5 second rule

A lasting influence.

My eighth grade son recently wrote an essay about his fourth grade teacher.

About Mr. B, and how Mr. B had inspired him both inside the classroom and out. About Mr. B's running program, which entailed sending the kids outside to jog the track, first a little, logging each lap as they went. Eventually, over time, the kids would run longer, and faster, and by the end of the program, kids like my son were running seven, eight, nine laps, ten laps, pushing themselves to achieve their own personal bests. 

The essay recounted how this teacher, and this program, encouraged my son to love running, to view it as a point of pride and self-motivation. How it inspired him to join his middle school cross country team, and to run with his dad, my husband, at every possible opportunity. They run weekends together, long runs, the warm sun flooding their faces for one hour, sometimes two. 

My son is a runner.

He emailed the essay to Mr. B.

And Mr. B. emailed back, saying the essay "made his year" and reminded him of why he went into teaching in the first place. Saying he read it aloud to his wife.

This is what teaching does.

It connects people, sometimes long after their initial point of contact.

I was a teacher, once. And every now and then I still pine for those moments, those moments when a student looks at you and tells you that you've made a difference. But teaching is hard work. The preparation, the organization, the logistics of lesson-planning... those are things I don't miss. Those things are wholly undervalued, though they take up the lion's share of a teacher's time.

Several weeks ago, my friend Beth invited me to co-teach a cooking class with her. Sure, I told her, so long as you do all the work. (I really said this.) She was fine with that, and it's a good thing. I honestly wouldn't have -- couldn't have -- said yes to her otherwise, not at that time, not with other stuff I had going on. 

I'm so grateful for her planning, her logistics, her hard work getting us ready. And then the class came, and we killed it. Her efforts paid off, and things went smoothly, and at the end of the morning, one of the people there took me aside, quietly thanking me.

Thank you for teaching me about these foods, he said.

Where can I find wheat berries?

Can I freeze roasted grapes?

Is this food healthy for me?

I answered his questions, one by one, grateful to Beth, and the universe, for making me -- just for a morning -- into someone else's Mr. B.

...

Recipe for Wheat Berry Salad with roasted grapes and caramelized shallots

This hearty salad contains wheat, grapes, olives, and caramelized shallots, which add a gentle sweetness. I advise starting the wheat berries ahead. Soak them overnight (if you want to -- it isn't strictly necessary), then boil, cool, and refrigerate. When you’re ready to make the salad, they’ll be all set to go.

Makes 7 cups (will serve 8 people easily, as a side)

1-1/2 pounds small seedless red grapes (about 5 cups)
8 tablespoons olive oil (1/2 cup total), divided
Sea salt and black pepper
3 branches rosemary
1 pound shallots (about 6 good-sized bulbs), peeled & sliced
3-1/2 to 4-1/2 cups cooked wheat berries* (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon fig balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, slivered

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment or silicone liners.

Dump the grapes all onto one baking sheet and pat very dry if they’re at all moist. Drizzle with 3 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sea salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Rub in the seasonings with your fingers. Now transfer half of the seasoned, oiled grapes to the 2^nd lined baking sheet. Nestle a rosemary sprig under the grapes on each sheet pan, getting it a bit oily, too. (Save the 3^rd sprig of rosemary for garnish.)

Transfer to the oven. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring gently and reversing the sheet pans once or twice. Remove when the grapes have burst and the juices are syrupy. Let cool.

Meanwhile, while the grapes are in the oven, caramelize the shallots. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 3 tablespoons olive oil and the shallots. Sauté a few minutes just to get them going, until they’re really sizzling. Then drop the heat down to medium-low and cook more gently, stirring frequently, until deeply browned and very soft, 20 to 25 minutes. You may cool them, or incorporate them into the salad while still warm. 

In the bottom of a large serving bowl, whisk the final 2 tablespoons olive oil with the fig balsamic.  Season lightly with salt and pepper. Add 3-1/2 cups cooked wheat berries and toss to coat. Gently fold in the grapes with their juices, shallots, and olives. Taste, adding up to one cup more wheat berries if the flavors are too intense. Strip the final rosemary branch and let the needles float over the salad, for garnish.

*To cook wheat berries. Wheat berries do not need to be soaked, but some people find that soaking makes them more digestible. Soak 3 cups hard red winter wheat berries (found in the bulk aisle of Whole Foods) in plenty of cold water overnight. Drain, and transfer to a large pot. Cover with fresh cold water and salt generously. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer at a gentle bubble, partly covered, for about 50 minutes, until tender but with a pleasant chew. Drain. Spread out on a rimmed baking sheet to speed cooling. Once cool, transfer to a zip top bag or covered container in the refrigerator. You’ll have 8 cups cooked wheat berries, which is twice as much as you’ll need for the salad. I always advise making a large batch like this because you can freeze extras.

printable pdf

...

