Sunday Recipe Blogging

Things are better. I'm almost totally healthy, Mr. Squab's foot is on the mend, and the Hatchling and the Sprout are vastly improved. Plus, my team won today and I invented a really yummy soup. As a cook, I'd say that soups and casseroles are my forte - I'm a one-dish-meal kind of gal - but usually I'm working from some kind of recipe even if I alter most of the steps. This is the first time I've ever actually created a recipe from scratch, so I was quite pleased that it turned out. I loooooove pumpkin dishes, especially in the autumn, and I'm a sucker for a nice, hearty soup. Trust me, this one will definitely fill you up. Another bonus: it would be just as delicious as a vegan soup as it is with meat, so it's nice and versatile. See what you think:

Curried Pumpkin-Lentil Soup

8 cups broth (chicken, veggie, whatev.)
1 c. lentils
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 c. sweet potato, diced (about 1 medium sweet potato)
1 1/2 c. carrots, sliced
2 15 oz. cans pumpkin
1 lb chicken breast, cubed (optional)
2 T curry powder
1 T powdered ginger
1 t garlic powder
1 T Sriracha or other hot sauce (to taste)
Sour cream for garnish

1. Put broth and lentils into a crock pot on high.

2. Saute onion, carrots, sweet potato, 1 T curry powder and 1/2 T ginger in the olive oil on medium heat until soft. Add to crock pot. Add both cans of pumpkin.

3. Toss chicken breast with remaining spices, garlic powder, and Sriracha. Saute over medium heat in the pan left over from the veggies. Add additional oil if necessary (I didn't need to, but I was using a nonstick pan.) When chicken is fully cooked, set aside.

4. Once lentils are soft, or an hour or so before serving, use an immersion blender to puree the soup until it is fairly uniform in texture. (If you don't have an immersion blender, use a potato masher - the soup will be chunkier, but that's OK. Or, you know, get an immersion blender. Seriously! They are awesome!)

5. Add chicken to pureed soup and reduce heat to low. Cook at least 1 hour or up to, I dunno, all day?

6. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream and crusty bread on the side. SO. GOOD.

**Vegetarian/Vegan option: Use veggie broth; add all the spices and hot sauce to the onion/carrot/sweet potato mix instead of dividing them between the veggies and the meat, and if you're vegan, skip the sour cream or use a vegan substitute. Easy Peasy.

**Quick option: do it on the stovetop instead of in a crock pot - bring the broth and lentils to a boil, then reduce heat and let them simmer for about 20 minutes while you prepare and cook the veggies. By the time the veggies are done, the lentils will be soft and you can puree at will, and add the chicken as soon as it's cooked.

Comfort food posting

I know, I know: Where the hell have I been? What am I, blogger or a slacker? Well, mostly I've been trying to sleep, trying being the operative word. For example, here's how nap time goes: put down the Sprout, put down the Hatchling, wash out the accumulated bottles from the morning/previous night, do a half-assed picking up of the kitchen. Start to get really sleepy, lie down on sofa, doze for 10 minutes, get up to put pacifier back in Sprout's mouth, doze for 15 minutes, hear the cat making a racket right outside the Hatchling's door (he does this on purpose), go get cat and shut gate to upstairs, lie down and doze for 15 minutes, get up to nurse Sprout, doze for 10 minutes, wake up to telemarketer phone call, curse all telemarketers, hide phone in sofa cushions, shut cat out on the back porch, put pacifier in Sprout's mouth, take deep breath, lie down, doze for 20 minutes, and then the Hatchling wakes up.

Sounds restful, don't it? I'd probably be better off not even trying to nap, but I'm too tired not to.

Anyhoo, I was all jazzed up for tonight because I was actually going to Go. Out. To A Bar. (!!!) Mr. Squab was going to watch the girls and I promised to be back before the Hatchling's bedtime. It was going to be so awesome, seeing old friends and drinking, you know, the sweet, sweet booze. But then the Sprout decided that today was projectile vomiting day, and she participated with unusual vigor. She's fine - no fever or anything and she seems to have settled down now - but I really didn't think I could leave Mr. Squab at home with a hyperactive three-year-old and a barfing one-month-old. So no night out for me ...

