Just a picture of a pizza

I'll be straight with you, this picture I took of the Broccoli Pizza I made yesterday is so nice that I feel like I can really slack off in the putting-words-together department today. Like, if you came here for sentences and stuff, eh, maybe just take an extra minute with the pizza picture.

If you trace the outlines of the crust with your eyes enough times it becomes meditative at some point

Anyway, the pizza was so universally accepted by my family that I don't even have any funny pictures of concerned expressions or dinner-avoiding hijinks. They just sat at the table. And ate it. Like civilized humans. Even Dan!

Is my moderate-to-severe half-assing of this post due to the fact that Maximum Fun is set to double its original pledge goal today and I have so many rocket candles to make I cannot focus for very long on other tasks and also I see rocket candles when I close my eyes? Maybe, okay? Maybe! Get off my back!

Sorry, sorry, I know you weren't judging my time-management skills. The cats, though. They see right through me.

I guess I'm not *that* surprised that she is British

Good news, I did not have to cook this weekend at all because Regan made one hundred eighty pounds of crawfish, not counting the potatoes.

I mean, technically I do not really like crawfish, too many...eyeballs, but I do like massive amounts of seasoning.

And Zapps.

And cake.

And cotton candy machines.

Relatedly, in discussing the cuisine of New Orleans, the following extremely shocking exchange occurred between myself and my eldest child who, I will remind you, has been on this earth for nigh on eight years now:

Me: Oh! Do you know what you would love there? The biscuits. Sooooo buttery.

Anna: I don't know what that is. Like cookies?

Hahahahahahaha whoops, my bad I guess! I knew that I had 1) failed her unforgivably and also 2) must rectify the situation as quickly as possible. This seemed like a good recipe to go from. Or, you know. Whatever.

PASSING DOWN OF CULINARY HERITAGE ACHIEVED.

Whew.

Anyway, have a good Tuesday everyone. Maybe take a few minutes to FaceTime with someone you love, no matter how far away.

Or...nearby.

She had so much smizing left to do

Hey guys, quick Eating Green pro-tip and all-around great news: you can just add cilantro to a burrito and call it a day.

You're welcome!

I'm sort of hand-flappingly busy right now, but instead of skipping a blog post I will plug the project I am working on, which makes my brain feel like I am still working on it. Brains! So dumb. Anyway, I do a lot of podcast-recommending here, and by far my most listened-to podcast network is Maximum Fun. I would say I listen to a dozen Max Fun podcasts regularly and probably ten more occasionally and about 95% of my time on Facebook is spent inside the safety of MaxFun groups, so I think it's generally pretty great. Which is why I'm super duper honored to be making one of the donor gifts for the network's pledge drive this year: http://www.maximumfun.org/2017/03/13/maxfundrive-2017-gifts. YAY FOR PODCASTS, YAY FOR CANDLES, MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN anyway I have literally hundreds of rockets left to make so I'm going to go do that now. 

I will just leave you with this nice picture of Ivy school-picturing herself amongst the parking lot bluebonnets.

Haha, just kidding, I will leave you with the follow-up picture wherein she refuses to go inside to class because she needs at least two more hours to accomplish all of her photo shoot goals.

It's actually very easy being green if you add enough cheese

In March, when Spring Break is over, we remember that we're supposed to be eating green things. I compiled my "back to green things" shopping list, noticed that it was about 80% dairy for some reason, and proceeded.

Spinach and Artichoke Grilled Cheese: proof that "green" ≠ "light"

Blueberry Broccoli Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing: proof that Ivy will eat a pile of salad ingredients as long as you take out the leafy parts

Dark Cocoa Brownies with Whipped Matcha Frosting: proof that I can leave a plate of brownies on the table without the children requesting any

Winter ended yesterday, which means our eight months of unpleasantness has commenced. Anna has decided to grow her legs out for the summer.

A week of near-comatose relaxation

Hmm, so, it's possible that I have taken it slightly *too* easy this spring break, judging by the fact that this is the most exciting thing I have to show you today.

I have not made any more inexcusably unattractive baked goods, but we did go full vacation-mode to procure some street tacos.

It had been a while since we'd eaten outside, but we bravely banded together.

Then I truly tested the children by taking them to get dessert that looks like cat food.

