The Boot Is Gone, and the Living Is Cheesy

Farewell nasty boot!

Every family has one: a kid who is accident prone.

Our poster child for juvenile injuries is the Bean. “Impact-resistant” playground woodchips have no chance against this girl. In fact, I believe the ground cover is in cahoots with the “child safe” playground equipment, which seems to dive out and attack her at every turn. 

It’s not like she’s playing on a creaky mid-century relic of a play space. My neighbors and I built this state-of-the-safety-arts school playground just two years ago. As a town-owned playground, it has been safety-certified by every committee within 100 miles. And yet, here are the scars to prove that at least one determined kid can trounce all those safety experts’ best efforts again and again:

1. Brush burns under the chin and long bloody scrapes under the arms when she slid down a rope climbing structure.
2. A permanent front tooth severed diagonally in half upon impact with a metal pole (she sustained the injury while attempting to climb the structure blindfolded, so she kind of was asking for trouble).
3. And our latest war wound: a sprained ankle after a seemingly innocent two-footed jump off the climbing wall.

 

(The Bean’s accident record is longer than this, but I’ll spare you the details of earlier injuries.)

After a couple of days on crutches and two weeks of hobbling around in “the BOOT,” we were thrilled to celebrate the Bean’s road to recovery last night. The crutches are back in the attic, the boot has been retired, and though she is still limping a bit, it appears that the end of the ankle drama is nigh.

Once again, I am confronted with the stark contrast between our daily calamities and the events in the national news. Our little bumps and bruises are constant reminders that our problems involve only minor inconveniences. Our daughter’s injuries are healable. They are external. They are temporary.

Tedious as it was, nursing the Bean’s ankle has been a welcome relief for me. The process of shuttling among doctors, physical therapists, pharmacies and handicapped-accessible public bathrooms has distracted me, at least temporarily, from the more ominous forces at work in our world this week. I can’t help but remain grateful – not only because my children are relatively safe and home with me in an increasingly unsteady world, but also because their minor trials have allowed me time to distance myself from the immediate impact of the news. The marathon, the horrible (and under-reported) explosion at the fertilizer plant in Texas, and the Senate vote on gun control have formed a tri-fecta of tragedy around us. It will take a long time to unravel my emotions about each of these. 

For now, there is cause in our home to celebrate: a boot has been removed; a lopsided walk has been rediscovered. The tulips are springing to life outside. Soon the Bean will return to the softball field, the roller blades, and a gloriously mundane game of tag on the perfidious playground.

Last night, after a brief boot-removal ceremony at the therapist’s office, we headed home for a victory feast. The homemade macaroni and cheese was the star of the evening. Songs were sung in its honor, odes were penned to commemorate the occasion, and platitudes were heaped upon the chef. Thank god, it’s just another night at the Bean and Pie home.

Victory Mac and Cheese

Serves a very hungry family of 4, or 6-8 reasonably hungry adults

1 ½ pounds of elbow pasta, or whatever pasta you like

salt, to taste

2 cups chopped cauliflower (ours was left over from a previous meal: roasted in olive oil with parmesan and basil)

2 cups chopped broccoli

1 cup chopped white mushrooms

For the sauce:

2-3 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup skim milk

½ cup heavy cream

1 cup shredded Parmesan

1 ½ cups shredded cheddar

salt, to taste

Directions:

Cook pasta in salt and boiling water per package directions. Drain pasta, and reserve the water. Set cooked pasta aside.

Return the pasta water to the stove. Bring to a boil again and blanch the vegetables for a few minutes, to desired tenderness.

Drain the vegetables and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Toss the vegetables onto the pasta.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter on medium heat, then add the remaining ingredients (except salt) and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, constantly stirring (a whisk works well for this). Once all the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth, add salt to taste.

Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and vegetables. Stir to coat, and serve immediately.

I Heart College Hockey

I wasn’t born with the sports gene. I’m blaming it on an undiagnosed recessive disorder: I am simply missing that part of my DNA. So when I say I love college hockey, this is a sign of great personal growth. 

