My heart is broken.
My sweet father died of a heart attack on Wednesday.
I’ll be back, but I’m not sure when. In the meantime, you can read about my dad here and here.
I am surrounded by family and friends.
God is good. All the time.
Unmoored
Oct 7
Happy Birthday, Mom
Oct 3
Sweet roll dough in my maternal grandmother's bowl, after the first rise.
Friday was Mom’s birthday. She would have been 64 years old.
Sometimes I allow myself to stop and wonder what life would be like if she were still here, if she’d never had cancer.
My brother has four children, and the two older ones knew my mother well. There’s no question what kind of grandma she would have been to The Boy, because I’ve seen it. I don’t have to wonder when or how she would have guided me into motherhood, because I know. It’s just a matter of letting myself go there. And it hurts.
It hurts because I remember how Mom bought umpteen gajillion baby outfits and toys when my sister-in-law was pregnant. This isn’t all that remarkable, except that these toys and outfits were garage sale finds. Brand new, tags still on the clothes, toys still in boxes. Heaps of the stuff so tall that she delivered them in garbage bags because she couldn’t find enough boxes and shopping bags. Here, she would tell my sister-in-law, I found some baby things you might be able to use. And it would turn out to be all the clothes a baby would probably ever need for the first two years of life. For cents on the dollar. Mom was practical that way.
It hurts because I remember that Mom started planning annual family retreats for all of us when the grandkids came along. She’d find a neat little town somewhere down the coast, and we’d congregate there, eating and fishing and antiquing and working on jigsaw puzzles with infinitesimally small pieces. Why? Just because. Mom was sentimental that way.
It hurts because she always had an adventure for the kids at the ready, just waiting for the right moment to spring it on them. For example, my niece, the oldest, loves dresses and barrettes and costumes and glitter. For the family retreat the summer she was four, Mom brought a wooden box filled with material of all sizes and colors, with giant safety pins and clothespins and measuring tapes and yards of lace and trim. The emptied box became a dressmaker’s pedestal, and my niece played fashion designer and spent the whole weekend bossing and outfitting her models with flair. Mom was creative that way.
It hurts because I have these memories. If I couldn’t remember, life would be easier — the pain would be gone. But, so would the pleasure. So would the inspiration.
To be honest, I’m mortified that I might forget. So I go there. And it hurts.
Rolled and ready for the second rise.
But you know what? I’m still discovering my mother. I’m still meeting friends of hers I didn’t know and hearing stories about her that I’ve never heard. I’m still finding recipes she loved. I’m still reading letters she wrote. I didn’t expect that. I expected the grief, to be sure, but I didn’t expect to still be getting to know her.
It feels a little like cheating.
And you know what else? Sometimes she visits me, and that hurts worse than the memories. I’ve already told you about our late goodbye, months after she died. There have been other visions, too — and dreams. Dreams so vivid that it takes me a couple of hours after waking to sort out where reality ended and the dream began. Disturbingly wonderful visits, they are.
I hope they never end.
Happy birthday, Mom.
I miss you. I love you. Pray for me.
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You know that feeling when you see a movie or read a book and it immediately reminds you of someone? I do that with food all the time. I’ll see bread pudding and think of Dennis (it’s his favorite). I’ll taste a risotto and remember how much better my friend Jessica’s is. (It’s a sickness, I know.)
When I saw a recent slideshow on Food & Wine’s website about brunch ideas, including these raspberry-swirl sweet rolls, I immediately thought of Mom. She had a raging sweet tooth, was a sucker for classic combinations of sweet and tart, and loved the challenge of a good pastry. I once asked her to pick her favorite all time flavor.
Ever?, she asked.
Ever.
Just one?, she asked.
One favorite. Just one.
A pause, and then the answer: Raspberry.
If she were still here, I’d have made these for her birthday.
Second rise complete, ready for the oven.
Raspberry-Swirl Sweet Rolls
From Grace Parisi, Food & Wine Magazine
Dough
1 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Filling
One 10-ounce package IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) raspberries, not thawed
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Glaze
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
In a small saucepan, warm the milk over moderately low heat until it’s 95°. Pour the warm milk into the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the dough hook and stir in the sugar and yeast. Let stand until the yeast is foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the softened butter, eggs, grated lemon zest and sea salt. Add the flour and beat at medium speed until a soft dough forms, about 3 minutes. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the dough is soft and supple, about 10 minutes longer.
Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it with your hands 2 or 3 times. Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to a lightly buttered bowl. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.
Line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper, allowing the paper to extend up the short sides. Butter the paper and sides of the pan. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and, using a rolling pin, roll it into a 10-by-24-inch rectangle.
In a medium bowl, toss the frozen raspberries with the sugar and cornstarch. Spread the raspberry filling evenly over the dough. Tightly roll up the dough to form a 24-inch-long log. Working quickly, cut the log into quarters. Cut each quarter into 4 slices and arrange them in the baking pan, cut sides up. Scrape any berries and juice from the work surface into the baking pan between the rolls. Cover the rolls and let them rise in a warm place until they are puffy and have filled the baking pan, about 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 425°. Bake the rolls for about 25 minutes, until they are golden and the berries are bubbling. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for 30 minutes.
In a small bowl, whisk the confectioners’ sugar with the butter and heavy cream until the glaze is thick and spreadable.
Invert the rolls onto the rack and peel off the parchment paper. Invert the rolls onto a platter. Dollop glaze over each roll and spread with an offset spatula. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Make Ahead: The recipe can be prepared through Step 4. Cover the rolls, refrigerate overnight and then return to room temperature before baking.
Variation: The sweet rolls can be filled with a variety of frozen fruit. Try blackberries, strawberries, blueberries or chopped sweet cherries.
Lagniappe: Throwdown!
Sep 18
Exciting news! I’ve been asked to be a judge for the 2011 Westside Chef’s Throwdown next Saturday in Katy, Texas. It’s a culinary competition event to raise funds to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
MDA is a national voluntary health agency working to defeat more than 40 neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research comprehensive health and community services and far-reaching professional and public health education.
