Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Chicken, Currants, Fennel and Mascarpone

Oh my goooodddd, did I hit the jackpot with this creation. This is totally going into the favorites file. In the mood for pasta, I was rummaging in my fridge and saw shredded rotisserie chicken, fennel and a bit of mascarpone. Some random flash of old reminded me that I'd once seen a dish with pasta, chicken and currants. YES! So, I sauteed some garlic, fennel and currants in some olive oil, salted it well, added a healthy dash of cinnamon and some chicken, sauteed some more, deglazed with some of the white wine I was drinking and kept warm. In the meantime, in super-well-salted water, I cooked some whole wheat spaghetti until al dente, reserved 1/2 cup of cooking water,  and then tossed the pasta, a nice knob of mascarpone and about 1/4 c cooking water into the fennel-chicken mixture. I stirred/cooked it all over low heat, adding a bit more cooking water as I went to keep it vaguely saucy, and served with freshly grated parmesan and some chopped fennel fronds on top. DIVINE! I'll post this recipe for sure.

Apple Butter, Jam, PFAPA, Shrimp Deal This Friday

This has been quite a productive few days: 5 or 6 jars of apple butter and four of peach-plum-lime-ginger jam all done;  the house is relatively clean; I've even read bits and pieces of the newspaper. And tonight I'm taking a load off! O and I spent the morning at the doctor, and although he felt terrible and they had to draw blood from his arm (always horrible to watch your writhing, scared baby being held down as a needle approaches!), it was actually a lovely couple hours together. It was so intensely just us and it was very dear. At one point, he kissed my shoulder and said "I love you, Mommy." Did I want to just die?! Indeed.

I also managed to -finally- convince the doc that O just might have the same bizarre periodic febrile disorder (PFAPA) that Jack has and couldn't we please just try the preventive medicine -Tagamet; nothing big- that Jack takes (J has never been sick again since starting on this). Yes! So, here's hoping that after O is all well after this episode, he will be on the PFAPA-avoiding trajectory that Jack has enjoyed for two or so years now.

If any of you out there have children who regularly (the periodicity is key so keep track) get a high fever, lose their appetite and have (or don't) small ulcers in their mouths (J doesn't get these; O had one last time) for 5 days or so, consider asking about PFAPA. Poor J missed about a week of school every month for a year and a half until he started the Tagamet, and I swear to you he's never had an episode again EXCEPT when we left his medicine in Louisiana and I experimented with had he outgrown PFAPA. No, he had not! So we resumed the med and he's never been sick again. Just some random medical info.

If y'all groove on shrimp like I do, USA wild-caught Atlantic white shrimp are on sale this Friday at Whole Foods for $7.99/pound. I'm thinking shrimp burgers!

Cooking with the seasons

Despite not having slept too much last night, Oliver and I made it to the market after dropping Jack off. We needed milk, juice and a few other necessities, but my fridge was also starting to look the teensiest bit vacant, so I took his lead and said "sure, let's go get juice!"  He decided that he also wanted tulips and nut thins which I thought were terrific additions to our list, and I spied a few lingering Italian plums and peaches.Without hesitation (though with some awareness of canning obsession), I bought some and thought I'd make one last round of jam. Buying, enjoying and preserving things for later when they're in season makes me feel more connected with the natural course of the natural world; honoring their schedules makes me appreciate much more deeply that these treats only come around for a seemingly brief time each annum. There's a reason that tomatoes are gross in February, watermelons peak in June/July, squash are divided into summer and winter varieties and so forth. And watching fall usher out summer's bounty, it is almost an urgency I feel to save what I can of it for later.

Last night as I stirred and stewed all that apple butter, I almost didn't mind the bone-deep fatigue consuming me. I felt like a cross between Strega Nonna with her pot and an early American farm woman doing what needed to be done with the harvest before it spoiled. Quite a stretch I know what with my food mill and various other accoutrements, but still, there is something about the process of doing the work rather than paying for it to be done for you that gives you a sense of appreciation for and connection to all that goes into the cycle of growth, harvest, and consumption in its most elemental form.

Lest you think I'm morphing into a Luddite who wants to move off the grid, I'm not. But I like feeling this connection.