Want to read more about Mr. B? I interviewed him about his running program back in 2009.

Tasting Temescal: an Oakland, California Food Tour

(From left: Our hostess and tour guide, Sarah Henry; baker Brian Wood of Starter Bakery with his Kouign Amanns; Hannah Hoffman of Doughnut Dolly; the colorful tiffin at Juhu Beach Club; hanging citrus at Scream, a wonderful sorbet and ice cream shop whose fate is currently uncertain)

I can tell you about the food scene in Portland. I can tell you about the food scene in Mexico City. And I can tell you about the food scene in Israel. You want to know about the food in suburban New York circa 1985? I can tell you about that, too. (I hope you like diners and delis.)

But it was with some measure of embarrassment and shame that I recently realized how little I knew about the Bay Area food scene beyond the comfortable confines of Silicon Valley. 

Further north -- either up towards San Francisco or veering east toward Oakland and Berkeley -- tossed me completely and utterly out of my league. 

So I jumped at an invitation from my friend and fellow food writer Sarah Henry to join her for a media preview of a new series of walking-and-tasting tours run by Edible Excursions, a culinary tour company that matches food enthusiasts and travelers with knowledgeable guides for three-hour jaunts through particular neighborhoods. (Note: Tours cost $75/per person and include plenty of food to qualify as a full meal, with dessert, and then some. We folks on the media preview tour did not have to pay.)

Happily, now I can add the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland to the list of places where I'd be comfortable making dining recommendations. If you wander out of Temescal, though, you're on your own. Seriously, I know nothing. (Please weigh in below with other Oakland favorites.)

Here's where I went. 

Temescal Farmers' Market. We started our tour here, and since I'd arrived early (thanks to the excellent navigational skills of my co-pilot, Danielle), I stocked up on organic almonds, baby gem lettuces, purple kale, and tiny turnips before we met up with the rest of the group. The market's a community hub, and with good reason. Location: 5300 Claremont Ave, Oak. Hours: Sunday, 9a-1p, year-round. More info here.

(From left: Menu at Cholita Linda; Menu-board at Doughnut Dolly; men hanging outside the old-timey barbershop in Temescal Alley)

Cholita Linda. Co-owner Vanessa Chavez of Cholita Linda (one of the vendors at the Temescal Market) offers super-fresh, crisp, and colorful Baja fish tacos, carne asada, and a bevy of sandwiches, which you can wash down with a cool strawberry lemonade or agua fresca. This stall's so popular, Cholita Linda will be opening permanent digs -- called Cholita Linda Bistro -- on Telegraph Avenue in the coming months. More information here.

Starter Bakery. Even if you can't spell the famed Breton pastry Kouign Amann (I'm not sure I can), you should still eat one. Rich and flaky with more butter than you should probably consume in a month, this sugary indulgence -- available at the Starter Bakery stall also at the Temescal Farmers' Market -- is worth every caloric bite. The secret? Baker Brian Wood explains that using salted butter ("they should taste salty," he says), and brushing the baking pan with still more butter and dusting it with sugar gives the classic French pastry its characteristic flavor and irresistible, almost-caramellike chew. For those of you located near me, Wood says the pastries are also sold at Barefoot Coffee in Los Gatos. Website coming soon, but for now you can follow Starter Bakery on Facebook.

Doughnut Dolly. If you prefer your sweets with easier-to-pronounce names, head to Hannah Hoffman's Doughnut Dolly, a slip of a shop specializing in cream- or jam-filled doughnuts. Located on quaint Alley 49, site of a former horse stable, Doughnut Dolly offers tour participants tender doughnut holes filled to order. Props to her for raising more than $12K through Kickstarter for her business. Location: 482B 49th Street, Oakland. Website and video.

(Clockwise, from left: potato-puff sliders at Juhu Beach Club; banchan at Sura Korean; grilled cheese and tomato soup at Sacred Wheel Cheese; cold-pressed coffee with cream outside The Cro Cafe)

Juhu Beach Club. I admit it: I watch Top Chef, and have since the beginning, so the fact that the brand new Juhu Beach Club's owner Preeti Mistry competed on the show a few seasons back gave me a small thrill. More thrilling, though, were the pouffy mashed potato sliders with chutney and pickled onions, and the Darjeeling Ltd, an unusual blend of cilantro- and cumin-infused lemonade and iced tea. Mistry's colorful Indian street food is bound to be a big hit not just with urbane singles, but with families as well. She serves kids' meals in brightly-hued tiffins, the individual compartments filled with butter chicken, basmati rice, and fresh salad. Location: 5179 Telegraph Avenue. Website for further information.

