Although here in SoCal the heat is on its way out - I hope - I am still detecting little pockets of it, like little pieces of unpredictable, random, chaos in life. The pockets of heat, they grab me unaware and require my attention. 

What else could it be but heat; out of it tension arises, things are forced to the surface, and it lays quietly in wait, like magma beneath a mountain - a mountain that could very well be a volcano. Even in the coolest conditions, there are pockets of heat scattered about and expanding, or so I believe. 

Two days ago, I was walking in my hallway and noticed that there were two hot spots; one by the linen closet and one underneath our attic. I pressed the back of my hand against walls, listened for buzzing from electricity, and walked back and forth in the hallway for fifteen minutes worrying that something was imminently wrong in our home. Then just like that, the pockets of heat went away. The heat was so real that I could almost touch it. And then, nothing.

Yesterday morning, I walked outside expecting a cooler day, but the sun beat down on my shoulders. It warmed my skin so quickly that I mentally prepared myself for for a hotter-than-forecasted day. While leaving the gym, I bought myself a bottled water which I left in the car while Melia and I shopped for Halloween candy. When we returned to the car, I took a sip of the bottled water, which was still cool, but provided little sips of heat within the sweating bottle I held in my hand. More pockets of heat, invisible but I could taste them, the contrast of cool and hot playing off each other…smoothly. 

Sipping my water, at a stoplight, I looked outside my car window and notoced a bed of meticulously planted flowers on the divide…orange, red and yellow. Like a blooming fire, low to the Earth, wanting to get off the ground. Everywhere, little pieces of heat. Sometimes the pockets of heat are so nice to look at, you can’t take your eyes off of them.

I made stewed lentils in the slow cooker Thursday. Last week at Costco, Melia and I sampled Madras Lentils - so good, creamy and hearty - but with 900 mg of sodium per pouch. Badly as I wanted to buy the product, bring it home, re-heat it and exclaim to everyone “I got it at Costco, isn’t it good?” I set down the box, thanked the person sampling the food, and told her to have a good day. I’m going to make that at home, with less sodium, I thought to myself. So I did. I used two whole serrano peppers and today when I bit into one, I got more heat. But it wasn’t overpowering, it was flavorful. The pocket of heat withtin lended personality I found irresistible, though part of me said beware.

My son has been practicing pitching and hitting, hitting and pitching. When the fastball is called for, Alex places two fingers of his his still boyish looking hand over two seams of the baseball, hiding his pitch formation within his glove. He gets the heater ready. He winds up, his shape contorts, and in these few seconds I can see everything that got him to this moment and imagine clearly what is to come, because of his little pocket of heat.

Around 4pm yesterday, Melia looked flushed, so I felt her belly, and once again, used the back of my hand to detect heat, but this time placing it against her forehead where soft, stubby baby bangs hide beneath her ringlets. Since yesterday afternoon, Melia has been a 36-inch tall pocket of heat. The heat got to 104 degrees at 3:00 am this morning, even with children’s ibuprofen it only goes down to 102.2. In her breathy voice she asks me “Can I still go trick or treating Momma?” Getting sick on Halloween, random. Fever of 104 at 3am, chaos. A little body fighting infection, with heat.

Little pockets of heat everywhere, all the time. All you have to do is use the right senses, and the pockets of heat can stop you, hold you, feed you, and refine you. 
######

(slow cooker) STEWED LENTILS
1 package of green lentils, rinsed
1-2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 can red kidney beans, undrained
1 jar tomato paste
64 oz. chicken broth
2 serrano chilies, whole (unsliced), stem removed
1 tbsp. honey
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. chili powder
kosher salt
black pepper

Pour rinsed lentils into a slow cooker. Drizzle with olive oil. Add beans, tomato paste, broth, chilies, honey, bay leaf, paprika, coriander, chili powder, salt and pepper. Mix well. Cook on low setting for 6 hours, or until broth is absorbed (no more than 8 hours total!).
We top our lentils with everything from red wine vinegar to Tabsaco to Parmesan. This dish is perfect on it’s own, with a roasted chicken and green salad, or next to some grilled sausages.
#######

TOASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS A LA KARRIE
When in need of a recipe, ask another foodie. My amiga Karrie does her pumpkin seeds this way. Check out her blog, http://karriemcallister.blogspot.com.

Fresh pumpkin seeds, washed and patted dry
extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
* Lawry’s Seasoning, too, that is what Karrie adds because her Dad always used it

Toss the seeds with enough olive oil to coat, and use a lot of salt. On a baking sheet (I’d imagine parchment paper or some canola oil spray would be good to place down first), spread out the seeds and roast between 250-275 for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so, she says. Remove when they are “done to your desired crispiness.”

I think I’ll toast mine with either Mrs. Dash - 0g trans fats, all natural ingredients, and really good stuff in there too! Or cumin+cayenne+paprika.

