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More Kale Salad Madness

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Kale_chopping
Santa Maria is a woman of few vices (assuming you don’t count me). When she gets addicted to something, it tends to be something healthy, and her latest fixation is the “Fly Sky High Kale Salad” recipe that I devised a few weeks ago.

Over the past few days she has made it half a dozen times, and she keeps buying the leafy green vegetable. At present, we have two heads of lacinato kale in the refrigerator, just waiting to be sliced, sautéed, tossed with toasted pine nuts, and dresses with Parmesan, olive oil, and lemon.

Her obsession with the salad is understandable. It is extremely delicious. One of my sisters is a devoted reader of this blog, and after she made it for her husband, he told her it’s "way, way, way" better than her usual method of sautéing it with garlic and olive oil.

Nina and Pinta liked the salad the first time I made it, but I don’t think they’ve had it since. Santa Maria keeps eating it up before they can get any of their own. Their interest in kale keeps is growing, though, albeit in a different way—they like to chop the stems and make “soup.”

The other night I came home to find small saucepot full of the nubby little green ends. Pinta had spent the afternoon cutting them up with her little blue children’s knife. She was so proud of what she had made. The next night, Nina, not to be out done, chopped a bunch and took a hunk of Swiss cheese out of the refrigerator to put in hers.

I had to draw the line there. It’s one thing to play with kale stems, it’s another thing to waste food. Soon, though I won’t be surprised if they start making real meals of on their own. Our bedtime reading is headed in that direction.

For the past few weeks, Nina’s choice has been “Little House in the Big Woods,” the first of Laura Ingalls Wilder's “Little House on the Prairie” series. If you think those books are just about quaint patterns of gingham and dainty ponytails, think again. As Pete Wells’ “Cooking with Dexter” column from earlier this year makes abundantly clear, there’s a whole lot of present-day, locovore inspiration in the book; the first chapter is about killing and butchering a pig.

Pinta, for her part, has taken to a new book, “Chef by Step,” by Chef Laurie. It’s a nifty cookbook for children full of bright pictures, clever illustrations, and easy-to-make-recipes that many adults would be happy to eat. If you’re looking for a good cookbook for a child, I suggest you pick up this one. Chef Laurie knows what she’s doing: I’ll have to show my kids this video she made about knife skills:

 

 

How to Eat: An Old Video Tutorial

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Benchley_fright I started to cook for a very basic reason: I love to eat. But eating with a family is never simple. It can be stressful. As a kid, I can remember how chaos reigned over my brothers and sisters at the dinner table each evening, until my father’s feet thumped up the back stairs of our suburban home. As soon as I heard his footsteps, I would straighten my fork, tuck my napkin, and wipe that smirk off my face. He ruled the home and had little tolerance for any kind of disorder.

My household is a little different. There are no back stairs to our apartment, and like many modern dads, I don’t consider myself king and I don’t consider my children subjects, objects, or things to be seen and not heard. They are individuals. People who deserve a voice.

If anything, parents these days run the risk of going too far in the other direction. There’s precious little separation between the child and the parent. A generation ago, the concept of helicopter parenting didn't exist. When I left for university, I didn’t speak to my parents once between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Okay, maybe once, but not every other day.

I was reminded the other night how great the distance is between the child and the parent. We were at the table for Sunday night dinner. I wanted a nice, sweet moment when we would all be together, but Nina and Pinta were having a hard time sitting in their seats. I told Nina to stop squirming in her chair. Pinta, who is three-years old, thought this was hilarious. She burst out laughing. “Squirming, squirming, squirming” she exclaimed. Of course, they were then moving around even faster than before I said anything.

Eating (and cooking) for me right now is even more complicated. We are under enormous stress in our lives because we need to find a new place to live. When I should be cooking (and even when I should be working), I'm running around looking at frightening Brooklyn rentals. If it isn't the price that is scary, it's the cracks in the bathroom tile. This search doesn't make my life any easier.