The Cro Cafe. Watching Luigi Oldani pour cream into a glass of cold-brewed, drip coffee brought to mind Ed, a college junior who dated my freshman-year roommate. (In the dining center, Ed would meditate on the swirls of cream as they dispersed, zenlike, into his cup, his coffee changing from deep brown to milky blond. In retrospect, he may have been smoking something.) The Cro Cafe's flavorful java -- from Sightglass Coffee Roasters in San Francisco -- put me in a happy, caffeinated haze, and I'm not even a coffee drinker. I also like that Oldani named the shop after his daughter, Camille Rosemary. Location: Temescal Alley. Website for further information.

Sacred Wheel Cheese. This family-owned cheese shop had me at hello when it served a miniature grilled cheese sandwich (gruyere, Jack, and fontina, though the combinations change) with a tomato soup chaser. (The soup's surprise element? A Pabst Blue Ribbon reduction.) This two-year-old fromagerie and specialty foods store also offers sandwiches, and if I'd been at all hungry at that point, I may have been tempted by something larger. 4935 Shattuck Ave. Website for further information.

Sura Korean. Anyone who has trouble making decisions will find much to love in the Korean tradition of banchan, a colorful assortment of cold and often pickled dishes offered in many Korean restaurants. At Sura's, we sampled tiny bites of eggplant, fish cake, potato, black bean, yam, kimchi, daikon, bean sprouts, and at least 5 other piquant preparations before our main course of tofu stew arrived. Here, banchan comes gratis with every dinner entree. Location: 4869 Telegraph Ave. Website for further information.

(Abesha Ethiopian Cuisine.)

Abesha Ethiopian Cuisine. This three-year old restaurant is a newcomer to Edible Excursions' Temescal tour line-up, and while it joined in after my preview, I'm thrilled to share news of it here with you anyway. Why? Because Oakland is home to a large population of Eritreans and Ethiopians, and anyone who knows anything about me knows that I hold this region, its people, and its foodways extremely close to my heart. Sarah Henry (our guide) reports that owner Amesiyas Amha Wube offers tour-goers tastes of injera along with 5 to 7 different kinds of wots, or stews, "featuring lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, cabbage, and collard greens." Abesha is an "important stop... because it represents a key and unique culture in the area and many of our guests may not be familiar with the cuisine," she adds. Prepare to eat with your hands, friends. Location: 4929 Shattuck Ave. Website for further information.

...

Can you go to all these places on your own? Sure, go ahead. They're all local businesses that deserve your patronage. But also please consider Edible Excursions. Going the tour route allows you to taste your way through the area and puts you in the hands of knowledgeable field guides. It's the prix fixe versus the a la carte option, the tasting menu versus the app and entrée. You'll spend a wad upfront, but for 3 hours in the pleasant California sunshine, it's actually a great value and a whole lot of tasty food. Plus, you get to commune directly with the owners/food artisans filling your bellies. That, as they say, is priceless.

(Temescal Tastes tours start this Sunday, March 10, and run every Sunday thereafter. More information on this particular tour, and other Edible Excursions Bay Area tours, available here.)

Bring on the bacteria.

Two weeks ago, while Colin slept and the boys pitter-pattered, waves swooshed outside our door. Birds cheeped, turtles turtled, and the sun blew a kiss across the sea.

Three nights away -- a little fun, a little sun -- and then we'd head back to school and work.

I'd gotten an early text, so I stepped outside to call Jenni, my agent. It was noon in New York, but only 7:00 a.m. where I stood, barefoot, in my pajamas. I steadied myself against a plastic table with a fake pineapple on it, and dialed. Then an old man walked by on his way to the pool.

Hello, he said.

Hello, I replied.

At that point I kind of wished I'd gotten dressed.

Then Jenni picked up. It was good news. 

I'm pleased to announce that I've just signed on to write a new cookbook: Yogurt Culture. It will indulge my love for writing and research, and recipes, and naturally healthful food, but most of all, it will indulge my love for yogurt. The book will drop in Spring 2015, so between now and then all I have to do is basically write the entire book and try to find ways of inserting words like lactobacillis and acidophilus seamlessly into my copy. (I love you, spell-check.)

Rux Martin, who recently launched her own imprint within Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, will be my editor, and I'm thrilled to bits. I think she'll hold me to a high standard, and because I'm eager to be pushed and pulled and stretched like taffy, good things are bound to happen. Either that, or... well, let's just go with that.

