Where I'm From: Food Edition

I am a different eater now, but I have not forgotten where I am from.

I am from Lauren’s salty chocolate chip cookies, from Good Season’s Italian dressing on iceberg lettuce, and take-in double-cheese Bocce Pizza while we watch the game on Sundays, always. I am from weekly chicken fingers at the Four Seasons Diner, hands and face dripping with chunky-tangy Rudy’s blue cheese.

I am from home-baked chicken dinner with steamed broccoli and Uncle Ben’s wild rice pilaf. Four people at the dinner table, every weeknight; TV off. I am from Lauren and Arthur, bickering, bickering. A kiss. A smile. Bickering more.

I am from “how was school today?” and “pass your chicken bones to Dad” and “yes you can have seconds on dessert.” My sister talks about Grease rehearsal  while Dad Hoovers the drumsticks clean. They wait forever for me to finish my broccoli stalks (tops go to mom).

I am from thumbs on the wishbone, pulling hard, and taking turns for chores: Aimee set, so Tammy clears.

I am from a camera shop owner and a Catholic-turned-Jew. I am from a boy scout troop leader and a dentist who found chickens and eggs on his doorstep as payment for pulled teeth. I am from theater people. They wrote their own stories and sang them. I am from travelers. I am from Poland and Russia and New York and Syracuse and Buffalo.

I am from sloppy/sappy/noisy/crowded Christmukkah in our brown living room, where dozens of family and near-strangers gathered to devour a mountain of presents and bagels and lox and sweetsweet kugel. High on holiday spirits, dripping brisket juice and applesauce onto the shag rug, the guests pledged lifelong devotion to my parents. They made good on their word. 

I am from 30 Jews and adopted Jews stuffed around the Passover table, helping themselves to seconds on everything except the lousy kosher desserts. They sing about four flawed brothers to the tune of Clementine and belt out God Bless America in honor of Irving Berlin. Slowly I progress from "the one who cannot ask at all" to "the wise son."

I am from shore lunches on the rocks of the Georgian Bay and Sahlen’s hot dogs charred and steaming from the grill, indoors or out. I am from Lauren’s fresh blueberry pie at family reunions by the stream. I am from Easter in the woods with The Woods, where I helped peel potatoes for thirty. I stole my annual taste of ham and gorged on peanut butter cups from my Easter basket while Aimee was off fishing with the boys. 

Today, I am the keeper of half-forgotten recipes. I’m from “add a little of this and a little of that” followed by the shock of “yours doesn’t taste like mine.” I am from much more sugar. I am from a significant amount of real butter.

I am the owner of Synagogue cookbooks and the handwritten matzah ball soup letter (“because someday you’ll want to know how to make my soup and I won’t be around to tell you.”) I have bound copies of the close-enough zucchini bread recipe card and the transcribed, “best I can remember” ratios of potato to egg for Aunt Robin’s scalable potato kugel. My own record-keeping has not been much better.

And my children will inherit this tangled mass of edible history. They will know that the food we eat is bound up in our identity. It is part of every story we tell about ourselves and about our families. As in all cultures, our food links us to our past and helps define our future. 

My childen will understand their place in my history and reconcile it with their place in their father’s very different food legacy. They will eat with us at the table (screens off); they will hear our stories, and they will add their own. They will know their food, and they will know where they are from.

# # #

Thank you to Nina Badzin, via Brain Child Magazine, and Galit Breen, via Mamalode for introducing me to this template and prompt. Also thanks to MamaKat's Writer's Workshop, for reviving the template again. It was a perfect jumping-off point to help remember the food that defined my childhood.

Crisis. Averted: TWD oven-roasted plum cakes

“Can we walk to school without you this year?” 

I should have been singing with joy when I heard this last week. They are in 6^th and 4^th grade, after all. They’d be walking with their friends. And there are about a thousand friendly neighbors to help them find their way, if god forbid, they should get lost. But still, they were taking a flying leap out of the nest, and I was in no hurry to let them go.
 