The humorist Robert Benchley gives instructions on how to eat in the following short film, from 1939. The role of the father has changed substantially since his time, but the underlying dynamic is the same–you really need to relax. Maybe this will help.

Men Who Cook Get a Little Love

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A friend of mine sent me an article today that warmed my heart. Sara Leeder, a producer at CNN, wrote about exactly what I’m doing over here. "More Men Manning the Family Meal Making?" tells her story about being a working mother whose husband does the cooking.

In it, she makes an important point. “While cooking is the last thing I want to do after putting our little boy to bed, my husband seems to like it. Maybe it lets off stress, or is a release after a long day of work,” she writes. She is right.

The role of men in society is quite different now than it was even a generation ago. Women charged into the workforce in the seventies, and they haven’t looked back (consider how things have changed since the days depicted on “Mad Men”). Except in very rarified precincts of theoretical physics, no two objects can occupy the same place at the same time. If women’s participation has been going up in the workforce (both in status and in numbers) then it follows that men’s has been going down. In fact, very shortly, because of the nature of the latest recession, there will be more women with jobs than men.

For many, work is a place of enormous stress these days. There is a place, though, where men are wanted, where their efforts are rewarded, where they can be in charge, and where they can enjoy themselves. That place is the kitchen. The pay may not come in dollars (though cooking at home can save money, and a dollar saved is more than a dollar earned: when you figure taxes in, it takes about a $1.25 to bring home one buck), but men who cook are highly compensated. Their homes are flush with moments of happiness that take-out or frozen food can’t provide. Who doesn’t feel better after a good meal and a glass of wine?

A growing number of men understand this. The poll at the end of the article demonstrates it. Of the 6,000 or so responders, in more than half the relationships, the men do more cooking than the women.

Poll3
 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheating Heart: Leftovers are an Easy Way to Improve Quinoa Salad

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I make a quinoa salad just about every week. Santa Maria loves it, and she eats it for lunch almost daily. It's a tasty, healthy, economical, and easy-to-prepare dish. One nice thing is that it keeps. If you don't dress it, the salad will stay reasonably fresh for days. Make it Sunday night; finish it Thursday at noon.

I usually eat it once a week, but I need more protein than it provides, so I often pair it with poached chicken, or whatever leftovers I might have on hand. Yesterday, I was in a rush and I supplemented it with some prepared and marinated soy bars from the coop (which we almost always have on hand) and half a ball of mozzarella cheese. The salad is so low fat that I always need to add something rich, such as bag of potato chips or a half an avocado, to really feel full. The cheese did the trick. Like the soy bars, it was approaching the end of its usable lifespan, having lingered in the refrigerator for more than a few days. I was happy to eat them (part of my job around the house is cleaning out the refrigerator, a task I take literally), but I would not suggest it on a regular basis. It didn't taste very good.

Today, however, was a completely different story. I had a bit of the quinoa salad left in my office refrigerator, and I paired it with a real delight. Last night, Santa Maria was out at a business dinner at Community Food & Juice, a restaurant on the Upper West Side. She had the steak of the day, a slab of "sustainably raised Piedmont beef," she called it. Now I don't know if she meant that it came from Italy or from the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. I do know, though, that she brought half of it home, and gave it to me. It was delicious. I sliced it up and had it, along with a bit of the restaurant's broccoli, with my quinoa salad. I couldn't have been more pleased.

 

Lunchtime Surprise

by

Jjdpear2
Pinta, who is three-and-a-half now, likes to say little sentences to me. At bedtime, before I turn the lights out, she'll say "I hope you have a good sleep, daddy," and, earlier today, as I left for the office, "I hope you have a good day at work." These are sweet gestures, but nothing is as sweet as what she did this morning.

She was up early with her sister, and Santa Maria had started on their breakfast. Pinta is still young enough to be a terror upon waking if she doesn't get food into her stomach pronto. She loves fruit, and would eat it all day if she could. Santa Maria handed her a small bosc pear, and Pinta turned it upside down, like an ice-cream cone, and started to eat around it as if she was licking a scoop of Van Leeuwen vanilla.