So, help me celebrate, friends. Raise a spoon...

To yogurt!

A barely contained effervescence.

She bubbles.

I don't know how else to express it, but my friend Jess Goldman Foung bubbles and bounces, her energy so all-consuming, and so contagious, that after I meet up with her I feel buzzed. Do you know people like this?  People whose very being shines so bright they make the air a few degrees warmer? She's a lit match, a jolt of caffeine, a prism that shoots rainbows through a room.

And the thing is, the crazy thing is, Jess was really sick, way before I met her. When she was a 21-year-old student at Stanford, she landed in the hospital with a Lupus diagnosis so severe her kidneys had basically shut down. As a college senior, while her friends were studying and going to parties, she was in full-on renal failure. 

Jess writes in her new cookbook:

"I could have functioned as a 21-year-old, on dialysis, waiting on the transplant list. But that wasn't the life I wanted to live. I was attached to machines every three days for three to four hours at a time, and while I was happy to be alive, I longed to be free."

So, what did she do?

In addition to receiving excellent medical care from her team at Stanford Hospital, Jess chose to radically change her diet. She cut out sodium from all non-natural (processed) sources and slashed her intake of foods whose natural sodium levels were simply too high. She focused on reversing her destiny. She got educated, and she started educating others.

Sodium Girl's Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook barely contains Jess's bubbly personality. I feel her energy on every page, and I marvel at how she has created low-sodium recipes that are fun, joyful, and celebratory.

The balsamic blueberry steak sauce I've made twice now (pictured above) is a perfect case in point. I don't eat much steak, so I paired the sauce with some middle eastern lamb meatballs, fragrant with cinnamon, cumin, clove, and allspice -- like kofte, but round. I left out the salt to be true to Jess's spirit, and because I wanted to see if the sauce would be boldly-flavored enough to compensate for what I worried might be bland, no-salt-added meatballs.

With balsamic vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, and blueberries, the sauce had flavor to spare.

My boys swept those meatballs through that sauce, swirling them around and around, then licked the platter clean. Robust, brightly-hued, balanced, beautiful, the sauce filled our bellies and lifted our spirits.

It was Jess on a plate.

...

If you or anyone you know must follow a reduced-sodium diet, please check out this cookbook. The recipes make over high-sodium favorites (ketchup, green bean casserole, buffalo wings, bloody marys, French onion soup) and also offer modern, new dishes (like pistachio and broccoli pesto-crusted salmon, beet carpaccio towers, ricotta with pumpkin crumbs) as well.

If you don't (yet) actively limit your sodium consumption (I don't, generally) but you do have any other health or dietary challenges, I also recommend it. Jess's voice will empower you and lift you up.

Jess also publishes the Sodium Girl blog, which offers free recipes, tips, and practical information on low-sodium living. (She just gave away a Vitamix; alas, I missed the deadline to encourage you to enter, so I basically owe you all a Vitamix.) There are also links to several other recipes from or inspired by the book, including this post about Jess on Foodie Crush, which is completely adorable.

Finally, it bears mentioning that Jess is only 30 years old. While she writes about a dietary lifestyle more often associated with older adults, her youthful perspective truly sets this book apart.

...

Recipe for Balsamic Blueberry Sauce

This is a very close adaptation of Jessica Goldman Foung's balsamic blueberry steak sauce from Sodium Girl's Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). All ingredients and quantities are hers; I've simply adapted the technique and hit it with some lemon.

This sauce partners beautifully with lamb meatballs (or kofte), or any kind of cheeseless meatball for that matter. (Jess has a pork and quinoa meatball in her book that looks great.)

Makes 1- to 1-1/2 cups sauce

1 teaspoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 onion, diced (she uses Vidalia; I used a yellow Spanish onion)
6 tablespoons balsamic (not the fancy kind)
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
4 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons molasses
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen, unthawed)
Lemon juice, to brighten at the end 

In a small saucepan, saute the garlic and onion over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in all the remaining ingredients. 

Bring the sauce to a boil. Reduce heat to very low, cover partly, and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Uncover, raise heat, and let bubble vigorously until the sauce just starts to thicken and the berries are easy to mash with a potato masher, about 12 minutes, stirring frequently so the sauce doesn't scorch. Remove from the heat.

At this point, I squeezed in a few drops of fresh lemon juice to brighten all the flavors. I also pureed the sauce right in the pot with an immersion blender. Do this very carefully. (Depending on the size of your pot, the sauce level may be too low for you to do this successfully and safely.) Please do not let it splash on you.