Just seeing the picture again makes me crave it so much

Followed by the most low-key five hours ever spent at a public playground.

Five stars for Play For All Abilities Park, many places to sit, would sit again

And that's honestly all we've been up to, aside from tweaking our new look for when we go back to school on Monday.

My rating system is very finely honed

First of all WHY DO YOU GUYS ALWAYS FORGET TO REMIND ME THAT PI DAY IS COMING DADGUMMIT. Second, happy Pi Day! I guess I need to go to the store.

It's Spring Break here and we are having a staycation.

This is literally how my children emerged from their bedrooms on Day Two of said staycation, so it's going fine.

I had another go at baking, but this Orange Cake was much less visually successful than the eclairs. I tried to cover the ugliness with ganache, which seized, and actually enhanced the ugliness.

Don't eat that, Mary. That's a bad bake.

My staycation meal strategy is to repurpose this blog into a Trader Joe's convenience foods review site for the week.

Thumbs up

Thumbs up

Thumbs up

Also, Dan snuck in with some pancakes this morning.

Thumbs

Up

Esoteric self-medicating

Oh, did you think I was done discussing British cooking and castle shows? Then you have grossly underestimated my current appetite for escapism/pastry. Exhibit 1: I actually made eclairs. BEHOLD:

They took quite a while to put together, so BEHOLD AGAIN FROM ANOTHER ANGLE:

I know these are too sloppy to constitute a competitive showstopper per Mary and Paul, but somehow we are managing to choke them down anyway.

I also made some Vegetable Tempura because I was in the mood to be healthy but not actually healthy and "fried plants" always hits the spot for me.

There was once nutrition here but I believe I sizzled most of it away

Exhibit 2: Watching a show about British castles has led me on my most extensive Wikipedia-dive in recent memory, with my maniacal drive to know everything about pre-Norman English monarchs increasing with each episode. The further away from present-day the better! Bring me all your Ælfweards! Tell me about Sigrid the Haughty, who may or may not have been a real person! Help me put a name to that problem I have with my lower back sometimes! Seriously, I have been rolling around in this list like a pig in mud for a couple of days now. You should join me. The narrative arc of Æthelred the Unready alone is worth the price of admission. Bonus points if you can spot the monarch who died "apparently from eating a surfeit of lampreys."

Sick Day

I've been sick since Friday, like actually sick with a measurable fever and such, so the only thing I have accomplished is binging an entire season of The Great British Bake Off. The result of this is that I now have several tabs open with recipes for highly unlikely things such as eclairs and tortes that only a feverish person would think seem like reasonable projects. My reawakened Anglophilia has also pushed me into a season of Secrets of Great British Castles, I don't know, it's weird, it's almost like I don't want to spend any time at all thinking about my current time and place.

Because I did not take any pictures of myself lying on a couch for four days, I have instead compiled a list of what we were doing on previous March 7ths, that's right suckers, this is a clip show.

2016: Soup

2015: Oral hygiene

2014: Construction

2013: Yard work

2012: Travel

2011: Party and (not pictured) Gestation

2010: Drool

Someone should follow up on that cat, just in case

In March, we eat green things.

Avocado Egg Salad

Pea Soup with Broccoli and Salmon. Note that I am not sure whether I have linked you to the original Italian or the English translation, such is the level of professionalism you have come to expect in this space.

In the past few days I have limited myself to one cup of coffee and avoided Twitter, and I am happy to report that my anxiety level has decreased from "about to tear off my own skin" to "general unease." (Side note: one of the distract-y podcasts I've been listening to is The Unexplained, and at some point they try to play up the hauntedness of a certain spot by describing the overwhelming but vague sense of worry that people felt in that location and I was like wait what how can you tell does everyone not feel like that all the time? In conclusion, I suspect my ghost-hunting would return a lot of false positives.)

I have also been reading through the tumblr "Wrong shade, one star," which I very highly recommend if you have ever read makeup reviews on the internet.

This is the only political link I will share today because it is pretty funny, if you don't give it too much thought, that the House Minority Whip has been driven to converse with a bust of Abraham Lincoln out of frustration. Things are at full Veep-level on the Hill.

Finally, this is somewhat comforting, via NPR.

I outsourced my picture-taking to Ivy this week, and I have to say, I might just let her keep the job.