My sporting history is riddled with embarrassing facts:

• See that little girl in the outfield picking dandelions while the softball rolls past her in the grass? That’s me.
• That girl under the blankets absorbed in a novel while her family watches the game on TV every week? Also me.
• I’m also the one who was discovered snoring on my fiance’s shoulder while we were sandwiched among 80,000 howling fans at a Buffalo Bills game. (Yes, in a blizzard. But it’s Buffalo, so mentioning the snow is redundant.)
• Because I offer, I’m the designated beer-fetcher at major league baseball games. Always have been, always will be.

It’s not that I can't follow the rules of sports. I even sometimes surprise my husband with my understanding of an obscure football call. It’s just that I never could muster the energy to care who won or lost. I've learned that this can be an annoying habit to the sports fans in my life.

However, since having children, the stakes have changed.

This weekend we’re on our way to the Frozen Four college hockey tournament in the mysterious town of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (credit: favorite author Michael Chabon). The eve of the Frozen Four is a good time to reflect on why, despite my genetic makeup, I now care deeply about Yale hockey. 

My connection to Yale is only tangential. As a Yale alum, the MOTH has a deep affinity for the school and all that it has to offer, but it is hockey that has captured his imagination. Inevitably, the hockey fever has spread to the kids. Their combined reverence for the game has nudged me into the world of the season ticket-holder. Each year, the family's spirits rise and fall with the fate of our team.

Every game is an anthology of short stories: the Great Assist by the senior forward, the Blind Ref who made that terrible call; the Check Against the Boards that led to a penalty for the opposing team, which led to a Power Play, which led to a win … They are stories of heroes and gods, of oafish opponents and little guys winning in the end; of making mistakes and suffering the consequences. And sometimes, they are stories of kids giving all they’ve got and still losing; or kids who don’t give all they’ve got and who lose because they didn’t want the win badly enough. As with all sporting events, the opportunities for life lessons abound.

And one of these stories – the one that too often goes untold -- is the story about maintaining connections. For the MOTH, cheering for Yale is an opportunity to remain connected to a great university. The institution has a long, proud history and an infinitely optimistic future. He clings to this place, and for good reason. But for all four of us, cheering for Yale is also a way to connect with each other as our busy lives take us further apart during the week. Like sharing a good meal, watching hockey is where we shine. It’s what we do. We do it together, and we do it well.

Others may find it odd that we have no concrete connection with the team: we don’t know any players personally, we aren’t originally from New Haven, and our kids don’t even play ice hockey. We don’t follow professional hockey games. And yet we invest a significant amount of energy, money, time and good will toward these kids at Ingalls Rink.

We suffer and triumph together with this team. We wear ourselves out with worry. We travel to support them at away games. We scream ourselves hoarse to motivate them. Like any good fans, we purchase the gear, we follow the stats, and we talk up our team to anyone else who will listen. And all of this silly fansmanship is important, somehow. Choosing sides, for better or worse, demands that we commit ourselves to something. We must be all in, we must show earnest support -- for the sake of our team. No negativity is allowed.

This too, offers life lessons for our family: commit to each other. Make time to be present, physically and emotionally. Show your support for each other, and cheer each other on, no matter what.

Yale Hockey has made me a believer in the value of sports. Yale's is not a miracle team (yet), but it is MY team. It is the team of my family. So I’ll sit beside these enthusiastic kids and their jittery, zealous father on those cold hard benches. I’ll watch the games, teething my stale Twizzler’s and frying my tongue on hot chocolate. I’ll hold my breath until the end of each period, praying that my team and my family will emerge triumphant. I'll listen to all the stories afterward, and I’ll commit my heart and soul to this sport of hockey. For us, it is simply an extension of this sport of being a family. I heart hockey for all the lessons it teaches us about winning and losing, about staying connected, and about enjoying our time together while we're here. I'm all in.

Is Coke the Devil? Please Weigh In

I need your help. I can't decide what to think about the current Coke Wars. 

You may have heard about or seen this video, The Real Bears, which connects the dots between sugary soda, obesity and diabetes. This inflammatory piece, produced by The Center for Science in the Public Interest with a song featuring Jason Mraz, has been kicked around the news media a lot recently. But I'm not entirely on board with positioning Coke as the root of all evil.