But I resisted my usual obsessive-compulsive-mother-hen instincts. Instead I put on my bravest smile and kissed my little chicks goodbye at the front door. Then I got busy with the vacuum cleaner so I couldn’t flutter into the car to follow them.

And would you believe it? They survived!

At pickup time, there they all were – smiling and proud and eager to walk home. Without me. “We’ll meet you there, Mom. Can we just go? Please?” Ouch. Give ‘em an inch…!

And suddenly, there it was again – swooping down on me like a shrieking, red-taloned bird of prey. The mid-life crisis was back.

These little creatures I’ve created – they can feed themselves! They can clean themselves (if they choose to). They can cross the street alone! The enormity of the fact that they can survive in the suburban wild sent me into a tail-spin of the familiar old-mommy questions.

What now? The kids are aging, so am I… Why did I dump that corporate career? What’s next for me? The questions go on and on like a broken smoke detector, chirping in my ear every ten minutes to remind me that something more must be done. Soon.

Of course I know that the mommy-ing is never really over. These kids have simply gnawed off another chunk of my heart and carted it off with them in their big-kid backpacks. They still need me for a few things -- at least until they learn to drive. But this walking milestone can’t be ignored.

And so I turned back to the places that give me comfort: the familiar, honeyed luxuries of baking and writing and dance. I Jazzercised every day for a week. I baked challah and ciabatta and whole wheat bread. And I returned once again to the Tuesdays with Dorie project, which this week featured warm, fruity mini cakes.

Oven-roasted plum cakes: a reprieve.

The cakes were a promise that my kids would stay with me for at least as long as it took to finish dessert. With this bribe, I could keep them home and safe for a few minutes longer.

So I tucked my head back down into the satisfying whirl of sugar and butter and vanilla and eggs. I actually squawked with delight as my plums split perfectly on the first try. The house bubbled up with the reassuring scent of warming sugar and all was right with the world.

After their long migration home (12 minutes!) and a light dinner, we shared these adorable desserts. Each ramekin housed little half-moons of plum, all sleepy and resting in a downy pillow of brown sugar cake. 

The mid-life crisis was averted, at least temporarily.

 The kids slurped down their dessert in two gulps, and raced each other to the door. Their friends were ready to play.

We’re going to need a lot more cake to make it through.

____

To read more about this recipe, check out the other bakers' posts, or go buy the book.

Party of the Year

-->

Once upon a time, before the reign of Reality TV, I was the star of my own social experiment. The setup reads like the beginning of a joke:

What happens when a lowbrow, mid-western young Jewish girl (me), lands a PR job at a posh New York City investment firm … run by the bluest blue bloods still surviving today … and THEN… gets put in charge of the 80 year-old CEO’s social calendar? 

I'll tell you what happens: there's a major culture clash. Comfort-zone-wise, it was worse than Wife Swap. Hilarity ensued.

Although I had had plenty of experience planning fundraising events in my previous job, I had no idea of the mountain of etiquette I'd need to scale in order to organize this company’s soirees. 

I couldn't figure out the rules about how to address envelopes to Lords and Ladies; where to seat the dinner guests at a formal dinner party; even placing a stamp on a return envelope became a lesson in class distinctions. (“If they can’t afford the stamp on the return envelope, they shouldn’t be attending the event,” I was told.)

I was reprimanded for wearing blue suit pants, rather than a skirt, to the office. I flubbed the menu for the Board meetings at the 21 Club and miscounted the guest list for the dinner at LeCirque. And the wine lists! Our CEO had a very specific idea of what should be served, and I didn’t know my cabernet from my claret. Thank God for the sommeliers (a word I learned on the job).

Then there was the annual trip to the Ascot races and the after party in London. I planned every detail of the lodgings, food, travel and entertainment --  long-distance --  for months in advance, but was not invited to cross the pond with the team. Talk about class distinctions!

