Comfort Week

Okay, we are back in business!

Well, we are still under our heat-deflectors. But our camera works again. 

That means it's finally time to kick off Comfort Week! You know what I find tremendously comforting? Going out to eat and ignoring my cookbook collection. 

It's like taking a nap under a blanket of puppies.

Especially when going out to eat constitutes the first meeting of the very exclusive Super Social Food League at épicerie. It feels like Regan and I have been in training for this all our lives, and I think the hours and hours of selecting and consuming food are going to be apparent when you see our performance on the field.

Work hard, play hard, eat mussels.

House-made tater tots are the reason I got into this game in the first place.

This BLT was delicious, but I'm sort of mad at it for being in season. Still. Summerblah forever!

Nothing nicer (or, arguably, smarter) than dining al fresco at 7:30 pm.

We rewarded ourselves for enduring a couple of hours in the sauna outdoors by having fancy desserts in the walk-in freezer inside.

I know you were starting to get a little itchy from the lack off eggs in this post, so here is your duck egg crème brûlée. Thank you for your patience.

But as you know, this wasn't just Take One Night Off Week. It's full-on Comfort Week! So Dan and I threw some fancy friend-graduation-celebratory-Olivia-dining in there too. Congratulations to Heidi! And to all of us, really. I congratulated myself several times throughout the course of the meal.

Salmon belly AND a waffle chip AND a tiny quail egg AND it was covered in hazelnuts AND it was served on a slab.

Typical wedge salad.

Discovering the existence of pepper-apricot butter was probably the highlight of my night month year adulthood.

The presence of chicken of the woods in Dan's ravioli brought out everyone's inner Jessica Simpson.

Since the girls were not invited to either of these lovely meals, they had to make do with practicing their self portraits.

 Ivy has also been working on expanding her vocabulary. She definitely knows the word "pool."

Pooooooooooooool.

I blame August for this

Did anyone else notice that it is somehow still August? All week long? I feel like whichever ancient Roman made the decision to make August 749 days long wasn't thinking clearly. At any rate, the interminability of this month inspired me to have Comfort Food Week. There's no point in waiting for it to be appropriately comfort-food cold because we'll all be dead by then and also I am in need of comfort. HOWEVER, there are no pictures of said foods because we are having some technical difficulties in the form of a broken memory card. It looks like a crack, but I'm guessing it just melted like everything else.

Anna and I will be hunkered down here until the high temperature stops being over 100 degrees.

So, through the weekend at least.

Though I suspect Ivy is plotting a jailbreak.

At least she is dressed for the weather.

It's also National Goat Cheese Month but I don't see anyone pouting about that

I find that attending any sort of party hosted by Regan frees me from my self-feeding responsibilities for pretty much the whole weekend.

It also provides a good, solid meat base for the week ahead.

For some reason, Ivy was more interested in eating the museum's play food.

Not sure where she got that idea.

This is actually Dan bitterly remonstrating the fact that I overlooked National Waffle Day. Do you see what happens when I miss a theme? Intrafamily strife.

I mostly like the Children's Museum for its liberal use of prison-like bars.

Free-roaming children make me uncomfortable.

Don't worry, there were still plenty of adventures to be had.

History Week: Brought to You By Adolph's Meat Tenderizer

Hello, and welcome to History Week! (Please read the previous sentence in Moviefone style. Pop open a Snapple. Feeeeeeeeel the nineties wash over you.) This is actually History Week Part the Third, and it has nothing at all to do with the nineties, that's just the decade where my brain resides and sometimes bits of it leak out. No, Cookbook #84: James Beard's American Cookery (James Beard, 1972) is pre-nineties and in fact pre-Erica, although such a world is pretty difficult to imagine.

Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Number of years I owned this volume before noticing that the cover illustration features a rooster harnessed to a wagon full of rooster-sized produce: at least ten.

It's called "Rooster Express" and it will be mine.

If you watch any food-oriented television, you have at least a vague idea of who James Beard was because people are always bragging about having won his award. His backstory is neither as hardcore as Fannie Farmer's nor as colorful as Charles H. Baker Jr.'s, but he did host the first televised cooking show and apparently "entered into ethically questionable endorsement deals," including for Old Crow Bourbon and something called Adolph's Meat Tenderizer. So he was, you know, well-rounded.

This is really a historical collection (our dear Fannie gets a hat tip in the beginning) and not necessarily a tome of James Beard recommendations, as evidenced by the several versions of "I don't care for this personally, but people seem to like it" I encountered.

There is an ample egg chapter.

I poached them in tomatoes and served them over asparagus and bacon, but it wasn't easy narrowing it down. I could see myself making almost every egg dish in this thing.

Almost.

I figured the most old-timey American thing I could do was make protein and a side every night, thereby going against all of my one-pot instincts. Think of all the extra pots I washed (three)! For history!

Pork Chops Creole with brown rice. Part of my continuing quest to convince Dan that he does in fact like pork chops.

Walnut-Breaded Fish, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon. This fish tasted very restaurant-y, probably because it was covered in walnuts and cooked in butter. I did not have to convince Dan that he liked it.