For more information about the event, look here.
For a list of participating chefs and restaurants, look here.
And for more information about MDA Houston, check out their Facebook page.
If you’re in the Houston area next weekend and want to taste some fabulous food while helping a great cause, I would love to see you there!
Long Distance (Food of) Love
Sep 12
Before and after streusel-fication.
A few weeks ago, Leah came to visit.
It wasn’t long after we moved back in from the Great Flood Recovery Project. Boxes abounded. Stuff was missing. Everything was askew. Not the ideal time for house guest, but Leah isn’t a house guest. She’s my sister, except she’s my cousin — but in my heart, she’s my sister.
One thing the Great Flood taught me is how much I’ve changed in the past decade or so of my life. I used to thrive on chaos and thirst for change. During college and early adulthood, I can’t tell you how many times I moved, changed jobs, changed majors, changed everything. I still have that visceral need to have lots of balls in the air, but I require a heck of a lot more order and predictability than I did back then.
When The Boy was The Baby and had just learned to crawl, it took him 0.002 seconds to find those little padded foamy cushion thingys on the inside corners of our kitchen cabinets. He plucked them from their highly functional placements, and then he ate them.
Now, had he been a second or third child, I can easily see how this might be regarded with some level of tolerance. Or overlooked with a little humor, even: Oh honey, let the boy have his fun and ingest inedible objects. They’re clearly not a choking hazard! But being a first-born to two left-brained dorks — err, one left-brained dork and an actually very cool engineer/entrepreneur who knows pretty much everything about almost everything — this was not to be.
The Baby was informed that he was heretofore NOT to ingest any more of those foamy cushion thingys. I swear he looked me in the eye with defiance as he plucked the next one and popped it into his mouth like a Tic Tac.
Apparently babies don’t really observe authoritative mandates, even from those upon whom they are 100% dependent. Huh.
So, all the foam cushion thingys were removed, much to my chagrin. Chagrin for two reasons: 1) I’m not big on removing each and every little thing that might tempt a kid, because I generally think children can and should learn their boundaries, and 2) the members of my household, present company included, apparently enjoy slamming cabinet doors. SCHLAP! I jumped a little every time it happened. So. Annoying.
Fast forward two years, and one of the The Boy’s favorite pastimes is opening cabinet doors and seeing how hard he can slam them. And dang if he doesn’t wear that same look of defiance when he does it.
One recent day, he and I were out running errands. On a whim, I made an unannounced stop.
Mommy, are we going to the Orange Store?
Yes, Baby, we’re going to the Orange Store. It’s called Home Depot.
MAMA! I toleyoo, don’t call me Baby!
If you’d like to say that with nice words, I might listen.
Mama, don’t call me Baby.
Please?
Please.
That’s better.
(This is my life now.)
So, we marched into the Orange Store, located the Padded Foamy Cushion Thingy section, and we bought replacements. I have to admit, I got a little excited.
We went home and both had a little treat. The Boy climbed into his chair at the kitchen table and had his way with a popsicle, and I went around my kitchen, sticking Padded Foamy Cushion Thingys any- and everywhere they might belong. Then I test-slammed some cabinet doors, and reveled in the fact that the SCHLAP! had been downgraded to a dull thud.
I swear, my heart skipped a beat.
It skipped a beat because I had the presence of mind to run an unscheduled errand that I’ve been meaning to get to for months. It skipped a beat because I had the time to devote to such a menial-yet-meaningful task. It skipped a beat because it was a sign that maybe — just maybe! — life was getting back to normal. Hell, my heart skipped a beat. It had been a while.
I made some with blueberries...
But Leah visited before all that order had been restored. And in her perfectly wonderful sister-cousin way, she said, “Laura, this is the messiest I’ve ever seen your house. And I like it.”
She and I somehow managed to spend hours together that we didn’t have during that short weekend trip. It was wonderful, actually.
Somewhere along the way she passed by my fruit bowl, which was full of peaches. Her back was to me, and I knew before she turned what she would say.
Oh, Lawwra. (She’s one of the few people in my life who pronounce my name correctly.) Do you remember those muffins?!
I smiled, because I knew it was coming. She mentions them any time we are both in the proximity of peaches or muffins.
Oh yes, I said, I remember.
A couple of weeks later, I shipped her a baker’s dozen of those peach muffins, the ones she loves so much. They weren’t as good as the time she ate them fresh from my oven, but no matter. I remember, my gesture said. And I get you. Thank you for loving me.
Friends, I’m sure someone you love lives farther away than you’d like. Maybe a special kid you know is away at college for the first time. Maybe you have a Leah who lives a couple of hundred miles away. Maybe you have a neighbor who could use a pick-me-up.
And maybe you’ve thought about dropping them a note in the mail.
Maybe you should drop them some muffins, too.
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And some without.
The guy manning the FedEx desk kind of flipped out over my Food of Love package. I placed before him two zippered plastic bags full of muffins, lined with paper towels.
Can you box these up and send them to someone for me?, I asked.
Wait, did you make these?!, came the reply.
Yes I did, actually.
Do I smell cinnamon?
Yes. And vanilla bean.
Wow, someone really special must be on the receiving end of THIS.
Why yes. Yes, she is. How much do I owe you?
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The first time I made these years ago, it was for no better reason than to test a good-lookin’ recipe. Leah was in dental school nearby, and dropped in to say hello. Not having a better use for a couple of dozen muffins, I gave them to her to share at the dental office where she was working. And now, they are the stuff of legend.
Breakfast Muffins
from Martha Stewart Living, June 2002
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk, room temperature
1 large egg, room temperature
1 1/4 cups fruit and/or nuts, such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, or peaches
Streusel (see separate recipe below)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a standard muffin tin. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl; whisk to combine.