Any organization with a name like The Center for Science in the Public Interest is one I instinctively want to support. I have no reservations about labeling myself a "bleeding-heart liberal." But still, I have trouble pinning all the blame for a ballooning nationwide epidemic (excuse the pun) on one soda company.

Last week, Coke revealed its response in an ad campaign about "coming together" to help fight obesity and all of its causes. It is easy to approach this response with a cynical eye and dismiss the campaign as a simple attempt at damage control. But it is hard to deny that the company has already made significant change in the right direction. The "coming together" ad notes that Coke has stopped selling the beverages with the highest sugar content in middle schools (but interestingly, there's no note of what's being sold in high schools). The company now offers smaller serving-size cans, supports programs to get kids active, and continues to research new sweetener options, among other changes. 

Yes, the point can be made that these initiatives were the result of public pressure and a growing concern that the company may not have our children's best interest at heart. Personally, I believe that as a nation, we need to continue to demand that Coke does all it can to find cleaner beverage alternatives and promote healthy choices. The fight is not over. But still, can we really blame the entire obesity situation on a single product?

As always, I advocate for moderation in all things. As much as we laugh at Mayor Bloomberg's smaller cup campaign, he's got a good point. A reasonably-sized Coke, enjoyed occasionally, is not so awful. It's similar to eating one brownie instead of the entire pan. If you have no self control, don't buy the two-liter of Coke, and don't bake the brownies. No matter how much we like to place blame on corporate America for all of the country's ills, at some point we need to take personal responsibility for our own lifestyle, and our own weight.

Speaking of weighing in, here's where I need your help:  What do you think of the new Coke campaign? Are the Coke polar bears the new Marlboro Man? Is Coke the symbol of all that is wrong with America or an America on the mend? If you drink soda (which, for the record, I don't -- though I wouldn't begrudge anyone their fix), how much is a reasonable amount? 

Please continue the discussion in the comments box below.

Disclosure Notes: Decades ago, when my sister worked for Coca-Cola Enterprises, the world's largest Coke bottler, she traveled the globe helping to implement a new computer system for the company. During this time, the MOTH and I were treated to a few company- paid vacations to visit her where she worked, including trips to Seattle and Maui. Also, a former Coke executive remains a close family friend. Lastly, please note: though I used to drink quite a bit of Diet Coke, I haven't had a carbonated beverage in over a decade, simply because I've outgrown the taste for it.

A Most Selfish Act: Sorting Mail for Newtown

A tiny portion of the snowflake mail that continues to arrive daily at the  Connecticut State PTSA offices.

A month after the tragedy in Newtown, many of us are still grappling with the staggering reality of what has happened. As we work through our own fears and grief, we come back again and again to the realization that for those families who were directly affected, there is almost nothing we can personally do to help ease their pain.

And so we in Connecticut, and indeed throughout the world, have tried to find a way to show support and love by heaping millions of homemade paper snowflakes upon this little town. It started simply enough, with a Facebook request from one well-meaning Newtown parent named Bonny Marsciano. But the project soon ballooned out of control.

When the mail got to be too much for Bonny, she asked the post office to forward the snowflake packages to the CT state PTSA offices. When the PTSA office was overrun, the packages were stored offsite. The project had to end. Long after the PTSA had asked people to stop making the snowflakes, the envelopes and boxes continued to pour in.

It's absurd when you think about it. What on earth can a community beset by unimaginable grief do with this avalanche of heartfelt crafting? It would take a year to hang all the snowflakes that were delivered, even if Newtown and all of its surrounding towns had the manpower, space and stamina to do it. And then what? Still, as a symbol, the act of making and sharing those little paper cutouts, made by children and adults from every state and nearly every continent, has provided its own therapy of sorts. Early on, my own family even donated a few carefully designed snowflakes to the wintry mix. It was a pleasant diversion during a long winter break, and it helped to remind us of all that we are grateful for.

Back at the PTSA offices, it soon became clear that even sorting through the mail to get the crafts into the right hands would be a gargantuan task. So when the call went out to our school’s PTA that help was needed to sort and repackage all the lovingly wrapped envelopes and boxes, I jumped at the chance to do something. Anything.

