Leftover salad

Fork in hand, I sit over a large wooden salad bowl, making my way through post-party leftovers. Because romaine is hearty and arugula is surprisingly so -for a few hours at least- and because I squeezed a bit of lemon over the pears to preclude browning, because pomegranate arils are indestructible unless you let them sit untended for 48 hours and goat cheese is downright great when room temperature, this salad, like so many others, is the crème de la crème of final courses. I think a case could be made for the salad following dessert. Really I do. I absolutely love throwing parties. From the most casual potluck to the grandest affair a non-moneyed mom can throw, I really groove on bringing people together over good food and drink.

Tonight marked our fifth annual parents potluck for J's class, and once again, we had such a fine time. For the first time in a couple years, we weren't randomized with a majority of old friends. One couple from J's first year was here, and it was fabulous sharing yet another meal with them (love you, Les and J); but the rest were new families or couples that we haven't previously spent much time with, and I was reminded anew of the most elemental and wonderful reason for coming together with acquaintances with whom you share even a basic thread (like, your children being in the same third grade class): you might discover a wealth of information over which you can connect, laugh and better understand the diverse world in which we all live. Quite simply, you'll likely make new friends.

The former principal of my boys' school often said that we must all make the effort to regularly spend time with people who do not seem, look and/or are like us. This can take effort because, via human nature, we often tend to group according to obvious or known commonalities. In connecting beyond zones of ease or comfort, we will gain and maintain more open perspectives as well as greater abilities to understand and empathize with paths on which we don't walk.

I laughed so much tonight. I also thought and pondered and learned and simply enjoyed. I am now closer to people who can answer questions I have about experiences I haven't directly lived: growing up in America as individuals of color, different faiths, various sexual orientations. Much like the talk I had with my friend in the aftermath of Ferguson, I thought tonight more critically about how I raise my children and why. What are my goals for them? How do I model, and thus teach acceptance of, diverse perspectives? How can I help them grow up while staying true to themselves?

I thought about all of this as I chewed each bite and ultimately finished what salad remained. I smiled when I thought about how different my boys' early school and life experiences are from my own. Even though I had caring teachers and good friends, a progressive family who exposed me to so much, the times they have a' changed. The times they are more open now, and I sleep a bit better knowing that certain things for certain kids may be blips rather than land-mines, as they progress through and hone their senses of selves.

I'm so lucky to call this school community my home, to call these peers my friends. Tonight I feel grateful.

Various and sundry things like nephews and poo

Nephews

First, how precious is my little nephew? I will meet him in less than two weeks, and though getting out of town for my longest-ever trip away from the boys feels both Herculean and vaguely unsettling, this nugget is waiting for me on the other side.

Friends and the interwebs

Yesterday, I was at school picking the boys up when I saw a friend, P. Each time we run into each other, I leave feeling like I wish I knew her better. She is funny and sweet, but the five children we have between us never cross paths due to different grades, activities and the like. Last year, Oliver became fixated on P's youngest son's winter hat because it had a pull-cord which moved the top. Or something like that. I was hopeful the hat-covet would facilitate coffee or a playdate, and it nearly did. But then... winter. And eleven snow days or some such nonsense.

Anyway, yesterday we ended up having another hilarious conversation -the kind after which you think, "Just how did we get there?"- about online shopping for fashionable things, and I admitted that perusing Gilt after a glass of wine was a dangerous vice of mine and thank god for returns.

P replied, "Oh, when I broke my leg last year, I shopped while on Vicodin. A few days into things, a pair of thigh-high, brown velour stockings arrived at my house."

"What on earth would you do with those?" I inquired.

"I don't know, but what really bothered me was that I'd not bought them in black."

I snorted. Fair enough.

We parted ways, laughing and probably newly jazzed about all that awaited us out there on the interwebs, and I felt grateful for carpool because we do see each other there.

The 'always a bummer' category

I finally got dressed earlier this evening, because I'd been in exercise clothes all day, needed to take J somewhere and really wanted to experience real clothes on this fine Wednesday. You can tell that fall is hanging on by a thread. Winter is a'comin' and I wanted to take advantage of a coatless afternoon. When we returned home, I hurried upstairs to change (because really, once home, if you don't change out of nice clothes, all you're really doing is taking bets with whether you'll go to the dry cleaner tomorrow or the next day), slipped one silver flat off, returned it to its spot, slipped the other one off and wondered, "Hmm, why is that slimy?"

People, dog poo is why. Dog poo. I feel that moms should be exempt from stepping in dog poo and then putting their hand directly in it.

