John Beale, dinner

Have you seen the insanely unbelievable YET true story about John Beale? The complete charlatan EPA official who requested first travel airfare, a special parking space for malaria contracted in Vietnam (he's never been there), and complete pay despite not showing up to work for years because he was a "covert CIA operative." You must watch these clips from The Daily Show which includes the bit from Beale's congressional hearing that will leave you literally incredulous with mouth agape.

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Un.real!

Before watching Jon regale us with this lunacy, T and I made dinner together: chicken with lemon and olives; couscous; and roasted Brussels sprouts. Fab-o. Tomorrow we're having spaghetti and meatballs with his parents and celebrating an early Christmas with them, and then Saturday, off we go to Louisiana.

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Fennel carpaccio salad + rum balls

What makes a lovelier lunch than a beautiful salad followed by some tiny, flavor-bomb treats? Many things, but still. This.was.perfect! I spent a most marvelous morning at a school meeting and then helping out in Jack's class as they made and wrapped gifts for family members. You might recall I was manning the pomander station and since none of the kids nor I knew the history of this item, we learned. It originated in 13th Century France, pomme d'ambre en française which means amber apple or apple of amber, as a means of combating bodily odors, illness and witches. The first pomanders weren't made of the clove-infused oranges we made today; those came about later but are definitely part of the tradition. About half the kids thought cloves smelled "awesome," while the others suggested they might faint from the "too strong smell." Hilarious. Darling kids!!

Anyway, when I got home I was hungry and in my continuing effort this week to clean out the fridge, I made this lovely salad of shaved fennel quick-marinated in Meyer lemon juice, kosher salt and blood orange olive oil, grapefruit sections, and grated ricotta salata. I toasted some lovely pain de campagne I bought yesterday and for good measure sprinkled it with more of the blood orange oil (my new obsession) and ricotta salata. This was as good as the salad. And for dessert? Two of my rum balls which, if I say so myself, are spectacular.

Whoa, Wednesday!

Say what, Wednesday? By 5:40am, the boys were jockeying for positions next to me in bed, Nutmeg was slinking around trying to crunch on any plastic or cardboard packaging he could find, T was snoring lightly, and the day has pretty much resembled that mayhem ever since. We delivered many teacher gifts, I had a lovely cup of tea with a dear friend, the next few hours are blurry, I picked up the boys, got the Kleenex box (Lucite with a hinged hood; "I am SO proud of my tissue box and will NEVER wake you up again, Mommy."), made the Creature Power Disks, laminated some of them, went to the market, did something else, and spent nearly a half hour driving 1.5 miles home at 6p. My road rage reached epic proportions, and the boys ate dinner in the car. Boo! I just informed T that I would be sleeping in the basement tonight, thank you very much, and am here now desperately longing for my chapstick but otherwise happy. We'll deliver the last few gifts in the morning, I'm to work the craft-making fair for three hours and apparently am in charge of the pomander station (I had to look that up; it appears to be a sort of clove-infused citrus ornamentation), and then hell will have to freeze over before I don't go get a pedicure.

I managed to make the ugliest dinner salad known to man and, as such, refuse to show you the picture of it. It was kale salad with tomatoes, feta and stuffed grape leaves alongside, plus fresh bread, some hummus and some blood orange olive oil. Tasty but wow was it an ugly plate.

Look at the cute jar toppers I got for gifts this year (from myownlabels.com)!! Love!