sounds better than “slacker,” it comes with a whole philosophy attached, which you can debate with the other parents at your parenting group, proving that even if you’re not climbing the slide with your kid, you spent real time researching the reasons why you shouldn’t climb the slide with your kid. Sometimes I do call myself a free-range parent, but the truth of the matter is I’m a slacker. I would rather sit on the park bench and read a book, or commit that cardinal sin of parenting, play with my smart-phone, than climb the slide or push my kid on the swing. Back when my kids were in the “stick everything in their mouth” phase, I did put down my book long enough to take the mulch out of their hands and redirect them, but that’s about it. If my kid climbs too high on the playground climbing structure, or c...

Years ago, when I was first dating the man who would eventually be smart enough to marry me, that man had a roommate who never cooked. Instead he went home every weekend, ate his mother's cooking, and brought back enough dinners, each packed it its own tupperware, to feed him until the next weekend. My boyfriend liked to mock him for it, but I tried a more encouraging approach. I told him that if he made his own dinner, just once, I'd make him a blueberry cobbler. I don't know why I said blueberry cobbler, but I did, and it stuck. Not long after I made the promise, the roommate cooked himself his own dinner, and I was called on to make blueberry cobbler. Grab a spoon. That story has nothing to do with this recipe, except that I was thinking about it while I assembled this morning's breakfast last night. My boys were going to gymnastics camp today, which meant getting them up and fed earlier than usual, and I wanted their bellies full of food which would last the...