Pinta offered to share the pear with me, but I wasn't in the mood. I like fruit well enough, but it is a taste that came to me late in life, and a 6:53 a. m. pear is not really my thing. Pinta was undeterred, though. She asked if I would like to take one to work. I said sure, and she trotted off to the kichen to get one for me. Santa Maria washed it, and I put it my bag, along with leftover scallops and fried rice that I had made the night before.

I forgot all about the pear until lunch today, when I opened my bag and found the little treat. I think it was the most delicious piece of fruit I've ever had. I enjoyed it before I even tasted it. My camera is broken, so I drew a little picture of it on my desk, next to a reporter's pad. Then I gobbled it in about three bites.

A Marathon Cooking Session with a Shrimp and Fennel Risotto Recipe

by

Fennel_bulb
I cook an extreme amount of food. When I'm standing in the kitchen and my feet are aching, I wonder why I get involved in making so many dishes. On the day after, looking at a steaming bowl of leftovers for lunch, I have a an inkling why. I love to eat, and I'd rather not face a night of take-out or an afternoon of Midtown lunch specials. I want fresh and delicious food, and I can only afford it by making it for myself.

I find cooking for my family extremely hectic. I'm usually rushing through a recipe hoping to stave off a melt-down, either on the part of Santa Maria or on the part of one of the kids. It's rarely relaxing. Yesterday was different. Santa Maria took the kids to the Brooklyn Museum and I had a couple of hours to myself in the kitchen.

We were on a good roll when it came to taking care of domestic tasks yesterday. Santa Maria and I knocked off the weekly shop, did some laundry, and made chicken soup, all before noon. We were feeling good when we were shopping, and in those cases, the shopping list tends to grow. Waiting to pay, Santa Maria came up with all kinds of things she'd like to have for dinner–fresh salsa and guacamole, included. She ran off to get cilantro and a ripe avocado.

We settled on having an old favorite for dinner: shrimp-and-fennel risotto. The recipe is adapted from "Gourmet Everyday," a great cookbook the sadly closed magazine published a few years ago. All the recipes in it are fast, and most are delicious. This risotto is a perfect example.

When we got home, I realized that I had planned a different dinner for that evening, coq au vin. I had a chicken in the back of the refrigerator that needed to be cooked. Its sell-by date was Monday, and I could tell just from opening the refrigerator that it would barely make it that long.

We were having the chicken soup for lunch, though, and that was enough chicken for one day for me. The old chicken would have to wait.

When Santa Maria went out with the children in the afternoon, I got to work in the kitchen. I started chopping onions and fennel for the risotto. I started to prep the items for the coq au vin, which I would make the following morning before taking Nina to school and going to work. Time is short in the morning these days, and I would have to have all the prep work done in order to finish the dish and get Nina out the door on time.

Also, I wanted to make my weekly quinoa salad, so that meant more and more chopping and roasting. And I wanted to serve roasted cauliflower to the kids upon their return from the museum. And I wanted to chop the onion and the tomato and to wash and chop the cilantro for the fresh salsa and guacamole. In the midst of this frenzy, I suddenly wondered what other men do with their free time on a Sunday. Isn't there something called the NFL? Aren't there college bowl games at this time of year? Who knows? You can't eat them, can you?

Santa Maria and the kids came back from the museum (where, in the photo exhibition of rock and roll stars, Nina saw a singer mooning the camera and has since learned this vital and sophomoric skill herself), and we started eating. We all downed the cauliflower. Santa Maria whipped up the guacamole and homemade salsa, and melted the cheddar cheese on the organic corn chips.  I defrosted a bit of black beans for the children, who I figured would not eat the risotto. Nina tried it, but she didn't like it.

