5 second rule

Choose your own adventure.

As soon as April said the words, I felt the hairs on my arms sparkle.

And the irony is, April was talking about her daughter's cold. A cold! Is there anything more mundane, or less sparkle-inducing, than a January phone call about a kid's runny nose and scratchy throat?

But April and her family were visiting San Francisco from the east coast, and they were supposed to drive down to see us that day. She called to make sure it was still okay for them to come, kid sniffles and all.

Sure, I told her. It's totally fine with us. My boys are older, so I really don't worry about germs that much anymore. Really, though, you need to decide if you're okay coming down given how your daughter is feeling...

And that's when she said it. The sparklewords.

We'll come, she said. When given the choice, we always opt for adventure.

...

I hung up the phone. 

When given the choice, they always opt for adventure.

Opt for adventure. Opt-for-adventure. Optforadventure.

I've been thinking about this for days. 

Me? I opt for adventure, when someone incents me to. I opt for adventure, after hemming and hawing. I opt for adventure, when it's convenient, if you'll drive me, when I have to, or if the snacks on the docket tempt so hard my stomach punts me out the door and locks it behind me. In other words, I don't opt for adventure all that often, at least anymore. 

So I'm wrestling with this adventure non-opting tendency of mine, and thanks to April's inadvertent inspiration, I've decided to crush it. Baby steps at first. Getting out more on weekends, and at night. Taking myself up to San Francisco, which is so close, but where I never go. Modeling adventurous behavior for my kids. 

After April and her family visited for a few hours, and then left, my husband, boys, and I discussed what to do with our evening. Should we go out for dinner? Head somewhere fun?

Yes, of course we should.

That we stayed in, lit a fire, played Boggle, and made rice pudding in our pajamas instead is not necessarily something I'm proud of. But I'm not really ashamed of it either. It takes time to change, and I need to be patient.

The next morning, I warmed the leftover rice pudding, thinning it with a bit more milk. I tossed on a crush of pistachio and lemon, and ate this erstwhile dessert for breakfast. You know how that felt?

Adventurous.

I'll get there eventually, to a more adventure-filled life.

I'm just taking it one spoonful at a time.

...

Simplest Rice Pudding with lemon-pistachio crush

Last week, my friend Emma and I traded books. I went home with her copy of Sophie Dahl's lovely Very Fond of Food (Ten Speed, 2011), and Emma adopted my extra copy of Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me with Apples (Random House, 2001/2010).

This rice pudding originated with Dahl's recipe for Rice Pudding Cake. While making it, though, the rice took so long to absorb the milk that I got impatient, changed tacks, screwed the cake, and we all just ate warm, sweet, milky rice for dessert instead. There was a bit left over.

The next morning, the budding adventurer in me decided that if oatmeal qualifies as breakfast, then you know what? Rice pudding should, too.

Makes 4 servings

4 cups milk (I used 2%), plus extra for breakfast
3/4 cup Arborio rice
2 lemons (Meyers are lovely if you have them), divided
2 tablespoons superfine sugar, plus more (to taste) 
Handful of lightly toasted (unsalted) pistachios

Combine the milk, rice, and zest of 1 lemon in a medium saucepan over low heat. (Refrigerate the zested lemon, wrapped well in plastic, for another use.) Cook gently, whisking occasionally, until the rice absorbs about 85 percent of the liquid. This will happen quite slowly at first, so you can play Boggle and pop in just to give it a quick whisk every now and again. After about 20 minutes, though, you'll want to stay close and scrape the saucepan with your whisk more frequently. This can take anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes, so clear your schedule. You don't want the milk to scorch.

When the pudding is ready, stir in the sugar and give a taste. If it's not sweet enough, add additional sugar, just a bit at a time, until you're happy. Cool ever so slightly.

Serve warm, right away, or cool completely and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, thin the leftover pudding with additional milk until it's creamy and fluid, like a loose porridge. Reheat gently. Zest the second lemon onto a cutting board. Lay the pistachios on top. Chop the pistachios into the zest, then sprinkle this bright topping over your {cough} cereal.

printable pdf

 

Children, dieting, and casting stones.

