I think if my kids had to choose between me and macaroni and cheese, they would choose macaroni and cheese.
When I pull the box out of the cupboard, suddenly there is my daughter beside me, as if she heard the slight rattle of the dry noodles from the other side of the house. And my son, when presented with a bowl, shoves macaroni in his mouth two handfuls at a time and spends several minutes digging every single dropped noodle out of the crevices of his high chair.
I love macaroni and cheese as much as the next person, and I know that it is a staple of the Kid Diet, but it is amazing to me that they would eat it every single day when I take such great pains to expose them to all the wonderment of foods like risotto and shepherd's pie. I think what it comes down to is that, more than any other food, macaroni and cheese is their comfort food.
Everyone has a food or three that acts as a bit of a band-aid for the soul. Mine are all tethered to childhood, to the memory of a warm house and my family around the table. I remember coming home from school and spotting the crock pot on the counter and knowing the best night ever was ahead: stroganoff over egg noodles. And having "What's for dinner?" answered with "meatloaf," and suddenly the day did not seem so bad. And eyeing a huge Thanksgiving bowl of my favorite comfort food: buttery, lumpy mashed potatoes drowning in gravy.
The very reason it is called "comfort food" is that it is comforting, not only to our bellies but to our minds. Food has a fantastic power to recall, for good and for bad, and our comfort foods bring on a pleasant feeling that is a little "I just had a massage/large drink/chat with my best friend" and a little "sleepy food coma," and perhaps a little "eating this makes me remember the best of my past."
Maybe my kids just really like eating macaroni and cheese. Or maybe it makes them just a little bit happier than usual, and in 30 years, when they pull out the blue box for their own kids, they will remember when their mommy used to make their favorite meal for them, in a warm house with family around the table.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
La Belle Vie, Indeed
Five years ago this week, Chef Matt and I said our vows in a grand cathedral, opened some presents, and flew to Italy, where we ate like gluttons and drank like kings. Every year around our anniversary, we honor the memory of Bella Italia and find an Italian restaurant where we can pretend, for a few hours, that when we walk out the door we will be back in Rome.
This year, we diverted a bit and visited a restaurant that has been on our "to-eat" list since before our wedding: La Belle Vie, a restaurant that graces the top of most local dining lists and has the price tag to prove it. A fortunate twist of events granted us the privilege of a special tasting menu, offered by a chef who is something of an inspiration to my husband. The restaurant gods had granted us a blessing.
It was a menu that, in many ways, inched close to the French Laundry. We ate dishes I could never have imagined, such as foie gras cheesecake and lamb stuffed with blood sausage, and reveled in the transformation of the everyday chicken and trout into something quite magical.
As it always is when we are at fancy restaurants, the pleasure is not only in the food, but in watching Matt adore his craft. We spent much of the night talking about food -- how much we love it, our top five meals of all time, how it personifies our relationship in a lot of ways -- and although by the end of the night my wine flight had caught up with me and I cannot quite recall everything we discussed, I do remember feeling very happy.
Marriage, on a daily basis, is hard. I can see why the commitment can be daunting, and there are moments that certainly test us. But we have made it a priority to take pleasure in each other's company at every opportunity, and to find joy in what the other person loves. It may sound flighty in the face of financial hardship, difficult parenting, and the other trials of marriage, but joy is what we always come back to, and it sustains us.
On our actual anniversary, we spent most of the day apart, shared a frozen pizza after the kids went to bed, and watched "Iron Chef" on TV. Our two vastly different dining experiences revealed a universal truth about marriage: you have brilliant moments within days of ordinary, but if you can find joy in both, then I think you have found "happy."
This year, we diverted a bit and visited a restaurant that has been on our "to-eat" list since before our wedding: La Belle Vie, a restaurant that graces the top of most local dining lists and has the price tag to prove it. A fortunate twist of events granted us the privilege of a special tasting menu, offered by a chef who is something of an inspiration to my husband. The restaurant gods had granted us a blessing.
It was a menu that, in many ways, inched close to the French Laundry. We ate dishes I could never have imagined, such as foie gras cheesecake and lamb stuffed with blood sausage, and reveled in the transformation of the everyday chicken and trout into something quite magical.