I can't imagine why she didn't like the risotto. It's a marvelous dish, and quite beautiful. The shrimp is pink and the fennel fronds are green. The rice is white and creamy. The fennel lends it a distinctive licorice flavor and the shrimp, when cut up my special way, are curly and tender and filling. The dish itself is low in fat, if you make it my way with just olive oil. The trick to the shrimp is to slice each one down its back into two long pieces. I usually don't have time to do this when the kids are around, but yesterday, I had the opportunity. When the shrimp are cooked at the end of the dish, they wind themselves up into little corkscrews. They are delightful. I thought so this afternoon when eating the leftovers for lunch. The nice thing about the way I cook, upping the proportions substantially, is that I have leftovers from my leftovers. I'll be eating some of it tomorrow for lunch again. I don't mind. It's that good.

Shrimp and Fennel Risotto
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 or more heads fennel, cored and diced, fronds reserved.
  • 1 T. Olive Oil
  • 1 cup Arborio or other short-grained rice
  • 1/2 cup or more white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 4 or more cups of hot water
  • 1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, and sliced lengthwise into two long pieces

Salt the shrimp by layering them in a bowl and putting 1/2 t. salt on them. Put another layer of shrimp on top of that and salt them as well. Continue until all the shrimp are salted. This step can be done as the shrimp are sliced into two pieces.

Heat the chicken stock and the water until boiling and then turn down to a low simmer.

Sauté the onion in the oil until soft.

Add the fennel and continue to cook until soft.

Add the rice and stir to coat each grain with oil.

Add the wine and cook and stir until the wine is absorbed.

Add a ladle of stock to the rice and stir.

Stir (on and off) until the stock is absorbed.

Repeat the last two steps until the rice is almost cooked. If you need more liquid, just add hot water to the stock mixture. The rice should be tender but still firm in the center.

Stir in fennel fronds and the shrimp and cook a few minutes until they are opaque and pink. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Serve immediately.

Note: you can make this with butter if you prefer a richer taste.

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy Food

by

Clock1
Ever since I became a parent, I've tried to get my children to eat tasty food that is good for them. I'm hardly alone in this quest. At cocktail parties, other parents have come up to me and asked, upon hearing about this blog, how I get my kids to eat what I cook. I told one father that my eldest likes mussels and clams. "That'll change." he said. Then he asked me for advice.

I didn't have any to give him, other than the old saw about putting a new food in front of a child a dozen times before giving up. Not that that's ever worked. I didn't tell him about some of the other techniques that I had witnessed. I once saw a friend tip his screaming toddler's mouth back and force him to eat whatever it was that we had at the table at that moment. That didn't work, either. 

I've always thought that what children eat or don't eat has less to do with the flavor of a given food than it does to do with the social dimensions of their lives. Children have very few opportunities to fully exert their power. The dinner table is a rare chance for them to control what goes into their mouths, if not what goes on around them. Ever have to sit through a dinner while parents exhorted their children to eat their vegetables? It can take the air out of the whole evening.

Tonight, the mystery deepened. The children ate quesadillas and broccoli with their babysitter, a fine dinner by any standard. I whipped up a mini-Mexican feast of black beans, rice, pan-fried chicken thighs, spinach, and sliced avocado for Santa Maria and myself. I love this dinner. Most of it is cooked ahead of time (the beans freeze well; the rice I cooked this morning while eating breakfast), and can be on the table in about ten minutes.

We sat down to eat while the children played at the table beside us. Then, Nina asked for chicken. Pinta requested black beans. Suddenly, Nina, too, wanted black beans. I raised an eyebrow. The black beans are certifiably delicious. I would take them anywhere and serve them to anyone and challenge them to resist their rich and savory flavor (I make them with bacon), but Nina has spurned them on so many occasions that I've stopped offering them to her. 

