surprise me

thursday breakfast: oven pancake

We've been talking about surprises this week. Some of us like them some of the time. Some of us don't like them at all. We don't often admit that each new moment is actually going to be a surprise, it's more comfy to fake a little control. My husband eats the same breakfast, sitting in the same chair every single day. 

I have found that our kids like to know what to expect in the breakfast arena, too. You'd think I would have caught on to this more quickly. It would have saved a lot of trouble. Here's how breakfast time used to go:

kids:  What's for breakfast?

me:  ummmm . . . gee . . . how about French toast!

one kid:  Great!

another kid:  But I don't like French toast!

or, even worse, and much dumber on my part, 

me:  What would you like for breakfast? 

one kid:  pancakes!

next kid:  bacon!

last kid:  Lucky Charms!

So, a couple years ago, we worked together to i.d. the weekday breakfast menu that we all enjoy (David does not participate in this menu, please see above). It is great for me, a huge time saver, I know just what to have on hand and everybody's actually happy. Here's how it goes these days:

Alternating Mondays: French toast or waffles

Tuesday: eggs and toast

Wednesday: oatmeal

Thursday: oven pancake

Friday: cereal

Weekend: your choice

If I forget what day it is and make oatmeal on Tuesday, there is hell to pay. My very favorite day is Thursday, because the oven pancake is utterly delicious and pretty good for you, too. 

oven pancake in the big skillet

(I really need to work on my food photography technique, 

it always looks so much better in person)

I do have to be on the ball a little earlier for this one, but the 20-minute baking time is great for having a cup of coffee and chatting with the kids, or even taking a quick shower. Here's my easy peasy recipe:

Put 2 T butter in a cast iron skillet in a 400-degree oven until butter melts.

Meanwhile, mix 3 large eggs, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c whole wheat flour, 1/4 t salt in a bowl.

Pour the batter into the skillet and return to oven.

Bake around 20 minutes. Dust your buttery, pouffy pancake with powdered sugar and serve with fruit and maple syrup.

Surprisingly scrumptious. 

take me with u

When I was little, whenever we celebrated Mother's Day or Father's Day, one of us kids would inevitably ask (with a little whine) "Why isn't there a kid's day?" And the answer to this innocent question was always the same and probably has always been the same from the beginning of time: "Every day is kid's day." This may be sort of true, but we have decided to make the holiday official.

It started when Annika was a toddler who only wanted Mama, not Daddy. In an effort to introduce her to the joys of having both parents at her beck and call, we put forth the floating holiday, "Kid's Day". Originally meant to give Annika special time with her daddy, it has morphed into a family tradition: one kid and one parent doing something fun together. Building a foundation of shared experience and trust, with the message: "You are so important to me." 

It does not have to be big, but it can be. It does not have to be long, but it can be. We have been canoeing, zooing, swimming, horseback riding, skating, water sliding, dining, space camping, hiking, carouseling and shopping at the hardware store. By now, with three kids, our holiday takes a little more coordinating that it used to. But it is certainly my favorite holiday, beating out the 4th of July, New Year's Eve and even Christmas. I am pretty sure David would say the same thing. He is great at staying committed to this wonderful tradition.  I know that most parents spend special time with their kids, we are not unique. One thing we have discovered is that naming it and making it official makes it even more special. Last week I was the lucky co-celebrant of two such holidays: 

Ollie and I went to the zoo on Thursday. It was very cold. We had a great time together as pretty much the only people at the zoo. Before my very eyes and unprovoked by me, Oliver  transformed into an animal rights activist committed to releasing polar bears and monkeys back into their natural habitats. 

Over the weekend, I took Annika on a Kid's Day to the ballet to see Fancy Free. Most memorable for me was the sight of my lovely daughter re-creating this dance in the kitchen the next morning. 

And now my heart cries out to spend a little holiday with 12-year-old Cal.  It's been too many months and he is growing up so quickly. 

mulligan stew

My little clean-up project is taking longer that it could have. I have hit a few walls (the bag of unsent and returned "address unknown" Christmas cards) and managed so far to climb over them. I see now that this is going to be the absolute toughest room to clean, especially if I want it to be really organized rather than the usual "fake organized". 

