• kale pomegranate salad

    I was thinking I should only eat oatmeal and grapefruit today, considering that tomorrow is Thanksgiving and that even though my mother is making a cake and a slew of pies, she still asked me to contribute a cheesecake so we are going to be drowning in desserts not to mention the turkey, and then the next day we’re having a sushi-making lesson courtesy of my (Japanese) sister-in-law’s (Japanese) brother. But then when I woke up this morning, I realized that I had good toastable bread and there was three-quarters of a wheel of Brie leftover from supper last night, and then my kids asked me to cut into one of the two pomegranates I bought yesterday, and well, forget about any pre-Thanksgiving austerity measures. Let’s eat!

    I toasted (and buttered, because forget restraint already) the bread, warmed a wedge of cheese in a hot skillet, and whacked a pomegranate till it coughed up its seeds. The kids were fascinated. Scratch that. I was fascinated. (And hurt. Because I missed the pomegranate a couple times.)

    I don’t know much about pomegranates, but they’re all over the I-nets these days. There’s this video on pom-spanking, and Aimee did a whole post on the festive fruit. They’re juicy and tart-sweet—an excellent pop of flavor for anything and everything, declare the masses, and the masses are right.

    Guys, I’m sold. I got my poms for 1.19 each. That’s more than a cup of pretty berry-seeds for a buck-twenty, and when you compare that to the cost of a half pint of blueberries or raspberries, it’s a fine deal indeed.

    My children (just the two youngers were around for the fruit slamming/snacking) chew-suck on the seeds and then spit the insides out. Which is flat-out wrong, but I can’t convince them otherwise. We ate a bunch for breakfast and then at lunch I put a scoop of seeds on my kale salad and thoroughly enjoyed the pop of sweet color.

    My pomegranate journey has just begun. It’s gonna be a tasty one.

    Kale Pomegranate Salad

    There are so many variations on this theme that it’s enough to make my eyes cross. Listen. All you need to do is lightly saute some chopped kale in butter—it’s done when it’s bright green and glossy with a touch of wilt. In a separate skillet saute some slivered almonds in butter. Sprinkle salt in both pans. Put the kale on a plate. Sprinkle the nuts on top. Grate a bit of fresh Parmesan on the hot kale, and spoon some pomegranate seeds over all. Eat. (But first take a photo because it’s so dang sexy.)

    I wasn’t going to write up a recipe (because that’s what I just did, right?) but then I realized that some people are rather fond of their ingredient lists, so…

    2 cups, coarsely chopped kale, sauteed in butter and salted
    1 tablespoon almond slivers, toasted in butter and salted
    light flurry of freshly grated Parmesan
    1 tablespoon pomegranate seeds

    Toss and eat.

    There. Now go do it. Happy Thanksgiving!

  • a treat

    Starting early Sunday afternoon, my husband and I found ourselves with no children for the next 24 hours.

    PAAARTYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

    Okay, so not really. But we did have ourselves some typical date-time fun: movie and dinner out.

    Except the movie wasn’t exactly fun.

    We went to see 12 Years a Slave.

    Actually, I forced my husband to see it. He fussed and whimpered and begged off due to emotional sensitivities. But the other options—Gravity, Captain Phillips, Nebraska—weren’t playing at the right times or places or weren’t out yet, and the ones my husband wanted to see—Ender’s Game, the latest Hunger Game one—weren’t my cup of tea, and I certainly didn’t want to see any of the other drivel-slash-fluff that was showing (not that I actually noticed what else was showing…). If I’m going to drop twenty-two bucks on a movie, I want it to be beautifully done, well-acted, and enlightening. A girl’s gotta have standards.

    12 Years a Slave was all that and more: thoughtful, harrowing, engrossing.

    Facts
    *I shivered the whole way through.
    *I spent about four percent of the total viewing time staring at my lap or the backs of my eyelids.
    *I plugged my ears twice.
    *I didn’t smile or laugh. Not once.
    *I did not cry.
    *My husband and I couldn’t talk for several minutes afterwards.
    *I highly recommend it.

    They say this movie is unusual in that it’s about slavery. Before I went to see it, I didn’t get that. Because I’ve seen lots of movies that have bits of slavery in them—Civil War stuff, the underground railroad, etc. But now I get what they mean, and they are right. I’ve never seen a movie all about slavery from the inside of slavery. Watch it. It’s worth the big bucks. (My husband isn’t mad at me for making him watch it.)

    Anyway, then we went out for drinks and supper.

    Me: baked goat cheese with warm—and incredibly soft and chewy—pita wedges and a margarita.
    Him: an enormous cheese and bacon burger, house chips, and root beer.

    Back home, we sat down in front of the fire. The heat made my bones melt into puddles. I didn’t want to move.

    The house was so quiet.

    And then I murmured, “Let’s sleep in front of the fire tonight.”

    My husband smiled. “We could bring down the kids’ mattress…”

    We hesitated. Dragging down a mattress, blankets, and pillows would mean a bothersome morning clean-up. Sleeping in our regular bed in our regular room like regular people on a regular night would be so much easier.

    “We should do it,” I announced, pushing myself up off the couch. “Do something different. Break out of our comfort zones. Not be such sticks-in-the-mud.” (Which is funny because we just came back from a wild, let’s-live-in-another-country adventure. How is it that something as simple as sleeping downstairs instead of up can be a shake-‘em-up exercise while nine months in Guatemala is just par for the course? I don’t understand myself.)

    We ended up hauling down the mattress (and, in the process, discovering that there was a colony of stink bugs living between my son’s mattress and box springs—we vacuumed up right around three dozen—go look under your mattress). You’d think we’d have been toasty-oasty all night by the fire, but we slept so hard that the fire was almost completely out, come morning, and the house was an invigorating 58 degrees.

  • the quotidian (11.25.13)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace



    In the making: potato soup.
    Browning the ground beef and sausage for the ragu.
    Chemistry, the Khan way.

    A girl, a sling, and her doll.
    Amusing note: my children are appalled at how Lucy (in I Love Lucy) takes care of her baby. 
    When Lucy lays Little Ricky down, still whimpering, for the night and then walks out of the room,
    turns out the light, and shuts the door, they all yell at the screen, “That’s not how you put a baby to bed!” 
    And once, when Little Ricky cried in his crib and Lucy tried to soothe him by simply 
    patting his back, my younger son bellowed in shocked indignation, “PICK HIM UP!” 
    It’s interesting how the attachment practices that didn’t use 
    to be the norm have somehow become their norm. 
    Or maybe they are the natural norm and children just haven’t unlearned that yet?
    My lunch: greens, roasted butternut, feta, sunflower seeds, and balsamic vinaigrette. 
    I had two helpings.
    The trampoline is back up and hard at work saving my sanity.

    Our current resident bread baker.

    Color pops: the post rest-time treat.