Ludicrous Wednesdays

Wednesdays have become the most outrageous day, and not in a good way (although I did manage a lunch date with a bestie today). They are so run-raggedy that Thursdays have defaulted into necessary mental health days. You know, the times you call in sick from work when you're not really sick or clear your schedule just because you literally cannot even feign interest in one more activity or to-do. And so tomorrow is such for me, and I am seriously looking forward to it. I will read the newspaper, I will not answer any calls from CVS, and I will finish unpacking from Richmond. We got home at 6:15 tonight, and the boys still needed dinner, bath and the bedtime routine. I urged them to snarf dinner like mannerless heathens, raced them through shoddy baths, read one joint story, Snoring Beauty, and then I bid them sayonara before going to sit catatonically with Nutmeg and online shop for god knows what until returning to some sort of stasis. At this point, Jack came downstairs (when did "bedtime" become like a yellow traffic light instead of red?) needing a yellow marker to color in the bubble lettered-Pokemon title he'd drawn on a Pokemon notebook he was making and also a brown to complete something else.

I accommodated these requests and certainly agreed when he then asked if he could do a page in his reading comprehension workbook (smart kid buys time in ways he knows I'll agree to); you have never seen a child write such lengthy and complete answers. I did not agree to a second dinner or his "real need" to "look something up on Amazon." I can't tell y'all how much rogue shit Tom and I found in our Amazon cart on a weekly basis. Reason 408 why I will never share passwords with the children! Can you imagine what would start arriving at our door?

Ultimately, I took a cue from my friend Randy, who regularly and very kindly beseeches me to take a load off, and decided we'd have salad and leftover gumbo for dinner. Because it's been more than a week, I also had to make a plum tart. Duh!

Lest y'all think my crush on Benedict has waned, it has not. It has been on the back burner as of crazy late, but I have colored in my coloring book and I do still gaze upon this picture on occasion. Know you've missed it too (except C and Mom; I know he mos def does NOT do it for you. We can still be friends.)

Pecan pesto, rapini with vin cotto

I am simply baffled by Pokémon. It has swept into our lives suddenly, furiously, and Jack is positively besotted. Oliver is not far behind. Cards and HPs and types and evolutions and powers...it seems Pokémon could be infinitely studied and played but I just don't get it. And the show is the worst. Just the absolute worst of anime. Naturally the boys beg to differ, but not since Bob the Builder have I felt a "passion" of theirs was so utterly vapid. Good for summertime I guess! In any case, dinner. In Wrightsville Beach a few weeks back, I bought some pecan oil brought up from Louisiana. Now, it is not lost on me that I've never bought pecan oil while at home, in Louisiana, but I saw it, was struck with a home-based yen, bought it and tonight made pecan pesto.

Pecan oil is exceedingly mild but it's a nice enough foundation if you also add actual pecans in some manner. I toasted a half cup of pecan halves, picked a mixed cup of basil and parsley from the yard, blended all that with some grated Parmesan, said pecan oil, some lemon, salt and a bit of garlic. These darling annelli, ring-shaped pasta I bought at Piazza in Easton back in May, paired wonderfully with the pesto; the sauce got caught up in the tiny rounds, like muck in your car hubcaps but good, which made each bite that much more intense. Nanny's favorite pasta was ditalini; annelli look like ditalini that have each been sliced in half.

Alongside, because I feel I've been terribly delinquent in the dinnertime veggie-making business as of late, I made my Rapini with Vin Cotto (you might recall it was featured on Food 52 as both a Community Pick and highlight of Weeknights with Jenny). It is so flipping good. The vague or overt bitterness of the greens (vague if you use broccolini but overt if you use rapini) is countered by the sweet tang of the vin cotto (cooked wine though I use balsamic vinegar instead of wine), and the little shocks of seared/charred/caramelized garlic are sublime.

Children cussing, gumbo making

I'm still cringe-laughing because, as is true for much of parenthood, you just can't make this shit up. You see, in Spanish club last term, Oliver developed a big, mutual crush on a 4th grader, P, who was assisting the teacher. I know the girl's mother pretty well so offered up that if ever her daughter wanted to play or get babysitting experience, I'd be happy to have her over as a "mother's helper."  Ol kept asking, the dear girl felt equally enthused, and so yesterday P came over for two hours after the boys returned home from camp.

Though Jack ultimately left Ol and P to themselves, initially the three played several rounds of Spanish bingo. Approximately 22 minutes after P arrived, I was making roux in the kitchen and thinking to myself, "this is just a lovely situation!" when I heard Jack yell down, "Mom, Oliver just said the "f-word."

"WTF?!" I said to myself.

"Excuse me, what f-word?" hoping beyond hope that the answer was 'fart.'

Jack: "The bad one."

Oliver: "Fuck! Isn't that a Spanish word?"

People, I'm wracking my brain and can think of no Spanish word that sounds like 'fuck.' I suspect Oliver is quick on his feet in the BS department rather than honestly thinking fuck is a Spanish vocab word he learned, and I'll give him that, but good god. 22 minutes in?

In as calm a voice as I could muster through mortification and under-my-breath laughing, I reminded Oliver that what he said was really quite a bad word and that he would not be repeating it. I then texted a friend because this story had to be shared immediately. She was in the pit of hell with her tykes and seemed to appreciate comic relief.

"OK, Mom."

Naturally, I let P's mother know, as soon as she arrived, that should P mention that my five year old said 'fuck' during Spanish bingo, I really didn't know where this came from and had handled it. She laughed, I laughed, say it with me: "You can't make this shit up."

Fortunately, this cussing did not interfere deleteriously with my roux-making, a good thing since making roux on a hot day is fairly arduous and you'd always prefer to not make a second batch unless you have or want to. By the time we ate, it was actually really nice out, so T and I moved to the deck with steaming bowls of gumbo. Gumbo is one of my favorite dishes of all time. I love it so much. It is highbrow, lowbrow, home, comfort and spice all in a bowl.

I spent two hours with my dear friend, G, this morning and am now making Strawberry Pinot Noir jam. Back to it!