In some ways, volunteering to help sort snowflakes was the most selfish of acts -- it was a way to demand collusion in the grief process; it was a way to verify that others (many many others) wanted to help and could find no other way to do so than to cut millions of diamonds into little scraps of paper; it was a way to confirm both the fragility and futility of life.

More importantly, participating in the project was a way to renew my own faith that community matters. Not just for the big things, like rebuilding a child's sense of security after an unspeakable tragedy, but for the little things too, like sorting the mail and reading the kind words of strangers. I needed this time. I needed this act.

I am so grateful that the CT PTSA office sent out the call for help. Just down the street from my house, where a tractor-trailor full of snowflake mail sat waiting, there was a place where I could finally do something to help someone, if only for a few hours.

Probably that someone was me. 

A map showing where packages of snowflakes originated. Every state was represented, and nearly every continent.

Pins indicate the countries that sent packages to Newtown. After awhile, we ran out of pins.

No More Hostess with The Mostest

-->

The rumors are true: Hostess is shutting down.

If, like me, you grew up in the 1970’s, the demise of the Hostess brand should come as a pretty hard blow.

In the great green room of my childhood memories, Wonder Bread looms large. The gummy, bland white loaf took on mythic proportions in our house. It was the only acceptable sandwich vehicle, and it figured prominently in nearly every lunch of my youth.

In honor of all those gooey fluffer-nutters and Miracle-Whip-drenched tuna sandwiches, I’ve composed a little farewell tribute to the junk food of my youth (with apologies to Margaret Wise Brown):

In the great green room, there was

A yellow log, a frosted swirl,

A treasure of sweets and

A little girl

There were three little eclairs sitting on chairs

And two little ring dings and a pair of  ‘zings

And a donette and a crumb cake and a loaf full of mush

And an ingredient list to make doctors blush

Goodnight Twinkies

Goodnight Drake’s

Goodnight processed little cakes

Goodnight Yodels

Gooodnight HoHos

Goodnight to the workers declaring their woes

Goodnight Wonder

Goodnight Bread

Goodnight baked goods that last past we’re dead

Goodnight room

Goodnight swirl

Goodnight memories of that little girl

Goodnight Ding

Goodnight Dong

Looks like your shelf life wasn’t really so long.

Cook For Your LIfe

Scarlet Runner beans, courtesy of Ranchogordo.com

All last weekend, the skies warned us there’d be trouble. A colossal grey duvet of pre-blizzard clouds, combined with a grumbling angry wind, threatened an impending Armageddon. For several days, it felt as if the entire country was heavy with anticipation of Hurricane Sandy.

And so here in CT, we got ready. We gathered our flashlights and candles and firewood; we scoured every grocery store for disappearing ice and water bottles; we filled the car with gas, dragged the patio furniture into the garage, purchased emergency pump supplies and considered investing in a generator. We dutifully followed all the instructions given to us from our governor, our mayor, our parents and our meteorologists. And then we waited for the sloth-like storm to inch it’s way north. That white pinwheel of doom on every TV station weighed down our hearts and souls for four long days as we waited for the storm to hit land.

As we entered the final 24-hours of anxious anticipation, I succumbed to a familiar urge:  the need to hunker down and cook. For most of the day, I cooked as if my life depended on it. I made comfort foods of every variety to carry us through the storm…

I cooked lasagna and pork loin and hard-boiled eggs and potato bacon hash and espresso-laced chocolate chip cookies. I prepared three different salads and yeast waffles and homemade granola and bought lots and lots of cheese. I even invested in emergency salty snacks, power bars and shelf-stable fruit.

And of course I made a pot of hefty beans. A serious storm called for serious beans, which meant diving into our stash of Scarlet Runner beans from Rancho Gordo.

photo courtesy of Ranchogordo.com

Cooking rich foods under threat of a hurricane seemed entirely justified, so after starting the beans a’boiling, I felt no guilt at all when I next fried up a pound of bacon and harvested the precious grease from the pan. I used a little bacon grease for sauteing some onions and garlic, and the rest for cooking cubed potatoes later on.