As it always is when we are at fancy restaurants, the pleasure is not only in the food, but in watching Matt adore his craft. We spent much of the night talking about food -- how much we love it, our top five meals of all time, how it personifies our relationship in a lot of ways -- and although by the end of the night my wine flight had caught up with me and I cannot quite recall everything we discussed, I do remember feeling very happy.
Marriage, on a daily basis, is hard. I can see why the commitment can be daunting, and there are moments that certainly test us. But we have made it a priority to take pleasure in each other's company at every opportunity, and to find joy in what the other person loves. It may sound flighty in the face of financial hardship, difficult parenting, and the other trials of marriage, but joy is what we always come back to, and it sustains us.
On our actual anniversary, we spent most of the day apart, shared a frozen pizza after the kids went to bed, and watched "Iron Chef" on TV. Our two vastly different dining experiences revealed a universal truth about marriage: you have brilliant moments within days of ordinary, but if you can find joy in both, then I think you have found "happy."
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Is That a Vegetable Under All Those Condiments?
I am slowly coming to the conclusion that children are genetically disposed to hate vegetables.
I never thought I would be the mother who said that. I was certain that our great love of food would pass cleanly into our offspring's DNA, and if we presented our children with a variety of vegetables from birth, surely they would grow up preaching to their little preschool friends about the wonders of kale and broccoli.
This is, at least thus far, not the truth at all. I remember watching our daughter and older son slurp up their squash, much as our little guy does now, and proudly determine that we were raising uncomplaining vegetable-eaters. A few years later, I think it will come down to complete deprivation of any other food except vegetables to make them eat anything but peas.
And oh, how we have tried to make vegetables exciting. We cook every kind imaginable, especially considering our community-sponsored agriculture share this summer, as well as the friendly staples of corn and carrots. We (and when I say we, I mean me and Chef Matt) eat a lot of asparagus, green beans and peppers, and we have a newfound love of turnips, beets and kohlrabi, and in many cases, we make every attempt to hide the "vegetable-ness" of these delicious foods so they will actually get past our kids' mouths and into their stomachs.
My first tries were amateur. Butter and garlic, butter and garlic, butter and garlic. But when that failed to entice them, I tried cheese, heavy cream, lemon juice, and bread crumbs. When that did not work, I pureed carrots and layered them in lasagna, and I hid finely chopped Brussels sprouts in pasta. Finally, I pulled out the big guns and cooked gratins and fritters and even disguised various root vegetables as French fries.
It was during the kohlrabi-as-French-fries episode that I found victory in its most unsophisticated form: ketchup. If I allow the kids to douse their vegetables in ketchup, they will almost always try whatever is on their plate. They might try one, kind of swallow, and not eat any more, but maybe the veggies' close proximity to their faces emits enough nutrients to actually get in their resistant little selves. Last night, I hit a new low when I gave in and allowed our son to use ketchup on his salad.
Someday, the lightbulb might go off and they will suddenly decide that they just cannot get enough spinach. I take heart in the fact that they are fruit-lovers, so vegetables cannot be far behind. If all our efforts fail, and they grow up to be adults who eat ketchup on their salads, I guess I can take solace in the fact that in their formative years, the fumes of all kinds of vegetables (if not the veggies themselves) were ever-present in the house and they caught at least passing whiffs of nutritious leafy greens.
I never thought I would be the mother who said that. I was certain that our great love of food would pass cleanly into our offspring's DNA, and if we presented our children with a variety of vegetables from birth, surely they would grow up preaching to their little preschool friends about the wonders of kale and broccoli.
This is, at least thus far, not the truth at all. I remember watching our daughter and older son slurp up their squash, much as our little guy does now, and proudly determine that we were raising uncomplaining vegetable-eaters. A few years later, I think it will come down to complete deprivation of any other food except vegetables to make them eat anything but peas.
And oh, how we have tried to make vegetables exciting. We cook every kind imaginable, especially considering our community-sponsored agriculture share this summer, as well as the friendly staples of corn and carrots. We (and when I say we, I mean me and Chef Matt) eat a lot of asparagus, green beans and peppers, and we have a newfound love of turnips, beets and kohlrabi, and in many cases, we make every attempt to hide the "vegetable-ness" of these delicious foods so they will actually get past our kids' mouths and into their stomachs.
