More Bolognese, college

I just spent a lovely few hours helping a young friend with a college application. College admissions was my career before the boys, and I'm still really lucky to be able to freelance for my old (wonderful) institution of higher education, and on rare occasions, to give advice to anxious kids slogging their way through the gauntlet that the admissions process can sometimes feel like. College was such a huge, watershed, thrilling, scary, perfect and not four years for me. I met some of the people who remain most dearest to me, had some of the good and bad experiences from which I learned a tremendous amount about life, myself and the world, and figured out what really made me tick academically. Let me tell you that it wasn't what I was sure I'd study when I arrived at college, and amen for that. (No pun intended as I ended up majoring in Religion). Anyway, I now love to watch kids on the precipice of this great life change and experience, love helping them best articulate who they are and hope to be. It's exciting and fulfilling, and I feel really lucky for this afternoon- a great way to spend a gross weather day!

I also felt that we must have more Bolognese and boy does it smell to the nines. Off to get my parents.

My parents are coming, cabbage recipe posted, loving fall foods

Everything has been so good lately. Yum. I just love roasting foods- their flavors come out in such delicious, earthy ways, and you can make roasting all fancy and complex or as basic and simple as a hot oven, a food, and some olive oil or butter and salt. Go for it! I just posted my braised spiced cabbage recipe from last night as it was equally delicious today, cold, at lunch, served atop rye crackers and hummus for an impromptu cracker crostini. Lovely!

And we are all excited that my parents are on their way, coming for a quick Halloween with the boys. Poppy is gamely dressing as a cowboy alongside Jack (though he doesn't yet know that J and I decided that Percy will be the cow-dog who was lassoed into trick-or-treating), while Misse is going to be Professor McGonagall. I wish Halloween inspired me, but it doesn't. Ah well.

Braised cabbage and salmon, carrot salad

A good dinner, peeps, and a relatively quick one too! On my drive home this afternoon, I was overcome with a desire for braised cabbage which, as it turns out, often pairs nicely with salmon. Fortunately, I still had one gorgeous cabbage (seriously, isn't its purple-greeness beautiful?!) left from last week's farmers market just waiting to be consumed. As I started noodling on how to braise it, I thought that star anise sounded good; my thoughts then turned to allspice and cinnamon, black pepper and apple cider. And, wouldn't a dish based on those flavors go well alongside the Moroccan carrot salad I'd already planned, what with its cinnamon, honey, ginger and so forth. And tonight I added a splash of pomegranate molasses which was looovvely. So, voila. Healthy, yummy, satisfying. And then more of that peskily good cheesecake. Thank god I managed to force most of it on others today.