Friday, Friday, you finally arrived

Today was one of those during which I felt like a whack-a-mole. I had a meeting, scurried home to cook, had a meeting, scurried home to cook, picked the kids up and took J to baseball/played on the playground with Ol/scurried home to cook. I am in great shape for the dinner tomorrow night, but hell's bells did I move today. After I uncrimped my body from post-workout stun this morning that is. Seriously, when I awoke, I thought I was experiencing muscular paralysis in about 90% of my body. Two weeks off a sore gal makes. Anyway, all good and I'm in great shape now. The gig is a 70th birthday party for a very cool woman. She and her husband have such a wonderful spirit about them and an exciting palate to boot. For the menu they chose: rosemary-rubbed salmon with parsnips/mushrooms/potatoes; leek confit and aged goat cheese tarts; Louisiana red beans and rice; curried cauliflower; roasted beets with horseradish sauce; Brussels sprouts slaw with candied pecans and mustard vinaigrette; roasted sweet potatoes with hazelnut gremolata; pumpkin cheesecake; and chocolate-almond cakes with chocolate-rum ganache frosting.

You want to go to the party too, don't you!?

T and I kept dinner simple tonight and grilled a marvelous pizza. I managed to take the two worst photos in the world of it so will definitely not share them with you, but I will say that the mozzarella di bufala that Vace imports is out of control great, and topped with kale and sauteed portabellos, olive oil and truffled salt, well... it pretty much rendered me speechless.

As I have no pics of any food for you tonight, I will instead leave you with two of my darling boys. I took the one of Jack (and Ol though he looks a bit silly), and a fab teacher at their school took the one of Ol. Frame-worthy, both of them!

Cheese

I just bought so much cheese at Whole Foods (remember, all hand-cut cheeses are 25% off today) that I should be arrested for dairy gluttony! Kinda awesome.

This farro salad last night was also awesome, as are these huge honking cauliflowers I just bought! Yee-haw!

Two dinners, bits of news

Spiced yogurt is really a fantastically good and easy marinade for chicken, and what you don't use to marinate makes a fabulous dipping sauce for your finished product. Chicken prepared in just this way was our dinner last night. I seasoned some Greek yogurt with lots of cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, cumin, salt, lemon juice and freshly chopped mint; then I tossed most of it into a Ziploc with two chicken breasts, sealed the bag, shook the hell out of everything and let things stew in the fridge for an hour or so. Then, into a hot Lodge went those chix and voila, a wonderful main. The boys enjoyed our leftovers today and said "that chicken is SO good, Mom. You are the best cook EVER." I love it. I also made some mustard and panko carrots for a lovely side!

It's a good thing they had darling moments today because those were interspersed with Pill of the Century behavior from both. Oh my god! Not 10 minutes ago I heard Jack wailing that he couldn't sleep. So, I went in and asked if he'd been reading Harry Potter since 6:58; he fessed up and I removed HP from his room. Yes, I'm thrilled he loves to read so much it makes him want to stay up late; little is as good as a book you can't put down. But post-9pm on a school night? After a service trip to a farm that included two hours on a school bus? Before a full day of school plus baseball practice tomorrow? I think not.

Anyway, for tonight's meal I made my farro with gold beets, feta and candied pecans salad, heated up the rest of the romanesco cauliflower and grilled T his favorite sweet Italian sausages from the farmers market (Cibola Farms is the vendor if you're interested). Also, I had an Applejack Rabbit.

The BlogHer '14 conference was just announced and open for registration. San Jose next July, here I come!!! I'm totally excited. In other news, my French Silk Pie (an old recipe from my Nanny's older sister, Hilda, that I've reworked a bit) is going to be included in Just Desserts, a cookbook published by KCTS, a PBS affiliate serving more than 1.5 million folks in Seattle, Central Washington and British Columbia. I'm so pleased and flattered and placed an order today!