My first tries were amateur. Butter and garlic, butter and garlic, butter and garlic. But when that failed to entice them, I tried cheese, heavy cream, lemon juice, and bread crumbs. When that did not work, I pureed carrots and layered them in lasagna, and I hid finely chopped Brussels sprouts in pasta. Finally, I pulled out the big guns and cooked gratins and fritters and even disguised various root vegetables as French fries.
It was during the kohlrabi-as-French-fries episode that I found victory in its most unsophisticated form: ketchup. If I allow the kids to douse their vegetables in ketchup, they will almost always try whatever is on their plate. They might try one, kind of swallow, and not eat any more, but maybe the veggies' close proximity to their faces emits enough nutrients to actually get in their resistant little selves. Last night, I hit a new low when I gave in and allowed our son to use ketchup on his salad.
Someday, the lightbulb might go off and they will suddenly decide that they just cannot get enough spinach. I take heart in the fact that they are fruit-lovers, so vegetables cannot be far behind. If all our efforts fail, and they grow up to be adults who eat ketchup on their salads, I guess I can take solace in the fact that in their formative years, the fumes of all kinds of vegetables (if not the veggies themselves) were ever-present in the house and they caught at least passing whiffs of nutritious leafy greens.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Fondly Remembering Lunchlady Land
I have a confession to make. Some of you may never respect anything I say about food ever again, but this blog is all about honesty, so here goes: I really enjoy school lunch.
When you have finished scoffing at my confession, consider my justification. At school, you can go through the lunch line with your nicely sectioned-off tray and receive representation from each of the food groups (or food pyramid or whatever the current form is), choose your white or chocolate milk, douse it all in ketchup if you want, and have a mini-restaurant experience at the lunch table.
I was a brown-bag luncher for most of my school career, but every month when the new lunch menu came out, my mom would let us choose a few days that we could eat "hot lunch," and it was always supremely exciting. Do I want turkey and gravy day, or fiestada pizza day? The shoo-in was always Italian dunker day, arguably the best school-lunch day of the month, when the lines in the cafeteria stretched around the room as students clamored to get their cheesy bread and marinara sauce.
And I was the student that the lunch ladies liked to see coming: unless it was chow mein day, I swept through the lunch line with enthusiasm, took one of everything, and always brought an empty tray to the return window.
School lunch has changed dramatically since I was in junior high; many schools now have several choices or a salad bar or brand-name fast foods, and some are trying very hard to make lunches healthier. Maybe I am just a traditionalist, but I liked the days of chicken nuggets and french fries, with a scoop of canned corn, a roll and a cookie. In the first few years at my current job, I spent a lot of time at schools around the state, and thus a lot of time eating school lunch in teachers' lounges. I happily ate things I had not in years, like fruit cocktail and tater tots, and just like in junior high, I was a charter member of the clean plate club.
Earlier this week, I made Italian dunkers for my kids, and as my son used his cheesy bread as a vehicle for drinking the marinara sauce, I could not help but reminisce fondly about running from class at top speed to make it into the lunch line before the rest of the school so I could get my own dunkers. I loved Lunchlady Land, for where else could I get a chicken patty on a bun with as much mayonnaise as I wanted, an ice-cream scoop of mashed potatoes and pink applesauce for the bargain-basement price of two dollars? Nowhere else on earth.
When you have finished scoffing at my confession, consider my justification. At school, you can go through the lunch line with your nicely sectioned-off tray and receive representation from each of the food groups (or food pyramid or whatever the current form is), choose your white or chocolate milk, douse it all in ketchup if you want, and have a mini-restaurant experience at the lunch table.
I was a brown-bag luncher for most of my school career, but every month when the new lunch menu came out, my mom would let us choose a few days that we could eat "hot lunch," and it was always supremely exciting. Do I want turkey and gravy day, or fiestada pizza day? The shoo-in was always Italian dunker day, arguably the best school-lunch day of the month, when the lines in the cafeteria stretched around the room as students clamored to get their cheesy bread and marinara sauce.
And I was the student that the lunch ladies liked to see coming: unless it was chow mein day, I swept through the lunch line with enthusiasm, took one of everything, and always brought an empty tray to the return window.
