BOO (hoo I am old)

This is a little dish I like to call Whoops I'm Stuck With A Sick Kid on Grocery Day What Do We Have Broccoli and Bacon Guess That'll Work Pasta.

A lot of time goes into crafting these culinary offerings

Anyway, happy Halloween everyone. Up to you to decide what you find scariest:

Some sort of DC villain amalgam 

Menacingly winking Minnie

The fact that Speed came out 23 years ago and your youth is receding in the distance at no less than 50 mph

Everything in this post is very dark

This week I successfully followed two recipes without incident and I am here to relate them to you as follows:

Asiago Cauliflower and Quinoa Chowder

Creamy Shells with Tuna and Spinach

I can't tell you how much time it takes to put together a "silly outfit" for Silly Outfit Day with a child who insists that literally any two items of clothing actually can go together, thematically.

"But this one also has a little bit of pink."
"But stars go together."
"But this has a stripe too."
"But cats like butterflies."
"...and flowers."

Ivy lives in a world without mismatch

For the past couple of weeks I have been assiduously avoiding real world news and Twitter in particular throwing myself into spooky podcasts in order to make the most of my October and also gain some perspective re: the fact that humans have literally always been unhappy and afraid. It's kind of our whole deal! Sometimes it's nice to feel unsettled as opposed to genuinely horrified and depressed. Here's are some I've tried out if you are in the market for similar:

• Lore. This one is not Halloween-specific, I have been listening to it for a while. It's history-based, for the most part, and a lot of the stories are interesting, although Aaron Mahnke has some narrative tics that drive me absolutely bonkers. The madness is part of the experience! Recommended for: people who like some historical research with their thrills and chills; people who are maybe open to doing a shot every time Mahnke pauses and says "they say" or "you see."
• Snap Judgment Presents: Spooked. These are mostly stories submitted by listeners about their "true" experiences, but obviously there is a pretty broad range of plausibility in play. Some are kind of sweet and sad, some are nuts. At the end of the zombie clown story the narrator does a thing that made me roll my eyes and think "I see what you did there" but damned if I haven't thought about that zombie clown a couple of times since. Recommended for: people who can convince themselves that because it's on NPR it's probably real.
• Within the Wires. I actually only listened to a couple of episodes of this because it ended up not being the flavor of "unsettled" I was going for. But I really like the setup: it's a series of guided meditation-type recordings where you gradually gets hints about how messed up the surrounding world is. It's from the Welcome to Night Vale people, but I found it more serious and more stressful to me personally on a "kids taken away from their parents" level. Recommended for: people looking for a mysterious dystopian puzzle.
• The Lost Cat Podcast. This one is actually the Night Vale style I was after--the narrator encounters many strange and spooky things (and loses a couple of body parts) while searching for his lost cat, but does not seem overly concerned about them. It's dryly funny and not particularly scary although the last episode of Season 1 did make me...nervous. There is original music in every episode. There is a lot of wine-drinking. I've only finished the first season and that cat is still missing. I'm worried about the cat, guys! Recommended for: people who can relate to being willing to face off with eldritch abominations in order to find their cat.
• Knifepoint Horror. I had this on my list for a long time before finding the courage to actually listen to any of it because both the name and the thumbnail picture imply actual horror when my goal is subtly creepy shivers. But I was pleasantly surprised! A lot of these stories are really engaging and intense in a way that I liked. Some are more predictable than others ("oh I get it, that guy is a werewolf") but they are mostly fleshed out nicely. I started with the story called "attic" which is great if you're interested in a "WHAT'S IN THE BOX" situation. I will say, all of the more recent stories are read by the same guy, so if you listen to too many in a row it kind of switches over from "oh no what's going to happen to him" to "man, this guy can't catch a break." Recommended for: people who want straight up spooky campfire stories.
• The Ghostlands Podcast. I love this one. Maybe all I really want is a Canadian voice in my ears, eh? Each episode focuses on a different historical monster and ends with a scary story that is old enough to be in the public domain (think Lord Dunsany, Ambrose Bierce, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe, etc., including a real banger from Charles Dickens). Recommended for: people who see that the latest episode is about goblins and think "oh sweet, we're getting some Christina Rossetti today!" i.e. English majors.
• You Must Remember This: Karina Longworth's always-consistent Hollywood history podcast is focusing on Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff this month. Technically this topic is significantly less chilling than, say, her Charles Manson series, but it is terrifically researched told and fun to think about as Halloween draws near. Recommended for: people interested in early-to-mid 20th century Hollywood; anyone amused by a display of absolute disgust at the lack of acting ability in Lon Cheney, Jr.