Oliver is home sick today with the stomach flu. In our house, flu sufferers possess the distinct ability to awaken at 2:00 a.m., traverse yards and yards of hallway, climb or descend stairways, and pass one or two bathrooms on the way to my bedroom, where they stand just inside the doorway, announce that they don't feel so good, and proceed to spin in circles, spraying projectile vomit all over my bedroom. I am now so experienced at this type of clean-up, I tell myself, "What a wonderful opportunity to disinfect my floor and bedskirt and furniture and walls!" On the plus side, David and I had trouble falling back to sleep after all that middle of the night action so we stayed up telling funny stories and laughing for an hour until we drifted off. It was like a surprise  date. Ollie is a precious little buddy, trying to stay cheerful and optimistic while he pukes away throughout the day. 

I am happy to be going to yoga class tonight while Annika is at ballet and then out to dinner with my sweet girl at our favorite Monday night restaurant, Cafe Manna. This place is wonderful and the fare is entirely healthy. I always feel great on the way home.

As February wanes, I find myself dying to make something, sew something or do just anything creative. Historically, I have always made time for creativity, but this has not been the case for the last two years. I saw this cute book Pretty Little Pincushions at the library, so once the pantry is cleaned out, I think I'll treat myself to making a little pincushion. There are some very fun ideas in the book, including an entertaining voodoo doll pincushion. Don't worry, I probably won't make that one.

urge to purge

        

Can I do it? We shall see. 

Here are the embarrassing before pictures 

(sorry for any trauma this may cause the viewers). 

If I don't publish these, I may backslide and we can't have that.

After OD-ing on Peter Walsh this week, I have decided to tackle the pantry/office. That 12 x 7 ft. box that houses all our food, baking and canning supplies, recycling, egg cartons, a small library and all of our business/officey/homework stuff. A lot of function required for one little room. This space has been sitting here for 4 years with the ugly wallpaper half torn off and piles of papers that are growing exponentially, as bad as any I've seen on the Oprah show. I take half-hearted stabs at cleaning it out every few weeks or so, but it never stays sweet for more than two days. Thankfully, the room has a sliding door for when a carful of visitors is spied pulling into the driveway. 

As I toss the stacks of clutter into boxes and bags labeled donate, recycle, keep, do, David is laughing, asking me "Does your butt make me look fat?" He gently and with good  humor points out my tendency to claim that when "this one thing" is set to straights, all my problems will melt away. For example, "If I can finally find a great hairstylist, everything else will magically fall into place!" or "Once I have perfected my meditation technique, the rest of you people will be soooo relaxed!" I acknowledge that he is correct on this point.

For all my tendency to create stacks, I totally love to get rid of stuff. Last year I actually threw into the trash most of my college papers and several boxes of old, incriminating photos. I have taken no less than 10 packed van trips to church rummage sales, Goodwill and St. Vinny's in the last few years. And everything that didn't sell at last summer's yard sale went straight to donation. On the flip side, I do seem to be the extended family's chosen receptacle for memorabilia. And every other little piece of junk does sort of look like a potential art project. And what if the IRS calls? Or what if I have to summon every last medical record in order to change health insurance companies again? Everything begs to be treasured.

Part of the challenge in this house are the three museum curators: Daddy and the two older kids. Nothing can be thrown away: "That ripped up piece of cereal box I found on our nature walk five years ago is important to me, Mama!" , "Please save all of that old dusty furniture in the attic for me so I can have it when I grow up!" or "Honey, I simply have to keep everything I ever wore or collected in my 25-year military career . . .  you never know when they may call me up again!" Once the pantry is cleaned out, I wonder what my funny guy husband will say when I tell him that HIS basement office is making my butt look fat? 

but I really love to go out!

pecan bonanza last night for dinner:

pecan-crusted chicken

roasted asparagus with pecans and sun-dried tomatoes

bulgur

On Wednesday, I was privileged to attend the monthly "Women's Night Out," a wonderful meal with fabulous, entertaining friends. The promise of this get-together sustains me throughout the month, with the knowledge that big fun with some of the best women in the world is on the way. 

On this night out, a couple of the women at the table ordered the special, "pecan-crusted chicken salad". When the salad arrived, it did look delicious, but the promised encrusting of pecans was nowhere to be found: the chicken was naked. Slightly crestfallen, my good friends gamely enjoyed the salad anyway, though I know they were wishing for that crunchy pecan crust. I understand why they so looked forward to the promised dish, because actual pecan-crusted chicken was coincidentally on the menu at our house for this week, and it is fabulous. 