Our grandest event of the year was held the first Tuesday in December, in conjunction with the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. For this party, 200 of New York’s high society hovered above the festivities taking place in the freezing plaza below, observing the lighting ceremony from the floor-to-ceiling windows in our office. Dom Perignon flowed as swiftly as the ancient aristocratic blood in our CEO’s veins, beluga caviar disappeared by the tinful, and 24-carat-gold encrusted hors d’oeuvres whirled around the room on gleaming silver trays. The elite of New York City were dazzled.

Does it surprise you that my time at the investment firm was brief? Alas, I only regret that it had not been filmed. "The Blue Blood Chronicles" would have made great TV.

It is in this spirit of Gatsby-esque decadence that I embarked upon this week’s culinary adventure, sponsored by Julia Child and her featured guest baker, Gale Gand. Our Tuesdays with Dorie project was scallop and pesto “purses”.
The recipe itself was simple enough, but I did visit five different stores to gather the choicest ingredients. After making the pesto and melting the butter, it was all about assembly. (But first place the scallop in a strategically lit dramatic pose for the blog photo op.)

14 minutes in the oven, and the party began. The phyllo/parmesan dough purses were appropriately buttery, and the scallops inside, dripping with pesto and garnished with scallions, devolved into an opulent, fleshy indulgence that inspired sighing and fawning from my honored guests: my 8 and 10 year old. 

We slumped in my worn out Ikea kitchen chairs, decked in our coziest pajamas after a long sweaty day on the baseball field, happily licking cheese and butter off our chins. Seating arrangements be damned. The ornate purses were served on white, Stop and Shop paper napkins, paired with nothing but tap water. There was not an ounce of  gold plating to be seen, and yet, it was the party of the year.

___________________

 To see how other bakers from Tuesdays with Dorie fared, check out their links here. For the recipe, buy the book!

# # #

I Told Myself I’d Never Do It Again

Linking up with MamaKat's pretty much world-famous Writer's Workshop today. 

 

She was tiny, like me. Curly brown hair, pert nose, eager to please.  She was quiet and timid; overshadowed by her vivacious big sister. And she stank.

It’s true, I’ll admit it. Despite regular bathing, my toy poodle Pookie trailed a constant stench of bodily waste and decay, especially at the end. But I get ahead of myself.

Pookie was my first pet -- I think she was presented to me when I was still in diapers. Eventually, I learned to control my bodily functions, but poor Pookie never did. She was awarded her name, our family’s term for ‘fart’, during her first days at home, because we quickly realized it would become her primary form of communication with us. Pooks were her signature party trick; her calling card; her drafty personal contribution to family conversation. From the day we met her until the day she died, she was gassy.

It got worse. Despite our halfhearted attempts to train her, throughout her life, skinny, nervous little Pookie seemed to prefer to relieve herself on my green shag rug or in the laundry room, where at least we had a linoleum floor. Inevitably, the odors, Pepe LePew-like, followed in her wake.

Still, Pookie was my dog, and I loved her unconditionally. She was my confidant and my playmate. She’d lick my tears when I was sad, and steady my breathing when I slept. I fed her and brushed her and bathed her; cleaned up after her many “accidents;” dressed her up in doll clothes; took her for walks – everything you'd expect from a girl and her pup.

Each night we’d drift off to sleep together – me: corpse-like on my back, fist balled into my hip, Pookie: wound up in the crook of my arm, resting her doll-sized poodle head on my shoulder. And each morning, I’d find my dog stone asleep at the foot of my bed as I stepped out into a reeking wet circle on the rug, or worse.

Pookie was 13 years old, and I was a delicate 16, when she began to die. She had been growing sicker for many months. Her small body was more skeletal than ever. Her fur had been falling out, and what was left clung to her frame in matted patches. Most of what she ate she vomited out. After we found a mess she’d cower in the corner, reduced to a shamed heap of small, shivering bones. Her body was literally wasting away, as bodies will do. She smelled of approaching death.