... which leads me to the comfort food, aka the real point of this post. Since I was home, and since we didn't have any sweet treats in the house, I whipped up some chocolate pound cake from my mother's recipe, and holy crap is it good. I frankly don't really understand why anyone makes non-chocolate poundcake, unless it's because you haven't made it with this recipe. When I was little, we used to make my mom take the cake out early so it would fall a little bit and we could eat the extra dense, moist pieces - but have no fear, it's plenty dense and moist even when it's fully baked. We like it warm out of the oven with no adornment, but then I almost always frost it with cream cheese frosting once it's cooled off. Anyway, it's a simple recipe that makes crazy delicious cake, so try it out next time you have a yen for something yummy.

Chocolate Pound Cake
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. butter
2 3/4 c. sugar
5 eggs
3 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and shortening together. Slowly add sugar, then add eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together, and add to shortening mixture alternately with milk and vanilla. Beat on medium for 2-3 minutes. Pour into greased and floured tube or bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours. Try to restrain yourself from eating entire cake at one sitting.

Cream Cheese Icing
8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 box powdered sugar
6 Tblsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla

Whip it all together and slap it on the cake. Or eat it directly from the bowl, whichever.

It's Sunday; eat some chocolate

For Christmas I got a Hershey's recipe box so now I can have one recipe box for savory and one for sweet. I was browsing through some of the recipe cards that came with the box, and this one for marbled cherry brownies looked, um, GOOD, and I had all the ingredients on hand. If you like cherries and chocolate, you will like this.

Marbled Cherry Brownies
adapted from Hershey's

Ingredients:
Cherry Cream Filling (below)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, melted
2/3 cup cocoa
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Prepare Cherry Cream Filling; set aside. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 9x13 baking pan. Stir butter and cocoa in small bowl until well blended; cool slightly.

2. Beat eggs in medium bowl until foamy. Gradually add sugar and vanilla, beating until well blended. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt; add to egg mixture. Add cocoa mixture; stir until well blended.

3. Spread half of chocolate batter into prepared pan; cover with Cherry Cream Filling. Drop spoonfuls of remaining chocolate batter over filling. With knife or spatula, gently swirl chocolate batter into filling for marbled effect.

4. Bake 40-45 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool; cut into squares. Cover. About 32 brownies.

CHERRY CREAM FILLING
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup chopped maraschino cherries, well drained

Beat cream cheese and sugar in small bowl on medium speed of mixer until blended. Add egg, vanilla and almond extract; beat well. (Mixture will be thin.) Stir in cherries.

Photo Dump

Just uploaded a whole lotta pix, and thought I'd share some of the best. Happy Monday.

Here's the red velvet cake. It's not bakery-shop pretty, but you'd eat it, right?


Here's what it looked like on the inside. I shall be blogging the recipe later.


I've been waiting a LOOOOOOONG time for the Hatchling to have enough hair for this:


Of course, she looks pretty cute with it down, too.


I feel like this should totally be the cover for a toddler alt-folk album or something.

Two Things

1. If this baby doesn't stop stomping on my bladder and/or cervix on a regular basis we are going to have WORDS.

2. How is it possible that I have a gajillion cookbooks and yet none of them has a recipe for red velvet cake? Even the southern ones? Thank Maude for the internets.

What're you having for T-day?

Ah, Thanksgiving: the publicly sanctioned celebration of gluttony. We will be going up to my parents' house as early as we can get ourselves going tomorrow, so I can help with the prep and the Hatchling can have quality time with the grandparents. We will be having:

Turkey
Dressing (cornbread, not that Yankee whitebread crap)
Gravy
Sweet potato casserole
Garlic mashed potatoes
Cranberry relish
Cream cheese corn
Salad

Chocolate chess pie
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie

So yes: we will be stuffed good and proper. What are you having? What are you most looking forward to?

Linky Bits

This week is kicking my ass so far, so no substantive post today, alas. But here's some other fun stuff.

1. Christian Bale = Kermit. No, really.

2. Tewtelly ass-ome screen saver.

3. I am soooooo making this soup.

4. Build your vocab and feed the world. It's a win-win!

5. As commenter Connie noted, Bérubé is back!! (And my stepdad gets a shout-out in his reinaugural post. Cuz my family is cool like dat.)

Oy. I am old.

Tomorrow morning the Hatchling and I are leaving to go up north to my old college town because this weekend is my 15th college reunion. And where did THAT time go, I'd like to know? I'm normally a reunion-averse person - the small talk, the trying to remember people who clearly remember me, the revisiting of old cliques and social politics: it all makes me want to crawl into a hole, mostly. But happily, I'm still in touch with my closest circle of college friends, and we get together for a yearly reunion anyway, so this one should be relatively pain-free. Or as pain-free as any trip involving the single-handed wrangling of an active two-year-old can be. Anyway, blogging will be light until I'm back, so I thought I'd leave you with a yummy summer recipe to tide you over. LITERALLY. I basely stole the idea for this recipe from Shan, but my ingredients are a little different from hers, so it's not a total repeat. It is TEH YUM, easy to make, and even less adventurous eaters (like Mr. Squab) simply devour it. Plus it doesn't heat the house up too much.