 This is Boo Two (birth name: Melia). Five years ago, Zoe went as Boo “One” for Halloween. Since I produce girls with big brown eyes, brown hair made for ponytails, and a love of Pixar movies, being Boo from Monsters Inc. for Halloween is as expected as empty Reese’s wrappers all over the floor on November 1st.

This year, I…helped…Zoe make the decision to identify with and thereby select a heroine as a character to dress up as for All Hallow’s Eve. Zoe selected an Elizabeth Swann (Pirates of the Caribbean) costume, but people just call her a pirate, and Alex wanted to be Ghostrider. I said fine.

I am not skilled or ambitious enough to make the kids costumes, and I lack the enthusiasm to go to a Halloween store with three children. So I ordered the costumes over the Interent, but did manage to decorate my house a little bit with some witchy things. Oh, and a Halloweenish Tinkerbell.

We have already been to one Halloween house party and one Halloween carnival. 

We have three Halloween class parties this week, and tomorrow I go on a field trip with Zoe’s class to a pumpkin patch. With all of these events, I trod along with relatively little complaint, thank the parents who organized the events, volunteer when I can, and just try to get through all of the madness that is Halloween with children. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed this time of year. The problem is this - I can’t get into dressing up in costumes nor riding ponies at pumpkin patches when the temperature outside is over 100 degrees.

I have become a Halloween Scrooge. An October Mr. Grinch. I feel deprived of proper Autumn weather and I want to punch the sun in the face.

And it isn’t just me. This time of year is when people aren’t very kind to each other, in the dog days of the California Indian Summer. Or maybe it’s just the election, I don’t know. What I do know is that I cannot wait until November 5th; the electoral votes will be counted, the Halloween candy will be mostly consumed or discarded, and there is actual rain forecast for that day (I get my glory in the desert rain*).

Someone out there is listening to me!

And Mr. Golden Sun, please don’t take it personally. I’m simply jealous of my friends in Vermont, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Massachusetts who tell me about their crisp weather, baking pies,and changing leaves. Oh, and Mother Nature - yeah, I want you to know the majesty of the Harvest is not lost on me, I kinda just want to see it in action rather than on Google images.

I’m simply ready for a change of seasons, and all that implies. It is time, an I have big expectations out of life. I’ll whine until the temperature falls below 80 degrees, but in my defense, I am aware enough to know that I don’t control the weather, and crafty enough to improvise.

Since I don’t have it outside, I went into my kitchen and invited Fall in all her glory to sweep over us in the form of a cool off-shore breeze and stay until December. The nutmeg and cinammon, they called to me. Chicken stock fell into my lap when I reached for the Cocoa Pebbles. I know how to read signs, so I made chicken tortilla soup and banana bread today. Butternut Squash Bisque and Apple Pie didn’t seem entirely realistic.

But they are on the horizon. This is the most dreaded time of year for me, I suppose the way the humid summers are dreaded in the South, the way frozen, scary winters are dreaded in the Midwest. No one is exempt from some kind of misery (I guess every form of refuse has it’s price**), and the more I think about it - the more I write about it, actually - I am not so troubled by this temporary heat. I’ve come to realize that the people who can find joy in the mundane or smile through the bad days are the people who have life figured out.

So, I have life figured out during 3 seasons out of 4, and that ain’t bad.

But my kids - Boo, Elizabeth Swann and Ghostrider - they have life figured out all the time. They play their soccer and baseball games in the blazing sun and have fun, they take their tests knowing recess is just minutes away.

When I grow up, I want to be like them. And when they grow up, I hope they can cook like me.

BANANA BREAD (it’s really healthy!)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. flax seed meal
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. cinammon
a few grates fresh nutmeg, or a few shakes from the spice jar
1 stick unsalted butter - at room tenperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups bananas, mashed - over-ripe is when I use them
Optional: butter slices and brown sugar as topping

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Grease the inside of a loaf pan.
Beat eggs. Mash bananas.
In one bowl combine the dry ingredients.
In another bowl, mix brown sugar and eggs together. Add bananas in.
Mix the butter-brown sugar-egg-banana mixture to the dry ingredients.
When the banana bread batter is all mixed together, pour into loaf pan.
Add some butter slices and brown sugar to the top, if you like.
Bake at 350 for about one hour, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted comes out clean.
####

Happy Halloween!!

* The Killers, Bling
** The Eagles, Lyin’ Eyes

I am confused again.

This should come as a surprise to no one - I watch the Food Network predominantly. My kids now have their favorite shows. Like I surrenedered to ESPN when I met my husband and later learned to really like it, the same goes with my kids and the Food Network. Their current favorite show is Unwrapped.

I like Unwrapped. But it has caused me confusion and fear as well as hunger and cravings. How could a light-hearted, fun, informative show that shows how Cheetos and lollipops are made cause me fear and confusion?