In a medium bowl, combine butter, vanilla bean scrapings, sugar, milk, and egg; whisk to combine. Fold butter mixture and fruit into flour mixture; use no more than ten strokes.
Spoon 1/4 cup batter into each prepared cup; press 2 tablespoons streusel on top of each. Bake until tops are golden, 15 to 17 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool in pan 15 to 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Yield: 12 standard muffins
Muffin Streusel
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, and mix with your fingers until mixture is moist and crumbly.
Yield: enough for 12 standard muffins
Everyone knows that today is the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Like most people, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news, and later watching in horror as the second tower fell. The details are as clear to me as if they had happened yesterday.
Stress produces adrenaline, and adrenaline enhances memory. That’s a mighty handy trick, considering that stressful events are usually the ones you want to remember and avoid in the future. It’s a survival weapon, and it’s why most people can remember with great detail where they were when a particular tragedy struck.
While the 9/11 attacks were horrific, and changed the mindset of an entire nation, September 11 is also the anniversary of another disaster — one that happened much closer to home.
Fifty years ago, on September 11, 1961, Hurricane Carla roared ashore in Calhoun County, Texas. With a central pressure of 931 mbar and estimated wind speeds of 150 mph, it was the most intense landfall of any Atlantic hurricane on record. Let me say that again: It was the most intense landfall of any Atlantic hurricane on record.
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale hadn’t yet been introduced, but Carla is now considered to have been a Category 5 when over open waters, and was a Category 4 at landfall.
We obviously didn’t have our modern day forecasting models for hurricanes back then, either. So while meteorologists knew this monster storm was out there — in fact, it covered the entire Gulf of Mexico — they had no accurate sense of where it might hit. To make matters worse, the weather planes couldn’t safely venture into the massive 110 foot wide eye of the storm because of the thousands of birds that were trapped inside of it. Consequently, Texas officials enacted an evacuation of over half a million residents all up and down the Texas coast, which at the time was the largest peacetime evacuation in U.S. history. Those efforts are credited with the fact that only 46 lives were lost.
Although the eye of Carla made landfall near Port Lavaca, Texas, my hometown of Danbury (about 100 miles up the coast) was pummeled by the “dirty” side of the storm, which brought a 22-foot surge and spawned one of the largest hurricane-related tornado outbreaks in recorded weather history, including an F4 tornado that ripped through Galveston.
To read a harrowing eyewitness account from a Texas highway patrolman who was on duty in Brazoria County for Carla, look here. For other recent coverage about Carla, look here and here.
My parents were both thirteen years old at the time. I don’t really know what Mom’s family did during the storm (which reminds me that I should ask Aunt Denise), but Dad evacuated with his mother and his siblings to his mother’s family’s house in Houston. Grandpa stayed behind to ride out the storm and mind the house and the farm.
It took several days for the floodwaters to recede, during which there was no way for them to know how Grandpa had fared — no phones, no news, no nothing. It had to have been a tense few days for Grandma, being holed up with all those kids at her parents’ place (no video games! no Internet!), and no word from her husband.
Dad recalls making the one-hour drive home from Houston, and says that the car got more and more quiet the closer they got to home. I know from experience how drastically a landscape can change from a storm — lakes where yards and pastures had been, trees completely absent from their long-held posts, blown over fences opening up unnatural-looking panoramic views. It is a sudden, surreal, and eerie feeling, and for them, it was coupled with suspense: what about Daddy?
Almost immediately, the kids spotted Grandpa’s favorite straw hat floating in the floodwater across the road from the house. My dad, the baby of the family, remembers feeling a pang of shock, thinking, Something must have happened to Daddy — he’s never without that hat.
They parked and rushed into the house, where they found Grandpa, without a scratch. And with his typical demeanor, he brushed off all their concern… What’s all the fuss about? It was just a storm.
But actually, it was much more than that. The crops growing on the acreage around the house had all been blown over and destroyed. The financial impact of losing an entire season was too great — it was the last cotton crop he would ever plant. The family farming business was gone, and life would never quite be the same.
I’m reminded of an article I just read in Business Week about catastrophes, which mentioned: “In Japan, stone tablets mark the high-water marks of past tsunamis. They all send the same message: ‘When we are gone, remember this flood. And prepare for the next one.’”
My generation knows full well about Rita, Ike, and their ilk. But are we really aware of the devastation a storm like Carla can bring? And are we prepared for the next one?
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There were two ways to go for choosing a recipe for this entry. The first was the hurricane party route, where friends and neighbors gather to share the contents of their thawing refrigerators and freezers. (The smart ones cook as much of it as they can before the power goes out, and manage afterward by mastering the finer points of cooking on a grill.)
The second, and perhaps more obvious route, was the classic hurricane cocktail. When the options are freezer-burnt mystery meat vs. delicious and historic cocktail, which would you choose? Yeah, I thought so.
According to this article from nola.com, the Hurricane came to be thusly:
In the mid-1940s, … there was a shortage of bourbon and scotch, and the whiskey companies sent “missionary men” out with regular salesmen and coerced bar owners into buying large quantities of a not-so-popular, hard-to-unload booze — rum — in outrageous amounts, 50 cases or so, in order to get the bourbon and scotch they wanted.
Four ounces of the booze nobody wanted, through trial and error, made its way into a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp with fresh lemon juice, passion fruit syrup and crushed ice — and became the most famous drink in the most famous bar in the city.
(You know, I’ve had my fair share of Hurricanes, and it never occurred to me that the glass was shaped like a hurricane lamp. DUH.)
Pat O’Briens World Famous Hurricane
from the Pat O’Briens website
1 oz vodka
1/4 oz grenadine
1 oz gin
1 oz light rum
1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
1 oz amaretto almond liqueur
1 oz triple sec
grapefruit juice
pineapple juice
Fill a hurricane (or any other tall glass) 3/4 full with ice. Pour all the alcohols in first, then follow with equal parts of grapefruit and pineapple juice. Serve and enjoy!