School lunch has changed dramatically since I was in junior high; many schools now have several choices or a salad bar or brand-name fast foods, and some are trying very hard to make lunches healthier. Maybe I am just a traditionalist, but I liked the days of chicken nuggets and french fries, with a scoop of canned corn, a roll and a cookie. In the first few years at my current job, I spent a lot of time at schools around the state, and thus a lot of time eating school lunch in teachers' lounges. I happily ate things I had not in years, like fruit cocktail and tater tots, and just like in junior high, I was a charter member of the clean plate club.
Earlier this week, I made Italian dunkers for my kids, and as my son used his cheesy bread as a vehicle for drinking the marinara sauce, I could not help but reminisce fondly about running from class at top speed to make it into the lunch line before the rest of the school so I could get my own dunkers. I loved Lunchlady Land, for where else could I get a chicken patty on a bun with as much mayonnaise as I wanted, an ice-cream scoop of mashed potatoes and pink applesauce for the bargain-basement price of two dollars? Nowhere else on earth.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Ships Passing in the Night Anchor in the Harbor
I was reading a blog of another chef's wife recently, and she said something about her husband that I thought was funny and true: "I love him. Where is he?"
This rang especially true for me last week, when in the course of five days, I had four hours of face time with Chef Matt. We crossed paths briefly in the morning before I left for work, and for a few hours on the weekend as we dodged work meetings and kids' gymnastics. This sort of "ships passing in the night" is nothing new, but for some reason last week was particularly crunched for husband-wife time. And suddenly my mother's pre-marital advice glowed before me like a neon sign: Do not forget to go on dates with your husband.
At the time, before we got married, that advice seemed unbelievable. Why in the world would I need to schedule dates with someone I live with? But I think any married person would tell you that work and kids and life grow into thorny brambles, leaving you on one side and your spouse on the other. I first knew that my mother was right in the year after our daughter was born and we had gone on a total of two dates the entire year, and one of those was someone else's wedding.
We vowed to try harder. We called upon grandmas and snuck out to dinner every couple of months, and on one very memorable occasion, actually went to a movie together. Even when we just cannot find the time to leave home, we try to watch movies together on the couch or I kick his butt in Scrabble.
Something that is much more difficult to do, but is equally important, is to get away together. This weekend, we spent the night downtown Minneapolis, and it was just what the marriage-doctor ordered. We watched businessmen try to pick up businesswomen in a steakhouse bar, had another drink down the street at an Irish pub (our version of "bar-hopping"), slept in (which means 8:30), and breakfasted on eggs and a caramel roll at a funky live-music restaurant.
Our not-quite-24-hours away will hold us for a while. In a perfect world, I would "date" my husband every week, but something Kitchen Widowhood has taught me is how to be grateful for every minute I have with him. If our "time together" consists of brushing our teeth at the same sink in the morning, I will take it and look forward to the next outing where I get to wear something other than pajama pants.
This rang especially true for me last week, when in the course of five days, I had four hours of face time with Chef Matt. We crossed paths briefly in the morning before I left for work, and for a few hours on the weekend as we dodged work meetings and kids' gymnastics. This sort of "ships passing in the night" is nothing new, but for some reason last week was particularly crunched for husband-wife time. And suddenly my mother's pre-marital advice glowed before me like a neon sign: Do not forget to go on dates with your husband.
At the time, before we got married, that advice seemed unbelievable. Why in the world would I need to schedule dates with someone I live with? But I think any married person would tell you that work and kids and life grow into thorny brambles, leaving you on one side and your spouse on the other. I first knew that my mother was right in the year after our daughter was born and we had gone on a total of two dates the entire year, and one of those was someone else's wedding.
We vowed to try harder. We called upon grandmas and snuck out to dinner every couple of months, and on one very memorable occasion, actually went to a movie together. Even when we just cannot find the time to leave home, we try to watch movies together on the couch or I kick his butt in Scrabble.
Something that is much more difficult to do, but is equally important, is to get away together. This weekend, we spent the night downtown Minneapolis, and it was just what the marriage-doctor ordered. We watched businessmen try to pick up businesswomen in a steakhouse bar, had another drink down the street at an Irish pub (our version of "bar-hopping"), slept in (which means 8:30), and breakfasted on eggs and a caramel roll at a funky live-music restaurant.
