Mahvelous pre-Fathers Day Feast

Today was absolutely beautiful! Tae Kwon Do, exercise, play date, marketing, card-playing, etc. What fun! And, tips: If you are the parent of a 7-8 year old and need some quiet time built into your day, teach him/her Solitaire.

Tip 2: If you want a fun card game to play with said 7-8 year old, teach him/her Gin Rummy.

We have all had a ball playing Gin with Jack who already has a ludicrous win record. In the downtime, I have felt thankful that I today taught him Solitaire.

Since my parents leave tomorrow, we decided to celebrate Fathers Day for Dad this evening. I made a beet salad, some garlic-olive oil spinach ricotta ravioli and bought some Bourbon vanilla ice cream, Mom made apple crisp, Tom plank-grilled mustard-maple King salmon and the  boys made cards. We set a pretty table with a blue seersucker cloth and napkins, white china, and a vase of pale pink peonies and white spray roses and opened a bottle of Chinon rosé. Everything was fresh and lovely and tasty in a deeply satisfying way.

I was so thrilled that Ol cottoned to the beets and that Jack devoured the ravioli!

And apparently now we're watching a documentary about atomic bombs. Righty roo, Saturday night.

Miss you!

Just pulled a tiny tick off of Jack! GAH! Sister left, parents here, house looks as if struck by tornado!

Leftovers for dinner last night, early Father's Day meal tonight!

Miss writing, more ASAP!

Hilarity in cream

Lest you think I've neglected my beloved kale salads, you're sorely mistaken. This puppy was the central element of a terrific lunch today. And darnit on this rhubarb-cherry-hibiscus crumble! Excellent....

But about cream.

Growing up, Mom and I used to indulge ourselves by drinking the tiny buckets of half-and-half that places like McDonald's provided for folks who like their coffee with cream. You know...those little plastic cups with peel-back foil tops; I bet each has just a couple teaspoons, maybe a tablespoon, of aseptically processed half-and-half. We'd each drink several, savoring every drop of the velvety treat. Mom would recall how the milkman would bring glass jars of cream-top milk to her home when she was a child. Nanny would always let Mom run her finger around the inside rim of each bottle, scooping off the cream and relishing it all.

For a while, I avoided cream like the plague, but fortunately I've seen the error of my ways, and cream and I are again dear friends. I always, always have heavy cream in my fridge, not least because it's an important ingredient in homemade ricotta but also because it's just useful to have on hand. It's great in eggy tarts, allows for fresh whip cream whenever the mood strikes, makes a good pasta that much better.

In any case, we recently ran out of 2% milk and as Oliver is an insatiable milk drinker, I acted fast. 1% + cream = Plan B he would never suspect. I poured, gave it to him, he enthusiastically sucked some down. And then. This.

*Ignore the absurd Jim Carrey'ish hair if you can.

It's like the time my mom tried to pass liver off as steak. I was probably 8 and asked "What is this meat?"

"Steak!" she said.

Me: "Why is it so thin?"

Mom: "Oh, it's just a thinner cut."

I tried one bite. "Well, I'll tell you that there is something wrong with this steak!"

Dad: "Aah, don't eat it! It's liver!!"

He, El and I left Mom with all the liver and she ate to her heart's content.