Peanut Sesame Noodles
(adapted from Gourmet)

For peanut dressing
1/2 generous cup crunchy peanut butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup warm water
1 Tblsp ground ginger
3-4 medium garlic clove, chopped
2 Tblsp red-wine or rice-wine vinegar
2 Tblsp Asian (toasted) sesame oil
1 Tblsp honey
1 1/2 teaspoons Sriracha or other hot sauce (more or less to taste)
juice of one small lime

For noodle salad
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti or angel hair
1/2 small yellow onion, minced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1/2 English cucumber, seeded and cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1 large carrot, shredded (about 2/3 cup)
6-7 large fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 1/2 cups diced cooked chicken breast or tofu (optional)

Make dressing:
Purée dressing ingredients in a blender until mixed but not smooth, about 30-45 seconds, then transfer to a large bowl and put in the fridge. Cut up salad veggies and chicken/tofu and put those into the fridge, too.

Make salad:
Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling water until tender. Drain in a colander, then rinse well under cold water.

Add pasta, veggies, and chicken/tofu to dressing, tossing to combine, and serve immediately. Even better the next day!

Memo to Myself

For Future Reference:

While your immersion blender is, indeed, the perfect tool for mixing up the natural peanut butter before it goes in the fridge, next time you might want to remember to HOLD THE HELL ON to the peanut butter jar before pressing the "on" button.

Oil. Everywhere.

Friday Recipe Blogging

Did you grow up on the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne? (Note: I said "books" not "movies" and "by A. A. Milne," not "by Disney.") If you didn't, I'm not really sure what to say to you except GO READ THEM NOW. If you did, then you'll perhaps remember "Cottleston Pie," one of Pooh's many zen-koan-like rhymes.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken? I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Anyhoo, I was having some friends over for brunch the other day, and looking for something to make, and I came across this recipe for Cottleston Pie in my vintage 1969 Pooh cookbook. So I made it, and boy was it scrumptious. Perhaps you would like to make it, too.

Cottleston Pie
adapted from The Pooh Cookbook

1 nine-inch pie shell baked until firm but not brown
3/4 c. diced, cooked, ham
1/4 c. chopped green onion or chives
3 eggs
2 c. whipping cream*
1/4 tsp. salt
grind pepper
1 1/2 Tblsp butter, cut into tiny dots
1/2 c. grated cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Distribute the ham on the bottom of the baked pie shell. Beat the egg, cream, and seasonings until thoroughly mixed. Stir in green onion and pour mixture on top of ham. Scatter the butter dots and cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes or until pie has puffed up and browned. Serve piping hot.

*You could, of course, use half-and-half or whole milk instead of cream ... but you have to ask yourself, is that really what Pooh would want?

Monday Half-Assed Recipe Blogging

Because it's Monday, dudes. I can't be bothered with real cooking!

Stupid-Easy Mocha Brownies
1 box brownie mix (we like Target brand), plus required eggs, oil, etc.
3 Tbsp instant coffee
12 oz milk chocolate chips, divided

Heat oven to 350. Mix the brownies according to the directions on the package. Add instant coffee and 1/2 of the chocolate chips to the batter and blend. Pour into greased 13x9 inch pan and bake 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over the top of the brownies. When the chips have softened (1-2 minutes), use a rubber spatula to spread the milk chocolate evenly over the top of the brownies. Allow brownies to cool until the chocolate topping is set.

See? So easy it's STUPID. But also really, really tasty.

Dilemmas

I'm making a cinnamon-chocolate bundt cake for a potluck we're going to tomorrow, but I can't decide how to frost it. Should I go with a chocolate glaze? Cream cheese frosting? Chocolate buttercream? Caramel icing? I just can't decide ... what would you make you salivate the most?

Thursday Recipe Blogging

I meant to put this up yesterday but never got around to it. We have a TON of leftover ham from Easter, so I've been trolling through my recipe files for creative ways of cooking it. A person can only eat so many ham sandwiches, you know? Anyhoo, I came across this recipe that I'd saved from November's issue of Bon Appetit, and hello, GOOD. I actually think it would be good (if a little less hearty) without the ham, for you veggies out there - maybe add in some navy beans instead? Anyway, it's a great combination of flavors and only takes one pot. Also it has bourbon in it. SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD.