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Aug 29
To commemorate Steve Jobs’ recent resignation as CEO of Apple, the Wall Street Journal reprinted the text of the commencement address he gave at Stanford University in 2005. I was just as inspired as the first time I read it, and I thought you might enjoy reading it, too.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
When I read that last line, I knew I would post it here.
Starting this blog was one of the more foolish things I’ve done. I was a new mother at the time, and my own mother was dying. I had a job I liked and a husband I love. I already had 42 hobbies. I had never written anything for public consumption, and quite honestly, I generally hate everything I write.
I had no business starting WFI. It was foolish, but I’m better off for having done it.
Is there something foolish you’re hungry for?
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Appetizers are meant to whet the appetite, not quench it. (Stay hungry.) And by the looks of the ingredient list for these lettuce wraps, only a fool would make them… but what a happy fool you’d be if you did! (Stay foolish.)
Several years ago, my friend Meredith and I learned to make these from Dorothy Huang at a cooking class at Sur La Table. I’ve modified the recipe only slightly. It doubles easily and holds up fabulously as leftovers.
p.s. Football season is upon us… this would make perfect party food for a game day. Chinese food goes great with beer, and what a departure from the usual burger/brat routine! Pick up some egg rolls and dumplings from your favorite place, and make these. Your low-carb buddies in your fantasy league will love you for it.
Dorothy Huang’s Lettuce Wraps
½ pound chicken breast, boneless and skinless
Marinade for chicken:
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon pale dry sherry (cocktail “drinking” sherry)
Seasoning sauce:
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce (preferably Wei Chuan brand, or sub 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce and 1/2 teaspoon molasses)
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce (preferably Lee Kum Kee brand)
3 cups cooking oil for deep-frying (I use peanut oil)
1 ounce cellophane noodles, loosened (aka bean thread / glass noodles)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 cup chopped water chestnuts
1 cup chopped green onions or garlic chives
¼ cup almond slices
8 iceberg lettuce leaves*, washed and drained, cut into bowl shape
¼ cup chopped red bell pepper
2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds
Spicy Sauce**, for serving (recipe below)
Cut chicken breast into ¼ inch dice. Add marinade ingredients and toss to coat thoroughly. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine seasoning sauce ingredients in a bowl.
Heat 3 cups oil in a wok to 375°F. Add cellophane noodles. When they puff up (in just 2 seconds), remove with a strainer to drain on paper towels.
Remove oil from the wok to a heat-proof bowl. Heat 3 tablespoons oil over high heat, add garlic, ginger, then chicken. Stir-fry for 1 minute. Add water chestnuts, and green onions (or garlic chives). Stir for another minute. Pour in seasoning sauce. Stir until thickened. Toss in almond slices.
Divide the contents into 8 lettuce bowls (about ½ cup each). Spread some fried noodles on top. Garnish with red bell pepper and sesame seeds. Serve with spicy sauce (below) on the side.
Spicy Sauce*
1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce (more or less depending on desired scorch level)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon water
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Stir. Yum.
*I don’t care much for iceberg lettuce. As you can see from the photo, I used green leaf lettuce this time, which was prettier and tastier, but in no way did any sort of wrapping work whatsoever. We had to fork and knife it — it basically became a tasty Chinese chicken salad. So do as I write and not as I do — stick with the iceberg.
**The spicy sauce is handwritten by me on a typed copy of this recipe. I have no idea if I found it elsewhere and added it, or it was part of Dorothy’s instruction. Probably the latter.
Subject Line: Cake. "Call me."
I’m normally an optimistic, go-get-‘em type of person. I read somewhere once that we should count our blessings, not our troubles, and I try my best to live that way.
But sometimes I need to sit down and have a good cry.
I was recently on an elevator with a middle-aged woman. During our ride, which spanned about 25 floors, I caught a long glance of her. She was exhausted.
I don’t mean college-hell-week exhausted, or I-stayed-out-all-night-partying exhausted, or parent-of-a-child-under-age-two exhausted. She was trim and well-dressed, but she gripped the rail in the elevator a little too tightly. She sighed a little too deeply. Her eyes blinked a little too slowly and stayed closed a little too long.
Just hang on, she seemed to be thinking, the day is almost over. How many times had she given herself that pep talk? What weight was she carrying? Her load seemed heavy.
I don’t know that woman, and I’ll probably never see her again. But she reminded me that we each carry our own brand of troubles — a unique and invisible cross. Some are small and easily managed, some are tremendous and back-breaking. But we all have one.
They’re invisible, so we forget. I forget.
I forget that, outside of a very short list of people, I really have no idea what size anyone’s cross is — or perhaps more importantly, how equipped they are to carry it.
Often, I forget about my own cross.
And actually, the forgetting is usually my own doing. When a painful thought comes to mind, I can physically feel myself suppressing it, without really deciding to. It’s just like swallowing a lump in my throat to keep from crying – a subconscious mechanism to defend my composure.
But then, something will prick through the defense. I’ll see a woman in an elevator, and for all I truly know about her, she’s the most carefree and content human being on earth. But that’s not what I see. I see exhaustion, I see confusion, I see pain. I won’t realize until much later that I was actually seeing myself.
That’s when I know it’s time to have that cry I was telling you about.
I stop, put down my cross, and crumple against it. I take a good long look at it – it bears my old scars and my open wounds, my sorrows and regrets, my shortcomings, my pain. Worry. Anxiety. Fear. I acknowledge, wincing, that it’s really all really real. This is part of who I am. This is the cross I carry.
I remind myself that the appropriate response to injury is not to lash out or seek revenge. It’s not my job to make all things right, to put things back where they should be – and even if it were my job, I wouldn’t be qualified to do it. I would make the wrongs wronger. It is the very definition of futility.
No, the appropriate response to injury is to be hurt. To allow myself to be injured. That’s harder that it sounds. It requires vulnerability, admission, acceptance, and pain.