At last the day came when my parents decided to take Pookie to the vet for a lethal injection. They told me to say goodbye. In the foyer I held my dog close, cried into her sour hair one last time, and gingerly passed her to my mother. Pookie, for her part, seemed to know what was up. She didn’t complain. I’m told that she passed away even before they arrived at the vet.

I was inconsolable after Pookie died. I lashed out at friends who had teased me about the dog’s filthy habits and I cried myself to sleep for weeks. I moped around the house and wept in the bathroom at school. 

I knew that I should have been grateful that I had so many “good years” with her. I should have been happy that I’d lived to the ripe age of 16 without ever having to say goodbye to someone (something?) I loved. But the cuts ran deep. Never again, I told myself. I swore that after Pookie broke my heart I’d never again let myself get attached to a pet.

Yet time moves on, and though there are scars, wounds do heal. Now, 25 years and two kids later, I am finally opening my home to a new animal. I hope that since Pookie died, I have gained some wisdom and distance from my pain.  While I am saddened at the thought that my children will have to endure the same kind of loss that I did, I realize that caring for an animal is a character-building opportunity. It is a chance to learn how to love and care for something beyond ourselves. It teaches responsibility and generosity, patience and sharing. Sooner or later, the suffering will find us. It is how we deal with that suffering that makes us who we are. Better to have loved and lost, and all that.

If there’s one thing children teach us, it is to open ourselves to all of life's possibilities – to welcome the joy and the agony, and yes, even the stink – because in the end, our lives will be richer for it. I know this now. My kids have been lighting the way for years. I think I am finally ready to follow.

So welcome, Wolfie the cat, to your new home. Let me show you where we’ll keep the litter box…

This One Wouldn't Let Me Go

photo source: en.wikipedia.org

Did you ever have an idea that grabs hold and won't let go until you pay attention? That's what happened to me a few weeks ago, when I was driving to pick up the kids from school.

I was thinking about the delicate process of raspberry picking, and how it parallels the  ripening process of adolescence. This idea came, as ideas will, at a very inconvenient time. But like a needy child at bedtime, it refused to loose it's grip on me until I spent some time with it.

So with urgency, in my car in the school parking lot, with parents and children hustling past me, I pounded out a short essay on my laptop. That night, I sent the piece out into the world before I could lose my nerve.

I'm happy to report that the parenting magazine, Mamalode, is publishing my essay on its website today.

Head over to Mamalode to read about how we're coping with this season of ripening, but not yet ripe.

I can’t believe I used to be embarrassed by this.

-->

For the first six months that I was a Jazzercise instructor, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. I wasn’t sure how my family and friends would react. I knew my loved ones would have questions, whether or not they gave voice to them:

• What is Jazzercise anyway? Isn’t that a fad from the 80s? The one with the legwarmers?
• Why aren’t you focused on getting a real job?
• You’re spastic, remember?
• You’re too fat to be a fitness instructor! (This was a variation on an old theme from my mother, who once claimed I was “too fat to faint.”)

Still, I’d known I wanted to get up on that stage from my very first class. The dance-fitness program’s combination of theatricality, fun, and physical intensity appealed to me. Regular classes had already improved my endurance, energy and fitness level. Instructors often commented on how I smiled through every class. It was obvious that I enjoyed the workout. With its endless variety of moves and super current music, I was never bored.

But I was ready for the next challenge.

I had been immersed in the world of nursing and diapers and mommy groups for five years after quitting my corporate job, and I was in no hurry to return to an office setting. With the kids in preschool and a husband supporting us, the timing seemed right. So after many, many weeks of testing and training, I finally became a Jazzercise franchisee.