Fear: I’m watching Unwrapped, okay, and the representatives of the massive (mainly corporate) food companies say things like this…”We require 750,00 tons of corn (for example) per day to make such-and-such a product and can produce (something like) 2 million bags daily.” Think that company times thousands of others and you have a lot of food being grown, imported, produced, etc. to be consumed or … wasted. Thoughts of the Dust Bowl come to my mind. Thoughts of Carmela Soprano looking an ancient ruins saying “It all gets washed away,” come to my mind. I know I might be a little fatalistic about a food show, but it freaks me out - the question of if we can sustain our food production, if the goods will run out, if the consumption rate is depleting our resources, and how much of it gets wasted. We discard juice boxes and trail mix while kids in other countries go without. I know it’s an exaggerated thought, but sometimes I imagine a paltry, surviving population looking at old, abandoned silos saying “It all got used up.”

We’re little itty bitty dots, chronologically and existentially thinking, but we sure consume, and waste a lot. Maybe some retro candy like Razzles (Unwrapped did a retro candy show) will cheer me out of my freaky thinking.

Confusion: In between these shows that I watch on the Food Network, there are commercials for food - entrees, side dishes, desserts - that are already prepared, just requiring a quick zap in the microwave to be edible. Food Network is a huge, monied network that has shows running almost all day long showing colorful personalities Like Emeril or Bobby Flay educating people from novice to advanced how to prepare meals from scratch, with health in mind, quickly, sophisticatedly, or home-style. Yet, the advertisements on the Food Network show people miserably peeling potatoes and finding satisfaction heating up packaged mashed potatoes in the microwave.The commercials on the Food Network show people eating ready prepared, processed pasta dishes at work that take seconds to re-heat.

Where is the fun in that? The idealism of culinary wisdom is lost in those seconds of re-heating or endorsing mediocre food. The Food Network/food commercials contradiction just confuses me. Why not advertise (in addition to the commercials they already have) the slow cooking movement, or sustainable farming? Can you imagine Mario Batali zapping a Dinty Moore meal in the microwave and eating it in seclusion before an Iron Chef battle? I want the hypocrisy to end. Food Network, I hereby request that you give Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty a cooking show with a rural, grass roots format and have one of your different celebrty chefs on their show each week. They can talk all about “I remember my Momma doing that in the kitchen,” or “Methods taken from old country and indigenous peoples,” or maybe episodes based on their songs. A “She was an American Girl” show comes to my mind, macaroni and cheese, open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy, quinoa qith organic veggies. Or as “Streets of Philadelphia Street Food” episode, a chef and The Boss preparing Philly Cheese Steaks.

I also hereby request that at the end of each commercial advertising re-heated, packaged, processed food, you have one of those quick chef interview/talking about food snippets in which the chef says “By the way, that commercial for penne pasta with roasted chicken ready in 90 seconds? I can teach you how to make that with fresh ingredients, and you can take it to work the next day.” Run commercials advertising those handy containers in which people can tranpsort their leftovers to work. That oughtta bring in some (more) revenue.

Phfew, I feel better now. I’d feel even better if I could be on a cooking show with Bruce and Tom.

And Rachael Ray, if I still had my pittie Terra, I would feed her your dog food. Rachael Ray’s new dog food, Delish, donates all of its proceeds to charities helping animals. That good feeling offsets my planetary worries and contempt for corporate America.

You know, we could just save ourselves after all.

YUMMY SALAD DRESSING
1 cup organic sour cream (I’m working with a theme here, but organic is not necessary)
2 tbsp. chili pepper sauce (I used Trader Joe’s, it is more sweet than hot. If you use Tabasco, scale back a bit)
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
chopped, fresh herbs - basil or dill, parsley and thyme (have fun here or just use what you’ve got!)
coarse grain salt to taste
pepper to taste

Whisk all ingredients together. Zoe said “I love this ranch dressing, Momma!” Imagine that! A Ranch dressing I can live with.

I’ve been thinking a lot about names lately. Moreso than when I was pregnant, because I had the names of (two of) my future children picked out when I was very young. But my friend’s nine-year-old son said the other day “You eventually look like your name.”

Dude. I mean, babe, and what just came out of your mouth.

“Is your daughter named Melia too?” and “Oh, my daughter is also named Melia,” have been said to me in the last three weeks by two different women, both of whom have Malia’s at my daughter’s pre-school. Prior to 2004, I never even heard the name Malia once in my life. But the bellman at The Fairmont in Kona - a man who for some reason gave me a very quick lesson in Hawaiian while waiting for my rental car - told me “Malia” is what Hawaiians call the ocean when it is calm. Calm ocean. God, I loved that right away. I told my husband that very moment, “If” (at that time in our life, it was a big “if”) “…we ever have another child, and it’s a girl, she will be named Malia.” 

That bellman at The Fairmont gave me a few Hawiian vocabulary words:

Kuu’ipo = Sweetheart
Ikaikae =Strong
Mele = Calm
Malia = Calm Ocean

He also told us all about a band his son was in called Falling for Alba. Sometimes the most interesting conversations, the most useful information, is casually exchanged and thoughtlessly offered. I’m sure that man doesn’t know that the “if” became a reality, born in September 2005, and that he was the catalyst in naming her. Names really do become our identity, even if it doesn’t happen right away.