After all the tears are out, and maybe after pitying myself for a short while, I pull myself back together. Then comes the critical part: I pick up my cross and I keep going.
If I’m lucky – or, better said, if I do it right – I will have learned something in the process.
“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” -1 Peter 3:8
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Subject Line: Success!
Usually when I sit down to write to you, I have at least an idea of what I want to say, and certainly the recipe in mind that goes with it. Not so this time.
I sat down to have a good cry, and this is what came out. Which is all well and good, but what the heck kind of recipe goes with this part of life?
And then suddenly, I knew.
I recently attended two funerals in the span of a week, which is part of the emotional weight I was carrying. After the wake for the first funeral, I saw an email on my phone from my friend Joy, subject line: Cake, with a photo of a cake attached. She was having trouble, it read. Cake trouble. Call me.
At first glance, when the cake photo was a thumbnail measuring approximately 2 microns by 4 microns, it looked lovely. Black forest, cherries, chocolate shavings. Hello, beautiful. I wondered what the problem could be?
Then I opened the attachment, and boom! Three fissures had split her cake almost exactly into thirds. Cake chasms, they were.
“This is for a colleague at the office, for his birthday… tomorrow! What do I do?” she asked. She’d already tried inserting skewers to knit it back together (which you can see if you look closely at the photo). She also tried spackling the layers together with more icing, but it had a whipped cream base, and it was too loose to do much good. I looked at the clock. 9:00 pm. Too late for another attempt.
Having ruined puh-lenty o’ cakes in my life, I told her what any baker would: make a trifle.
What’s a trifle?
It’s a chunked up cake in a bowl, usually sprinkled with liquor or other highly flavored liquid, and layered with whatever filling or pudding type substances you have on hand, and topped with whipped cream.
Hmmm. How do I make one?
Find the prettiest bowl you have, preferably a clear glass one. Take a large serving spoon and start dishing chunks of cake into the bowl, until you’ve made a layer. Add a layer whipped cream or filling or whatever you have around. Repeat until you’re out of cake or near the top of the bowl. Finish with whipped cream and more cherry filling. Shave more chocolate on top. Pretend you did it on purpose.
You really think that will work?
Yes! And while your co-workers ooh and ahh over the deliciousness of it all, you can explain what a trifle is. They’ll never know. You’ll be a genius.
A couple of hours later, I received another email. Subject line: Success!, and a photo of a pretty darn handsome trifle attached. Success. Shared success. It lifted my spirit.
I hope it lifts yours.
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I can relate to having high hopes and expectations dashed when a cake doesn’t work out — especially a birthday cake. I made a lime chiffon cake for Eileen, my mother-in-law, a few years ago, and luckily it turned out well. In fact, it was so pretty, I wish I’d put it on a pretty cake plate instead of my portable cake saver thingy.
However, if it had collapsed, split, or been struck by lightning, I would have made a batch of lime curd and turned it into a trifle (and still had fun decorating the top the same way).
Fresh Lime Chiffon Cake
From Cooking Light Magazine, June 2006
FILLING:
1 teaspoon finely grated lime rind
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
CAKE:
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon cake flour
2 cups sifted cake flour (7 1/2 ounces)
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon finely grated lime rind
1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
3 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
FROSTING:
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 1 lime)
2 1/2 cups fat-free whipped topping, thawed*
Fresh mint sprigs (optional)
Fresh blueberries (optional)
Lime wedges (optional)
(*Naturally, whipped heavy cream would be better… )
To prepare the lime filling, combine 1 teaspoon lime rind, 1/4 cup lime juice, and sweetened condensed milk in a small bowl, stirring until blended. Cover and chill 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 325°. To prepare cake, coat bottoms of 3 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray (do not coat sides of pans); line bottoms with wax paper. Coat wax paper with cooking spray; dust with 1 tablespoon flour.
Lightly spoon 2 cups cake flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine 2 cups cake flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk until well combined.
Combine oil, 1/3 cup juice, 3 tablespoons water, 1 teaspoon rind, lemon extract, and egg yolks in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add oil mixture to flour mixture; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.
Place egg whites in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar; beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Gently stir one-fourth of egg white mixture into flour mixture; gently fold in remaining egg white mixture.
Divide cake batter equally among prepared pans, spreading evenly. Break air pockets by cutting through batter with a knife. Bake at 325° for 20 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool in pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans. Remove wax paper from cake layers. Cool completely on wire rack.
To prepare frosting, combine 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons lime juice in a small glass bowl. Microwave at high for 30 seconds or until sugar dissolves. Cool completely. Fold into whipped topping.
To assemble cake, place 1 cake layer on a plate; spread half of filling over cake layer. Top with second layer, remaining half of filling, and third layer. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake. Garnish with mint, blueberries, and lime wedges, if desired. Store cake loosely covered in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Slice cake into wedges.
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Don’t wait for a ruined cake to make a trifle, which is a traditional English dessert. Saveur Magazine featured a killer-looking trifle on last year’s December cover. And don’t let the special bowl scare you away, either. You can use a regular bowl, like Joy did, or you can make the small investment in a trifle bowl. We received one from our friends Travis and Tara as a wedding gift, and I use it all the time… for trifles, and fruit salads, and banana pudding, and layered salad, and… and… and… you get the idea. Are you sold yet?
Know Your Place, Butterfat!
Aug 10
Because that last post got awfully long, I left out a little Food of Love angle that happened while Matt was in the hospital.
But first, the backstory (and no eye rolling — surely by now you realize that there is always a backstory!):
I’ve been making a lot of gelato for about a year or so, which is something that requires a bit of practice to really master. I’ve been tinkering with milk-to-cream ratios and cooking techniques with the custard, trying to obtain that Xanadu-like state of texture and mouthfeel.
I do this, you see. I get fixated on a particular dish, and I usually don’t let up until a) something more interesting comes along (by far the more common of these two scenarios), or b) I’ve achieved the point of diminishing marginal returns per attempt… in other words, I’ve gotten as good as I’m gonna get. Then I move on.
