nutella

If there’s one thing Jade would eat by the bucketful if she could, it’s Nutella.  Occasionally after school she’ll ask if she can have “Nutella bread”; if she’s eaten mostly healthy things that day I will tell her yes, and then I basically run and hide while she gets busy.  First, she will pull out the toaster and toast a few slices of bread.  While it’s toasting, she will get down a plate, procure a knife from the drawer, and the Nutella from the pantry shelf.  Finally, when the bread is ready, if I happen to be walking by I will avert my eyes while she proceeds to completely drown that poor piece of toast in such an unconscionable amount of Nutella that the bread itself can no longer be seen, goes soggy and eventually completely collapses under the weight.  It is beyond excessive.

I would consider this a problem if she approached all food this way, but it’s only Nutella that seems to set her over the edge and make her lose any ounce of self-control.  A regular sized jar might last her eight slices of toast.  There is a part of me that would like to force her to use a more restrained amount, but A) she won’t, and B) there’s also a part of me who enjoys watching her get it all over her hands and cheeks no matter how hard she tries not to.  It reminds me of the old days.  It’s cute.

graham crackers

Today was so nice.  I leisurely read a book, never did my hair or makeup, ate a decadent sandwich (certainly not the usual lunch-at-work fare), and traded a workout for a nap.  It was a day filled with activities usually reserved for the weekend, which made me feel like I was breaking some kind of rule.  Like some mean old lady was going to jump out and scold me any minute: We don’t act like this on a Thursday, Janae – while wagging her finger disapprovingly.  Thankfully, she never did.

Another indulgent thing I did on this lazy weekday was bake some graham crackers.  I’ve had graham flour sitting in my freezer for a very long time, and graham crackers have been on my mind even longer.  It seems I bought the flour and then never had the time to make them, so I fixed that today.  I’m happy to report they were just as good as my brain had convinced me they would be.  Jade and I ate quite a few (by that, I mean ‘a lot’).  Remember a long time ago when I made a peanut butter and banana smoothie?  Well, I also learned today that these graham crackers pair beautifully with it for a delicious and filling afternoon snack.

waldstein, et al.

I can hardly hear myself think right now.  Beau has the TV on in the other room (basketball, ugh, the one sport I don’t like), which I can hear through the wall, and there’s a clicking sound in my left ear that’s been clicking away since yesterday.  Jade is sitting near me, studying time zones on her globe, telling me it’s 2:20 in Greenland.  Anyway, all of this and I’m trying to hear Beethoven’s Waldstein, which is proving very difficult.  After hearing  this particular sonata on the radio in the car – whose name I scribbled on a napkin using my steering wheel as a writing surface (I guess the no-texting-while-driving lawmakers didn’t factor in us napkin-scribblers) so that I could purchase it when I got home – I realized after listening from the beginning that it is played briefly by Jane Fairfax in 2009′s Emma.  (Have you seen that miniseries?  It is fantastic.)

I did a similar thing a few weeks ago, too.  I had found a really old Piano by Candlelight CD (don’t laugh) in a stack of old CDs and popped it on in the car.  I was listening while driving along, transfixed on the songs I remembered so well but hadn’t heard in so long, when Felix Mendelssohn’s Venetian Boat Song came on and I immediately recognized Tori Amos’ Nautical Twilight.  I looked it up when I got home, and sure enough, she had based her song on Mendelssohn’s.  It was a fun discovery.  (I am a nerd.)  (Also, I didn’t know her hands are insured!)

A few weeks ago, Jade and I were talking and she said one of her favorite things about learning the violin has been the way it’s changed the way she listens to and understands classical music.  She hears certain techniques now, on top of the melody and general sound structure, and the added technical layer has really piqued her interest.  I watch her get excited, as she learns about things like slurs and staccato, and it makes me smile.  I do think that intimately understanding an instrument – the way its mathematical nature and its visceral nature intertwine – greatly increases listening enjoyment, and I am so glad we can share this little gift.

lentil soup

Generally speaking, I’m not here to post fancy photographs.  There’s plenty of other blogs that do that so well, and it’s just not my thing.  I mean, I sort of enjoy learning to use my camera in better ways, and I think my photography has certainly improved since I started this blog, which makes me happy, but my photography wanderlust ends right about there.  This especially applies to food photography, about which I always say: it’s not a magazine cover, it’s dinner.  I don’t have the time nor patience for props and special lighting and things like fake steam floating off a perfect shrimp specimen poised every so daintily on a fork.  When I’m taking a picture of food, most likely I’m about to eat it and I’m hungry (or I am surrounded by other people who are hungry and telling me to hurry up).  So I snap the picture and move on.