But, knowing that “mal” is synonymous with “bad” in romance languages, I changed Mal-ia to Mel-ia. No need to tempt fate or self-fulfilled prohecies. That and I thought I would like calling her Mel, or Meli.

After naming our third child Melia, I started hearing that name a lot, very often…too often. I thought I was being different, naming my daughter after a state of tropical water, it was almost like her individuality was formed in Hawai’i, and that made us all earthy and cool.  

So much for that. “It means plumeria.” “It’s Hawaiian for Mary.” “It means Marie,” is what I was told, and what I was able to confirm from Hawaiians here (on the mainland). What happened to the wisdom bestowed upon us by our fortuitous bellman? Son of a bitch. Might as well have named our Melia after a relative.

But one of the two women - mothers of other Malias - told me “I had a friend growing up who was from a huge Hawaiian family, and Malia is what they call the ocean when it’s calm.”

Lady, whoever you are, mahalo.

That nomer-gratification was ample for me, in fact, it made my whole day, but then she added “And if your daughter is anything like mine, she is so far from being a calm ocean!” I nodded vigorously in agreement. My Melia is more like the hot, choppy waters that fuel a Category 5 in the Gulf. 

When the second woman made the Malia-association to me, I told her -  my individuality reaffirmed and faith in the bellman restored - that our daughter’s names meant “calm ocean.” “That’s certainly not my daughter,” she said. I smiled. I didn’t need to have the same conversation twice, I love the irony, that our little girls are wild even though they are named otherwise, but I also believe that one or all of the Melia/Malias will in fact become in their later lives a simile of a tranquil, Southern Pacific sea.

She added, “If Obama wins, there will be a lot of Malia’s!” Ohmigosh…she’s right. Presidential names - Amy, Chelsea, Jenna. Here we go again. But I have too many other things to think about than loss of name uniqueness and individuality. Melia can legally change her name in fifteen years if she is dissatsified with it. Besides, she still insists her name is Booboos.

Names. Contradictory at times but mostly accurate. Given in the hopes that our children will come into who we hope them to be. I named my son Alexander because it was the only male name my husband and I could agree on. But when the kid walks by me, and all I can see is the swoosh of his medium-length black hair or when I can hear him from the other side of the house pouring himself a bowl of cereal after school, he’s Alex. Zoe, the way she hops out of bed in the morning and pulls the covers over her Care Bear, or throws herself into the mix on all all-boys team, is all Zoe, which means “life” in Greek. I have been told I am totally a Samantha, which is Aramaic for “listener.” The meaning of my middle name Suzanne is “lily.” I think I am just a Sam. And just like when I was a kid, I feel like I am in trouble if someone addresses me by my entire, three-syllable first name. Call me Samantha Suzanne, and I am less like a listening flower and more like a feline with a trail of feathers behind me.

The next time you read a book, or watch a movie, ask yourself why the writers chose the names for their characters. Would Indiana Jones sell as “Henry Jones”, his real name in the movie? “Jerry Maguire” is the name of a movie, but in the movie, it represents the many levels of a singular identity.

And you don’t get to choose your own. More irony.

Lastly, since I usually write about my kitchen successes, tonight I am writing about an un-success. The other night in the kitchen while making pesto, I became distracted. I left out the pine nuts. So when I poured it from the blender onto the pasta, it looked strangely like a vinaigrette.

I wondered, do I toss it into the trash, or make it a pasta salad? Or should I grind the pine nuts in the mini-prep food processor, add them in, and see what happens? That is exactly what I did. At first I was scared it was like adding peanut butter to wheat grass, but it tasted exactly the same as pesto made correctly. There was a whole pine nut here and there, but I’ve had the same result with the blender when I remembered to add all the pesto ingredients. No one ever knew about the mistake. The pesto pasta was delicious. Zoe and Melia made a pizza with fresh mozzarella and goat cheese, and I added the basil chiffonade at the end.

Whether it was a success or un-success is, I guess, how you interpret it…like everything else in life.

There is a line in Bull Durham where Nuke tells himself, while on the mound, Don’t think. Something Crash told him not to do, think. As in, “Don’t think, it can only hurt the ball club” and “Don’t think meat, just throw.”

Don’t think, just do what you do, instinctively, without getting in your own head.

When Nuke says that to himself on the mound, he throws a pivotal, well-executed strike. Because he didn’t think, because he did what his instinct (or in this case, his catcher) called/told him to do, he got the desired outcome.

Nuke also says to himself, “God, that was beautiful, what’d I do?”

Tonight my husband asked me how I prepared dinner, and I couldn’t answer. I had thrown some stuff in a slow cooker, marinated it overnight, and I had no other answer than “Huh, what did I do?”.