The wonderful thing about gelato is its relatively low level of butterfat*, which allows the star ingredient to shine through. In contrast, the luxe richness of ice cream coats the palate, which is quite lovely, of course — but it can get in the way of the flavor that you’re trying to showcase. You might think of butterfat as that unknown-and-talented-but-overeager actress that habitually steals the spotlight from the A-lister. Know your place, butterfat!
With gelato, it’s different. I’ve invested some of the best wild blueberries, strawberries, and dewberries ever to grace my kitchen into making gelato, with beautiful returns. The essence of the fresh ripe fruit is so assertive and unencumbered that it’s quite like getting hit over the head with flavor. Zow!
Obviously, this is a good thing. I felt that I was really onto something… as though I might really become proficient at this whole gelato business. That is, until Matt broke the news.
“It’s just so… overwhelming,” he said, when he tasted the dewberry version. What’s overwhelming?
“I don’t know. It’s like you’re always trying to max out the flavor or something.”
Hmmmm. How could I diplomatically tell him that that’s pretty much EXACTLY THE POINT? After some mental debate, I went with: Darling, I love you dearly, but that’s EXACTLY THE POINT.
“Well, it’s too much.”
(This is the same man that prefers boxed mac and cheese to the real thing.)
“And what’s with all the fresh fruit? Why can’t you make a normal flavor of ice cream?”
I gingerly stepped over his blasphemous ice cream misnomer and asked him to define “normal.”
“You know, chocolate, caramel, vanilla…” He might have listed a couple of other flavors, but I was so bored I think I actually feel asleep for a microsecond.
Well, I said, since dewberries are gone and peaches aren’t in yet, I was thinking about making a caramel toffee gelato. How does that sound?
“Nowwwwww you’re talkin’,” came the reply. A winning compromise. (Side note: Why can’t Congress do this? Don’t they know that the answers to all our fiscal problems can be found in frozen treats?)
That conversation happened in late May. The caramel toffee flavor never materialized, because just a few days later… well, you know what happened.
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Fast forward a week or two. Matt is in the hospital, recovering from surgery.
He slept a lot, as expected. I pecked at my laptop and made phone calls. It was very peaceful** in the very quiet, dimly lit room.
After a particularly long nap, he started to stir. I went over and sat next to him on the bed.
How are you feeling?
“Okay,” he said. “Not great, but I’ll make it.”
Is there anything I can get for you right now?
“No.”
[Long pause.]
“But when we get home you might want to make me some caramel toffee gelato.”
It makes me smile now to even think about it. The man just had untold things done to his urinary tract, and he was thinking about homemade gelato. Did I marry the right guy, or what?
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I had every intention of making that batch of gelato soon after he came home, but our plumbing system had other plans. I finally got around to it just this week, and I must admit — it was worth the wait.
Caramel Toffee Gelato
Adapted from The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto by F.W. Pearce and Danila Zecchin
Plain Base (see recipe below***)
¼ cup caramel sauce, at room temperature (I used Stonewall Kitchen dulce de leche sauce)
½ cup coarsely chopped English toffee candy, frozen (I used Heath bars)
¼ cup finely chopped English toffee candy, frozen (again, I used Heath bars)
Make the Plain Base and chill as directed.
Gently whisk the caramel sauce into the base. Pour the mixture into the container of an ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving. Or dish some out immediately and serve it half-melted — ahem, I mean soft serve.
*** Plain Base
Makes enough for about 1 quart of gelato.
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
In a heavy-bottom saucepan, combine the milk and cream. Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally so a skin doesn’t form, until tiny bubbles start to form around the edges and the mixture reaches a temperature of 170°F.
Meanwhile, in a medium heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Gradually whisk in the sugar until it is well incorporated and the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Temper the egg yolks by very slowly pouring in the hot milk mixture while whisking continuously. Return the custard to the saucepan and place over low heat. Cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and it reaches a temperature of 185°F. Do not bring to a boil.
Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl and let cool to room temperature, stirring every 5 minutes or so. To cool the custard quickly, make an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water and placing the bowl with the custard in it; stir the custard until cooled. Once completely cooled, cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
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*Emphasis on the “relatively.” This ain’t health food, people.
**Also a relative term. Remember, I live with a toddler.
Um, hello. You might be wondering where I’ve been. Would you like to know? Would you like to hear about my June? Because there’s a lot to tell.
Nothing earth shattering happened, but it was an eventful month. Writing that just now – that it was eventful – reminds me of the prayer I said on New Year’s Day, which went something like this:
Dear Lord, your plans are always better than mine, and despite my thick skull (which happens to outrank diamonds on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness), I am finally learning to defer to you. And I officially do. But if, by chance, your plans for me in 2011 are fairly uneventful, that would actually be a little great. In fact, I could even handle a year that might otherwise be regarded as quite boring. But only if that works for you. Because really, I’m game for whatever.
Oh, and as always, if the universe has some energy to spare, I could use a little.
Ha! Can’t you just envision a cosmic red stamp being crushed into my request? It reads: DENIED. Maybe next year, darlin’.
Here’s how it began: On a beautiful Monday morning in early June, Matt said he wasn’t feeling well. When I asked what he thought it might be, he said two words that took the proverbial wind out of my sails: kidney stone.
We’d been down this path before, a decade ago, and I gotta tell ya: it ain’t pretty. Luckily, it was early in the process, and he recognized the symptoms before the blinding pain set in. Let me get The Boy to school, I told him, and then I’ll drive you to the ER. Okay? Okay. Do we have time for that? Yes. Go now.
Thus began a four-day hospital stay, which included a surgical procedure using what can only be described as Star Wars technology. Lord, you didn’t grant me a boring year, but I sure am thankful for modern medical technology. Especially Toradol. That’s good stuff. (At one point during the ordeal, Matt said (and I quote): “I would drain every bank account we have for some Toradol right now.” Yikes.)
