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Cherry Tomato & Bread Gratin
This Sunday’s Chronicle had an article about ‘you pick’ farms in our area, highlighting the wonderful fresh produce and excellent prices to be had by picking your own fruits and vegetables. It also included recipes from the farmers that highlight their offerings. There was a delicious looking recipe for a hot tomato and bread salad. They had me at the word tomato, but add a baguette, some basil, garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan, and I’m in love. Happily, Monday, the weather decided to cool down enough (It was 103 (or 108 if you believe the newspaper, which I don’t) on Saturday, and 90 on Sunday….only 74 on Monday) to let…
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The Dud Avocado
“I mean I can’t cook.” “You can’t cook…why, good Lord, Sally Jay, I thought every girl knew how to cook.” He looked at me, his little Floradora Girl, and gave me a wry sort of some-women-are-made-for-only-one-thing smile. Then he shook his head hopelessly. “Marion de Wald cooks,” he said grimly. “She does all the cooking and looks after two kids as well.” I tried to remember one minute that whole week end when Marion and I weren’t either feeding people, or cleaning up from doing it, or preparing to do it again. And presumably she never stopped doing it. But I couldn’t quite see why just because she did, I…
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Homemade Chocolate Cake with Nutella Frosting
For Maya’s 16th birthday back in March, she wanted to hang out with her friends. We have a tiny tiny living room, and we wanted her birthday to be special, so we decided to rent rooms at a nearby hotel. We got the girls a suite, and we had the adjoining room next door. I decided to go against my prior training (which is open box of mix, follow directions) and make a homemade birthday cake. I was inspired by Mel, who is friend with my real-life friend Stacey, and has a blog called Cupcake Friday Project. One cake that caught my eye was a chocolate cupcake with Nutella frosting.…
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Happy Mother’s Day!
Here we are on Mother’s Day, Philadelphia, 1996. It was a humid day, and Maya didn’t like humidity. Good thing we moved back to California, huh? I look so young. That was 16 years ago, so I was 30. Look how dark my hair is! That’s the color of my dad’s hair, actually…his was blonde when he was a boy, and got darker as he got older, just like me. Unlike me, he didn’t care, and let it stay dark. I didn’t want to dye my hair whilst pregnant, so I had it colored my natural color before I got pregnant. Or close. But then I went red for maybe…
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Friday Randomness
Sorry for ignoring you, my beloved blog. I really do love you, but I feel like so many of my bloggy friends aren’t blogging anymore, and if they are, they don’t come here…and if they do, they don’t leave me a comment, so I don’t know that they stopped by. I have a handful of readers I can depend upon, and I’m thankful for those friendships. I call them friendships, because I have a feeling that if we were to meet in person, we’d like each other, and at least mostly get each other’s sense of humor, that kind of thing. That’s important stuff, really. So, what’s new? Well, I…
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Damsels in Distress
The fictional Seven Oaks University has only recently gone co-ed, and the male students are still a bit unclear on the concepts of civility, bathing, and any slightest degree of self awareness. Enter the floral-named trio of Violet, Rose, and Heather, whose stated goal is to improve humanity, one dufus at a time. Rather than wasting their time on the cool, good looking, smart guys, they prefer to find a fixer-upper and strive to bring him somehow up to their almost ivy-league standards. To this mix, we add a new transfer student, Lily. The girls work at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, working to cure depression and suicidal tendencies one…
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Tax Day
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00u6qUelp6c[/youtube]
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Friday Randomness
First off, Happy Friday the 13th. I’m not very superstitious, though I’ll admit to a few silly ones. I don’t open an umbrella indoors. I don’t walk under ladders. And I make wishes on white horses. Silly, I know. Anyway, Friday the 13th is a good day in my family. First off, it’s payday (yay!), and secondly, I remember the year my mom got pretty lucky on Friday the 13th. Saw this on Facebook. I don’t know the original source, but I liked it enough to share it here. What’s with the apostrophe s? Who is this SnackWell that owns the company? I’m confused. Or grumpy. Or both. I…
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Milk Vacation
My mom liked to say that we were broke, not poor. The differentiation is that being poor is generational, and most likely lasts at least a lifetime. You come from poor, you’re poor, your kids are poor. Broke, however, means you’re not living up to your economic potential just now, but you may not have been broke last year, and you don’t think you will be next year. It’s temporary. You don’t act poor, you still act like a lady or a gentleman, whatever that means within your family. Growing up as the child of a single mom, one who loved teaching in private Montessori schools and working for social…
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100 Years Ago Today*
Today is my darling Maya’s 16th birthday. I can’t believe it’s been 16 years already. Wow. The weekend is going to be full of birthday parties, family and friends and cake and fun. Part of having a daughter, in this time when things have gotten so much better for women than they were in the past, and yet being aware of how far we still have to go (birth control, harassment at work or on the street…why are these still issues? Insane and frustrating.)…part of that is seeing articles like this, and having them cause me to think of her. Of my hopes for her, and my dreams for her,…
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You’re Boring Us…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGDmBLAPikU[/youtube] (Title sung to the tune of ‘Notorious’ by Duran Duran) Ahem. Sorry, my blog is boring the heck out of me. Looking at a picture of orchid buds for weeks on end…whatever. So let’s see if perhaps I can come up with something else to talk about. I fully admit that I’ve posted most of these on Facebook already. But maybe you didn’t see them there, or maybe you’re not on Facebook, or perhaps you’re there, but we’re not friends. What a thought. Saw this chalkboard sentiment, and thought I’d share it here. Really, I couldn’t agree more. Please, live your beliefs. Unless your beliefs happen to SUCK, in…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Super Moist Cake
Today is my lovely Sister-in-Law Lura’s birthday. Happy Birthday Lura! I hope you’re having a wonderful day today. This last weekend was her birthday party. Almost all of our family get togethers are a group effort, so that no one has to do all of the cooking. I decided that I wanted to try to bake a cake. The thing is, I’m not much of a baker. Too precise, too worky. I prefer cooking, where there’s more room for mistake and enough grace to fix things if you can. Nonetheless, for some reason, I wanted to make a cake. Partly because Lura loves cake, and partly because I received a…
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Dreaded Day
The dreaded day came and went this week. Gen’s medical conditions got the better of her, and we decided that we didn’t want to keep fixing one thing to just have another pop up. So we put her to sleep on Monday afternoon. We miss her sweet face SO MUCH. She was such a good girl, and we love her so much, and we’re so sad. But we know that she’s not suffering now, and that making sure she didn’t suffer was our responsibility. Damn it. I keep thinking, I want my dog back. But when I think that, I don’t mean the dog that paced the house for hours…
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Black Cherry and Black Pepper Lamb Chops
I went looking for Valentine’s Day recipes last week, and I found a delicious looking recipe for lamb with some kind of jammy sauce on Food Network. I remembered a few months ago that Ted’s mom and I went to an event at Elizabeth Spencer Winery, they had an appetizer of lamb chops in a pomegranate jelly sauce that was absolutely delicious. So I decided to make it, but instead of buying a special black cherry jam, I used leftover blackberry/pomegranate jam from the amazing Christmas cookies I made a few months ago. Results? de-li-cious. If you like lamb, this is a wonderful dish. The risotto that went with it…