I went back to the recipe I glanced at while I was at the market, and sort of followed when I was prepping the marinade last night. Truth is, I improvised and went by instinct a lot. I always do. What I do remember doing is crossing my fingers all day hoping that tri-tip would slow cook well, as the recipe had called for chuck roast. Tri-tip I know now slow cooks fabulously, the meat pulled apart like magic, and my family gobbled it up. I have so much left, which is a good thing for lunches, for feeding kids protein before their practices tomorrow.

So here is Slow Cooker Tri-Tip Mexican Style. Enjoy.

SLOW COOKER TRI-TIP MEXICAN STYLE
4-5 lbs. tri-tip
1 can tomato paste
16 oz. beef broth
2 jalapenos, seeded and diced (be careful, wear gloves)
1 white onion (I used a Vidalia), sliced
1 bunch cilantro, needn’t be chopped, just washed
1 tsp. coarse grain salt
1 tsp. white or black pepper
1 tbsp. olive oil (you will need more to brown the meat)
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. garlic powder
2-3 oz. Tabasco or hot pepper sauce (I used 1/3 of a bottle hot pepper sauce from Trader Joe’s)
1 tbsp. olive oil

Mix all ingredients, except the meat, in a bowl. Pour over meat, in slow cooker vessel if possible (it makes things easier) and marinade in the fridge overnight. *
Add 1 tbsp. olive oil to a separate pan over medium-high heat.
Remove tri-tip carefully from marinade, and place in pan. Brown on both sides, approximately 3-5 minutes per side.
Return meat to slow cooker and marinade/sauce in slow cooker.
Any juices from the browning meat that were released into the pan, add that liquid to the slow cooker too.
Cook on slow cooker/stock pot’s low setting for 6-8 hours, or high setting for 4-6 hours.
Shred meat when done (it took my slow cooker only 6 hours, maybe even 5).
Strain sauce if you like, reduce, and you have a gravy.
Serve with : tortillas, grated cheese, sour cream, cilantro, guacamole, salsa, beans, rice. **

* Some slow cookers and stock pots can be transferred from fridge to stovetop to base to freezer, etc. However, if you do not have a slow cooker that is made for the stovetop, just use an additional pan/skillet for browning meat. Just another dish to wash.

** For beans: I drained 2 cans black beans. I minced 4 cloves garlic, sauteed them in olive oil, then added 2 ladlefuls of liquid from the slow cooker to the pan in which the garlic was sauteeing. I added the beans, cooked on medium for about 15 minutes, smashed them a bit with a big fork, and it was delicious.

Contact me, post a comment for any clarification. This dish is a crowd-pleaser, it makes you look like you really know your stuff…with little effort. The slow cooker does all the work, and when you see that meat shred and smell the aromas in the house, it seems less like work and more like magic.
######

And I must say, these National League and American League Championship Series are not turning out how I expected. I anticipated a Dodgers/Red Sox World Series. I wanted the World Series brought back to Southern California. I wanted Maddux to retire with another Championship. I thought about The Professor/Mad Dog going out with a bang.

Don’t think. Just throw, or cook, and don’t even so much as wink over disappointment or success. Right? Okay, got the not thinking thing down (and in the process, got the tummy filled).

But, what about the heart?

You can call me what you want - I defend my decision to not read newspapers [box scores and horoscopes exempt], watch the news, or listen to my mother when she discusses topics in the media.

Before getting on a plane to come back home today, my Mom left me her standard message, from a Vodka-induced state our family affectionately calls “The Zone.” In other words, she has to be drunk to fly, and she drinks and dials.

“I’m so worried about this Vitamin E thing,” her message said. Like usual, I have no idea what the hell My Mom is talking about, and she’s assumed I’ve followed her train of thought.

So I called back, ready to lovingly mock my Mom in her inebriated condition. “Mom, vitamin E? What vitamin E?” I ask. “There is this study, the news today says…” (half of her conversations begin like this) “…that says children [her cell phone cuts out at this point] Vitamin E,” she pauses and waits for me to say something back, something like, “Ohmygawd! Thank heavens you read that study Mom!” But instead, I say, “Hey, you’re cutting out. Have a safe trip, I love you!”

If I heeded the advice of all the studies/reports/articles my Mom has read, then countered a week or so later with conflicting information in other studies/reports/articles, I would have dramatically changed my life, my children’s lives, my husband’s life, my home, our diet, my car, my wardrobe, and countless other things millions of times already. The media loves my Mom, and hates people like me.

I love my Mom too, though, thus I giggle at her, tease her, and have developed a mental filter that comes with, I guess, experience (I will NOT say age).

It’s not because I am superior to my Mom or other people who choose to keep up on current events. The real reason I have developed this filter and shun the media is because I can only handle what goes on in my own sector on a daily basis. This is a good, and bad, thing. I aim to forget about what I can’t control, and have a low threshold for subjective, anxiety-causing information. I sometimes wish I could retain every word in The New York times each day, but that just isn’t me (I can recite Annabel Lee, though, maybe that counts for something).

Right now, powerful people are making fiscal decisions that will impact my life. But my car is in the shop and it’s inconveniently costing me a lot of money to fix the timing, so, I’m sorry, I can only run around in circles about one thing at a time.