Here was further evidence of the social dynamic at play. Nina and Pinta both knew that after eating their snack, they would have to go to bed. The longer they spent at the table, the longer they could stay up. They would never say as much, but I wonder if this influenced their hunger. They each had two small bowls of black beans and rice. Promises were made to serve them more of it for lunch tomorrow. I'll be curious to see how that goes. In the meantime, I was thrilled to have them eating it. It verified my belief that the beans taste good, and that's always a relief.

More practical advice on how to get kids to eat healthily is available here.

Old Springsteen Eases Transition Back to the Kitchen

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Between traveling and celebrating, the Christmas holiday has disrupted my culinary activities, in a mostly welcome and joyful way.

Santa Maria gave me an iPod Touch for Christmas and I took it out for an inaugural run on Sunday. More accurately, I used her iPod Nano because I couldn’t figure out how play music on mine. I’m a little late to the portable, digital-music game, though I’m not a late adopter of digital music per se: my hard drive has some eight-six gigabytes of music, which caused all kinds of confusion when synching it for the first time with my new, thirty-two gig Touch.

The important thing here is what I was listening to. All that time in the car driving back and forth from Pennsylvania to New York led to a dose of classic rock, which seems like the only thing I can ever find on the F.M. dial. Now that I’m past forty I’ve had the unfortunate experience of finding those familiar tunes on WCBS FM, the oldies station. When I was a kid, that spot on the dial reeked of doo-wop and the like. I hated it. Now it’s where I’m likely to find old Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. This makes me feel old.

I was a huge Springsteen fan in high school, ever since my sister brought “Darkness on the Edge of Town” into the house. One of my first entrepreneurial projects involved standing on line (not going online) overnight to secure seats to his Giants Stadium shows for “Born in the U.S.A.” and then scalping a bunch of the tickets and turning a tidy profit. As a teenager, I would drive around playing that album and his earlier works, in particular “Greetings from Asbury Park,” which I always admired for its crazy lyrics. I’ve lost interest in Springsteen’s later work, but those early songs are etched into my psyche.

A few years ago, Springsteen released “Hammersmith Odeon London '75,” his fourth official live album. Springsteen is famous for his live shows, and this early concert shows why. The Boss had already been on the cover of Time magazine as the future of rock, but this was his first appearance in England. No one there really knew him, and he had to prove himself. Recorded shortly after the release of “Born to Run,” it is solely his early material, and I just love it. The quality of the recording is excellent and the set list impeccable. "Backstreets," "Thunder Road," "She's the One," are all there.

On Sunday I knew that the weekly shop needed to be completed. I listened to the album while running through my list—carrots, onions, whole chickens, etc., etc.—at the Park Slope Food Coop. Because of the holiday, the coop was less crowded than usual. I’m not sure how I would manage under its crowded, regular conditions with a head full of Clarence Clemons and the E Street Band, but those empty aisles were perfect for my first excursion with an iPod. I drifted around in a sonic haze, never before so pleased to be buying food.

The way I've been cooking lately, I do much of the work for the week on Sunday night. I prepare a week's worth of quinoa salad and poached chicken breasts for Santa Maria's and my lunches. I can do these tasks while finishing off the dinner dishes, and I put the headphones back on while doing this work. I enjoyed listening to the album on my iPod, but I would caution against buying the collection from the iTunes store.

For some mystifying reason, the digital version doesn't include one of the best songs—"Kitty's Back." It was midway through the album's rollicking, seventeen-minute rendition, when the band is vamping and jamming, and everyone is taking a solo (sometimes at what seems like the exact same moment), that I realized how music can enhance cooking. Marshall McLuhan talked about hot and cool media and the ability of technology to extend and alter our senses. He reasoned that when one sense is overloaded, the others start to shut down.

I was experiencing some mighty hot media in the kitchen. Not only was the stove on, but my iPod was cranking. With the late Danny Federici reaching heights of ecstasy during his keyboard solo, my other sensory perception were altered. McLuhan was only half right, though. My sense of smell was not shutting down. It was enhanced. I was standing over the poaching chicken as I had done many times before. On this evening, though, a delightful fragrance filled my nostrils—the scent of thyme. It was as thick and wonderful as the smoke of another, less-legal herb might have been at a rock concert years ago.