A few disclosures before I begin:

1. Dara-Lynn Weiss was one of my closest childhood friends. We grew up in the same town, slept over at each other's houses, spent a summer together, traveled to Europe together, and, as with many friendships, after many years as kids, then pre-teens, then teens, ultimately grew apart. Nothing dramatic, just... after we both went to college, we completely lost touch. 

2. We re-connected last year, after a 24 year hiatus, a few days after her explosive, highly controversial article came out in Vogue magazine. We had a lovely coffee, and it was wonderful to see her. We've emailed a few times since.

3. I am not unbiased when it comes to Dara-Lynn, nor would I ever pretend to be. But she has been such a lightning rod based on whether or not she should have written about her daughter's weight struggle, and whether she is a good mother, that the broader issue -- what to do about obese children -- is getting completely obscured. That's a shame. The issues are unresolved, hot, important, and worth discussing.

4. I'm here to talk about the issues, not whether or not you think Dara-Lynn is a good person, and not whether you think she made a good or ill choice in writing about her daughter's struggle with her weight. 

5. Please keep your tone respectful, as you always do, in the comments.

...

I've almost never had to struggle with my weight. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm fairly sure genetics played a huge and blessed role. My siblings are all slim, as are my children. And because my boys are thin, I've never had to count their calories, take them to an obesity specialist, or consider which weight-loss regimen would best put them on a path to longterm health. We have plenty of other issues, as all families do, but I can honestly say that weight has been a total non-issue in my role as a mother.

But what if it weren't? What if I had a child whose weight set off the pediatrician's alarm bells? What if my boys' doctor watched the scale tick ever upward, over several years, and pulled me aside, telling me, one day, when my kids were seven years old, and weighed 93 pounds, that the time had come for us to change course and intervene in order to safeguard their longterm health? What would I do?

Such is the premise of Dara-Lynn Weiss's new memoir, The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet (Ballantine Books, 2013). The book has been explosive, in large part because Weiss chose to pen a feature last year in Vogue magazine about her struggles to get her young daughter's weight under control. Weiss and her daughter Bea were photographed for the spread in designer clothes, and the blogosphere erupted with hatred and vitriol. The main criticisms leveled against her were twofold: 1) 7-year-olds should never be put on a diet, and 2) a mother shouldn't write about her daughter's weight, publicly, ever, much less in a fashion magazine.

Fine.

I get that. Completely.

But.

That's all anyone's talking about. And it's a shame that a broader analysis, and cultural soul-searching, have been completely absent from this discussion.

The Heavy (which I purchased myself, and was not asked to write about, for the record) paints, at times, an unflattering portrait of a mother in crisis. (Weiss is bracingly candid about her own struggles with weight and body-image.) But it also raises extremely valid points that are being completely overlooked in our headline-grabbing, sensationalistic culture. Even Dr. Oz, who hosted Weiss on his television show last week, missed an opportunity to pull back from the media hype and discuss the substance of her book: the deep conundrum parents of obese children face when they're advised to intervene.

At issue is this central paradox:

When a mother is told by a medical professional that her child is clinically obese, should she re-vamp the child's food environment (to the extent possible), restrict caloric intake, and work to the best of her ability -- however imperfectly, for we are all imperfect parents, aren't we? -- to set that child on a path to weight loss?

or

Should a mother remain more passive, hoping that the child will grow into her weight and discover independently how to make more healthful choices? Should the mother remain a private cheerleader and supporter solely and primarily, but not actually restrict calories or mandate a more active lifestyle?

Finally, is it even possible to handle this issue privately, when a child spends a large part of each day outside the home?

The media tells us every single day that this generation of children is the first whose life expectancy is lower than its parents'. That the risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other weight-relevant medical conditions are worse now among children than they've ever been in our nation's history. At the same time, here's a mother who took action -- making the best choices she felt capable of making -- and the backlash has been severe.