Becoming an instructor was a form of reinvention for me, though not in ways I’d expected. I lost more weight and toned muscle, of course. But I also began to feel more graceful and walk with better posture. I smiled more than ever – on and off the stage. I gained confidence as a public speaker. I led my children in nightly dance parties. I gave myself permission to act goofy. I made lots of mistakes on stage in front of large groups of women. And as my customers forgave me, I learned to forgive myself. Perhaps most surprisingly, I began to see myself as a role model for my kids, my husband, and my customers.

Slowly I gained more confidence in my abilities, and began telling family and friends about Jazzercise. I corrected their ideas about legwarmers and leotards, and encouraged them to check out a class. But by the time I got around to sharing my news with family and friends, it no longer mattered what they thought of me. I was hooked.

Now, six years later, when I’m on that stage four times a week, I am still a version of my former self. That spastic, nerdy girl comes out when I occasionally flub a move, or when I make a geeky reference to Pi Day or Glee and I’m greeted by blank stares.

But I’m also a new, better version myself.

On that stage, I am a performer, a mentor, a sadist, a cheerleader, a therapist, a conspirator, a ringleader, a troublemaker, a choral director, a friend, and I’m the host of the hottest party in town. I’m good at what I do, and I’m thrilled to share it with others.

If I can make just one other person smile and sweat with me, I’ll have done my part in making the world a kinder, healthier place. How many people can say this about their jobs, or even their pastimes?

These days, I’m not so shy about telling people that I teach Jazzercise. It is not everything that I am or all that I do, but I hope it always will be a part of me. This version of myself – the confident, strong, flexible and charming Tammy that comes out on stage and occasionally spills over into the rest of my life – this is a version that I’m happy to keep around.

The Letter I Didn’t Send

--> Dear Miss Bean, 

I hope you’re enjoying camp. No that’s not true. I hope you’re simply enduring camp and missing us so terribly that when you come home you’ll make us pinky promise to never ever ever send you back. You’ll beg us to never ever ever let you wander away for weeks at a time -- to a place where you are forced to make your own bed, do your own laundry, to brush your own hair (or not), to make your own decisions about what and how much to eat for dinner. Maybe in a few weeks you’ll come back shaky and unsure of who you are, a little younger and more vulnerable and needier than before. Don’t worry. We’re your family. We’ll help you recover. We’ll build up your spirits again in no time at all. You’re our little girl, after all. And you’ll sleep under our roof every day and we’ll take care of each other from now until forever.

Whose idea was this whole camp thing anyway?

No, that’s not what I meant. I meant to say that I hope you adore everything about camp (even the singing, which you pretend to hate when you’re home). I hope you cherish every campfire and canoe ride. I hope you get plenty of use out of that zip line and the Gaga court, and that you play in the mud and collect frogs and tell ghost stories and talk the other girls into some elaborate plot to embarrass the counselors.

Milk this time for all it’s worth, because I need you to get this out of your system – this whole growing up and apart thing. Dad and I are emotionally unprepared for it and it’s simply not fair to any of us. Dad and I like to think of ourselves as plan-ful people. But there’s just no planning for this, is there? This merciless metamorphosis? This inexorable pulling away and opening up to the world around you? Who said you could begin to leave us so soon?

What if I forbid it? What if I said no screen time until you stop acting your age? What if I promised to leave your stuffed animals – all 158 of them – slouching on your bed until you’re 90? I won’t touch them, I swear. What if Percy Jackson and Calvin and Hobbes and Phineas and Ferb were the beginning and the end for you?  They’d be your loyal, lifelong companions, I’m sure. How about if I cook delicious dinners for you every night and bake you chocolate things that make you swoon? I’ll wash your clothes and do your dishes as often as you need. I’ll take care of you right here at home until I’m too feeble to stand, and then I’ll make your brother do it.