Sweet Potato Soup with Ham
(Bon Appetit, November 2007)

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 lb yams (about 2), peeled, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1 large russet potato, peeled, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped (I didn't have celery so I put in carrots instead, which resulted in a slightly sweeter soup)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme (I used dried)
1/2 cup bourbon
1 lb meaty smoked ham hocks (or leftover Easter ham - a great use for the bone)
30-32 oz. chicken broth (about 4 cans or two boxes; I used 1/2 chicken and 1/2 vegetable broth)
2 small bay leaves

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add all potatoes, onion, celery, and thyme; saute until vegetables begin to soften, about five minutes. Add bourbon and boil one minute. Add ham hocks, broth, and bay leaves. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer 30 minutes. Uncover soup and simmer 20 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer ham hocks to work surface to cool. Puree soup. (The recipe calls for pureeing the soup in batches in the blender, but who the fuck has time/energy for that? If you don't have an immersion blender, which is what I used and which ROCKS for soup pureeing, then just mash the soup with a potato masher or leave it as is. It will just be a little more stew-like.) Cut meat off ham hocks and dice or shred enough for about 2 cups. Add ham to soup. If you have a cat, give the bone to the cat. (Optional step for suckers like yours truly.) Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Sunday Recipe Blogging

I was kind of a slacker in the domestic department this week, so yesterday I thought I'd better make an especially good dinner. We had some beef that needed cooking, so I decided to make BBQ beef with cornbread and spinach greens - a good southern meal. I used my mother-in-law's barbecue recipe with some tweaks of my own, and I must say the whole meal was freaking YUM. Here are the recipes.

BBQ Beef
3 lbs. stew beef
3-4 slices of bacon
1 onion, diced
1 c. ketchup
1 c. water
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1 t. mustard
3 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 c. celery, diced

Put bacon and onions in large frying pan over medium heat. Saute until onions are transparent, about 5 minutes. Add beef and saute until brown on all sides (it does not need to be cooked through). Turn off heat and let pan cool slightly. Add all other ingredients to a large crock pot, and stir to blend. Add meat, bacon, onions and juices to BBQ sauce and turn crock pot to high. Once sauce is bubbling, turn crock pot to low, and let cook for at least 5 hours (or as long as 8 hours). Savor the barbecue-y goodness.

Southern-style spinach
In medium sauce pan, bring 2 c. water, 1 t. salt, and 1 strip bacon to boil. Add large package of chopped frozen spinach. When water returns to boil, turn heat down to lowest setting and let simmer for 2-3 hours. Drain before serving or use slotted spoon.

Cornful Cornbread
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. cornmeal
1/2 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 c. oil
1/2 c. milk
1 egg, beaten
1 can corn, drained

Heat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Grease 8 or 9 inch pan. Mix together dry ingredients. In separate bowl, beat egg, then blend in other wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients and corn to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Pour into pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve hot, with butter, and don't forget to sop up the leftover BBQ sauce.

Mmmmmm.

Tired. Really. Now have some soup.

Between various kinds of family insanity ('tis the season!), last minute Christmas prep, and the Hatchling having a bad head cold and consequently being Madame Le Cranqueass, I am tired, y'all. In fact, I'm taaaaaaaahred. I'm sure I have interesting things to blog about, but I can't recall what any of them are. So instead I'm giving you yet another recipe, this one for something savory. Maybe you can have it before you eat the sugar cookies. It's quick, easy, and oh-so-yummy; just spicy enough on a cold winter day; and you can either put it together right before you eat it or let it simmer in a crock pot all day and make the house smell tantalizing.

Spicy Peanut Soup with Chicken
adapted from Bon Appetit
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 3/4- to- 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon hot sauce
4 cups low-salt chicken broth
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup drained canned diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup canned carrot slices, drained
Combine chicken cubes and hot sauce in medium bowl and toss to coat well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss again. Whisk chicken broth, peanut butter, and tomato paste in another medium bowl to blend. Melt butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and sauté until tender, about 8 minutes. Add chicken and sauté until no longer pink on outside, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and cook 1 minute, stirring occasionally.

Add broth mixture, tomatoes, and carrots to pot. Simmer until chicken is cooked through and flavors blend, about 5 minutes. (Or until you're ready to eat - it can stew a good long while.) Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Serve.