Say what?

Speaking of moms and exemptions, this. Yesterday, I had a babysitter for a couple hours so went out to AROMO to get some work done. It had not been the easiest of afternoons so I went out there with hot tea, glee and my computer. I deserve this space. I deserve for it to be quiet. I do deserve solitude at times. And what happened within the hour? One of my sons came outside, stood behind AROMO and repeatedly elbowed the very wall at which I sat. I demanded to know just what he was doing, and he replied, "I want to be by myself."

Puh-lease. If being alone is what he wanted, try his room or at least the other side of the yard.

Not twenty minutes later, number 2 is outside, rustling around AROMO and then I hear a familiar sounding whizz. Yes, he is peeing behind or against MY WALL. For a very long time might I add.

"What are you doing?"

"This is one of our pee spots, Mom."

WTF?!

Review of Prune (NYC)

Have you read Blood, Bones & Butter? It is a superlative memoir written by Gabrielle Hamilton, chef-owner of Prune, a New York City restaurant that just celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. B,B & B was masterfully crafted, a result of or perhaps the natural entrée into the MFA in Creative Writing that Hamilton received before becoming a chef. It's the kind of book I couldn't put down and also one that has stuck with me since. In fact, the longer I've thought about and processed Hamilton's words, the more I've gleaned and learned from them. Though Hamilton didn't attend culinary school, she opened Prune in 1999 and was awarded the James Beard Best Chef NYC award in 2011. In 2012, Blood, Bones & Butter won a James Beard award for Writing and Literature.

It goes without saying that Gabrielle Hamilton is a multi-talented woman.

As such, when I saw that she will be in DC presenting her new book, the Prune cookbook, over dinner at a nearby restaurant later this month, I eagerly wrote a friend, whose husband was as wowed by B, B & B as was I, to see if they wanted to get tickets and join T and me for the evening. Long story short, the four of us had tickets within five minutes, are looking forward to the 20 November event with much anticipation and I knew I simply had to make to Prune, finally.

Lucky me, we were, as you know, heading to NYC last weekend. Sunday morning was free, and I was as keen on seeing my dear pal Shawn (the one I took to Ghibellina last month and the one who urged me to start this blog) as I was intent on eating brunch at Prune. He's always game for anything, as is Tom, so we met on the curb out front the tiny restaurant just after it opened at 10am.

Prune is way downtown on East 1st, just north of Houston, and if you weren't looking for its magenta awning which overhangs tall, plate glass windows that allow passersby to peer into the tiny interior, you might very well miss it. I don't think Prune can seat more than twenty-five guests, and the nook of a kitchen is the sort only non-New Yorkers might wonder about, but the cramped style works in this cozy place: you're all in the experience together.

Diners and wait staff dance an intimate samba, as some devour what others deliver. A hot-pink-shirted woman with a fifties pinup coif deftly delivered a full round of drinks and dishes to our table-for-two made table-for-three. Here is T's Monte Cristo, the small bowl of currant jelly just holding onto the lip of the plate. His orange juice nestles snugly between his and Shawn's waters, Shawn's coffee and other usual suspects so often on restaurant tables. My ovoid platter of Huevos Rancheros slides neatly at a forty-five-degree angle between my own juice, the Prune (a mix of juices that does not include prune), and Shawn's Soft Scramble with Rosti. The waitress suggests he jettison his coffee cup saucer, and then the table looks as if it were made just to hold all of our dishes and the occasional elbow.

Tom wishes his warm, meaty sandwich  had been left to chart only a savory course; in this vein, he wipes all powdered sugar off the buttery bread and refuses the addition of currant jelly. I eat that from a spoon. Shawn eats his perfectly cooked eggs first, with bites of English muffin, but not its rims, here and there. The rosti will have to wait, which was a wise decision because although it glistened with an entrancing golden hue, it wanted desperately for salt, the one usual suspect missing from our table's fauna.

My huevos were terrific- the chile sauce was smoky and complex, the perfect accompaniment to beans, avocado, chips and eggs. I was full afterwards but not so stuffed that I couldn't later make room for a slice of New York cheesecake, which I bought for and ate on the train home.

At Prune I felt happy. I felt like a neighborhood regular even though I'm obviously not. The food wasn't perfect or even that memorable really. But I'd return in a heartbeat just to feel in that mix again. A blip of a moment in time in a microcosmic speck of New York. It's not every restaurant that can draw people in like that. That's what made Prune special to me and likely part of what has made it special to so many others over the past fifteen years.