Guess Who Came To Dinner?

Adam flew in today to begin the process of packing up all our stuff and moving it to the new house.  Wait...I haven't mentioned, we're moving to Virginia in November!  Well, that's for another post, but there you have it.
Anyway, lucky for Dad he came to town in time to experience our week of wonderful and magical dinners. We had so many lovely vegetables to choose from in the fridge, so dinner was a delectable delight for the taste buds and candy for the eyes with all the flavors and colors.  Tonight's fare included fresh spicy salad greens, courtesy of Urbandale Farm, topped with cherry tomatoes from Green Eagle Farm; homemade garlic bread using bread from Stone Circle Bakery; and homemade focaccia pizza, with bread from Stone Circle Bakery, and veggies from Feltzke's Farm and Vang Farm.  Bryony, once again this year, ate the lion's share of the salad in lieu of the pizza (is she really a 3-year old child????) while Adam and I chowed down on everything, topped off with a glass of wine.  It was the perfect way to welcome Dad home, and we are suitably stuffed as we sit back and watch a movie before bed. 

Stealing a Fork From the Road

I had a vision in my head this evening of what I wanted dinner to look like.  It was going to be colorful, full of fresh produce from today's farmer's market, and would taste amazing.  Fortunately, I managed to accomplish all three goals, with validation from Bryony who nearly cleaned her plate.  Tonight's dish was an inspiration borrowed from one of my favorite local eateries, Fork In The Road.  They make these veggie tacos that are absolutely dee-lish-us, complete with fresh cilantro, scoops of lime pulp, sauteed onions and peppers, and then a fried egg on top for good measure.  Mine were similar, except I decided to smother a layer of refried beans on the grilled flour tortilla before layering shredded cheese, fried egg, sauteed onions, peppers, and patty pan squash, chopped tomatilla and tomato on top with a generous spritz of lime juice for added zing.  It's good to see my kid eating fresh, local, healthy "growing food."  Even better to know she's enjoying it.

One Can Never Have Too Many Tomatoes

Tonight we had homemade bruschetta, using the wonderful bread we get from Stone Circle Bakery, and yummy tomatoes from Feltzke's Farms, Urbandale Farms and the Heilig family farm.  This was another oldie-but-goodie, one that I've made on the fly in various rushed-for-something-quick-but-good scenarios.  What was lacking, but would have made it perfect, was sea salt; I only had table salt, but it was pretty good nonetheless.  A sprinkle of balsamic vinegar on top (of mine, as B declared she didn't want any) was the icing on the cake.  Bryony didn't enjoy tonight's dinner quite as much, although she did ask for another serving of tomatoes after eating  all of them off her slice of bread.

Waste Not, Want Not

A new study has been in the news this week noting that approximately 40% of all food in the United States gets thrown away.  I wanted to be shocked and appalled by this, but I'm not (well, I'm appalled, at least).  I see the way people throw away perfectly good food at restaurants instead of taking it home in a to-go "doggie" bag.  I see how, when cooking, friends don't use a rubber spatula to scrape the dregs of minced vegetables, cake batter or tomato sauce out of a dish or can.  It's so easy to waste here in the U.S., where we have so much (some would argue, too much) that throwing away perfectly good food doesn't even cross many people's minds as wrong.    In full disclosure, I'm no angel.  I've been known to get lazy with my cooking some weeks and let a whole broccoli head turn yellow, find that beautiful red and orange peppers have mushed into a soppy goo, or discover my lovely purple eggplant has a moldy friend growing all over it.  But, a) I feel really, really bad about it, and b) I have a compost outside, so at the very least, I try to recycle the rotting food into something productive and beneficial for future growth.

This week, in light of the news of our chronic food waste, I decided I wanted to post photos of the interesting dinners Bryony and I have been enjoying, courtesy of the splendid selection of produce we find at our local farmer's market each week. 

Today's dish was a yummy tried-and-true salsa-meets-relish that I knew Bryony would really enjoy.  I made my own corn chips, which complemented the black bean, corn, fresh tomato & cilantro "dip" very nicely.

