Playdate

Sticky fingers

I walked into Joseph's room this morning and it just smelled "sweet." This is unusual; it usually smells a little funky.

"Joseph's where's the candy?"

He played innocent at first, but he's a terrible liar. A smile crept across his face.

After some questioning he finally produced a pack of gum I KNEW didn't come from a birthday party goody bag, and he fessed up: he had taken it from the checkout area at Target.

What, exactly, am I supposed to do with this?

I'm going to make him take it back to Target and pay for it, natch, but otherwise ...? Otherwise, I'm not sure what my response is supposed to be.

He swiped the gum Wednesday night. And yesterday he "found" a quarter -- my quarter, mind you -- at the pool while I was in the bathroom with Miriam. He took it up to the snack bar and asked if it were enough to buy ice cream. They apparently said yes, and gave it to him! A disgusting Spiderman Ice cream!!!

I come out of the bathroom, and someone says, "That's so cute. Is that your son doing the ice cream dance over there? He's so excited to be eating ice cream."

"No," I think, "That can't be my boy. We've already discussed ice cream, and he knows he can't have it. and besides, where would he have gotten the money?"

It WAS my boy.

He hadn't taken a bite yet, so I tried to return it to the snack bar, but they wouldn't take it back. I explained to them that he isn't ALLOWED ice cream, that he's off dairy, that the food coloring will turn him into a crazy child ... They were apologetic. I then searched out another kid to whom I could gift the ice cream. Joseph's friend Lindsey was happy to be the recipient of his ill-gotten gains (I, of course, made sure to check with her mother first), and I made Joe reimburse me the quarter.

So, is he still having sugar cravings after months on an uber-restrictive diet? Just a kid who feels deprived? Or a boy destined for a life of crime?

Sick Day = Pancake Lunch

The kids were home sick today. But not that sick. You know the routine: You are called from school to pick up your kids one day, and they are marginally sick. But because the school rule is that you are to keep the home 24 hours past fever break/last throw up/return of appetite/whatever ... it doesn't matter how good they are feeling the next day, home it is.

That's where we are today. 

Hannah's school called yesterday at about noon and said that she had been crying on and off for an hour and complaining that her ear hurt. So, I woke Miriam from her nap, trucked off to school to retrieve the girl, slogged back home, and was just looking for the ibuprofen, garlic-mullein ear oil, and echinacea ... when the phone rang.

"Mrs. Wolff, it's nurse Anglum from Gregory School."

"Oh no. Not you. How's Joe?"

Joe had come in complaining that his stomach hurt and had a fever of 101. Crappity.

So, I dosed up Hannah, put the girls in the car, and drove the block-and-a-half to school to get the boy. I figured a kid with a fever probably didn't want to walk home.

They were mostly fine yesterday. They're even finer today. But here we are, all together on a damp, gray, cold March day.

"Mom, can we have pancakes for lunch?"

Why the hell not?

Seems like a perfect time to share my Dad's own homegrown recipe he calls "Nature Boy Pancakes."

"Oh, give 'em a try," he said to me a few years ago when Hannah and I were out for a rare visit. "You won't want those ol' namby-pamby fluffy white pancakes again."

He was right.

Granpappy's Nature Boy Pancake Mix

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup flax seed meal

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/3 cup sugar

2 Tbls. baking powder

2 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

12 Tbls. dry buttermilk powder (= 1/2 cup + 2 Tbls.)

 

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and store in refrigerator.  

To make pancake batter, mix 1 cup of mix with an equal amount of water to which has been added 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 beaten egg.  Cook on hot griddle or skillet. 

Plain is good, but we also like chocolate chip (cooking on the griddle above), raisin, currant, or any of the more standard blueberry or banana options.

Enjoy.

What's for Dinner?

 

Pizza, until recently, was a rarity in this house. The reasons are numerous: our favorite delivery place closed down, Joseph has never been a fan (seriously, at birthday parties he'd search out the veggie platter intended for the adults rather than deign to eat a slice of pizza!), we worried Miriam had a dairy allergy which meant that neither she nor I could eat it until we sorted that out ...

Poor Hannah LOVES pizza. Many a stranger has remarked at the way she folds her pizza in half and shovels it in NY-style, rather than insist on its being cut into little cubes the way other toddlers seem to. But, save for the occasional birthday party, she has been largely denied.