You can disagree with Weiss' style, with her approach, with her intense hypervigilance about every food her daughter consumed, and certainly with the public airing of her family's struggles on this issue. You can question whether she overstepped reasonable boundaries in her efforts to get her daughter's health under control. But at the end of the day, we're still left with a few crucial questions.

At the end of the day, it's still important for us to ask:

Can we really have it both ways? Flash headlines and statistics about the obesity crisis 24/7, but then demand that parents take only baby steps when faced with this issue in their own homes?

What would you do if it were your child?

Too late, or too early?

Thank you, John Tierney, for writing the column, This Was Supposed to Be My Column for New Year's Day in Tuesday's New York Times.

In it, you not only acknowledge some redeeming characteristics of procrastination -- calling "positive procrastination" an actual thing --  but you cop to being a procrastinator yourself. Guess what? I am too! And I think we can both agree that there are far worse things than procrastinating. Like chewing with your mouth open. What are you, an animal?

Anyway, back to procrastination. I don't think persimmons are in season anymore, but I promise you they were, back in November. That's when I hacked my own Ripe Persimmon Apple Radicchio Stacks into salsa with the aid of a sharp knife and a looming deadline. Nothing like procrastination to inspire the laborious chopping of fruits and vegetables into fine dice, a task that takes slightly longer than forever. 

A few tortilla chips later, that salsa was safely ensconced in my belly, and the deadline was still unmet. Slicing and dicing wasn't the best use of my time, perhaps, but when persimmons call, you answer.

Look, I meant to tell you about this sooner, back when persimmons were good and plenty. It's too late now, I suppose.

Wait.

Maybe I'm not late at all.

Maybe I'm three seasons early.

Maybe, just MAYBE, I'm a precrastinator, not a procrastinator.

I'll get back to you later, once I decide.

You say she writes like that? Well, I write like this.

If I read one more treatise on the best way to be a writer, I'm going to blow. 

Here are the ways the universe tells me to write:

1. Every day.
2. Before the sun rises.
3. In an uncluttered space.
4. With a view of the mountains/ocean/garden/hilltop.
5. With a cup of coffee.
6. Whether I want to or not.
7. With classical music.
8. With a daily word count.
9. With no internet access.
10. Without reading what I've written.

Here's how I write:

1. Every day, mostly, but sometimes I cook instead.
2. After the sun rises, but before it sets. I'm neither a Knight Rider, nor a night writer.
3. On a catastrophically cluttered desk. Seriously, my desk is so messy small animals probably lie dead under all the papers, magazines, moleskins, and folders.
4. With a view of a wall. Classy.
5. With a cup of tea, or a bowl of cereal, or a dish of almonds, or a crumbly piece of toast that's dried out by the time I eat it.
6. When I feel driven, and motivated, and inspired. I get a tightness in my chest; so far it hasn't been a heart attack. 
7. In complete silence.
8. With no daily word count.
9. With internet access dangling her seductive tresses in my face at every possible turn.
10. With constant self-editing. 

But cooking, that's different. Here's how I cook:

1. Every day, several times a day, except on vacation, when I'm a lazy bum.
2. After the sun rises, and after I've drunk a cup of tea so strong it jangles my eyeballs.
3. In a kitchen that starts out clean, then looks like it was hit by a Mac truck trailing a meteor hitched to a cyclone.
4. With a view of my table and its syrup spills, and the scratchy spot where I scraped off the menorah wax with a knife. (Don't do this.)
5. With lots of nibble breaks, and more tea, and then tea, and then nibbles. 
6. Whether or not I feel like cooking, though honestly, I usually do, because it's a great change from writing and being seduced by the internet's hair.
7. With noise. NPR, or loud radio. If a mattress commercial comes on, I yell at people who aren't there.
8. Three meals a day, plus work recipes, plus snacky things for the boys who call my house home.
9. With internet access, so I can beam pictures of my snacky things into space. I need help.
10. With constant editing. More salt, squeeze of lemon, kick of pepper, grate of cheese, zest of lime. 