Florence Bingham's Easy Chicken with Pepper Slaw. This chicken was in fact easy and very good as leftovers. I didn't even try to convince the children that they liked the slaw.

I also made Molasses Pie and WHOA BUDDY was it molassesful. Check out my meringue, though!

Both girls ate this seriously, seriously strong-flavored pie. Lesson: people love pie.

Verdict: This was really fun to comb through, and if I skipped the section on offal and figured out what a "veal knuckle" is, I could probably tackle about anything in it.

Almost.

In conclusion, James Beard invented Meatza.

I think I might have to stop taking Ivy to my Weight Watchers meetings.

Maybe I can just shift her focus to perfecting her watercolor technique.

I expect you all to smoke things for me when I visit

How was your weekend, everyone? Still August? Oh. Well, did you at least go on vacation? I did! I mean, we went to visit my parents, but I'm pretty sure it counts as a vacation because I ate sushi.

And my kids weren't within sight, or, more crucially, earshot.

I find that serenity is helpful in digesting raw fish.

I was also served 18-hour smoked brisket with a soup bowl full of homemade barbecue sauce and I'm pretty sure I didn't even help clear the table.

Definitely vacation and/or I'm just a thoughtless houseguest.

I did use Cookbook #83: The Chocolate Snowball: and Other Fabulous Pastries From the Deer Valley Bakery (Letty Halloran Flatt, 1999) to whip up a batch of anniversary biscotti for my parents because I am also a pretty self-serving gift-giver.

I used orange zest to cover up the taste of selfish blog-related motivation.

Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. For some reason I'd been thinking that everything in this cookbook was super fussy/fancy, probably because the titular recipe is super fussy/fancy, but it's actually full of regular yummy-sounding stuff, including more than one type of granola and dadgum do I enjoy granola. I also enjoy biscotti. Verdict: these are recipes from the executive chef at a ski resort! Just flipping through it is guaranteed to reduce your body temperature 10 degrees. Also, it is full of sugar.

Anna took the opportunity to do some frolicking this weekend.

They seem to be on the same page, at least. 

All that activity may have been a little stressful for the girls though, as they were definitely ready to get back into their yoga practice when we got home.

Ivy is demonstrating the "I was born relaxed" pose.

Slow News Week

Based on the fact that I opened this post about twelve minutes ago and have just been staring at the wall, listening to the clock ticking, I'm going to guess that it's still August. (Checks.) Nailed it! Halfway through August no less, which means that all of my functioning brain-parts have been effectively stifled, as have my getting-up-off-the-couch parts. I spent the week trying to avoid going to the grocery store, so I had a chance to practice my hand at cleaning out the fridge by stuffing its contents into tortillas and/or eggs.

Frozen fish, vegetables.

Vegetables, vegetables.

Fortunately, the girls have been toiling away in order to compensate for my sloth. Running a household is a lot of work, as they're discovering. Ivy has taken up the gardener position.

And Anna is our bean counter.

Very little chance of embezzlement in this case.

Every night Anna asks if tomorrow will still be August and I think, I HOPE NOT

Hey, look! I made a cheese ball!

Not so much impressive as it is just fantastic. Fantastic work, me!

I also made all manner of other things from Cookbook #81: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (Amy Sedaris, 2009) and realized that in the four years I've owned it I have considered it primarily a comedy book, ignoring the dozens and dozens of legit recipes (and pantyhose-oriented craft ideas) within it. Behold! Asparagus Macaroni! Cucumber, Tomato, and Onion Salad! Excellent Stuffed Potatoes!

Provenance: I bought it my own self at the Texas Book Festival. It's autographed! Previous recipes on this blog: none, because as I said, it never occurred to me to take anything inside it at face value. But I have to say, these were some very fine victuals from a book whose section on Children's Games include tips such as "Toss a greased watermelon into the pool and have the kids try to grab for it," "If there is an infant in the house, it's always fun to play Social Services," and "The eyes are the most vulnerable part of the wolf." Recommended for: all humans.

Cookbook #82: The Great Book of Chocolate (David Lebovitz, 2004) does not include a recipe for Galataboureko or a Gift Idea for Ex If You Are Still on Speaking Terms (see above), but as its title indicates, it doesn't need to. It includes chocolate.

Provenance: I think I mentioned wanting this to my brother, who then bought it for me because as it turns out younger siblings are not entirely worthless once you are an adult. Previous recipes on this blog: none. I made Congo Bars, which are sort of like someone smushed four chocolate chips cookies together and called it a "serving."

Good call, someone. 

Let's get a closer look at that cross-section.

Oh, hi, I'm back, just went to confirm my vague recollection of these being good. These are still good. Verdict: David Lebovitz is smart and you should give him money to continue practicing his trade.


I like this series of "Please just let me get one nice going-to-school picture of you" wherein Anna seems increasingly uncertain of what I'm asking of her.

Almost a good shot if you squint away the pretty high degree of apparent sarcasm.

I already gave you the arm gestures. What?

Why is this insane woman still aiming a camera at me right now?