Having an 8mm calcium oxalate rock blasted with a laser is kind of cool — especially considering the alternatives — but having a kiddo to think about while your spouse is having an 8mm calcium oxalate rock blasted is decidedly not cool. Lord, you didn’t grant me a boring year, and I’m thankful for modern medical technology, but I’m even more thankful for Matt’s parents, who attended to The Boy’s every need. The Boy, for his part, had so much fun with Nonnie and Granddad that I’m quite certain he couldn’t have cared less where we were or what we were doing.
I’m happy to say that Matt recovered quickly and was soon back to his old tricks. And you might suspect that that’s where the story ends. Uh uh.
We spent the second week in June catching up on all the work and life we missed, and more significantly, I hauled off and quit my job. WHAT?!
I have – err, had — a great job. I liked the work and I absolutely loved the people there, but after almost ten years with the company, it was time to go. So, after a ton of hand-wringing and several sleepless nights, I jumped ship and took a new gig. My throat still gets a little tight just thinking about it. Massive change is one thing — volunteering for it is another.
Lord, you didn’t grant me a boring year, and I’m thankful for modern medical technology and for Matt’s parents. I’m also grateful for the talents you have given me and the opportunity to put those talents to work, even when that work causes stress and colossal change in my life.
Once again, you might be thinking we’re done. Nope.
The third week started off relatively calmly, except for the part where my back cramped up again, leaving me doing the ol’ crab hobble for several days. And The Boy had a 24-hour brush with a viral throat infection. Pretty minor stuff, really — until the weekend arrived.
Around mid-day on Saturday, Matt was working in the study, still catching up from his wacky medical misadventure. I’d just put The Boy down for his nap, and was setting the DVR to record a movie that I’ll never get around to watching. Suddenly, I heard Matt call out from across the house (which he never does — red flag numero uno), actually using my name (which he also never does — another flag). His specific words were, “Hey Laura? We’ve got a big problem in here!”
Big problem? Big problem?!? If you know Matt at all, you know that we never have “big problems.” Even when he was sure was going to shrivel up and die from the pain in his kidney, he was never actually alarmed.
So I came running. What could it be? Maybe The Boy snuck out of bed and is finger painting the wall with his own feces, I thought. No, Matt would have handled that himself. A fire? No, he would have been shouting instructions to bring the extinguisher and/or get The Boy. Those are the only two options I had time for before I arrived at the scene, which rendered me speechless. Me. Speechless.
Our house was flooded with toilet water.
Somewhere, God was laughing at me, and I deserved it.
After the initial shock, we got to work. Matt brought shop vac in from the garage, and I started salvaging anything I could: soaked books, clothes, shoes, toys. When I realized that our furniture was sitting in water and would swell, I suggested we call someone.
And that, my friends, is how you go from casually flipping through the cable guide to having a house full of brawny men turning your house upside down.
Lord, you didn’t grant me a boring year, and I’m thankful for medical technology, for Matt’s parents, for my career options, and for companies who will show up at your door within minutes to solve problems created by modern plumbing, which by the way, I’m also thankful for. Generally. On most days.
When they were finished, half of the carpet in our house was gone. The restoration company also pried off our baseboards and drilled holes into the sheetrock, so that the industrial strength blowers they left behind could dry everything out.
That’s where Nonnie and Granddad come (back) in. We could have stayed at a hotel for the few days it took to dry everything, and that would have been fine — but Matt’s parents invited us into their home and once again saved the day. The Boy was in rural grandparent nirvana, and Matt and I had a comfortable base of operations.
You would think that would be enough excitement for 1/12th of what I was hoping would be a boring year. But wait! There’s more!
That Monday morning, I noticed a red splotch on The Boy’s neck. Matt said that he’d already put something on it and given him some Benadryl to knock it back. Except that it didn’t – it got a lot worse. Long story short, The Boy and I wound up at the ER that evening with a diagnosis of a probable spider bite with a secondary bacterial infection. I thought I might be overreacting by taking him, but when the doc said staph was a serious possibility in our subtropical climate, I knew I’d done the right thing. And once again, I was thankful.
Lord, I get it. You very clearly feel that a boring year was not warranted at this time. I’m thankful for medical technology, including Toradol, Star Wars style camera-laser-scope thingys, and strong antibiotics that are safe for children. I am also grateful for Matt’s parents (doubly so), for restoration companies who know exactly what they’re doing, and for modern plumbing, which is always wonderful, every single day.
We moved back into our house on the 30th of June. We still have a bare concrete floor in half of the house, and our stuff is still scattered hither and yon, but we’ll take it.
July has been kinder and gentler so far, and we’re hoping it will stay that way. We have insurance claims to make, contractors to hire, medical bills to pay, and a new career path in the family, so a short reprieve from minor crises is definitely welcome.
But only if that works within your plan, Lord. Because really, I’m game for whatever.
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I really wanted to do something for my in-laws to express my gratitude, because after all, we messed with their June, too. Right after we left, they went on a weeklong trip, and I thought it would be nice if they didn’t have to think about dinner when they got home. So I made them lasagna.
I chose this particular one from Bon Appetit’s website because of the spicy Italian sausage in the sauce, which has a ton more flavor than plain old ground beef. I also liked the fact that there were carrots and fresh herbs in the sauce – nothing wrong with slipping a few nutrients in with your gratitude, right?
P.S. The cheese mixture was a bit difficult to work with. If I made it again, I would probably add a beaten egg to the ricotta and basil mixture to make it more spreadable, and sprinkle the mozzarella on top of that separately. I tried adding a few tablespoons of water to the mixture, and that helped, but not much.
P.P.S. Oh, and I treat all lasagna noodles as “no-boil.” I don’t even soak them, as prescribed here — I just slap regular lasagna noodles in the pan, totally dry. They spend almost an hour next to bubbling hot sauce, and that cooks them plenty.