So the next time someone passes around a link to a profile of some writer who works in spartan, idealized circumstances, or some cook in a beautiful, pristine kitchen, you can just click over here and feel better about yourself. Because I'm a writer, and a cook, and I pretty much do everything wrong.

... 

Recipe for Honey-Glazed Almonds with candied fennel

If you like sweet/crunchy snacky things with a mysterious edge, these are for you. Bonus: fennel seeds help freshen breath, so find someone to breathe on when you're done snacking.

Makes 2-1/4 cups

2 cups raw whole almonds

1 tablespoon fennel seeds
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons candied fennel (available at Indian markets)

Set almonds on a rimmed baking sheet. Toast in a preheated 350 oven, 5 to 8 minutes, until one shade darker. Cool.

Meanwhile, in a small, dry saucepan (large enough to eventually hold the almonds), toast the fennel seeds over medium heat until fragrant and beginning to darken slightly, shaking the pan constantly, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add honey, sea salt, and pepper. Stir vigorously with a heatproof spatula until honey foams and liquefies, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. 

Add almonds, and stir quickly to coat. Scrape onto a silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet, nudging the nuts into a single layer. Cool completely.

Break the glazed almonds into small clusters or individual pieces, toss with the candied fennel, and serve. Store leftovers airtight.

printable pdf

Must good food come from a shiny, happy place?

He said he didn't think good food could come out of wartime, or tragedy. That for food to bring pleasure -- genuine, soulful, pleasure -- it needed to start from a place of joy.

I've been chewing on this ever since, turning it over. Gnawing it like a chicken wing that's all tendon and sinew. The conversation happened in early November, but it's still bugging me.

I couldn't disagree more.

Good, authentic, nourishing food can emerge from any intense emotion, geography, or experience. War, struggle, death, discrimination -- all can roil madly, spinning whirling-dervishlike into the creation of culture in its most moving forms. It's no secret that art, music, theater, dance are more powerful, more stunning, more important, even, when born of life's extremes. And extremes must encompass both ups and downs by definition. The higher the highs, the lower the lows, the more jarring and moving the art.

Not always, of course. Sometimes a light, gentle touch, a moderate, even-keel, a delicate hand or approach can produce beautiful art. But sometimes intensity's the driver.

And what's cooking if not art?

Some cooking is purely functional. It's a tank-fill at times, I get that. But the most beautiful, lingering, significant, and memorable cooking has to come from someplace deeper. Has to come from memory, from places of warmth, nurturing, and light, or from darker places, places where feeding oneself, or one's family, may stem from fear, defiance, grief, trauma, and raw necessity.

I made this soup a few weeks ago when I didn't feel like talking to anyone.

It was brewed of sadness.

I'm fine now, I promise, but don't tell me this soup won't nurture you because of its origins. 

That it won't give you comfort and pleasure in these bright January days.

Don't tell me that.

...

Recipe for Lentil Soup with chorizo meatballs

Red and angry-looking, this soup is savory and filling, but not particularly spicy. The parsley gives it a fresh, gentle lift. I hope it fills you up, and gives you pleasure.

Makes 2-1/2 quarts soup

3/4 pound bulk fresh chorizo
1-1/2 cups brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
4 cups stock (vegetable, beef, chicken), low-sodium if canned
4 cups cold water
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 large carrots, finely chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced 
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
Fresh lemon juice and flat-leaf parsley, for garnish 

Form the chorizo into small meatballs, using 1 tablespoon meat for each. Set aside in the fridge, covered.

Meanwhile, combine the lentils, broth, and water in a soup pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently until the lentils are tender but not mushy, about 25 to 30 minutes.

At the same time, heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add the carrots, onion, celery, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds more.  When the lentils have finished cooking, scrape the vegetables into the lentil pot.

Without cleaning the skillet (a thin sheen of fat should remain), brown the chorizo meatballs on all sides. This should take about five minutes. Transfer the meatballs to the soup pot. Simmer the soup over low heat until the meatballs are cooked through and the soup is hot. Serve immediately, with a sprinkling of lemon juice and fresh parsley.

printable pdf