The recipe for this delicious dish is from The Flavor Point Diet by Dr. David L. Katz, a book of super-healthy menu ideas and recipes. The premise is that if you eat food with a single flavor theme in a day, you will eat less. There's lemon day, tomato day. . . pecan day. I purchased this book and followed the diet a couple of years ago. It worked back then, but, of course, any "diet" takes an impossible level of dedication for moi to follow it forever. And this one was a little expensive for a family of 5.

On the bright side, reading the book and incorporating many of the fantastic, healthy recipes into our menu has transformed how our family eats. Thanks to this great book, The Willis Family Cookbook (by Aunt Claire) and my other favorite, The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, we are blessed to be enjoying some of the best food I've ever tasted: the meals we have out on the town can't touch the fare we get at home. Except for Indian food, which I crave in an out-of-control manner but have not yet mastered at home. For those wonderful, spicy flavors, we still get to go out. 

crepe du jour

One of the many highlights of our recent weekend in Chicago was enjoying a sumptuous breakfast at LB's Bistro and Patisserie in the Sheraton Towers. Opened only two months ago, LB's is the first restaurant venture for acclaimed pastry chef Laurent Branlard, winner of the 2008 World Pastry Championship. Mr. Branlard personally trained all of LB's pastry chefs. 

As soon as we spied the crepes at LB's, we thought of my brother-in-law, Michael, who has been making crepes almost daily since Christmas. He fills them with lemon and powdered sugar, bacon, eggs, peanut butter . . .  just about anything in the pantry. We wanted to take a photo of these crepes to show Michael.

Pictured above is chef Bernardo. He was so much fun to talk with, and he graciously allowed me to film him making the most delicious berry crepes, stuffed with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. Teasingly, our waiter asked if we were going to post the little film on YouTube, and so we promised to do so. This short video is the result. I had to film from behind a glass partition, and the lighting wasn't great, and we had no sound, but you can get a sense of how much fun Bernardo was having sharing his wonderful technique with the admiring recipients of his mouthwatering artwork. 

#*&^%@*! modern life

looks inviting

1. the lists, the errands
   
2. hours on the computer: monitoring kids schoolwork, paying bills, banking, placing orders, making reservations, doing research, filing forms, renewing library books, keeping up with the news, responding to e-mail, blogging. 
3. spare moments spent returning phone messages
4. doctoring and dentisting
   
5. home just long enough to make a mess but not long enough to clean it up due to driving kids near and far for intense, time-consuming activities
6. rotisserie chicken. . . again?
7. on hold with the insurance company for 48 minutes today
   
8. 3 grocery stores required to complete 1 grocery list
   
9. daily mountain of mail
   
10. maintaining, disinfecting, shredding, recycling

After many months of modern life, we are about to blow. So, naturally, I just spent the better part of 3 days online trying to find an affordable hotel in a nearby metropolis that meets all of our requirements. It all feels a little crazy. 

In simpler days, we would have picked up and left, confident that we would encounter excellent lodging along the way. Sometimes it backfired, but we always had fun. And way before that, we could have just ridden our donkey into town, tried every inn along the way and ended up in the stable. That seems like a decent plan. Maybe I'll just take my sleeping bag out to the barn tonight.

have you considered getting that stalwart removed?

From Merriam Webster:

bellicose: favoring or inclined to start quarrels or wars

stalwart: marked by outstanding strength and vigor of body, mind, or spirit

These are just two of the ten-dollar words our new President used in his Monday night press conference. Yes, we pretty much know what they mean, but still, I did need to run to the dictionary to make sure I would not use them incorrectly in future conversation: "These darn bellicose veins are so unsightly." 

What I love so much about Mr. Obama's lingo is not that it shows him to be well educated, thoughtful, intelligent, or that he simply has great command of the language. Those qualities ought to be expected in the leader of the free world--our standards should always be this high. What means so much to me is that the vocabulary is not dumbed down for the people. If we need to take a little trip to the reference aisle now and again, so be it. The message I hear is that we can all rise to the occasion. 

the tolkien diet

Calvin as Frodo

breakfast

second breakfast

elevenses

lunch

afternoon snack

appetizers

dinner

bedtime treat

In the tradition of hobbits, this is our dining schedule on weekends when the kids are home and every day here with the 4-year-old. Rare is the moment when someone is not eating. Which means a whole day can go by in which I never leave the square yard spot between the sink and the kitchen island. I know this is a familiar phenomenon for many families. I have oft heard my sister-in-law, Chrissy, refer to their family's second breakfast with true reverence.