Miriam's dairy issues have been sorted out (not a true allergy, and cheese and yogurt seem to be just fine), but Joseph would still crinkle up his nose and say "Well, I am NOT eating THAT. You KNOW I don't like pizza," if anyone ever suggested grabbing a couple of slices as an easy way to feed the kids. I even offered him a white slice at the local pizzeria, but he wouldn't hear of it.

A few weeks ago I got a bee in my bonnet. I don't really remember why. But I love making bread and thought maybe, just maybe, if we made pizza at home and I let Joseph help he'd give it a try and, gasp, actually like it.

Wouldn't you know it worked. Now we have pizza once a week. Tonight will be a good night since we have little else in the house and already have plans to eat most of our meals out this weekend.

So, as I get ready to go into the kitchen and make the dough, I thought I'd share the crust recipe that seems to be the favorite (I've experimented a lot) and a few pictures of the work in progress.

For the crust, I've been doing a whole wheat recipe I got out of a recent issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I figure since it's virtually impossible to duplicate pizzeria crust at home, might as well go a little healthier. Besides, it's Joseph's favorite.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm (115 degrees) water
• 2 packets ( ounce each) active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for kneading
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled)  

 

 Directions

1. Place water in a large bowl; sprinkle with yeast. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Brush another large bowl with oil.
2. In bowl with yeast, whisk sugar, oil, and salt. Stir in flours with a wooden spoon until a sticky dough forms. Transfer to oiled bowl; brush top of dough with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; let stand in a warm spot until dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface. With floured hands, knead until smooth, about 15 seconds; divide into two balls.
4. Set balls on a plate (they should not touch); freeze until firm, about 1 hour. Then freeze in a freezer bag up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in refrigerator.
5. Divide each ball of dough into 4 pieces. Using your hands, stretch each piece into a 5-inch disk (if dough becomes too elastic to work with, let it rest a few minutes). Freeze shells on two parchment-lined baking sheets. Stack frozen shells between layers of parchment paper. Freeze in a freezer bag up to 3 months. Bake from frozen.

  

Note: I haven't been freezing my shells. I find I can divide the dough and leave it in the fridge for at least as long as it takes me to finish off a doubled batch. So, I divide my dough and put each little ball in it's own Ziploc bag and take it out when I'm ready to make pizza. By the time the oven is preheated, the dough is ready to shape.

To cook the pizza: Take dough or crust out of the fridge/freezer. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Sprinkle cooking tray with cornmeal. When the oven is ready: shape your pizza, put it on your pan, and top as desired -- MINUS the cheese.

That's Joe's white pizza on the left. I grind up a little rosemary, mix it with extra virgin olive oil, brush it on to the crust, and sprinkle with kosher salt. Hannah likes red sauce, so I just use whatever basic pasta sauce we have in the cabinet. My favorite is sausage, onion, and mushroom. Adam likes everything and the kitchen sink (though he is much chagrined about the whole wheat crust!).

You will notice that I'm not using a pizza stone. I have one, but honestly can't tell the difference between the pizza I've cooked on the stone and that that I've cooked on this aluminum jelly roll pan. And I don't have to handle a blazing hot pizza stone when I use the pan, so the stone will now forever be reserved for artisan breads.

I digress. At this point, cook the pizza for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, add cheese, and cook for another 7 minutes or so, depending on how bubbly and/or browned you like your cheese. (Again, Adam is much chagrined that I use part-skim mozzarella, but it's what they have at Whole Foods, so it's what I buy.)

I think I left these in a little long, but you will notice Miriam up there didn't mind one bit.

Tonight this will be dinner, but it also makes a good afternoon snack for the kids. Enjoy!

  

Random Cultural Tidbit #1

When I was a young girl, my mom taught me how to pare fruit.  She emphasized that I must keep the peel thin so as not to waste any of the fruit.  She cautioned that my future in-laws and husband would want me to not be wasteful and understand the importance of good presentation.  She was preparing me so that I would not be scolded by my married family.

My American husband, when he doesn't eat his apples off the core, likes to eat the peel of his apple slices.

But whenever I peel an apple for a recipe, I still replay my mother's lesson in my head.

Archi-DORK

In High School I would play hookie with a friend to go into Manhattan at least five times a year.  We would ride the Staten Island Ferry, past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, hop on a subway and find our way through the concrete canyons to our destination.  My favorite trips were to the Guggenheim Museum and the MoMA.  We would end with lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe or some random Broadway restaurant.  We felt so grown up.