Once the beans had softened, I dumped the onion and garlic into the bean broth, and, as always, this was all we needed to soothe our frayed nerves.

If you’re not a big fan of beans, you probably just haven’t tried any of the Rancho Gordo varieties yet. We stocked up on their Scarlet Runner beans this year after becoming hooked on their voluptuous texture and enormous, purple tortoise-shell appearance. There are about a million ways to prepare beans, but simplest is usually best for these buxom beauties.

Bean-o-phobes: never fear. They’re as velvety as veal – if veal were a bean. Even if Scarlet Runners turn out not to be your favorite food in all the world (though I can’t imagine this possibility), I would venture to say that one of the Rancho Gordo varieties will make you a bean believer. Adam Roberts of Amateur Gourmet thinks so too. Even the folks at Martha Stewart agree.

Sandy ended up sparing our corner of the world, and we survived the storm with all our trees intact. School was cancelled for four days due to weather-related issues in the neighborhood, but thankfully our biggest nuisance was dealing without electricity for a short time.

Once the storm passed, my genius of a husband figured out how to reheat the pot of beans on our gas grill. We feasted outside as the skies morphed back into soothing shades of blue. Harmless cottonball clouds floated overhead as we enjoyed a quiet, thankful family meal on a perfectly calm autumn night.

After dinner, I donned my cool new headlamp to wash the dishes in the fading dusk. But before I could even finish scrubbing the pots, the power snapped back to life, and our kitchen once again hummed and shone in all the right places. Our adventure in darkness was over after just 20 hours. We had weathered the storm.

How about you? How did your area fare in the storm? What comfort foods helped get you through? Leave me a comment below.

_________________________________________________

Scarlet Runner Beans in Broth plus Potato Bacon Hash

Fry 1 lb. bacon, then, for beans:

Ingredients:

1 lb scarlet runner beans

1-2 Tablespoons bacon grease

1 to 2 cups onion, chopped (any variety)

2-3 cloves chopped garlic, to taste

1-2 Tablespoons salt

Place beans in a large bowl with water for 6-8 hours to soften, then simmer in water for about one hour or until tender. If you don’t have time to pre-soak the beans, don’t worry. You can bring the beans to a heavy boil, then reduce the heat to simmer and cook the beans until tender. It will just take a little longer (1 and ½ to 2 hours total). Add water as necessary to keep the beans covered while they cook.

Sauté onion and garlic in bacon grease until soft.

Add onion, garlic and salt (to taste) to bean mixture. Simmer for another 10 minutes before serving. Pair with a salad and a nice crusty loaf of bread.

For the hash:

Ingredients:

Remaining bacon grease after cooking 1 lb. of bacon and preparing beans

5-6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. salt

1-2 cups frozen peas

About 6 slices chopped, cooked bacon, for garnish

Cook potatoes in bacon grease until fork-tender. Remove from heat.

Sauté onions with the salt in the same pan until soft and translucent. Add to potatoes.

Stir frozen peas into potatoes and onions. They will defrost from the residual heat.

Chop bacon and set aside.

Serve bowlfuls of hash with chopped bacon on top for garnish.

No Bake Sales Allowed. Oh, Wait, Go Ahead.

By now you've probably heard that recently the state of Massachusetts placed a ban on school bake sales, which was to go into effect on August 1 of this year. Then, after vehement public outcry, state lawmakers decided to overturn the ban. Here’s the take-away from this debacle: don’t underestimate the power of a pissed-off PTA parent. Particularly a PTA parent who really, really likes to bake.

Call me a traditionalist, but I am a big fan of selling sweets for a cause. Hosting a bake sale, and all that it represents, has been a part of the soccer-mom role even before there was such a thing as a soccer-mom. As our school’s resident Bake Sale Queen, I love that the event is so completely retro yet still effective at raising money and spirits. Our bake sales, which are generally open to the students as well as the community, simply reek of good will:  good will from the parents, who invest their time and money to make the baked goods, good will from volunteers who staff the table, and good will from the community members, who are ridiculously generous with their donations (at least in my town). Say what you will about food as reward, but you can’t deny the joy that comes from the combination of doing something good (ie, donating to the PTA), and indulging in a freshly-baked homemade cookie. It’s classic Americana, and for good reason.

