More delish food

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Peeps, our meals of late have reminded me that maligning winter produce is quick-tongued. The panoply of citrus alone, a bounty of multi-hued jewels, could sustain the pickiest eater for a month. And, forget scurvy! Much can and should be done with these delicious treats. My salads of last night and this evening were made that much better because of their additions of orange: last night the Minneola; tonight the blood orange.

I figured my Italians would be yearning for some pasta by now so made my Brussels sprouts, shallot and speck with long noodles (mafaldine this time) which is always lovely!!

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This afternoon, the boys and I watched the first third of Raiders of the Lost Ark. What a fun, adventurous film. Harrison Ford was so ruggedly dashing, and within ten minutes of the opening scene, Jack had donned all clothes that could possibly resemble Indy's and fashioned a whip from Zoobs. I love that kid's creative bent. A costume always makes things more real, a belief he and Oliver subscribe to completely. Here is young Indy, sans hat and chest strap, attempting to put excitement behind him so as to do homework.

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Isn't he handsome?! Look at that tussled hair and rosy lips, eyebrows and lashes any woman would kill for.

Mio nipote e qui; dessert

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Aah, my darling nephew (mio nipote; and also my fabulous sister and her fabulous husband) arrived this afternoon. We are all so happy to see them, and they us. I made a scrumptious dinner of salad and that seemingly omnipresent caramelized shallot, cabbage and tasso tart; we have no leftovers so I'll take that as an affirmative that all was well-liked.

I also wanted to mention the random dessert I made last night which was both a result of a thorough freezer cleaning and delicious: warm biscuits with a sour cherry-currant compote all drizzled with cream. Outstanding!

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Why the thorough freezer clean you might ask? Well because yesterday, while Ol was home sick and I was rummaging through the fridge looking for something that might constitute lunch, I discovered an insidious black mold in the way-back-bottom of our fridge. Dis-gusting. My Sherlockian suspicions believed this gnarly fur to have grown from a large maple spill that, when I discovered it, had become an intractable, crystalline shellac. When did that happen? I unloaded everything, shelf by shelf, and decided to spin the left turn to nowhere into a positive: how old was that teriyaki sauce? What was that now-gelatinous blob?

After a half-hour, I'd had no luck removing anything but the Styrofoam inserts I think were meant to be permanent. My pink, 1950s-housewife gloves got a hell of a workout, as did an array of toothbrushes, sponges, scrubby brushes and cleaners. I even called in the A-team troop known as bleach and later decided to move on to the freezer just because I'm that girl.

Later glad was I when, having thrown out all things freezer-burned or unrecognizable, I was left with sour cherries, currants and biscuits. Hence this dessert which I will most definitely replicate, purposefully, in the future. Lemons into lemonade, y'all.

Why sex ed is important, and other stuff

Nutmeg returned home this afternoon with a "gift;" a dead bird. Oliver opened the back door and was like "WTF?!" in a child-appropriate way. "There is a dead bird here, Mom, and it's WHOLE." "Oliver, are you serious?" Obviously I thought he was pulling my chain.

He was not. There was a darling, seemingly woundless, dead little bird on my doormat, and my heart broke a little. The kids wailed, "PUNISH, NUT, Mom." Like I can punish a cat. So instead I tried to explain instinct and evolution.

"Boys, cats hunt. It's what they do. I mean, how would Nutmeg eat if we didn't feed him? He would go find food and kill it if need be."

"But WHY? We FEED Nutmeg."

"I know, honeys, but it's what he's evolved to do. It's like, when you were born, how did you know how to nurse? No one taught you, you just knew."

Oliver: "I don't know."

Jack: "Mom, duh, it's NOT like we put our mouths on your boob!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm thinking, "Well, actually, that's exactly how it works. How does he think it works?" And then I realized anew why it pays to stay silent sometimes because...

Jack continued: "I mean, Mom, you put on the machine with the straw and stick that into the baby's mouth."

I love the knowitall'ness of kids. I mean, this description of nursing is ludicrous, and yet it makes perfect sense to Jack. Enough so that he "DUHs" me repeatedly with his eyes and tone whilst relaying his knowitall'ness of nursing. Which is not even something he'll ever do. It was great.

I cleared things up lest Oliver's single take-away of this conversation be, "Mom once fed me with a straw attached to her boob." And I feel even more strongly than ever that kids be taught all about their bodies and babies and reproduction and so forth because otherwise they think babies nurse from boob straws (Jack) or that you can get pregnant by touching butts with someone else (I actually believed that to be true, many moons ago). ~~~ Tonight for dinner, I attempted my own version of the potatoes with piquillo sauce that I had last Saturday at The Black Sheep. I smoked a sweet red pepper and then cooked it down with a Spanish onion, some parboiled russet potatoes, garlic, olive oil, a bay leaf and some pimentón. Before serving I stirred in some crème fraîche and to go alongside made coffee-rubbed steak. Not bad, not bad at all.

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