P.P.S. Sorry, but I also wanted to tell you that I assembled the whole thing the night before and stashed it in the fridge. I let it sit out at room temperature for a while (20-60 minutes), then baked as directed.
Lasagna with Turkey Sausage Bolognese
From the March 2011 issue of Bon Appetit Magazine
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup diced carrot
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed in spice mill or in mortar with pestle
1 pound spicy Italian turkey sausages, casings removed
3 large garlic cloves, pressed
1/2 cup dry white wine
5 cups crushed tomatoes with added puree (from two 28-ounce cans)
1 cup chopped fresh basil, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta cheese
3 cups (packed) coarsely grated whole-milk mozzarella cheese (12 ounces)
1 1/4 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
16 6 1/2 x 3 1/4-inch no-boil lasagna noodles
Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, carrot, and fennel seeds; sauté 5 minutes. Add sausage and garlic; sauté until sausage is cooked through, breaking into pieces, 8 to 10 minutes. Add wine; boil 1 minute. Add tomatoes, 1/2 cup basil, and oregano. Bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer until sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine ricotta, mozzarella, 1 cup Parmesan, and 1/2 cup basil in medium bowl; stir to blend. Season with pepper. (DO AHEAD: Sauce and cheese mixture can be made 1 day ahead. Cover separately; chill.)
Place noodles in large bowl; cover with hot water. Soak until pliable, separating occasionally, about 30 minutes. Drain well.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread 1 cup sauce over bottom of 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Cover with 4 noodles, arranging crosswise. Drop 1/4 of cheese mixture over by tablespoonfuls; spread out. Top with 1 cup sauce, then 4 noodles and 1/3 of remaining cheese mixture. Repeat 2 more times with 1 cup sauce, 4 noodles, and 1/2 of cheese mixture. Spread any remaining sauce over. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan.
Bake lasagna uncovered until heated through and puffed, about 50 minutes. Let stand 10 to 15 minutes and serve.
There are lots of babies in my world at the moment. My dear friend Lisa just had her third a few weeks ago, Matt’s first cousin Danielle just had her first mere days ago, my sister-in-law Melissa is expecting her third in a few short months, and in April, three of my first cousins, one being dear Leah, each had babies within about 18 hours of one another. I hope your family and friends are procreating, dear readers, because my network is plotting a full-scale planetary takeover. (Luckily for you, we’re a pretty nice bunch.)
Of course, hearing all the requisite stories from the front lines of pregnancy and childbirth reminded me of my own experience incubating and birthing a nine pound baby.
Yeah, you read that correctly: The Boy was nine pounds at birth. Texas-size, ya’ll.
Outside of the pure genetics involved, it was mostly my fault. Oh, I didn’t set out to grow a gigantic baby, of course, but lacking any real sense about how this should all go, bathing one’s zygote in a stout formula of nutrients and calories seemed like a motherly thing to do.
My primal maternal cravings helped: a glass of whole milk, ice cold, was just about the most exciting thing going in those days. Fruits and vegetables were high on my list, too, along with brown rice, quinoa, and every kind of legume under the sun. I also had the healthy fat thing covered – wild salmon was in the weekly rotation, olive oil abounded, and my go-to snack at home was to halve an avocado, ditch the pit, sprinkle with a little kosher salt, and grab a spoon.
Outside of listening to what my body wanted, my only rule was to try and eat something of every color, every single day. That may sound easy, but blue is a tuffy, especially in winter. I ate a lot of black beans and smoothies with frozen blueberries.
The other side effect of eating your colors is that by the time you check them all off, you’ve eaten a lot of food. As a reward, if I possibly still had an interest in eating something else, it could be anything I wanted. Ummm, can you say Ben & Jerry’s? Dairy was my friend.
Between all that and the prenatal vitamins, there was no nutrient The Boy went without during gestation. I figured he would suffer quite enough from my complete lack of maternal instincts once he was born, so we might as well make the most of it and spoil him early.
As a result, my pregnant belly looked like the ones on TV that are obviously fake – like I had a huge watermelon under my shirt. At seven months, I looked like I was about to pop. Not swollen, mind you, just… huge. In line at the grocery store, I heard people behind me audibly gasp when I turned to load my things onto the belt – while facing forward, they couldn’t tell I was pregnant. But at a profile… oh… my … God.
During my last month, I couldn’t use a regular bathroom stall if the door opened inward, because once inside, I couldn’t close the door. My belly was too big. Not kidding.
The funny thing was that I gained only the textbook healthy amount of weight. At my checkups, the nurses would point and laugh and give me a hard time, then once I was on the scale, their eyebrows would pop up and they’d say, “Wow, right on track.” It was all baby, baby.
We opted not to find out whether we were having The Boy or The Girl, because I had irrational fears of being inundated with mountains of pink rhinestone-studded bedazzled princessy stuff.
Right before our doctor unzipped my belly during the c-section I never expected, the doctor peered over the curtain and said through her medical mask: “I predict a nine pound baby boy.”
Minutes later, she held him up for us to see. One of the nurses said, “He looks like a MAN!,” and just at that moment, The Boy let out a lusty roar, and let the ice cold air of the operating room fill his sweet lungs.
Hello, World. You will never be the same.
And it never was.
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This time of year, with all the fruit in season, it’s easy to eat your colors. I know it’s kind of pedestrian, but one of my favorite things to serve at baby showers is fruit skewers — they are beautiful, nutritious, and dead simple to make. (Spear fruit decoratively with skewers. The End.) The ones in the photo are regular skewers, but for parties, I actually prefer the daintier 3- or 4-inch skewers.
I played around with several versions of a yogurt-based dip until I came up with one I liked, and it’s super easy, too. Play around with substitutions… I’ll bet it would work great with sour cream, but I like the tang of yogurt.
Vanilla Honey Yogurt Dip
1 cup plain yogurt (I use non-fat… next time I plan to try Greek non-fat yogurt)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl; refrigerate if not using immediately. Stir again before serving.
Can be made 1 day ahead and refrigerated overnight.