Bon appetit!

New Blog I'm Stalking...

My oldest friend that I'm still in touch with--she reaches back to my days living in Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid-1980s--just started a blog that is a bit fascinating, if not sobering.  I couldn't help but write an actual post about it rather than just add it to my queue.  It's not a mommy blog or a musings-on-life blog.  Rather, it's one that chronicles the professional difficulties she's experiencing after making a bold and risky decision three years ago to give up a lucrative career to move to Chicago and become a baker.  After a year of it not working out, she's moved back to her hometown and spent the last two years unsuccessfully trying to get back into her original field of work (I can relate).

Check out "Recovering After Making the Biggest Mistake of My Life" :  http://geologistforhire.blogspot.com/

And, if you have any job leads, feel free to send them her way.

Self-Realization Snippets

While the last couple elections have been important to me for a variety of reasons, this current election cycle has caused me to realize that it's not the actual politics that matter to me, but rather the social and societal issues of today.  Gay rights, women's rights, workers' rights, environmental concerns.  Those aren't politics, per se, but rather social issues that have been made political. 

My issue isn't with whether voters or politicians have a similar or different opinion than me on these issues, but rather with them thinking it's right to create legislation that denies people basic human and civil rights because of that difference in opinion.  Just as I would never want to deny someone the right to practice their religion just because I'm an aetheist, I have a hard time understanding why someone would want to deny a homosexual couple the right to marry just because that person doesn't agree with homosexuality.  We can all have our own opinions and feelings without forcing them upon other people's lives.

I thought that's what all the outcries for "less government" was about.

Girls' Night In

...complete with an array of nail polish colors, Frosties from Wendy's, and an evening reading of Charlotte's Web.  No better fun than a night with my wee one.

On Having Another

Yesterday, while picking up B from school, the mother of one of her classmates arrived at the same time. While leaving, both girls decided they needed a drink from the water fountain, which put us mothers in the position to begin a conversation. We had never spoken before—only smiled in passing—and there was something about her that had made me think that she was Russian (perhaps just her daughter’s name, Elena, had thrown me). As I stood there, trying to think of a commonality from which to start conversation, I remembered that several weeks before, Elena had announced to me that she was going to be a big sister.

“Elena told me that she’s going to be a big sister!” I told the woman, with congratulations in my voice. She turned around slowly, and I noticed a pained expression on her face, and tears welling in her eyes. “Well, we thought she was going to be…I had a miscarriage. I just found out a couple days ago,” she added, as though trying to explain her emotion. I felt so bad, to have brought it up so soon after them the suffering the wound of the loss. I expressed my condolences, not able to fathom how hard it must be to go through that.

“We had been trying for a long time, and when I got pregnant, we told Elena the news because we knew she’d really be happy. So she told everyone, but now…” she trailed off, wounded by her loss, and pained by having to repeat it each time she had to talk about it. I wanted to hug this woman whose afternoon I had just made a bit sadder.

She smiled wryly and said, “I always thought it was supposed to be easier the second time around!” I agreed with her, noting that I’d always heard that it’s easier to get pregnant when you’ve already been pregnant before, but that my experience has not been the case. I admitted that our family was going through a similar experience of trying to conceive with no luck just yet. She smiled at me sympathetically. She laughed as she responded, “It sure seemed a lot easier for my grandmother!” I laughed in return, and reminded her that our grandmothers were likely younger than us when they started having children, by at least 5-10 years. And they likely chose (or had no option than) to stay at home. “We’re career women,” she noted, the double-edged quality of that distinction hanging in the air.

We looked down fondly at our two little girls, who by this time were in a contest to see who could jump higher. “Well, I try to remind myself that we have this sweet, beautiful little girl, and if she’s all we ever get to have, then we are damn lucky.” Elena’s mom said it, but I could just have easily have uttered the sentiment. I felt a special bond with her as we watched our girls run down the hall toward the front door. Emotionally, I felt as though we were walking, arms linked, down a similar path, unsure of what’s ahead, but both of us grateful for where we’ve been and the wealth we have.

That night, I got my period.