Pretty well-rounded post

First things first, please feast your eyes upon the immortalizing life-prolonging Longevity Kitchen healthiness I've been whipping up this week:

I highly recommend the Corn Bisque, Greek Chicken Salad, Cowboy Minestrone, and cheery placemats. I don't know if that last example is life-prolonging per se but they do feel life-affirming somehow. ("Yes," they assure you, "flowers exist. YOU ARE ALIVE, STILL.")

Everybody soaked all that up? Feeling like we've probably tacked on fifty or sixty years? Good. Time to hook ourselves up to the Princess Bride Machine of Death that is ingesting sugar and shave a couple back off by celebrating National Doughnut Day!

That's right, I BURIED THE LEDE. It's tucked away in that hole there.

Doughnuts doughnuts doughnuts for everyone, except me because I spell it donut, donuts for meeeeee! Dan keeps referring to it as "International" Doughnut Day, which is absurd and offensive, as it is a thoroughly patriotic American holiday arising from the Salvation Army, World War I, and "the difficulties of providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near the front lines." Do you hear that? American ingenuity resolved the age-old struggle to access war-pastries why is there not already a donut in your mouth? Look, if you're feeling especially protective of the extra years you earned looking at the soup and salad I spent all week eating, go with a healthy-ish recipe like I did and also be pretty tired and maybe forget to add in the honey. This will have the additional benefit of you not having to share with your children because they will be surprisingly uninterested in donuts that have no sweetening agent. At any rate, if you don't manage to eat SOMETHING O-SHAPED today I'm sending this, uh, individual after you:

And furthermore, I am going to let Ivy do your eye makeup.

It will be much like the Joan Rivers scene in Muppets Take Manhattan.

In the late-springtime, when the weather is fine

Summertime Hot weather entertaining tip: if the temperature is high enough and everyone ate a big enough lunch, you can announce that dinner is going to be fruit and cheese on bread and no one will outwardly challenge you, probably because the heat is making them lethargic.

Bonus tip: do not refer to it as "summertime" before June 21st in front of my 4-year-old unless you are in the market for some angry tears of remonstrance.

Time for a The Book Lover's Cookbook poetry break: "Blueberries" by Robert Frost. Here is the poem in its entirety; just know that the selection in the book leaves out all the funny parts and also the tragically impoverished children, as is its style. I assumed I would make First-Picking Blueberry Muffins in the fall, since Robert Frost was a New Englander and in my mind it is always autumn in New England. Or, like, Christmas Eve. I genuinely believe it just cycles between October and Christmas Eve up there and I won't hear otherwise. You may as well claim it isn't always summer in Australia or winter in Minnesota while you're at it.

Anyway, I recently started seeing "first of the season" blueberries in the store, so here we are. I know they look like a mess in the picture, but that's only because they were a mess in real life.

I have been blaming my baking powder through about three different cans of baking powder now, but I think it's the baking powder.

Anna Being Made To Pose For Pictures On The Occasion Of Her First Dance Recital: A Story In Four Parts.

I probably just like the idea of having two forks

Here's the thing: I'm pretty certain no one is less interested in my gloomy inner monologue than Martha Stewart. I was going to throw in a humorous alternative example but I actually literally cannot think of anyone who cares less than Martha. Like, maybe Fannie Farmer would have been in the running, but she has sadly but human-life-span-appropriately passed. So I knew Martha Stewart's Dinner At Home: 52 Quick Meals To Cook For Family And Friends would be just the thing to snap me out my brooding state and into my wondering how a meal can be described as "quick"when it involves four different components state. Perfect!

Pasta Shards with Fresh Herbs and Poached Eggs with Arugula and Avocado Salad

I like the phrase "pasta shards" because it sounds vicious even though it ends up just being floppy noodles. Like an idea she picked up in prison, maybe. And I actually DID injure my finger trying to snap those lasagna sheets apart. I mean, it's not…it didn't leave a mark or anything. But for a few seconds I really thought it might.