All you have to do is stop this relentless blossoming. When you finally get home, stay home. Stay 10. Or younger – I don’t care, as long as it’s not older! Promise me that when you come back from camp, you’ll end this ridiculous maturation process. I don’t want to talk about drugs and bullying and training bras (though we’ve already started, haven’t we?). I don’t want to worry about crushes and cliques and permanent records. And I certainly don’t want to talk about what comes after that. Because of course it’s not just the talking – it’s the knowledge that sooner or later you’ll be out there in the world, beyond our reach. Like now, with you taking your first steps down the path to independence. It is painful for all of us, and we shouldn’t have to endure it. We need to fight against it together.

So if you can just do this one thing for me – stay 10 forever – I promise that when you get home I’ll keep you with me. I promise to shelter and care for you always, and you’ll never ever ever have to go away again. Deal?

Love,

Mom

Mama Martyr

It’s always the same.

Six am Saturday: he’s the one slumping on the couch with them, cheering on our hockey boys for the 9,000^th time.

• I’m the one burrowing in bed, trying to reclaim the sleep that I lost to a late-night cleaning spree.

Sunday afternoons: he’s the one on the floor piecing together the Lego Enterprise while they dig out the miniature light sabres.

• I’m the one folding child-sized baseball jerseys into neat piles on the couch nearby.

Snowstorms, same drill: he’s the one packing down the fort while they stock the snowball arsenal.

• I’m the one stirring cocoa and chucking the mittens into the dryer.

Yesterday, at dinnertime: he’s the one who drags them outside in the downpour, shoeless and shrieking in the puddles.

•  I’m the one inside, shutting the windows and checking on the galette.

Some days, I am family dance captain, dough project manager, and Scrabble master. Some days, I am the fun one, cracking fart jokes and reworking the lyrics to the Black Eyed Peas song on the fly. But most days, I’m simply the one keeping pace in the background, a steady quiet drumbeat behind their dad’s trumpeting adventures.

And this is why it works. Every family needs an instigator, the one who is the first to blow the milk bubbles or squirt water through his teeth. And every family needs a heavy: the one who puts up with the antics; the one who mops up the messes and the one who makes sure the galette turns golden brown in time.

Oh that galette. Such lovely compensation. And such a celebration of life well lived.

______

This pie was a breeze to create. The dough takes about five minutes to assemble (recipe, contributed by Flo Braker, here), and then you've got a tabula rasa on which to place your toppings. For this gorgeous pie, I used a little ricotta and mozzarella from the incomparable Liuzzi cheese, and some "gourmet tomatoes" that were purchased at Stop and Shop supermarket, of all places. (Tomatoes aren't really in season in our neck of the woods, so my choices were limited. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite their dubious provenance, these tomatoes were  delightfully fresh.) Once you've assembled your pie, bake it for 25-35 minutes on 400 degrees F, or until it is golden brown and the cheese is bubbly.

This galette was simple and elegant -- very Ina Garten in the Hamptons. It will definitely make further appearances this summer, when tomato season officially arrives. For more ideas and beautiful photos, be sure to visit other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers.

The E-Book Arrives!

I am thrilled to be a part of a new anthology being published today by the cross-platform media network, BlogHer.

ROOTS: Where Food Comes From and Where It Takes Us is an exploration of food’s rich interconnection with culture, memory and discovery, and includes writings from 36 different personalities and cookbook authors from the culinary blogosphere. The book features personal essays about family history, local lore and worlds newly discovered through food.

Amazingly, my poem, entitled “Postcards From Walter’s Hot Dog Stand,” will be featured alongside works from some of my favorite bloggers, like David Leite and Michael Procopio. I look forward to reading their pieces, and to discovering new writers in this anthology who share a passion for telling stories through food. I hope you’ll check it out too.

Here’s where you can buy it:

• Amazon
• Apple
• OpenRoad
• Barnes and Noble
• Goodreads

Here's some press about the book:  

http://www.prweb.com/releases/BlogHer/Roots-eBook/prweb10793123.htm

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.