I understand that there's an argument to be made that we shouldn't help the childhood obesity epidemic along by promoting a diet full of saturated fats and empty calories. But when the PTA hosts a bake sale, we are not shoving refined sugar and icky carbohydrates down the throats of unsuspecting minors. With all the nutrition education our kids get, they certainly know by now that they should eat sweets in moderation. And even if they haven’t yet absorbed all these lessons, our kids can rely on their doting helicopter parents, who will carefully monitor their child’s intake while munching on a cupcake or two of their own.

The Massachusetts uproar, of course, is part of a larger discussion about nutrition. Nationwide, schools are starting to eliminate bake sales as a fundraising activity. Instead, they are leaning toward selling non-food items, or healthier choices, like fruit (though I could make a good case for not eating an entire crate full of apples in one sitting). 

Woe to the committee that dares suggest such a move at our school. Bake sales are my baby. They are my bread and butter. (Technically, I suppose they’re my flour, sugar and butter). And my people know this.

When our PTA voted in a new “healthy foods” policy this year, you can bet there was a huge disclaimer at the bottom. The policy read something like this:

“…we strive to provide only healthy, local, sugar-free, organic, grass-fed, free-range, raw foods*** at school events and keep sweets forever away from the lips of our delicate children, who will live inside their protective glass bubbles until they are old enough to pay for our wheat bran at the assisted living center….

***EXCEPT for bake sales.”

All right, I may be embellishing a little here. And in truth, I really do support their efforts to make the kids’ eating options at school healthy ones. In theory, I’m totally on board with the carrot stick coup. Still, in the big picture, I am not particularly interested in the political debate about government’s role in our individual consumption of sugar.

What I am interested in is the emotional and financial impact of a good old-fashioned, well-organized, community-wide bake sale. My point is simply that in this town, where we’ve actually learned how to make bake sales profitable (our election day sale once earned $1,000 in a single day), banning a bake sale would be a financial and political mis-step of significant proportions. Our families already are inundated with nutritional information from the media, the school, and the medical community. Parents and children are hyper-aware of what they are getting into when they bite into that brownie. They also know that a little sugar goes a long way toward making the day a little sweeter for everyone involved.

Thankfully, our PTA knows better than to cross this particular Bake Sale Queen. They know which side their scones are buttered on.

Viva La Bake Sale!

___________________________________________________________

Maple Oatmeal Scones

(adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, by Ina Garten)

makes about 15 3-inch round scones

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup old fashioned oats, plus additional for sprinkling

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, diced

¼ cup cold buttermilk

¼ cup pure maple syrup

3 large eggs, divided (2 ½ eggs lightly beaten, plus ½ egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk or water, for egg wash)

Glaze

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

¼ to ½ cup pure maple syrup, to taste

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flours, oats, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

Drop the butter pieces into the mixture and cut with two knives or a pastry blender until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

Combine the buttermilk, maple syrup and 2 ½ eggs. Make a well in the center of the flour and butter mixture and pour the liquid ingredients into the well. Mix as little as possible, until just blended. The dough may be sticky, and you should see lumps of butter in it.

Working the dough as little as possible, form a ball about 2 1/2 inches wide and lightly flatten as you press it onto the prepared baking sheet (the scones will spread a little during baking). Repeat with the remaining dough, leaving a couple inches of space between each scone.

Brush the tops with the egg wash. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turning the pans halfway through the baking time. When the scones are lightly browned on top and the insides are firm, remove the pans from the oven and allow them to cool for five minutes.

To make the glaze, combine the confectioners’ sugar, maple syrup and vanilla in a small bowl and mix until smooth.

Drizzle each scone with 1 Tablespoon of the glaze. (The warmer the scones are when you glaze them, the thinner the glaze will be.) Sprinkle some uncooked oats on top for garnish.

Note: these are best the day they are baked, but you can also prepare them ahead of time, place them on trays and store them in the refrigerator for a few days. Then you can bake them just before serving.