Our not-quite-24-hours away will hold us for a while. In a perfect world, I would "date" my husband every week, but something Kitchen Widowhood has taught me is how to be grateful for every minute I have with him. If our "time together" consists of brushing our teeth at the same sink in the morning, I will take it and look forward to the next outing where I get to wear something other than pajama pants.
Friday, October 7, 2011
A Great Smell is a Thing of Beauty
There are few moments I love more than walking into a house that smells like something good is cooking. For that brief moment, nasty weather and a bad day at work and a long commute disappear under delicious aromas, and I feel instantly soothed, like I am going to walk into the kitchen and my grandma will be there with cookies and milk, a hug, and a blanket fresh out of the dryer.
Smell is just as important to eating as taste; when foods smell good, it makes them even more appetizing. Sometimes our wires are crossed and we love the smell of something but not the taste -- I think the classic example is coffee -- or vice versa. To me, the smell of cooking and baking has a monumentally pleasurable attribute: anticipation. When I catch a whiff of something aromatic in a kitchen, I feel a bit like I am counting down the minutes to Christmas.
Everyone has their favorite cooking smells, the ones that trigger memories or make us instantly ravenous. If I had to construct a list of my top five, it would be a close race, but here is how I would rank:
5. Bacon. The perfume of frying bacon, sizzling away on a griddle, is full of guilt and satisfaction. I can envision it with thick slices of tomato, next to scrambled eggs, or all by itself, each greasy bite savored while the scent still hangs heavy in the air.
4. Cinnamon rolls. Anything baked with cinnamon brings me instantly to the holiday season, but cinnamon rolls in particular, their sweet, spicy flavor permeating the air, are divine. The smell of fresh rolls out of the oven always make me long for a snowfall, Bing Crosby, and a warm sweater.
3. Lasagna. Nothing but the word "bouquet" is sufficient to describe the smell of tomato sauce, meat and cheese slathered over slender noodles. It is a friendly smell, meant to be shared around a full table, and perhaps that is part of the allure.
2. Garlic. Chef Matt often says that if he found out he were allergic to garlic, he would eat it anyway and deal with the consequences. When I breathe in the sharp, flavorful smell of garlic sauteeing in butter, I cannot help but concur. I sometimes find myself leaning too far over the pan and coming away a little dizzy from that intense, invigorating aroma.
1. Bread. The smell of bread baking, to me, says "peace." It is soft and warm and reassuring, reminiscent of childhood and long Saturday afternoons and thick slices with melted butter. I always want to cozy up on the couch with that smell, taking deep breaths to inhale as much of that vaporous comfort as I can. Everyone has their favorites, but I think bread is universally endearing, one of the foods that almost compels us to take huge, appreciative lungfuls to prolong the joy.
Smell is just as important to eating as taste; when foods smell good, it makes them even more appetizing. Sometimes our wires are crossed and we love the smell of something but not the taste -- I think the classic example is coffee -- or vice versa. To me, the smell of cooking and baking has a monumentally pleasurable attribute: anticipation. When I catch a whiff of something aromatic in a kitchen, I feel a bit like I am counting down the minutes to Christmas.
Everyone has their favorite cooking smells, the ones that trigger memories or make us instantly ravenous. If I had to construct a list of my top five, it would be a close race, but here is how I would rank:
5. Bacon. The perfume of frying bacon, sizzling away on a griddle, is full of guilt and satisfaction. I can envision it with thick slices of tomato, next to scrambled eggs, or all by itself, each greasy bite savored while the scent still hangs heavy in the air.
4. Cinnamon rolls. Anything baked with cinnamon brings me instantly to the holiday season, but cinnamon rolls in particular, their sweet, spicy flavor permeating the air, are divine. The smell of fresh rolls out of the oven always make me long for a snowfall, Bing Crosby, and a warm sweater.
3. Lasagna. Nothing but the word "bouquet" is sufficient to describe the smell of tomato sauce, meat and cheese slathered over slender noodles. It is a friendly smell, meant to be shared around a full table, and perhaps that is part of the allure.
2. Garlic. Chef Matt often says that if he found out he were allergic to garlic, he would eat it anyway and deal with the consequences. When I breathe in the sharp, flavorful smell of garlic sauteeing in butter, I cannot help but concur. I sometimes find myself leaning too far over the pan and coming away a little dizzy from that intense, invigorating aroma.