However, there are caveats to this little photography rule.  Like lentil soup.  Dear god, if there is any food that needs props and colors and distraction from it’s appearance, it’s lentil soup.  Fortunately, its looks belie its flavor because this is a damn fine-tasting soup.  Hearty and filling (you can’t eat roughly 75 grams of fiber for dinner and not get full), lentil soup is a favorite around here, so much so that I just made it two weeks in a row.  On top of all that, it’s full of cheap ingredients and is a one pot meal, which, in my book, makes it just about the best thing ever, despite its aesthetic challenges.

thoughts on 2012

Though I had purposely avoided discussing the requisite resolutions that the top of the year brings, here I am, nine days later, finding not that I have resolutions, but instead the idea of the new year, in general, on the brain.  2011 was a hard year.  Really hard.  There were a few good moments here and there, sure, but I don’t think in all my life I’ve ever felt stress they way I felt it last year.  Medication-inducing stress.  Nightmares and insomnia for months from apparent PTSD-level stress.  Yes, it was that bad.  The year had begun in a hopeful spirit, as I naively reasoned that nothing could be as bad as 2010 had been.

2011, I’m sorry to say, will probably be a year that I look back on forevermore and cringe while slowly shaking my head.

On the first day of this year, last week, I found myself in a somewhat rotten mood.  I was irritated, as if some invisible splinter were jabbing at every surface of my body.  I took down the Christmas tree, put the decorations away and vacuumed.  I spent the day cleaning up, preparing for the upcoming week of packed lunches, busy schedules, and ironed clothes.  These activities usually make me feel productive and satisfied; instead, I wallowed further in my funk.

Later, in the early evening, I ran out to the store for a few things.  As I drove back the sun had already sunk behind the hills; they left a thick black outline against the horizon, and from their rolling tops sprang golden light, which faded into the darkening blue sky.  My eyes and face relaxed at the sight; I felt my oppressive mood begin to lift and my cloudy mind begin to clear.

It was then, finally, that I thought about the new year before me, and what a gift it is.  For the first time in a long, long time, it is a year that has arrived without expectations, without precursory issues and obligations; it is fresh and, indeed, new.  I have no idea where this year will go, what will happen, what lessons I will learn.

So, I am avoiding resolutions this year and instead focusing on the gratefulness I feel for this new-found peace, for the weeks and months which stretch ahead, quietly so far.  Also, for the joy of the unknown, as I gather the year in my hands and turn it over, slowly, wondering what is inside.

kale chips

I know, I know; could it be any more cliché to talk about something like kale during the first week of January?  I think not.  However, regardless of whether they should be, dieting aspirations are not my motive.  Kale chips, if you’re me, are what happen when you spend too much time wandering Whole Foods and come home with a giant bunch of kale and then spend two days pondering what, exactly, you should do with it. Soup was definitely my first choice, and some kind of saute a close second – or maybe a braise.  These were noble ideas, but unfortunately the necessary physical impetus never swooped in to back up my mind’s conceptions.  Thus, kale chips.

Kale, sadly, has never been a staple ingredient in my kitchen.  It’s not that I necessarily had anything against it; it just wasn’t a food that called out to me.  I mean, look at it.  Sure, it has a nice color, but its leaves seem so big and bland.  They look rough, too – which is surely why they were served as a garnish on the restaurant dishes I remember as a kid, supporting lemon wedges and ramekins of tartar sauce, and were never included among the daintier salad greens.  My solution in the face of these skewed assumptions and ’80s fine-dining (ahem) memories was to simply avoid kale altogether (as usual).  Well, I only wasted precious time because those big, ‘rough’ leaves?  They can stand up to many methods of cooking.  And the unassuming ‘bland’ look?  Let me just say this: if you like the savory depth of flavor that roasted broccoli provides, you will love roasted kale.

goodbye, 2011

 

nana’s peanut brittle

Raise your hand if you’re glad Christmas is over.  *Raises hand.*  As much as I absolutely love the holidays (yes, you read that right), I’m always happy when they’re over.  It’s like the massive build up that starts in October works its way into such a peppermint flavored, chocolate covered frenzy that by the time Christmas day actually arrives, I can’t take it any more.  Maybe it’s some kind of master plan, designed that way so you’re not sad when it’s over and instead raring to start the new year, de-tinseled and Christmas-clutter free.  I mean, if my local Target is any indication, Christmas is already so 2011 (hello, Valentine’s Day).

But, as much as I’m the type of person who’s ready to rip down the tree on the 26th (I didn’t, for Jade’s sake), I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself just yet.  There’s still peanut brittle, after all, though from what I gathered through various websites, peanut brittle, which is commonly associated with Christmas, was never started as a Christmas confection.  Brittle itself is a very old type of candy, primarily found in American cookbooks beginning in the nineteenth century, and peanuts were probably added to the mix once they became very popular during the Civil War.