Silliness and the S-cubed dinner

Such a nice Saturday.

Boys up at 6, overhearing Nutmeg puke, realizing that Percy must have eaten said puke because I couldn't find it anywhere, finishing Jurassic Park shocked that Oliver was completely unfazed by any of it, going to Staples for emergency Sharpies and pens, eating lunch out with the cuties and then...

my in-laws picked them up to take them somewhere fun and keep them overnight. Shut the front door. Right?! Roughly twenty hours by myself.

Admission: now that it's been seven, I kinda miss those bozos. I mean really, just last week we had this conversation in the car:

J: "My butt is named Dave, penis is Roger."

Me, attempting to remain serious: "How interesting. What prompted this naming?"

Oliver: "My penis is named Long Bamboo."

Me: I was unable to remain serious.

Anyway, point is, they can be hilarious.

But, they left, I gardened, went to the gym, went to the market, did some laundry, read, yada. 

After an hour spent with Ann Patchett in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage (great book of essays, y'all), I decided to make a beautiful dinner for one. Shrimp, sumac, sorrel sauce. Gorgeous.

seared sumac shrimp in sorrel sauce

People, seriously. Is that not stunning?! And so flipping sibilant! Seared sumac shrimp in sorrel sauce. Wha?? Love it!

Sorrel is not an ingredient that goes with just anything. It's a leafy green with an outrageous tang. The sort that'll make you pucker up and say "oo-wee" when you recover. But I love it, and it's beautiful, and it likes cream and shallots and shrimp and all that jazz.

I had a bit of fun with this since I had all the time in the world. After peeling the shrimp, I put the shells in a small saucepan with some white wine, garlic, salt and a chile de arbol. After a few minutes, I strained that, let it cool to room temp and then stirred in some shallots, butter and cream (which I'd later warm just until the butter melted and then toss with the shrimp).  

In a separate pan, I seared the shrimp that I'd marinated with oil, lemon zest, sumac, garlic and shallots. Once they'd cooked, alone and then in the cream, I strained them out and blended the shrimpy cream with the fresh sorrel. The sauce has a marvelous zip and a ridonkulously great color, don't you think?

I might also have had a wild solo dance party during which my pets looked at me askance. Whatever, they can't talk!

Storms and memories

I'm on my couch, legs out long across it, Percy snoring at my knees. The back door is open, and I've propped the screen door ajar in case Nutmeg wants to come back in. Through a wall of windows, I see my neighbor's dogwood leaning over the corner of my deck luxuriously. It is pregnant with blooms and is most welcome.

There is a rustling in the air, a fuzzy sound that carries with it a hint of breeze. The leaves of my jalapeño plant are waving ever so slightly while the cooked-noodle arms of the next-door willow tremble on a different current. 

Though the skies are the gray blues and whites of dusk, the thinnest veil of rain started staining the deck a darker hue. Now, it's stopped, and the wood looks splotchy. Faintly, far, far in the distance, thunder rumbles inconsistently. 

I hope it comes our way. I hope the skies open and release their watery savings. I hope the thunder roars until it's hoarse. I hope the lightning strikes again and again and again, like so many exclamation points.

The ricotta on the stove hisses just a bit, reminding me that it's almost past time to remove the pot from the heat below it. I take leave from Percy and hurry to run a knife around the rim where cheese meets steel, loosing the curds, before putting things on a back burner to rest and come together. 

I wish I'd made it earlier, so that I could stir some into hot pasta with fresh sorrel and a grate of nutmeg. That's a dish that wouldn't excite Tom, and since he's in Boston, now's the time. Tomorrow. The kids and I watched Jurassic Park (well, Jack played Stack the States and Operation Math; bless his heart.), and I made them ice cream sundaes, so the ricotta had to wait. 

Earlier, I saw two toddlers in a doublewide stroller. They watched, mouths agape, eyes wide, at some construction being done on Mass Ave. Behind them, a caregiver waited patiently. How many times did I take my boys to watch dump trucks and dozers and cranes? How many times did I glance around furtively before letting them climb atop the giant bucket of a parked digger?

I smiled, and drove on, heading to school to take pictures for J's class. End-of-year headshots, for a "look how much they've grown" perspective. I arrived a bit early, during math, and waited happily on the sidelines.

Twenty-two kids sat on the rug staring up at one of their teachers as she, a million months pregnant and amazing, made math come alive. Hands shot up, guesses were proffered, the differences between a prism and pyramid made simply clear. 

One girl pulled her mane of hair into a ponytail, wrapping it with a band in a practiced way. When did she learn to do that? 'Vertices' and 'congruent' and 'pentagonal' flew confidently from the kids' mouths. When did they master this sort of language? Weren't these children just in doublewides staring at construction sites and zoo animals as doting adults pushed and paused and explained?

J turned around briefly and gave me a smile. "I love you," I knew he was thinking. "I love you, too," I thought back. "When did you get so big?" 

His neck is starting to slope into young-man shoulders, his legs are sturdy and dense even though he is so slender. It's as if the baby vanishes from the outside in, and these new solid-state limbs confirm my suspicion that J is a tot no more. In any way.

It's dark outside now, and the storm I'd hoped for remains nothing but a whisper in the wind. I need to drain the ricotta and eat some dinner and get to bed. And I will. But I'll keep listening, should the skies part, and attempting to sear into my brain memories of the boys, as they were and are.

Farmers market and a hike

What a great day! The boys and I took one of my favorite friends, G, to the Dupont farmers market as she'd never been. We ate Red Zebra pizzas for breakfast, the boys got cookies and cream popsicles from Pleasant Pops for dessert, and I came home with a flat of strawberries and a million stalks of rhubarb. Plus sorrel, squash blossoms, a buttload of spring chickens and so on.

We cleared out five pints of strawberries alone and with freshly whipped cream tonight after a terrific hike through Battery Kemble.

the boys crossing a fallen log (do y'all love how Jack chose to wear a belt for this hike? bless his heart.

I can do it too!

scaling a downed tree's root ball

Compost salad with farmers market greens for dinner, American Sniper (Bradley Cooper was really good), the paper and now to bed.

Hope y'all are well.