Every one of the menus in this cookbook involves a dessert, which is good, but it also involves making a dessert, which, I dunno. I was supposed to make tiramisu with the Pasta Shanks, presumably because the caffeine and booze would act together as a painkiller, easing the sting of your various stab wounds. But tiramisu has…so many steps. And I didn't think I could find ladyfingers at HEB. So I skipped around and picked another Italian-ish dessert, Amaretti-Ricotta Sandwiches.

Oh hey guess what I couldn't find amaretti cookies at HEB.

Once in a while I find cause to bemoan the dearth of Italian influence in these grocery-parts, but honestly I didn't care that the almond-y cookies were Belgian because they were stuffed with lemony sugar-cheese. I'll probably just try it with Oreos next.

So, Taisia Kitaiskaia over at The Hairpin made a really beautiful case for summer that moved even me, A LITTLE BIT. It also made me wonder if I have a secret line of Russian heritage because that would explain some things. Anyway, I'm trying to be more open to the non-irritating elements of this time of year, such as postprandial family walks.

This is Anna stopping mid sentence to examine a slug because she was tired of us trying to explain how you can guess at the definition of words by figuring out their roots.

For some reason, Dan and I independently came up with the word "bifurcate" as the best example.

It's an interesting word.

Bifurcate. 

I actually find that train video very soothing

So it's summer season now, I guess.

I hope you had a…rememberful Memorial Day? I don't even know. I was going to link to Mental Floss's article about Memorial Day because I don't personally have anything to contribute on the matter, it is a very somber occasion with no fun costumes or anything and also "kicking off summer" may as well be "kicking off (a) hornet's nest (from the top of my head)" as far as I'm concerned, but instead I got distracted by "25 Things You Might Not Know About "Boy Meets World" because frankly that sounded like a personal challenge or at least a topic I am comfortable discussing. (I KNEW NINETEEN OF THEM.) (OKAY, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PERSONAL CHALLENGE.)

Anyway. Better eat some Mediterranean Chicken Skewers and Walnut Date Salad from The Longevity Kitchen in order to ensure myself sixty or so more summers to dread:

I have to tell you guys, this healthy food stuff tastes really good and I've done extensive research on the matter (examines pictures, nods to self approvingly, eats another handful of Fritos).

This is the angle that makes old-timey audiences freak out and attempt to bite the chicken morsel coming at them.

Trust me honey, that joke was hilarious, you just don't get it yet.

Ugh ugh ugh. (That may seem excessive, but please consider the fact that I had to go back and change every single word of this post from "ugh" on the rewrite.) If you are feeling any combination of the actually physically ill/painfully emotionally drained killer mood that I am, I'd like to point you in the direction of The A.V. Club today, where they are doing good work.

I imagine their offices look very much like this.

And also to this more serious and germane piece by A.V. Club writer Todd VanDerWerff, whose use of a Kool-Aid Man graphic made my 4-year-old daughter extremely interested in what I was reading which just made me more depressed about everything in the entire world uh oh time to go pick some classic movies to pretend I'll actually go see this summer.

Her entourage is a Cat Team

SPRING. We have now reached the point at which my general disdain for the season gives way to frantic enthusiasm, because celebrating spring is my last best chance to deny that it is already (has always been/will always be/etc.) summer here. So, yeah. SPRING! Really great. Full of life and blooming things and whatnot. Let's just streamline this whole thing and put all the greenery into one bowl, here we go: Spring Is Busting Out All Over Soup.

Mmm, extremely green. Nice. Know what else seems springy? Chopping every vegetable you can get your hands on and sort of piling them up and probably sneaking at least one egg in there, just a thought, let's try it: Sweet Potato and Zucchini Pancakes PLUS Black Bean Skillet Cakes with Poached Eggs PLUS Ancho Chili Relish all on one plaaaaaaaaaaate.

Careful with this one, I think it might actually contain TOO MANY vitamins.

Wow guys, that's some pretty healthy stuff up there. I didn't see any cheese at all. What's going on?

No, you recently had a birthday and realized you should probably be eating more…bowls of raw carrots.

Anyway, while I'm over here figuring out how to live to 200 (I'm worried positive it involves kale), Ivy has gone full disaffected-Hollywood-youth. I knew this photoshoot was leading to bad things.