Cookies I have baked

It's baking season, y'all. This past weekend I made:

Gingerbread cookies (approx. twelvety billion)
Domino cookies* (about 5 dozen)
White chocolate dipped pretzels (a bag's worth)
Dough for sugar cookies

Upcoming:
Rolling out, cutting out, baking and decorating said sugar cookies
Bourbon Balls
Mini-panettones

I do not mess around with the Christmas baking. Now here's my great-grandmother's sugar-cookie recipe. These are so damn good it's probably illegal.

Oma's Sugar Cookies
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Mix these all together and set aside.

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
Beat butter, sugar, and egg together until light. Mix in sour cream and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix well. Chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours or overnight. Roll out chilled dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until edges are just beginning to brown. Frost with sour cream frosting: 1/2 lb. powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon sour cream.


* You know: Club crackers sandwiched with peanut butter and then dipped one side in dark chocolate and one side in white chocolate. To quote Mr. Squab, "they pretty much have everything you could want."

Thursday Recipe Blogging: Holy Yum!

With the weather getting colder I get the urge to get in the kitchen more often, and between epicurious.com and blogs like the smitten kitchen (not to mention the subscription to Bon Appétit my lovely mother-in-law got me) I have plenty of inspirations for new things to try. Last week I made this crazy yummy soup that is definitely going into our regular rotation of meals. It's simple to make and the sausage gives it a fabulous flavor. Also, as Deb notes, it's funny to say. Sausage soup. Heheheheh.

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup
adapted from Bon Appétit, October 2007

Makes 8 servings

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 10- to 11-ounce fully cooked chorizo sausage, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
2 medium onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 large yams, peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
6-7 small red-skinned potatoes, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
5 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 cup white wine
1 can white beans, rinsed and drained
1 bag fresh spinach

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add sausage; cook until brown, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towels to drain. Add onions and garlic to pot and cook until translucent, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add all potatoes and cook until beginning to soften, stirring often, about 12 minutes. Add broth and wine; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Using potato masher, mash some of potatoes in pot. Add browned sausage and white beans to soup. Stir in spinach and simmer just until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Divide among bowls and serve.

Recipe blogging

Still feeling too bluggy to post anything substantive, so here's a recipe for shrimp dip I invented over the weekend. It's pretty damn good.

Shrimp Dip à la Cardiaque Arrêt
1 lb cooked shrimp
1/2 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped into large chunks
1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. jerk or cajun seasoning (or any kind of seasoned salt with a kick)
2 tsp. lemon juice

Throw it all in a food processor and pulse it until it's smooth and creamy. Serve with thick ruffled potato chips, or crackers if you're feeling snooty. The recipe makes a bunch, so if you're not making it for a party just keep it in the fridge between noshing sessions and it will last 4-5 days.

Ehm.

I know. I know! A whole week without any posts. Erk. Last week really kicked my ass, mental-health-wise. Insomnia kicked in again (it seems to be going around) and I just could not get out of a deep blue funk. I'm still not totally out of it, in fact, which is really getting old. Something's going on, and I'm try to figure out what it is, but so far it's stuck deep down in my subconsciousness, which means that it's all coming out in sleeplessness and restlessness and general feelings of inadequacy, because my subconscious is a bitch like that and really needs to learn some damn manners. This week Mr. Squab is off work, which means that I can take some time for writing and other child-free activities (like, um, writing this blog entry, actually). I'm hoping that will give me the reflection time I need to puzzle out what the hell is wrong with me and what to do about it. Although if anyone wanted to send me on an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii for a weekend, I'm sure that would help even MORE.

But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post, my friends, is to tell you that the Hatchling experienced her first corn-on-the-cob this weekend, and it was joyful to behold. We've offered it to her every time we've had it this summer, but she wanted nothing to do with it until Saturday, when she saw me eating some and decided it was a) funny and b) worth copying. I gave her bites off my portion, and she liked it enough that we gave her a little bitty ear of her own, complete with holders. And I don't know why I'm even still typing, because this is really a case where pictures are worth ... well, you know. Click the photos for bigger images:

The Day After: A Brief Dialogue

Scene: Chez Squab, 24 hours after my closing my recent production. Mr. Squab has just gotten home from work.

Me: If you'll feed and water the Hatchling, I'll get our dinner ready.

Mr. Squab: OK. What are we having?

Me: Marinated chicken sauteed in caramelized onions, garlic, spinach and a white wine reduction, garlic mashed potatoes with parmesan and sour cream and a green salad.

Mr. Squab (drool starting to leak out of the corners of his mouth): Fuck!

Me: [grin]

Mr. Squab: That's it. You're never directing again.