Oliver likes batter, Bistro dinner for T

As I mentioned earlier, Daylight Savings is never fun for our little family, especially the autumnal episode. We had a big day, full of playdates, a birthday party, and other assorted activities, and by 4p, I thought Oliver would go berserk at any moment. He was ON.EDGE. I suggested we make cupcakes, and as he could eat batter all day long every day, he readily agreed. Once they were all in the oven, I finally turned the mostly-empty bowl over to Ol. I turned away briefly, and when I turned back, he had fully plunged his head in and was literally licking the bowl clean. So my son. I think y'all can see the glimmer of mischief about which I often write. But he is damn cute!

At the farmers market this morning, I was buying chicken breasts for my date with chicken Kiev soon; my favorite meat vendor, Eco-Friendly Foods, had a great-looking flank steak, and even though it's not my favorite cut, I immediately thought of T who looooovves a good steak frites. In honor of his being such a dear husband, I decided to cook him a bistro-inspired dinner. Mustard-olive oil roasted potatoes, the flank steak, slightly creamed spicy greens and good bread. We opened a bottle of Qupe' Syrah too. Fab!

Now thrilled to be heading off to watch Real Time with Bill Maher from Friday!

Daylight Savings

Daylight Savings drives me bananas. Yes, it's ultimately nice to get the extra hour of daylight but it wreaks havoc on kids' sleeping schedules. Oliver started calling for us at 5am, came into our bed, never went back to sleep and is now in an extremely bad mood. Blimey- every single time we spring forward or fall back. Who can believe the election is but two days away? GObama. I'll be glad things are over and done but comedic fodder might be lacking afterwards. Or not. It remains to be seen.

Off to the farmers market soon- I'm having a yen for chicken Kiev so need some happy chicken breasts! I might also get a parcel of fresh mushrooms for a veggie bolognese a la Meatless Monday. We'll see what they have, what's new, what's heading out...

J is having a minor meltdown about not being able to make rope like a professional so let me go tend to that.

...I.F.??

I remember when TGIF really used to mean what it stands for (read: pre-kids). And mostly I mean that in an only factual way. However, kids do change that acronym just slightly to WCTIF or Who Cares That It's Friday because really, in some ways the weekends are much harder than any weekday unless you get slammed with a snow-day, sick child or other unwelcome surprise. When your house becomes a no-nap zone, a day can seem exceedingly, unbelievably, are-you-kidding? long. And that can be tough. It's no surprise to me that the "It's 5:00 somewhere" quote went viral; surely that was first uttered by a weary parent who didn't give one hoo-ha what time it was and thusly turned to some form of liquid courage to face the remaining hours of a Saturday. Today was a busy but overall quite productive one. Three batches of scones made, lemon curd crafted, mis en place to the 9s over here, exercise, a large haul of no-longer-needed children's gear donated, dry cleaning, grocery shopping, pick-ups, tears, hugs, laughs............................. The usual. And, I voted (Obama). I love voting (Obama). It's so civic, so engaged, so communal. Cheers to all DCers who stood in line so politely and amicably today to cast their votes (Obama). Readers, I'm sure you don't mind my subliminal message there as really, by now you should know my politics.

Speaking of politics, did you see what the Washington Post said about Romney today? And I quote, "THROUGH ALL THE flip-flops, there has been one consistency in the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: a contempt for the electorate."

GObama.

Presently, I'm loving me some Sancerre and cooking up an inspired (I think; TBD) dinner of vanilla-coconut-cardamom-pistachio rice with oven-roasted vanilla salmon. I will let you know if the result is as promising as my idea felt.