Right now, propositions are being argued, mud being slung, and everyone is certain only they are right. However, by grace of the divine, I was able to buy the groceries I need, and my best friend just found out she’s having a baby after giving up on getting pregnant. So, I’m deciding to get worked up only over butternut squash soup and due dates.

I’m self-absorbed, but in a beneficial manner. I’ve figured this out - when my kids ask me what’s for dinner, my answer needs to be “home cooking”, not “It doesn’t matter, the world will have imploded by 6:00 p.m. anyway.”

If I freaked out over everything I see and hear everyday, wait, did I used to? I can’t remember. Anyway, if I decided to read studies and articles, watch the news and be seduced by headlines, this would create another, more troublesome crisis - I would have no time to cook, and less time to eat.

That’s totally unacceptable. 

You see, the world may run on breaking news, but sooner or later, everyone has to stop and fill up their well. I’m always hoping it’s with soup and pie.

So, happy filtering and well-filling, and make sure you get your Vitamin E (or not, depending upon the report).

(And I promised an original bbq sauce recipe, which I’m working on right now).

Okay, so, the chili.

All 5 people in my house freaked for it, and my friend Michelle - the one I went to dinner with - happily took some home. This makes plenty of leftovers. The brisket pulled apart so easily, the flavor of the chili was sweet, the beans kept their shape and added a creamy factor, I paired it with whole wheat rotini, and the toppings made it personalize-able for everyone.

Here is a breakdown of how we take our chili:
Alex: sour cream and many Tabasco shakes
Melia: with grated cheese
Pete: yellow mustard, half a bottle of Tabasco
Sam: 1/2 cup at a time, still doing this portion control thing, and yellow mustard, few Tabasco shakes
Zoe: as much sour cream as she can get away with

Here is what I will do differently next time, but please, please try this chili, people. Let it slow cook and fill the house with meaty, tomato-y aromas during a football game on Sunday. It is honestly healthy and pleases everyone.

The night before (I forgot to mention that I did this): marinate brisket in tomato paste, 1/2 cup Worchestshire, brown sugar in a Ziploc bag. Work in the marinade well.

Change out the artichoke hearts for diced potatoes, if you want. Or neither.

I didn’t use an onion after all!

Instead of beer, beef broth or stock can be (and was) substituted. Seems I drank all my Stone IPA.

I am specifically stating chili beans and white beans.

Toppings bar…
sour cream…pita chips…chopped red onions…chopped green onions…grated all kinds of cheese…corn…chopped tomatoes…chopped herbs…corn tortillas…tortilla chips…mustard…french fries…pasta…crusty bread…jicama…avocado…fried eggs…baked potatoes…roasted garlic…crumbled goat cheese…french fried onions…chopped bell peppers…mini burgers/sliders…sausages…hot dogs…buns…bacon…diced jalapenos…Tabasco

…just to give you and idea of how you can run away with something, make people happy, and be terribly satisfied, even if your team doesn’t win.

I have never really been into chili. When I worked at Sea World, we had Chili Cook-Offs and the San Diego Padres would send players to be judges. That was interesting, but I never tried the chili. It’s when I bought this brisket a couple of weeks ago that I was hoping to make 3 meals out of it, stretch my dollar, that brisket chili crept into my mind. One package of meat, a few cans of beans and tomato sauce, a package of pasta and if you do your shopping right, chili is a great budget meal.

Or you can play it up for a party, and watch a great budget meal become an annual event your friends hope they get invited to.

I understand now why some meals stay, and others go. As a Mom, trying to save as much money and time as possible, certain meals and mainstays of Americana make sense to me: Meatloaf. Roasted chicken. Tomato sauce. Casseroles. It’s comforting when your family smiles as their bellies fill, but it’s also nice to leave the market as the victor against high prices, corporate chains and the squeeze of hard times. We’re all hurting on one way or another, so our wits become refined.

Let me get you some chili (how do you take it?) while I give you a rough breakdown of how to beat the high cost of cooking…

Brisket*: $6 on sale
2 cans of beans: .99 each, $1.98
1 package of rotini: $1.00 rollback
1 can tomato paste: .63 
Canned tomatoes: $2, most
Sour cream: $2.50
…everything else, the sugar, spices, Worchestshire, toppings, I had in my pantry

It comes to under $15. Divided by 5 people, that is about $3 a person for dinner, not including leftovers. How good does that taste going down?

* Note: I bought a 5 pound brisket for $17 and change, using I’m guessing 1/3 of it for the brisket chili.

Tomorrow night I won’t be home making dinner, helping with homework, preparing for the next day like usual because I am actually doing something I never do - going out to eat with a friend.

I never do this because somewhere in suburbia, sometime during my experience in this idyllic community, I became a person who likes to play hide and seek, but not get found. Years of being friends with women - and all the stuff that comes with having women as friends -  has sent me into a Gollum-like seclusion, coveting self-preservation like Smeagol coveted his Precious ring.