Allow the sauce to cool for a good 15 minutes, or longer, before serving. As it cools, it sets up and jells, much like a jam. Then you can enjoy it at warm room temperature. Otherwise, refrigerate, covered, for a few hours to thicken further.

printable pdf

One bowl chocolate cake, for emergencies or lazy people.

911. May I help you?

I have an emergency.

What is the nature of your emergency?

I want to make a Valentine's Day chocolate cake but I also have to clean it up all by myself.

So, basically, you're lazy and don't want to make a real cake with beaters and mixers and frostings and layers and sprinkles and buttercream roses? And you don't want so much cake that you'll be tempted to eat it for breakfast for the next 6 weeks?

Basically.

I'll send someone right over.

...

Hi.

I'm here for you.

This cake is for you, and for me, and for anyone who needs a chocolate something this week to please a family or a friend or a partner or a spouse or a Valentine of any denomination. It's quick, it's easy, it's real food, and it doesn't come from a box. It takes 10 minutes to put together (true story) and 30ish minutes to bake.

Yes, you can make a more complicated, traditional Valentine's dessert. You can make sea salt caramel truffles with organic lavendar petals and pipe hearts on top with a pastry bag and a Wilton tip. You can make a souffle or a tart or a roulade or a lava cake wrapped in hot pink fondant. You can muss, you can fuss, you can do all that if you want to. 

Or you can concentrate on other things, go about your life, do some work, read the mail, pay a bill, walk a dog, kiss your people, and then, after dinner, make this cake and have it on the table in 45 minutes.

It's up to you.

Happy Valentine's Day to-be, friends. I'd kiss you all if I could, and give you each a pastel-colored heart on which I'd write, in my finest, most sophisticated hand: Text Me and i ♥ u.

...

Recipe for One Bowl Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with or without Quick Glaze

The very point of this cake is its ease: you don't need special equipment, fancy ingredients, or much time. Sour cream adds depth and tang, and mini chips bolster the chocolaty oomph. Go the unglazed route for maximum simplicity, or spoon a 5 minute ganache on top if you're desperate to wash another dish.

Deep thanks to my friend Jill for providing last minute technical advice. I'm saving my biggest slice for her.

Makes one 9-inch round, single-layer cake

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted about halfway
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

For the optional glaze:

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Scant 1/2 cup heavy cream 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan. Line with parchment.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter, sour cream, milk, egg, vanilla, and mini chips. Mix well with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. It's okay if the batter's a bit lumpy, but make sure there are no pockets of undissolved dry ingredients. Scrape into the prepared cake pan. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until the cake is firm to the touch, a skewer withdraws clean, and the cake is just beginning to pull away from the sides.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes, then unmold to cool completely.

If making the glaze, wash and dry the bowl. Add the chopped chocolate. In a small saucepan, bring the cream up to a hard simmer. Pour the cream over the chocolate. Cover for a few minutes, then stir well. Refrigerate until slightly thickened. Spoon over the cake, or serve alongside.

printable pdf

(Need some Valentine's Day breakfast options? I recommend both the chocolate waffles and chocolate pancakes from the archives.)

 

Oil me up.

Sometimes I wonder if I were weaned directly onto olives.  If puttanesca, tapenade, and cream cheese and olive sandwiches are as much a part of my DNA as hazel eyes and willful hair.  

Then there's olive oil. Remember that moment in the 1990s when the Mediterranean diet captured headlines here in the U.S.? When all of a sudden we were told that dousing our pasta with olive oil was not only chic, but good for our health? I brimmed with sophisticated thoughts at that moment. Thoughts like: Wait, WHAT?!? 

Olive oil and I have been friends ever since.

Happily, when I was in Israel, I had the chance to visit a family-owned olive press called Rish Lakish. Our visit took place during the fall harvest festival known as Olive Branch Days. According to Dr. Adi Naali of the Israeli Olive Oil Division, about 30 producers participate in this annual celebration. (There are 110 high-quality olive oil producers in Israel as a whole.) My profile of Rish Lakish, and the family that runs it, just went live on the Etsy blog. I hope you'll click over to read it there.

As an added bonus, here's some expert advice from Rish Lakish's Ayala Noy Meir, pictured above (that's her father Micha in the lead photo), on how to purchase and store olive oil: 

1. When possible, buy oil in cans or green glass bottles. Some clear plastic bottles may contain colorants that mask poor quality oil. 

2. Store olive oil in a cool, dark spot, away from both light and heat.

3. For everyday cooking, use small containers of olive oil. Oxygen is olive oil's enemy, and every time you open a large bottle the oil degrades. So transfer the contents of larger bottles into smaller ones, and cook daily from the smaller vessels.