The concert was also released as a DVD, and the rendition of "Kitty's Back" has made it onto YouTube. Here it is.

Great Monkfish Recipe Doesn’t Lead to Domestic Harmony, Alas

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The latest installment of "Cooking with Dexter," Pete Wells's column in the New York Times Magazine about the culinary and dietary habits of his son and family, details his effort to get home from the office and eat with his wife and children. It's a dangerous enterprise. Arrive too late, and one runs the risk of the unfed kids "bursting into flames."

I know what he means. When Nina and Pinta are hungry, there's no telling how they will behave. If the criminally accused can escape punishment because of temporary insanity, then children, by all biological laws, should have the opportunity to plead a low-blood sugar defense.

According to Wells, eating with the kids doesn't take so much a heroic effort as it does a simple pot of boiling water (and leaving work an hour early). He's an advocate of boiling his vegetables and rice and nearly everything else that he wants to eat. He also relies on the stars aligning enough to insure that there are groceries in the house. "There were sausage and a stalk of brussels sprouts
in the refrigerator and, for once, an onion and a garlic clove in the
cupboard when I needed them," he writes.

I have a different approach to weeknight meals. First of all, it's not luck that insures there are staples like onions and garlic in the house. It is shopping and planning. According to the nineteen-sixties English television cooking personality Fanny Cradock, Escoffier said that menu planning is the hardest part of a chef's job. I often detest the amount of creative mental energy that's required to draw up a weekly shopping list, but I love beyond words knowing that I won't have to look for ingredients when I'm trying to cook a dish on a weeknight.

My second strategy for weeknight dinners involves doing the prep work ahead of time. I'll chop the vegetables or dress the chicken for roasting before I head to work. That way, when I come home I can just start cooking and the time from stove to table is reduced like a fine French sauce.

My third strategy is a bit trickier to execute. It involves getting Santa Maria to actually do the cooking. Often times this is an easy thing to do, such as when all she has to do is put the chicken in the oven to roast, or defrost the Bolognese and make some pasta. If things are more complicated, it's less likely that she'll have the time or inclination to get involved.

On Monday, I was excited by the prospect of eating with the children. I had monk fish in the refrigerator following my Saturday trip to the Green Market (Strategy One: planning and shopping), and I wanted to make a fantastic old Mark Bittman recipe that I've enjoyed on a number of occasions over the years: "Poached Monkfish with Lemon Sauce," from his "Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking." Leeks are a central ingredient in the recipe; I diced two before breakfast that morning (Strategy Two: getting a jump on prep work). I was running late, so I called Santa Maria and had her start the recipe (Strategy Three).

Everything was in order, but for all my planning, there were two potential problems. The first was unseen. That Monday afternoon, I started to feel a bit ill, slightly nauseated, as if I was fighting a bit of food poisoning (maybe I shouldn't have had that sushi for lunch). By the time I got home, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to eat anything at all.

The other potential problem, I was aware of from the start. I was taking a risk with the kids. This was the first time I would be making the monk fish for them. I didn't know if they would like it at all. Logically, it should have worked. They like flounder. Monkfish is similar enough. The like lemon. They like butter (another key ingredient). I dutifully picked out all the leeks from their bowls to try and tip the odds in my favor, but it was not to be. Never bet against the house, I learned.

The kids hated the dish.The refused to try it. I can't say it was only because of the dish, though. It might have been because I was a few minutes late. They were howling when I got home. Things could only go downhill from there, and they did. I enjoyed the fish, though. It tasted so good that I forgot that I was sick. The kids ended up eating a bit of dried out and leftover pork. They loved it. Go figure.

(Note: Monkfish is considered a problematic fish to consume when it comes to the health of its stock–though those in the Northeast are thought to be okay—and the consequences of methods used to catch it.  You can learn more here.)