I think I actually saw pumpkins sweating

I made Moroccan Nectarine and Plum Chicken last night, mostly because I've had a lot of luck selling my children on the concept of couscous by describing it as "the world's tiniest pasta." I think they will eat anything as long as I frame it as being somehow adorable.

Wait until I tell them about micronutrients, they are going to be PUMPED 

It Is Too Hot To Go To the Pumpkin Patch in October in Texas: 2010 vs. 2017.

The wind cries broccoli

Three or four times a week I walk outside, raise my arms to the heavens, and wailingly implore "What will my children eeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaat?" And if I am quiet and still, I hear the delicate strains of an answer float down to me on the breeze, gentle and not entirely confident: "Noodles. Maybe some broccoli."

Pad See-Ew

Speaking of wailing, I get the sense that the ghost currently haunting our house isn't getting paid enough per hour. Pretty lackluster.

Or maybe we got stuck with a trainee or something

Very nearly a recipe

If you've read this blog for any amount of time you'll have noticed that I like to post about food and I try to throw you some helpful links but I never write out actual recipes. The reason is simple: it seems like a lot of work? And also, when I do manage to create something that tastes good all by myself, I tend to forget to pay attention to the tiny details such as "ingredient quantity" or "cooking time."

So I'm going to give you a very general summary of these German potato salad...nachos? See, naming things is also a problem. I wanted a party-friendly version of potato salad, so I coated thick slices of red potatoes with olive oil and Dijon mustard and roasted them in the oven at a...high-ish temperature for...a while. Then I flipped them over and put a little pile of chopped red onion and sauerkraut on top and cooked them...some more. Then I took them out and put sour cream and scallions on top. Ta da!

Listen, I also wish I had more specific details, okay? We're all at the same disadvantage here.

The last couple of bus stop mornings have been very very very good for me.

Less so for my children, who remain unconvinced that humans can survive sub-70-degree temperatures for extended periods.

A Friday disrecommendation

I'm spending all of today at an elementary school Field Day, so I have very few precious scraps of energy to spare for this blogging venture at the moment. Just want to say that I highly recommend eating Smitten Kitchen's Chicken and Dumplings if you are feeling kind of sick, and also that I highly disrecommend attempting to make Smitten Kitchen's Chicken and Dumplings if you're feeling kind of sick because it takes one million hours and many of them are spent pulling chicken off of bones.

Yum and ugh.

Make Pizza Beans instead next time, you sick fool.

Big thanks to my food group on Facebook which I use solely as a "links to Smitten Kitchen recipes" resource

Probably also 90 degrees there, right?

The girls are currently in the midst of a slightly preposterous four-day weekend, so we had no choice but to go into full Vacation Mode.

First, we harnessed the energy of Enchanted Rock.

Then we went to Fredericksburg and promptly spent that energy on...uh...shopping.

We also ate some German food because certain members of my family went to the Oktoberfest this year and I was a little jealous but now I figure we're pretty much even.

Cuckoo clocks on the wall! Exactly the same as being in Bavaria.

Pumpkin twice

It's the first week of October, which means I exclusively cooked pumpkin things and I'm not sorry.

Pumpkin muffins, thanks to Miriel for reminding me about these. I made them with all white whole wheat flour so that my children would be less inclined to eat them all. It's working!

Roasted butternut squash tacos. Also, if you object to my calling these "pumpkin," please refer to my family's favorite autumnal factiod.

Definitely recommend adding live cats to your Halloween decorations this year, I find that it adds a certain what-exactly-is-happening-here quality that's hard to beat.

Yesterday Ivy was home from school with a fever, but it was the kind of sickness that responded well to medicine and caused me to have a very much perked up child by midday. This meant that every time I turned a corner I encountered these things attempting to trick-or-treat from me. 

They made off with about $3 in change and a book of matches, I didn't really want to take chances with dead-eyed tricksters.

Honey put on that party dress

Things are a lot right now.

So...  *helplessly tosses armful of links out into the void*

Puerto Rico:

Amazon wishlist compiled by people on the ground

Hispanic Federation, endorsed by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Unidos por Puerto Rico, established by the First Lady of PR

Community Recovery Fund, promoted by PBS

Effing guns, man:

Everytown for Gun Safety

Indivisible script for contacting Congress

RIP Tom Petty:

Accurate assessment

Disconcertingly formative music video

*exhales for longer than should be possible given standard human lung capacity*

I was sans spouse for my anniversary this year so I made myself some nachos to match the flowers he sent.

I also broke my children's "eating things" streak with this avocado salsa bowl:

Anyway. Donate some time or money to something you are worried about if you can. Take a social media break. Talk to someone who puts you in a good mood. Think about how great, like, museums are. Eat the bread bowl.