4. Always check the production date. Ayala says good olive oil has a shelf life of about two years. Mass-produced factory oil lasts about one year.

5. Expect to pay for quality. Cheap olive oil should trigger alarm bells. NPR recently ran a story that revealed just how rampant the mislabeling of cheap, imported olive oil really is.

As an incentive to check out the Etsy piece, you'll get to see in the final photo that Hugh Acheson has a potential future career as a hand-model in the unlikely event that the whole chef/restaurateur/TV thing falls through for him.

It's always good to have a back-up plan.

(Mine is to be a prima ballerina.)

Choose your own adventure.

As soon as April said the words, I felt the hairs on my arms sparkle.

And the irony is, April was talking about her daughter's cold. A cold! Is there anything more mundane, or less sparkle-inducing, than a January phone call about a kid's runny nose and scratchy throat?

But April and her family were visiting San Francisco from the east coast, and they were supposed to drive down to see us that day. She called to make sure it was still okay for them to come, kid sniffles and all.

Sure, I told her. It's totally fine with us. My boys are older, so I really don't worry about germs that much anymore. Really, though, you need to decide if you're okay coming down given how your daughter is feeling...

And that's when she said it. The sparklewords.

We'll come, she said. When given the choice, we always opt for adventure.

...

I hung up the phone. 

When given the choice, they always opt for adventure.

Opt for adventure. Opt-for-adventure. Optforadventure.

I've been thinking about this for days. 

Me? I opt for adventure, when someone incents me to. I opt for adventure, after hemming and hawing. I opt for adventure, when it's convenient, if you'll drive me, when I have to, or if the snacks on the docket tempt so hard my stomach punts me out the door and locks it behind me. In other words, I don't opt for adventure all that often, at least anymore. 

So I'm wrestling with this adventure non-opting tendency of mine, and thanks to April's inadvertent inspiration, I've decided to crush it. Baby steps at first. Getting out more on weekends, and at night. Taking myself up to San Francisco, which is so close, but where I never go. Modeling adventurous behavior for my kids. 

After April and her family visited for a few hours, and then left, my husband, boys, and I discussed what to do with our evening. Should we go out for dinner? Head somewhere fun?

Yes, of course we should.

That we stayed in, lit a fire, played Boggle, and made rice pudding in our pajamas instead is not necessarily something I'm proud of. But I'm not really ashamed of it either. It takes time to change, and I need to be patient.

The next morning, I warmed the leftover rice pudding, thinning it with a bit more milk. I tossed on a crush of pistachio and lemon, and ate this erstwhile dessert for breakfast. You know how that felt?

Adventurous.

I'll get there eventually, to a more adventure-filled life.

I'm just taking it one spoonful at a time.

...

Simplest Rice Pudding with lemon-pistachio crush

Last week, my friend Emma and I traded books. I went home with her copy of Sophie Dahl's lovely Very Fond of Food (Ten Speed, 2011), and Emma adopted my extra copy of Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me with Apples (Random House, 2001/2010).

This rice pudding originated with Dahl's recipe for Rice Pudding Cake. While making it, though, the rice took so long to absorb the milk that I got impatient, changed tacks, screwed the cake, and we all just ate warm, sweet, milky rice for dessert instead. There was a bit left over.

The next morning, the budding adventurer in me decided that if oatmeal qualifies as breakfast, then you know what? Rice pudding should, too.

Makes 4 servings

4 cups milk (I used 2%), plus extra for breakfast
3/4 cup Arborio rice
2 lemons (Meyers are lovely if you have them), divided
2 tablespoons superfine sugar, plus more (to taste) 
Handful of lightly toasted (unsalted) pistachios

Combine the milk, rice, and zest of 1 lemon in a medium saucepan over low heat. (Refrigerate the zested lemon, wrapped well in plastic, for another use.) Cook gently, whisking occasionally, until the rice absorbs about 85 percent of the liquid. This will happen quite slowly at first, so you can play Boggle and pop in just to give it a quick whisk every now and again. After about 20 minutes, though, you'll want to stay close and scrape the saucepan with your whisk more frequently. This can take anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes, so clear your schedule. You don't want the milk to scorch.

When the pudding is ready, stir in the sugar and give a taste. If it's not sweet enough, add additional sugar, just a bit at a time, until you're happy. Cool ever so slightly.

Serve warm, right away, or cool completely and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, thin the leftover pudding with additional milk until it's creamy and fluid, like a loose porridge. Reheat gently. Zest the second lemon onto a cutting board. Lay the pistachios on top. Chop the pistachios into the zest, then sprinkle this bright topping over your {cough} cereal.

printable pdf

 

Children, dieting, and casting stones.

