cook the box #1, night #2

cook the box

Coffee from David and fresh fruit for me, and fruit for Stella's lunch today. She's off to a mural tour/Dia de Los Muertos exhibit in the Mission with her school. In the Mission without me? Big girl.

Night #2:

Tonight I'm using the curly kale and acorn squash, and serving them with filet of sole and brown rice. No one makes filet of sole like my grandmother G.G. did, I wish I had her recipe.

The squash, with agave, butter and salt. And some punks, working really, really intensely. These two can't get enough "spooky". They will be sad when Halloween is over, these little creeps.

Here's a tip. Buy a pumpkin that's just starting to soften and rot, and let your little one who can't use a real knife and isn't ready to draw the jack-o-lantern faces spend a few hours shoving butter knives, spoons, and toys into the mushy mess. Oliver really felt like he was part of the action today.

Baked brown rice. This baked for an hour and shared the oven with the filet of sole for the last twenty five minutes. Do you know this rice recipe? A must have if you don't have a rice cooker. It's Alton Brown's, whom I must give credit to, as we've used this recipe hundreds of times.

Spam, as a seasoning with garlic for kale. Sauteed in olive oil. We conquered our fear of Spam in Hawaii before the kids were born. David and I honestly get excited when we know it's on the menu.


Speaking of Spam, check out my artist, craftsman, obsessive Spam collector friend Mike's Spam piece here, and check out his gorgeous thrown pieces here.

That was delicious. Poor Oliver. The pobrecito didn't eat much tonight. This just isn't his style.


View "night #1" here!

saturday night celebration

We had a wonderful time celebrating the wedding of a wonderful couple, Chris and Kim, Saturday night. We were so happy to be invited, there among some amazing people and some of David's oldest, dearest friends. We brought Stella and Oliver, and they had a ball. Stella was the belle of the ball (with the exception of Kim, who was a sequined vision of a bride), and she was lovely company for young and "old" alike! The space, a Julia Morgan designed building in Potrero Hill, was beautiful and the weather almost balmy. Gorgeous.

 Stella greeting Ruby, Gina and Brad's adorable little girl. There's her beautiful mom, Gina, doting away.

  An actual Leslie Bandy sighting! I did most of the Oliver-chasing so I didn't get to talk to Leslie as long as I would've liked. I should mention how dapper David was looking. He was!

  Catered by Little Green Cyclo, everything was delicious. Powered by madeleines and strawberry lemonade, crashing came hours later in the form of both of these two sobbing uncontrollably because their dad wanted to stay out later than they could. I've never heard the two of them miss their father so loudly.

The inimitable Will Fry.

 Stella, Ruby's dad Brad, and Ruby.

Eventually this dance floor was packed. With the father of the bride busting out his awesome Detroit dance moves, and the groom being a third of the awesomeness that is Saturday Night Soul Party and also owning The Explorist International, AND having lots of Zombies for friends, you know that place was jumping!

Here's how you know it's time to go. They made it until 10:15 or so, cried their way home, and we all snuggled up and tried to wait for daddy to get home. Which he did, much later!

Congratulations, Kim and Chris!

cook the box #1, night #1

cook the box

As much as we get excited about our summer veggie box, the winter CSA box has the real "cookin'" vegetables in it. We picked up a box filled with cold weather produce yesterday afternoon, and I intend on cooking/serving/eating everything that came in it this week.

Night #1:

I set the oven to 425°, sliced the Delicata into rounds, picked out most of the seeds (I forgot to scoop them out), tossed them with olive oil, sea salt and pepper, and threw them in the oven for forty five minutes, along with two bone-in, skin-on, salted chicken breasts.

While those were cooking, I trimmed the Tokyo turnips, reserving the turnips. I chopped the greens, and right before the chicken was done in the oven, sauteed the greens with olive oil and garlic. You'd think our CSA farm was located in Gilroy with the amount of garlic we've accumulated this year. I served it all up with their salad mix. Even Stella asks for salad at dinner, I think to avoid having to eat chicken.

For dessert, peeled crispy persimmon slices.

That leaves me with brocolli, potatoes, more salad mix, more garlic, two Asian "Yali" pears, an acorn squash, a huge bunch of curly kale, green beans, four small turnips and two more persimmons. Did you know that all of this amazing organic produce cost us twenty four dollars? Yadda yadda yadda, as Oliver would say.

round up: halloweens past

We are frightfully unprepared for Halloween 2011. We haven't visited the pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins, and pieces of Stella's "Super Girl" costume are sitting in a pile waiting for me to turn them into something. I am thinking of wrapping Oliver and David in bandages (mummy and Daddy?). Me? I've dressed up as so many different things in the last ten months that I will do a last minute grab out of my costuming area depending on my mood. Looking at these photos makes me wish Stella would be Dorothy one last time, but she's fixing on moving on.

Halloween 2005

Halloween 2006

Two vampires and a monobrowed monster take a quick walk through NOPA. Nobody gets hurt.

Halloween 2007

She never left the house like this, but here's Stella as a ditzy blonde at five months old, and then again at two years old.

Eventually that year I gave in to her demands, and bought her a certain bright, red, furry costume on the condition that she wear it every year until she turned thirteen. We went with our friends Mike and Darcie, and their kids Fox and Sirena that year, and scored record amounts of candy.

Halloween 2008

The Sausalito Halloween parade.

Stella braved the haunted house at city hall without shedding a tear.

Halloween 2009

Fair Oaks in Noe Valley.

The Bearded Lady, The Strongest Baby in the World, Dorothy of Kansas, and The Carnival Barker.

Halloween 2010

Berkeley, CA

 While Oliver rehashed his Strongest Baby in the World costume, we elevated Stella's Dorothy costume to a piece of performance art. David wore an amazing Flying Monkey mask and some wings I made him from a blue tarp, and ran up to the doorsteps to snatch Stella away as I cackled "I'll get you my pretty! Grab her!", while dressed as Elphaba (the witch, of course). Here we are, rehearsing on our friends Nora and Eric's lawn.

Earlier that day we had been hunting for fairies on 24th Street and had been lucky to find two of them.

Happy Halloween!