Category: all
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Rustic Plum Tart & Italian Morning
Tips for a quiet Sunday morning: Wake up while everyone else is still asleep (hooray for jet-lag!). Make coffee and take your mug down to the chicken coop. Stop to play with the new puppy and her friend the tame lamb who allowed to wander everywhere. Collect eggs. note their speckles, their shades of sand,… Read more
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Radish Sandwiches & Airport Eating
Why oh why would one have congealed meat products with ice cold bread with plastic cheese and frozen salad when this is on offer? My airport meal consists of: Chewy ficelle bread, one half spread with goat cheese, layered with radishes, cucumbers, and salt. The other half has simple, sweet butter, radishes, and Maldon’s. Hell… Read more
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Mint Chocolate Chip Granitas & Vacation
We leave for Italy tonight. Will I be writing and posting from there? Yes, provided the elves who control my dad’s internet access show up for work. In the meantime, we’ll have a cool dessert on the porch and hope we remembered to pack everything.. Granitas are a good treat and can be made in… Read more
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Oven Omelet with Garlic Scapes & baby Spinach & Art
In the food-as-modern-scultpure category, garlic scapes win first place. Green in shades from lightest to moss, twisted as witches fingers, lovely enough to use as a centerpiece and yet too delicious to waste on topiary. I love the bite. Are they the love child of garlic and onion? Perhaps. But they make for a flavorful… Read more
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Beet Salad with Lime Vinaigrette (Raw) & School’s Out for Summer
Nothing says Summer Fun for kids like a raw beet salad, right? Wrong. But this does not mean I won’t make it again. It was a great for items in my CSA delivery and because it’s barely heated through, the beet retains bite Read more
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Triple Greens with Crispy Coconut & Saying No
I say no a lot. No you may not have ice cream, no you may not paint the dog, no you may not watch tv in afternoon. Saying no helps my kids learn how to be creative. No tv = magic wands made of paper towel rolls and chasing games around the house and soccer… Read more
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Strawberry Upside Down Cake & Old Friends
The email arrives as these things do, out of the blue for the one on the receiving end. I read, try and take it in. Our friendship breakup eight years ago was a source of pain and, moreover, left me confounded. Yes, I’d known we were flailing, growing apart – me with kids, she on… Read more
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Father’s Day & To Sir(loin) with Love
Father’s Day starts early this year with six-year-old Daniel deciding to serve breakfast in bed to his dad. Sounds idyllic and yet looks a bit quirky as Daniel shows up with a tray of cereal he’s poured himself, an apple cut in half (“I couldn’t really do even slices”), the milk sloshing over the sides… Read more
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Oven S’mores & A Hairy Beast
Inevitably, the subject of pets comes up at various points – college, for example, or pre-school parent chit chat or little league chit chat or pediatrician appointments. “Any pets?” “Yes, a dog.” “Oh, we want one but my husband’s allergic/my kids won’t take care of it/we don’t have the space/I like cats.” “We have a… Read more
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Asian Broccoli Slaw & An Anatomy Lesson
My mom took Julia, age 7, and her friend Sally for the afternoon. They played make-believe, ate tuna salad and celery and Oreos and run around Grammie’s townhouse and did slippery-slides on the wood floors. That night, Sally’s mom called me to say she was sorry. “For what?” Sally’s mom is a pediatrician. “I think… Read more
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Curried Sweet Sunflower Seeds & Throwing Caution to the Wind
This summer we’re going back to my dad’s house in Italy. It is there where we lose track of the days, eat lots of local cheese, let the kids swim late and look up at the stars without ushering them into bed on time, where gelato is a daily treat, and picking vegetables from the… Read more
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Communal Bowl of Japanese Noodles & Cures for Boredom
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: mess is fine by me. I like a tidy house but I also know that one of the keys to relaxed fun is letting go. In light of that, I set up a couple of activities for the kids. We had a bit of a heat… Read more
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Chocolate Pudding Cake & A Free Cup of Coffee
I go through phases of buying coffee. Most of the time, I’m too frugal to treat myself to a 3$ misto and it’s more convenient just to set the pot up the night before at home. This year, during TYOTS, eating became a real chore for me. So did making anything, including coffee. Sometimes I… Read more
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Quick Radish Pickles & Recovery
By now you might know that something very bad happened to one of my kids this year. He’s 9 and has been recovering in a variety of ways; therapy, talking, and, since March, cooking and baking. Sunday nights he flips through cookbooks and decides what he’d like to make. Monday we find the ingredients and… Read more
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Miso Collard Greens & Making Out
Before I had ever kissed anyone, I figured liplock would be similar to the long, sunset-hued sessions on The Love Boat. I’d be there, in my off-the-shoulder dress and we’d gaze at each other before leaning leaning leaning and then joining mouths until Isaac or Doc interrupted us for the conga line on the lido… Read more