A few disclosures before I begin:

1. Dara-Lynn Weiss was one of my closest childhood friends. We grew up in the same town, slept over at each other's houses, spent a summer together, traveled to Europe together, and, as with many friendships, after many years as kids, then pre-teens, then teens, ultimately grew apart. Nothing dramatic, just... after we both went to college, we completely lost touch. 

2. We re-connected last year, after a 24 year hiatus, a few days after her explosive, highly controversial article came out in Vogue magazine. We had a lovely coffee, and it was wonderful to see her. We've emailed a few times since.

3. I am not unbiased when it comes to Dara-Lynn, nor would I ever pretend to be. But she has been such a lightning rod based on whether or not she should have written about her daughter's weight struggle, and whether she is a good mother, that the broader issue -- what to do about obese children -- is getting completely obscured. That's a shame. The issues are unresolved, hot, important, and worth discussing.

4. I'm here to talk about the issues, not whether or not you think Dara-Lynn is a good person, and not whether you think she made a good or ill choice in writing about her daughter's struggle with her weight. 

5. Please keep your tone respectful, as you always do, in the comments.

...

I've almost never had to struggle with my weight. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm fairly sure genetics played a huge and blessed role. My siblings are all slim, as are my children. And because my boys are thin, I've never had to count their calories, take them to an obesity specialist, or consider which weight-loss regimen would best put them on a path to longterm health. We have plenty of other issues, as all families do, but I can honestly say that weight has been a total non-issue in my role as a mother.

But what if it weren't? What if I had a child whose weight set off the pediatrician's alarm bells? What if my boys' doctor watched the scale tick ever upward, over several years, and pulled me aside, telling me, one day, when my kids were seven years old, and weighed 93 pounds, that the time had come for us to change course and intervene in order to safeguard their longterm health? What would I do?

Such is the premise of Dara-Lynn Weiss's new memoir, The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet (Ballantine Books, 2013). The book has been explosive, in large part because Weiss chose to pen a feature last year in Vogue magazine about her struggles to get her young daughter's weight under control. Weiss and her daughter Bea were photographed for the spread in designer clothes, and the blogosphere erupted with hatred and vitriol. The main criticisms leveled against her were twofold: 1) 7-year-olds should never be put on a diet, and 2) a mother shouldn't write about her daughter's weight, publicly, ever, much less in a fashion magazine.

Fine.

I get that. Completely.

But.

That's all anyone's talking about. And it's a shame that a broader analysis, and cultural soul-searching, have been completely absent from this discussion.

The Heavy (which I purchased myself, and was not asked to write about, for the record) paints, at times, an unflattering portrait of a mother in crisis. (Weiss is bracingly candid about her own struggles with weight and body-image.) But it also raises extremely valid points that are being completely overlooked in our headline-grabbing, sensationalistic culture. Even Dr. Oz, who hosted Weiss on his television show last week, missed an opportunity to pull back from the media hype and discuss the substance of her book: the deep conundrum parents of obese children face when they're advised to intervene.

At issue is this central paradox:

When a mother is told by a medical professional that her child is clinically obese, should she re-vamp the child's food environment (to the extent possible), restrict caloric intake, and work to the best of her ability -- however imperfectly, for we are all imperfect parents, aren't we? -- to set that child on a path to weight loss?

or

Should a mother remain more passive, hoping that the child will grow into her weight and discover independently how to make more healthful choices? Should the mother remain a private cheerleader and supporter solely and primarily, but not actually restrict calories or mandate a more active lifestyle?

Finally, is it even possible to handle this issue privately, when a child spends a large part of each day outside the home?

The media tells us every single day that this generation of children is the first whose life expectancy is lower than its parents'. That the risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other weight-relevant medical conditions are worse now among children than they've ever been in our nation's history. At the same time, here's a mother who took action -- making the best choices she felt capable of making -- and the backlash has been severe.

You can disagree with Weiss' style, with her approach, with her intense hypervigilance about every food her daughter consumed, and certainly with the public airing of her family's struggles on this issue. You can question whether she overstepped reasonable boundaries in her efforts to get her daughter's health under control. But at the end of the day, we're still left with a few crucial questions.

At the end of the day, it's still important for us to ask:

Can we really have it both ways? Flash headlines and statistics about the obesity crisis 24/7, but then demand that parents take only baby steps when faced with this issue in their own homes?

What would you do if it were your child?

Too late, or too early?

Thank you, John Tierney, for writing the column, This Was Supposed to Be My Column for New Year's Day in Tuesday's New York Times.