Ironically, as a grown up I rarely have the opportunity to have an adventure in the city.  It's so close yet so far away!  Now that our youngest is nearly four, we can go into the city for kid-friendly trips like the Museum of Natural History and the Empire State Building. 

 

These trips are totally fun but very different from the memories I have as a teenager.  Something is missing. 

When Rob and I were planning our 11th anniversary date, without hesitation I said, "MoMA!".  We hadn't been there since the expansion...Since before kids...Since the last century!!!? 

As we approached the museum, I was giddy as a school girl strutting along 53rd street.  Finally, an adventure in the city.  The exhibits sounded fascinating but we were more interested in the new configuration of the buildings.  The courtyard was our first stop.  It is still a serene sculpture garden but with a new view...

The main atrium, just above the entry lobby, is an enormous multi-level space that becomes a landmark to reorient oneself upon exiting each exhibit room or core of the building (escalators, elevator, services).  My simple camera could not capture the atrium properly...

Surprisingly, even with the expansion, there seemed to be a lack of exhibition space.  Perhaps the collections are too large.  One of the current special exhibitions is Home Delivery which is a collection about pre-fabricated houses. 

We thought it contained some great examples of modular, pre-fab homes but it also had too many theoretical examples that did not embody solutions for affordable housing.  Perhaps we are too pragmatic to be theoretical.  We thought the models showing ecologically conscientious designs were great and we wish there were more of those.  Recycled materials and more eco-friendly solutions would have been especially poignant in our current times.  The full scale mock-ups in the adjacent lot would have been a perfect opportunity to show the future of modular pre-fab homes.  The ones on display had solar panels and not much else in that regard.

It was fun to walk through the mock-ups anyway.  We concluded our date with lunch at Becco, Lydia Bastianich and son's Italian restaurant in Hell's Kitchen.  It was delicious and very reasonable.

More than that, it was refreshing to talk about the art and architecture we had just seen over lunch.  We felt very grown up.

   

Rotten Bananas

I like to bake.    

My boys like baked goods.   

They also like to help me bake.    (Maybe they think of it as a yummy experiment.)

One thing I often make whenever our bananas get a bit too brown is banana bread. 

 

It's a banana walnut loaf recipe from Everyday FOOD magazine but I replace the walnuts with chocolate.  Chocolate lovers, need I explain? 

The loaf slice is yummy but this time I decided to also make mini muffins.  Little bites of goodness!  And plenty to take to pre-school as a nut-free treat.

 

The Harvest

Our little garden produced some great tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, peppers and herbs this summer.  Our zucchini plant grew very large but only produced two "fruit".  One was large but the one pictured above is just enormous.  So large, it could be mistaken for a gourd or freaky green pumpkin.  I put the first zucchini into a soup.  Kim chee ggi gae is a soup/stew made with old kim chee and anything else you can find.  And yes, this one was spicy! 

In Korea, one of the most important days of the year is centered around the harvest.  Chu sok is celebrated in autumn (its date changes every year because it is based on the lunar calendar) and it is most similar to Thanksgiving.  My parents are in Korea and they celebrated the holiday with our extended family.  In their absence, instead of honoring this tradition with the foods and festivities...we did nothing.  Because I forgot.  I'm a bad Korean.  If you'd like to read about what we all missed, click here.

There is a huge festival every year in Flushing Meadows Park.  It was held last weekend and I'm totally bummed we missed it.  I will definitely take the kids next year.  Because really, who doesn't love a good parade with delicious food?

Domo Arigato Mister Roboto

I like making silly cakes. 

How could I resist?

I stopped to get gas in Scranton, and there, across the street, where I had to turn to get back on the interstate anyway, I saw this:

I mean, did I even have a chance?

What's funny is that in my entire life of being asked things like:

"Do you want fries with that?" 

I have never once taken the "up sell" at a drive thru.

But somehow, when I asked for two doughnuts with sprinkles for the kids, and one chocolate cream-filled for myself, and the voice in the little box asked, "Is that part of a dozen?" I couldn't help but answer, "Sure, why not?"

Can you imagine what might have happened if the "Hot Light" had been lit?

Caprese

The first red, mostly ripe, garden tomato of the season.  Fresh off the vine and drissled with olive oil and salt.  The basil plant didn't do well this year but I didn't care.  My Insalata Caprese was just fine even with the bitter basil.  And just for a moment, I couldn't hear my kids saying, "eeeew, what IS that?".  Just for a moment, I was taken back to a fabulous time when I was twenty-one and in Capri...

Aaahhhh.