1. Bread. The smell of bread baking, to me, says "peace." It is soft and warm and reassuring, reminiscent of childhood and long Saturday afternoons and thick slices with melted butter. I always want to cozy up on the couch with that smell, taking deep breaths to inhale as much of that vaporous comfort as I can. Everyone has their favorites, but I think bread is universally endearing, one of the foods that almost compels us to take huge, appreciative lungfuls to prolong the joy.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
A Little Bit of Wisdom from a Graffiti Artist
Yesterday, Chef Matt and I took the kids to the park, and as I sat slowly breathing in the last of the warm summer air, I noticed a bit of graffiti on the bench. It read: "So live life."
The writer may have been intentionally profound, or perhaps it was just a casual scribble, but either way I was struck by this statement. So live life ... because it is short? So live life ... despite all that gets in our way? So live life ... and do not just survive it?
I think sometimes we forget to actually "live" our lives in our quest to barrel through the distractions. I know that is not a priority in my own world; when I am crawling on the floor scooping up wet, gummed-up bread that our son has thrown from his chair, or when I am nodding off during a two a.m. feeding, all I can focus on is keeping my head above water. I do not notice the adorable, gleeful smile on our toddler's face as he plays his favorite "toss food game," or the contented sighs of our snuggly baby.
I have the same excuses as everyone else for not stopping to smell the roses: no time and no energy. So many days, I look back sadly and realize that some great moments have passed me by because I was too busy giving baths and doing laundry and answering e-mails at work. I catch a few more of these moments when Matt is home because I do not feel that desperate urgency to get everything done at once, all by myself. Yet alone or with my husband, I feel like my "living" is slipping through the cracks.
The solution, I believe, is appreciation, and not an attempt to make every day a memorable one. Even though my days will not be "lived" largely -- we do not travel or go on a lot of outings or get really involved in the community or try to do grand things -- I can feel satisfactorily "lived" if I appreciate all the little things that add up to create my messy, scattered life.
I can tell you that today, I appreciated the sight of my two big kids rocking out to Elvis in the car, two little blond bobbleheads in my rearview mirror. I appreciated the taste of the season's last sweet corn, and a hug from my husband after a long day apart, and the feel of a sleepy baby on my chest.
I still had to scrape gummed-up bread off the floor, and I probably will tomorrow, too. But those words -- so live life -- flashed before my eyes as I was doing it, so I looked up at my son in his high chair. And he smiled at me.
The writer may have been intentionally profound, or perhaps it was just a casual scribble, but either way I was struck by this statement. So live life ... because it is short? So live life ... despite all that gets in our way? So live life ... and do not just survive it?
I think sometimes we forget to actually "live" our lives in our quest to barrel through the distractions. I know that is not a priority in my own world; when I am crawling on the floor scooping up wet, gummed-up bread that our son has thrown from his chair, or when I am nodding off during a two a.m. feeding, all I can focus on is keeping my head above water. I do not notice the adorable, gleeful smile on our toddler's face as he plays his favorite "toss food game," or the contented sighs of our snuggly baby.
I have the same excuses as everyone else for not stopping to smell the roses: no time and no energy. So many days, I look back sadly and realize that some great moments have passed me by because I was too busy giving baths and doing laundry and answering e-mails at work. I catch a few more of these moments when Matt is home because I do not feel that desperate urgency to get everything done at once, all by myself. Yet alone or with my husband, I feel like my "living" is slipping through the cracks.
The solution, I believe, is appreciation, and not an attempt to make every day a memorable one. Even though my days will not be "lived" largely -- we do not travel or go on a lot of outings or get really involved in the community or try to do grand things -- I can feel satisfactorily "lived" if I appreciate all the little things that add up to create my messy, scattered life.
I can tell you that today, I appreciated the sight of my two big kids rocking out to Elvis in the car, two little blond bobbleheads in my rearview mirror. I appreciated the taste of the season's last sweet corn, and a hug from my husband after a long day apart, and the feel of a sleepy baby on my chest.
I still had to scrape gummed-up bread off the floor, and I probably will tomorrow, too. But those words -- so live life -- flashed before my eyes as I was doing it, so I looked up at my son in his high chair. And he smiled at me.
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