"NO PICTURES, PLEASE"

"WHOOPS OVERSHOT IT"

Apparently so

Batter-covered spatula status: FOUND. Almost immediately. Which is bad news in the sense that I was hoping to spin it into the kind of serialized mystery that would keep you coming back week after week, but good news on the, you know, sanitary living conditions front. Or whatever. More good news emerging from that particular kitchen implement: Smitten Kitchen's S'more Layer Cake.

You know it's a good cake when you have to put in a request for a birthday kitchen torch in order to complete it.

Also a good cake for convincing yourself that it is an appropriate breakfast food because graham crackers are the wholesomest, hypothetically, I'm guessing.

"These blocks are being especially pertificule today."

"Anna, can you tell the camera what 'pertificule' means?"

"Is the camera confused?"

The old never bothered me anyway

Tomorrow I will turn thirtysomething for the fourth time! I have been celebrating by putting a lot of lotions on my face and also by fulfilling my week-long goal of eating cheeses wallowing in happiness. The key was returning to Smitten Kitchen for some dinner recipes before those despots at the Wells Branch Community Library snatch her away from me. Things went well.

First up is grilled cheese, obviously. Specifically, Emmentaler on Rye with Sweet and Sour Onions.

I think I would have liked this better if Whole Foods had any regular rye bread but they don't have regular anything ugh so this is something called Black Forest Rye, an item from which I infer that the Black Forest is grossly overpriced and composed of 65% seeds. Whole Foods also had the baking ingredients on the juice aisle for no reason other than that they disapprove of both groups and probably flagged me for lingering too long amongst them. Also, the recipe recommends serving this sandwich with slaw, but the thought of having grilled cheese with anything other than tomato soup is outrageous to me. (I do not have a lot of things to RAGE OUT about in my life. This seems worthy?)

I intended to make Baked Ranchero Eggs with Blistered Jack Cheese and Lime Crema for Cinco de Mayo, but that had to be put off this year due to Circumstances. I can tell you that it was just as delicious on a random weeknight in May.

Maybe because I fried the tortilla strips instead of baking them, yes I did, yes I did.

And finally, Tomato-Glazed Meatloaves with Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes, a combination that frankly sells itself, so I'll just shut up and let you gaaaaaaaaaaze upon it now.

Belated Mother's Day sentiment: my favorite unexpected benefit of having children is the formation of my own security detail.

My favorite demanded expected benefit is that they make me birthday cakes.

Seems like I'm in their way, so I'm just going to scoot now.

Fun fact: that batter-covered spatula, which CLEARY EXISTED THIS MORNING, is missing now. How far into summer will I find the batter-covered spatula? Stay tuned to find out!

I have a similar problem when my mom is cooking

The hardest thing about visiting my parents when my dad is cooking is knowing that we probably aren't going to eat very well.

Sauteed Tilapia with Pecan Butter Sauce over Cajun Rice Pilaf with a side of Corn Maque Choux

Strawberry shortcake lemon pound cake

Okay, so the actual the hardest thing about visiting my parents when my dad is cooking is remembering to pack stretchy pants. The fact that I got to eat all of the above on Mother's Day and then just leave my dirty dishes on the table like a man princess means this week got off to a much better start than last week. Still, I'm determined that the six-day stretch from Mother's Day to my birthday be filled with as much full fat dairy INTENSE DELIGHT as possible, so last night the Super Social Food League of Austin assembled to attack Austin Restaurant Week: Completely Empty Italian Restaurant Edition.

The best part was actually the tiramisu, which I failed to photograph, but our waiter agreed that it was also his favorite and he claimed to be Sicilian. I say "claimed to be" because our waiter was aggressively bored and may have been lying about his heritage just to pass the time. Anyway, everything was delicious, so if you're in the mood for Italian with a side of cute, hovering dude, I can fully recommend Gusto on a slow night.

Hey, where's Ivy?

Anna, what do you think of Ivy's hide-and-seek technique?

I agree, I think she can do better.

There we go.