If you're lucky enough to have chef Annika make your second breakfast, you may get something like this:

toasted bagel with cream cheese, strawberry jam and fresh blueberries a la Annika

hooray for cake

money can't buy a cake like this one

Yesterday when I arrived home from running errands, the kids were in the kitchen concocting a secret treat for me, supervised by Daddy. I was required to shield my eyes and divert my attention elsewhere until the project was complete. Here is the result, a gorgeous, soon-to-be-tasted marble birthday cake. What a lovely gift from the team of baking experts living at our house. They were so excited to be doing this special thing for me. 

I know just how they felt. When I was a kid, I remember riding my bike across town to Auntie Ginger's house, where she helped me to make a surprise birthday cake for my mom. The thrill of baking and decorating that cake was enormous, I couldn't wait to give it to Mom. Today, as I sneak a little tast of the marble frosting, my heart fills with gratitude and I know for the first time just how pleased and amazed my mom must have been with her own little girl.

be mine

What kind of valentine can you make with stick-on hearts and flowers, markers and ribbons? Here are a few that the kids, Gigi and I came up with today. 

The dreaded school valentine parties are coming up this week. Only 50 more cards to go. Thank goodness we will be home for a few hours this weekend!

last day

4 generations: Great Grandpa, Grandpa, me, Dad

This is my last day at age 43. Everyone else I know has birthdays, so I don't know why me moving to a higher number seems so shocking but nevertheless, ZAP! When I was a kid, I frequently pictured myself at 35, the age I'd be in the year 2000, the end of all imagined time. A future-world calendar that continued into 2001 and beyond was pure science fiction. 

On the present-world calendar, my dad's birthday is the day after mine. I have always loved having our birthdays so close together, and I think that we were the best gifts for one another. Then there's the added bonus of celebrating the passage of 365 more days with someone who has several more candles on his cake. 

I love having people around who are older: my husband, certain friends, my parents, in-laws, aunts and uncles and my grandma: all older than I. They remind me that the possibility of future is real, not just sci fi. And I need that kind of hope: the list of things I want to learn and do is terrifically long.

sweet treat

I have no idea how I came upon this perfect little short film. Was I looking for cake? If you have 10 minutes to spare, check it out, you'll be so glad you did. The artist's website is here. 

well hello there

Huh. Guess what I found last night when I went out to put the critters to bed. Two brand new little boys, likely born in the afternoon. We hauled our human kids out of their beds, donned snowpants and trooped out to meet Pimiento and Sal. 

I don't know how much farm animal news you people can take, but these little fellas sure are cute. 

gifts left behind

On Saturday night, my brother- and sister-in-law and their family came to visit. My brother-in-law brought along a bunch of old videos he had discovered in a forgotten box. One was labeled "David and Becky's Wedding." We were thrilled, because we had lost the video of our nuptials directly after the wedding, 19 years ago.

We popped it in the machine and took a look. It turns out it was not the video we had lost. The videographer on this one was my sister-in-law's dad, George, who passed away a year ago this week. The wedding seems far away in time, none of us remembered that he had done this filming.

So we had a chance to see the day from George's perspective. He panned around the reception, stopping here and there to capture groups of partying young people and men standing in groups, smoking. He filmed his talented sons playing excellent music as members of the wedding band. The camera lingered for a long time on his beautiful wife, Nancy. And then we heard George's familiar voice calling out "Hi, Bing!" as he zoomed in on his beloved daughter, the one who, 18 years later, put her life on hold to live with her mom and dad and helped to care for George as he slowly, yet all too quickly, left. 

food

This weekend, Annika and I, together with her girl scout troop and leaders, were privileged to spend a couple hours putting together meals with an organization called "Feed My Starving Children" (FMSC). The group is an organization that puts together nourishing, non-perishable meals and sends them to hungry people around the world. The food package consists of rice, freeze-dried soy, freeze-dried vegetables, flavoring and vitamins: just add water, cook, and there you go. A smart way to provide a gift of nutrition that allows people respite from the food search so they may concentrate on improving their lives to the point where they can provide their families with food on their own. 

It is not easy to find real volunteer opportunities for kids, where they're welcomed, not in the way and they can really be effective. This thing was organized to the hilt, making it a great, unique opportunity for people, kids included, to work together on a project that really helps others. Right about the time the girls started to get tired, the bell rang and it was time for the next shift.  The girls were thrilled about the work they did. In the short time we were there, we packed enough meals to feed 44 people for an entire year.