Category: all
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Recipes for Rosh Hashanah Part 1 & Faith & Multi-tasking
This morning Will, 4, asks for paper so he can make a book about “Evan the Horse.” He knows no one named Evan nor do we have a horse. The paper comes from my office and the book involves wobbly letters written in no particular order and lots of tape. Julia has a fever and… Read more
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Black Bean Burgers & Lime-Poblano Corn Salad & Waiting
I’ve kept you waiting, I know. And you, unlike my children who can be amused by “find something in the doctor’s office that’s a square” or “would you rather meet Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day or Kevin Youklis from the Red Sox” or “list in order the five places you want to visit”…you are… Read more
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Strawberry Sundae Sauce & Summer Siesta
Actually, it’s not a siesta at all. It’s the anti-siesta. No lounging, no meandering, just lots of work. I’m busy stocking up the Pantry for falls orders. Today is Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Sundae Sauce. I’m also nearly ready to unveil my new website! The Well-Cooked Life will launch soon and you’ll be able to… Read more
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Tomato-Cheddar Cornmeal Crust Tart & Hurricane Pie
Q: What happens when you visit the in-laws for vacation but the East Coast shuts down because of Irene*? A: You come home with four kids and a hairy beast and a soggy husband and scrounge. The shelves look like Soviet markets circa 1982 or my older brother’s fridge that first year out of college… Read more
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Extra Thick Garlic & Mushroom Soup
Advice and observations from my children: Don’t let other people make you feel bad because most of the time they’re only saying that because they feel bad about it. If you get kicked in the ballsack, it will hurt. Especially if it’s your older brother who does it. Save your candy until the movie starts.… Read more
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Warm Vegetable Salad with Beet Greens & Unplugged Parenting (The NYT is Wrong)
Ok, so the NYT isn’t wrong. I just disagree with this article here in which the author describes his terrific “plugged-in summer.” Now, don’t for a second start to think I’m going to rant about parents at the playground who are texting or reading blogs (ahem) instead of interacting or at least enjoying watching their kids.… Read more
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Farmer’s Market Gazpacho (Raw-Vegan) & Perspective
“Are you making sauce?” Julia asks. “It’s actually soup,” I say. “Actually, it’s ketchup,” Will says. He’s 4 and everything is better with ketchup. “It’s soup.” “The cold one?” Julia raises her eyebrows while I nod. “It still looks like sauce. You could use it as sauce.” And thus, the gazpacho sauce was borne. We… Read more
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Apricot-Ginger Chocolate Chip Scones & Teaching Small
“Uh, Mom? How do you close an ironing board?” This, from Jamie, age 12. I remember how this action baffled me as a kid. You press where? And do what? Perhaps I was or still am challenged by the mechanics. Or maybe no one showed me. I remember my mother teaching me how to iron… Read more
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Labneh (Middle Eastern Yogurt Dip) & Loving Summer
Fall was always my favorite season. Maybe it will be again but when I became a parent I realized the freedom of summer. Do my kids miss homework? They do not but I believe I miss it even less than they do. I fit my work in where I can all year-round but in… Read more
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Triple Cheese Polenta & You Married…her?
It’s official; I am now in touch with everyone I have ever met. It used be that people lost touch. I made friends at a summer job or met a boy in creative writing class and we had to write actual letters in order to keep knowing each other. here is an essay I wrote… Read more
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Semi-Sweet Breakfast Loaf with Carrots and Zucchini & A Threeway
I’m the kind of baker who likes the load a bunch of foodstuffs in a bowl and see what happens. This is the School of Anti-Baking. Sometimes this results in oven explosions or brownies that resemble moose turds but most of the time I have enough of the science down to have it work. “What’re… Read more
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Baked Italian Eggplant Polenta with Parmesan & No Place like Om
It is an unwritten rule that if your partner or spouse goes away for any period of time, the children and animals will give you trouble. Today is no exception. 5am? Cue the dog vomit. 5.30am cue the daughter hunched over the toilet. 5.45am cue the dog again along with the worried Daniel who slept… Read more
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Cold Cucumber Soup with Peas & Imagination
4-year-old Will and 12-year-old Jamie and I rode the T into downtown Boston this weekend. The journey, as they say, was the destination. Will loves trains, the slurring scenery, the tickets, the immovable seats, the automatic doors. We exited at the park and went for a ride on the Swan Boats. “There’s a guy on… Read more
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Twice-Cooked Beans with Smoky Paprika Onions & Laziness
Some recipe are borne of genius. Some, like this one, are borne of sheer laziness. What, you’ve never been enamored of Jacobs Cattle beans, their marble-like texture and splotches of brown and white, so taken with them you keep them cloistered away in a jar just to ogle them? Well, I have. And then I… Read more
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Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies & Lost & Found
Have I mentioned that I love a good yard sale? That flea markets are second only to food and farmer’s markets for me? History, humor, treasures all in one place. This spring my son Daniel and I went to a flea market fundraiser at his school. He sorted through albums (“I mean, what would you… Read more