In it, you not only acknowledge some redeeming characteristics of procrastination -- calling "positive procrastination" an actual thing --  but you cop to being a procrastinator yourself. Guess what? I am too! And I think we can both agree that there are far worse things than procrastinating. Like chewing with your mouth open. What are you, an animal?

Anyway, back to procrastination. I don't think persimmons are in season anymore, but I promise you they were, back in November. That's when I hacked my own Ripe Persimmon Apple Radicchio Stacks into salsa with the aid of a sharp knife and a looming deadline. Nothing like procrastination to inspire the laborious chopping of fruits and vegetables into fine dice, a task that takes slightly longer than forever. 

A few tortilla chips later, that salsa was safely ensconced in my belly, and the deadline was still unmet. Slicing and dicing wasn't the best use of my time, perhaps, but when persimmons call, you answer.

Look, I meant to tell you about this sooner, back when persimmons were good and plenty. It's too late now, I suppose.

Wait.

Maybe I'm not late at all.

Maybe I'm three seasons early.

Maybe, just MAYBE, I'm a precrastinator, not a procrastinator.

I'll get back to you later, once I decide.

You say she writes like that? Well, I write like this.

If I read one more treatise on the best way to be a writer, I'm going to blow. 

Here are the ways the universe tells me to write:

1. Every day.
2. Before the sun rises.
3. In an uncluttered space.
4. With a view of the mountains/ocean/garden/hilltop.
5. With a cup of coffee.
6. Whether I want to or not.
7. With classical music.
8. With a daily word count.
9. With no internet access.
10. Without reading what I've written.

Here's how I write:

1. Every day, mostly, but sometimes I cook instead.
2. After the sun rises, but before it sets. I'm neither a Knight Rider, nor a night writer.
3. On a catastrophically cluttered desk. Seriously, my desk is so messy small animals probably lie dead under all the papers, magazines, moleskins, and folders.
4. With a view of a wall. Classy.
5. With a cup of tea, or a bowl of cereal, or a dish of almonds, or a crumbly piece of toast that's dried out by the time I eat it.
6. When I feel driven, and motivated, and inspired. I get a tightness in my chest; so far it hasn't been a heart attack. 
7. In complete silence.
8. With no daily word count.
9. With internet access dangling her seductive tresses in my face at every possible turn.
10. With constant self-editing. 

But cooking, that's different. Here's how I cook:

1. Every day, several times a day, except on vacation, when I'm a lazy bum.
2. After the sun rises, and after I've drunk a cup of tea so strong it jangles my eyeballs.
3. In a kitchen that starts out clean, then looks like it was hit by a Mac truck trailing a meteor hitched to a cyclone.
4. With a view of my table and its syrup spills, and the scratchy spot where I scraped off the menorah wax with a knife. (Don't do this.)
5. With lots of nibble breaks, and more tea, and then tea, and then nibbles. 
6. Whether or not I feel like cooking, though honestly, I usually do, because it's a great change from writing and being seduced by the internet's hair.
7. With noise. NPR, or loud radio. If a mattress commercial comes on, I yell at people who aren't there.
8. Three meals a day, plus work recipes, plus snacky things for the boys who call my house home.
9. With internet access, so I can beam pictures of my snacky things into space. I need help.
10. With constant editing. More salt, squeeze of lemon, kick of pepper, grate of cheese, zest of lime. 

So the next time someone passes around a link to a profile of some writer who works in spartan, idealized circumstances, or some cook in a beautiful, pristine kitchen, you can just click over here and feel better about yourself. Because I'm a writer, and a cook, and I pretty much do everything wrong.

... 

Recipe for Honey-Glazed Almonds with candied fennel

If you like sweet/crunchy snacky things with a mysterious edge, these are for you. Bonus: fennel seeds help freshen breath, so find someone to breathe on when you're done snacking.

Makes 2-1/4 cups

2 cups raw whole almonds

1 tablespoon fennel seeds
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons candied fennel (available at Indian markets)

Set almonds on a rimmed baking sheet. Toast in a preheated 350 oven, 5 to 8 minutes, until one shade darker. Cool.

Meanwhile, in a small, dry saucepan (large enough to eventually hold the almonds), toast the fennel seeds over medium heat until fragrant and beginning to darken slightly, shaking the pan constantly, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add honey, sea salt, and pepper. Stir vigorously with a heatproof spatula until honey foams and liquefies, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. 

Add almonds, and stir quickly to coat. Scrape onto a silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet, nudging the nuts into a single layer. Cool completely.

Break the glazed almonds into small clusters or individual pieces, toss with the candied fennel, and serve. Store leftovers airtight.

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