It’s not that people have been unkind to me or my family. My neighbors and friends are forthcoming; there is a good deal of involvement in community sports and schools. We live among other people with interests and histories similar to ours, and have made friends with many of them.  

But. Within these community organizations, at school functions, I can not help but notice little things that become bigger things in my overly-analytical mind. Without trying, I pick up nuances and dynamics, which to me are more telling than gossip or heresay. Getting-to-know-you systemizations that I willingly participated in, I now believe, take one additional sentence or question to become socially disastrous for some of us. And silly me, I got attached to certain families, who less than one year ago sat at my dinner table, our kids jointly destroying my home, but now are separated and living apart, sharing custody of their kids.

Things aren’t always what they appear to be and that scares me…in a primal, selfish, but mostly maternal way.

Going to Happy Hour with a friend tomorrow, though, it’s tempting for the pack animal buried within me. I am usually successful at repressing my pack-self for the greater good of our collective family character. But one evening out with one friend - not even a group of female friends - doesn’t mean I have to morph into a character from [fill in television melodrama], I know how to be me by now. I don’t have to give any juicy details of my relatively normal life away. I have become a master segue-er, clever conversationalist, and polite answer decliner. Fortunately, the people I attract of late seem to be content to keep their minor pseudo-scandals and we-all-have-them-secrets behind their picket fences, just like me. (I don’t have a picket fence though, to be accurate, just a wisteria that thinks it’s a wooden structure).

At dinner with my friend I can balance the knowledge of what I’ve learned and what I have yet to learn. I can admit freely that I once naively believed everything signed on a dotted line was forever. Marriages, mortgages, the safety net of good intentions.

I’m careful of the promises I make - and keep - because while the diamond may be the toughest thing on Earth, it represents things that crumble all too easily.

So, while the cynic in me says I should shy away from all social invitations, I’m thinking sushi, maybe steak and a good IPA.

After all, this is suburbia. What could go wrong?

Here is what I am making for the family before I go out…

BEEF BRISKET CHILI (with beans)
special equipment needed - slow cooker

1 1/2 - 2 lb. beef brisket, all fat removed or trimmed away
1 medium onion, sliced
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 beer, preferrably a dark brew
1 14. oz can tomato sauce
1 tbsp. dark brown sugar
2 tbsp. Worchestshire sauce
1 tsp. mustard powder
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. ground cumin
Dash cinnamon
Dash cayenne pepper (if you really want heat plus the hip factor, add some smashed canned chipotle peppers from a small can)
coarse grain salt to taste
black pepper to taste
3 cans of beans - white, kidney, black, whatever! - drained
optional: 1 jar of artichoke hearts in oil, drained
my husband won’t let me add but I love to: corn, especially when I use black beans
what completes this: cooked elbow macaroni or cavatappi pasta, biscuits, a huge baked potato, or French bread

Brown brisket in olive oil on both sides over medium-high heat. When browned, put brisket into slow cooker. Into the pan the brisket was browned in, add onions, sautee until softened. Add beer, tomato sauce, brown sugar, Worchestshire sauce, mustard powder, bay leaf, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Carefully pour over brisket in slow cooker and put on low setting for approximately six hours. If liquid level gets low, add some beef broth or chicken broth to slow cooker during cooking.

When done, add drained beans and artichoke hearts. Garnish with grated cheese of your liking, or crumbled goat cheese, sour cream (in which case the goat cheese is superfluous), diced red or green onions, chives, parsley. I dig this over a potato or with the cavatappi pasta.
######

When I was a kid, my mother had three slam dunks, food wise: homemade barbeque sauce, tamalie pie from the original Sunset Magazine cookbook, and Malibu Chicken.

I don’t know where Mailbu chicken got it’s name, but it was a dish of boneless chicken breasts stuffed with ham, swiss cheese, and baked in Cream of Mushroom soup.

I am adapting it to the the 21st century, with international ingredients, casserole style.

Furthermore, I’ll post that Sunset Mag Tamalie Pie recipe soon (and I am still perfecting my own enchilada sauce for publication, I haven’t forgotten). And homemade barbeque sauce? Next weekend.

Now I’m going to start dinner so I can have the kids in bed early. The Killers are on Saturday Night Live tonight, and I’m hoping to see Maddux in relief during the Dodgers/Cubs Game.

We finally got cool, cloudy weather today. Thank heavens, we’re all better and over the flu bug. I feel so comfortably fall-ish right now, blogging in my favorite pair of faded, button fly jeans, an apple spice candle in my kitchen waiting to be christened into autumn 2008.

There is only one more thing that I could want.