Poached Monkfish with Lemon Sauce (adapted from Mark Bittman)
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 leeks, washed, trimmed, and diced
  • 1/3 cup white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme (or fresh, if available)
  • 1 lb monk fish, membrane removed and cut into medallions
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Melt the butter in a casserole pan.

Sauté the leeks until they are softened, at about ten minutes.

Add the wine, stock, and thyme, and bring to a boil.

Add the monkfish and reduce the heat. Simmer for about four or five minutes, until the fish is just about cooked.

Remove the fish with a slotted spoon, set aside, and keep warm.

Reduce the sauce to desired thickness. Add more butter if you want a richer sauce.

Add the lemon juice.

Serve the fish and sauce in a bowl with fresh bread.

Planning and Food Shopping Tips from the Trenches

by

Washing_parlsely
My late father had many colorful expressions at his disposal. He wasn't a man who swore a lot (at least not around the children), and he had a great faculty with language (he was a litigator). One the things he used to say when something wasn't going his way was, "I need this like I need a hole in my head."

That expression came to mind tonight when I came home. I have a number of recent and unexpected stresses in my life right now. One is a career-related project that I'm very excited about and will fully describe in the near future. As thrilling as this project is, it does take up a lot of brain power. The other stress is related to my living situation, and it remains in my best interest not to detail it here. Suffice it to say that I need it like I need a hole in my head.

I've been so distracted that I can barely cook. Usually, I do the menu planning and grocery buying, but this week Santa Maria volunteered to take on this task. She's doing her best to pick up much of the domestic labor as I throw myself into this new work project of mine, but she is also subject to the same living-situation stress as I am.

When I plan a menu, I try to think three or four steps ahead, and I'm proud of one of my more recent tricks that helps me balance work, play, parenting, cooking, and shopping. For a long time, I've been frustrated by the way fresh herbs spoil before you can use them up. Take parsley, for example. How many times have you thrown out three-quarters of a limp head a week after using a pinch to gussy up a dish? Parsley is on my mind lately because it is a key ingredient in the weekly quinoa-and-sweet-potato salad I make for Santa Maria's lunch.

Due to the recent distractions, I forgot to put parsley on the shopping list last weekend. But I was still able to make the quinoa salad because of the trick I've learned. As soon as a head of parsley comes into the house, I wash it well and dry it thoroughly in the salad spinner. It will then keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

I'm very grateful that Santa Maria is helping out with the shopping and planning. Her menu for this week included mushroom risotto. Delightful, I thought. It was something I could put together tonight while the kids were playing before bedtime. I'm not of the persuasion that risotto needs to be stirred constantly. It's not necessary. I'm not a great chef, just a great eater. Though if you ate my food, you might quibble with that self-deprecating description. I can cook very well, and love to do it.

Tonight, though, I was stymied. I couldn't find any mushrooms in the house. I asked Santa Maria where the dried porcini were, or if we had any at all. "I don't know," she replied. "How could you not know, if you put the dish on the menu for the week," I snapped. 

"Porcini mushrooms are a staple." she said. "They should be in the house, like salt, Mr. Stay-at-Stove-Dad."

On to plan B, which was no plan. I found a head of cauliflower and Santa Maria offered to roast it. That was very nice of her, as it got me out of the kitchen. I was starting to feel angry because I wasn't going to have a delicious dinner. I sat with the kids while they played, and if ever there was an antidote to anger it's in their joyful laughter.

I snacked on some baby carrots, and gave my blood-sugar a boost. Pinta trotted around eating what she called a pequeño carrot, and I relaxed. There was left over asparagus from the kids' dinner, and I found some frozen empanadas to round out my dinner. A filling meal, but not one with any real culinary satisfaction.

One of my favorite artists, Prince, uses my father's expression in a slightly different context. It's not one of his better songs, but somehow it seems fitting. Santa Maria suggested it.