MALIBU CHICKEN CASSEROLE
To make cheese sauce:
2 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups milk, not cold (room temp or even warmed a bit)
1/2 cup grated swiss cheese
white pepper
coarse grain salt to taste
pinch of cayenne
ground nutmeg, not a lot

Over medium heat, melt butter in saucepan. Add flour and whisk until mixture becomes pasty, don’t let it get brown or burn. Stir in milk. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne. Keep whisking. When a sauce has formed (this is a bechamel), add cheese and let it melt while stirring. When cheese melts, sauce is formed, cover with wax paper and set aside in a cool place.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Get the following ingredients ready:

1 package of diced pancetta (or about 6 oz. diced pancetta, prosciutto, any Italian cured ham)
1-2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4-6 boneless chicken breasts
4-6 slices swiss cheese
8 oz. cooked egg noodles or whole wheat penne
1 carton sliced mushrooms
chicken broth for deglazing pan (1/4 - 1/2 a cup)
coarse grain salt to taste
pepper to taste
chopped Italian parsley

Salt and pepper chicken breasts on both sides.

In a heavy saucepan that can be transferred to oven, brown chicken breasts in olive oil over medium-high heat. Brown on both sides, about four minutes per side.

Remoce chicken from pan, set aside. Add pancetta to pan, with some more olive oil of necessary. Brown pancetta over medium heat.

Add chicken broth, enough to deglaze pan. Add mushrooms. Sautee mushrooms in broth until softened. Remove pan from heat.

Add chicken breasts back to pan. Next, add cooked noodles. Stir the noodles around the chicken so that the pancetta and mushrooms get trapped within, around and between the noodles and chicken. Lay swiss cheese slices over chicken breasts. Lay any additional cheese over noodles. 

Pour cheese sauce over cheese-topped chicken breasts.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, or until meat thermometer inserted into chicken breasts reads 165 degrees.

When casserole is done and pulled from oven, top with chopped parsley.

A green salad is really all you need with this casserole.
#####

It’s sprinkling outside now. I want to listen to rain when it’s quiet tonight (or as The Killers perform on SNL) but I also don’t want my son’s games rained out tomorrow.

There are those conflicting emotions again…

I am guilty of forgetting how…unpleasant…I become when the weather gets hot. Everyone else is aware of it, though.

This week began with a field trip to an inland “camp” in an arid, brushy valley east of the city, and the temperature was a humid 98 degrees or so. By the end of the day, fourth graders were picking out splinters from themselves, crying over bee stings, and puking from the windy mountain roads and heat exhaustion. All in all, a really fun day! At least, my son said so. Well, aren’t you a well-adjusted little thing, coping better than me, I wanted to say to him.

Every year at this time, the intense Southern California sun and dry, hot accompanying air suck the verve from me. I fight it, but I eventually surrender to the very worst characteristics that make me who I am - withdrawal, quick boredom, poor little me syndrome. I’m so not built to live in the heat. My formative years were spent in Seattle, my ancestors are from Great Britain and the Ukraine. My great-grandmother told us all once that we had Sioux blood, I’d almost believe it when running my fingers through Zoe’s straight-black hair, but physically speaking, I might as well be an antebellum female who needs to nap in the afternoon while the men talk about war, war, war (or sports, sports, sports).

The heat isn’t compatible with any facet of me. What am I going to do, rebel against the cycles of nature and life in general? I’ll just pout until the heat breaks, like always. I’ll be openly jealous of the rest of the nation in their sweaters, eating pie and squash risotto, while I feel out of place in my summer clothes well into October.

The good thing about my heat aversion is this: I have found food that works both as end-of-summer/ushering-in-late-fall fare…transition food. These are the days when I want to roast butternut squash or spend hours doing Pasta e Fagioli right, but it’s so hot outside I don’t dare turn on the oven or slow cook on my gas range. This seasonal reality vs. fantasy is a conundrum based in expectation that sends me to my knees, asking the Goddess for a mellow, rainy fall and cold winter, instead of shorts and t-shirt weather on Christmas.

Waiting for my answer each morning, I do what I’ve reluctantly done since living in California…I adapt. Damn it.

Tonight, I bought some heirloom tomatoes and cannellini beans, and sauteed shrimp in lemon. The shrimp cooks so quickly, barely any heat is given off into the house. And the white bean and tomato salad, with the addition of rosemary and thyme (or basil and parsley) doubles as a summer salad and autumnal earthy food.

I have a brisket in my freezer just waiting for glace de veau, a heavy scratch tomato sauce, and thick onion rings to all come together in a big pot the first cloudy day of fall 2008 in Southern California. I won’t be pouting that day, I’ll be rejoicing, and everyone else will be saying “We have at least eight months of temperate weather ahead of us before the witch begins to melt again.”

Well, this witch has a pot full of adaptation, no matter what the season, no matter what the ill. It’s just the recipes, not the meltdowns, that I remember the most.

WHITE BEAN & TOMATO SALAD
2 cans of cannellini beans, drained
3-4 large tomatoes (colorful heirlooms preferrably)
2-3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
coarse grain salt, to taste
ground white pepper, about 1 tsp.
rosemary and thyme, chopped OR basil and parsley, chopped

Mix all ingredients together, serve, refrigerate leftovers. Add diced poached chicken or pulled rotisserie chicken to this for somethung heartier. Add egg noodles and some chicken broth for a quick soup.