tollipop

jokes we made up on the way home from church

Q: How do you help a lion build his self esteem?
A: Tell him what a good lion he is.

Q: How do you teach a lion to spell?
A: "i before e, except after c"

Q: What do you do when a lion loses his library card?
A: You guys, that is so fake.  A lion with a library card.  As if.  

There were others but...I think you get the gist.  I don't know if there's a comedy career on the horizon anytime soon, but one of my lion jokes DID make Sophie laugh.  She may deny it or tell you it was a pity laugh, but we both know it happened.  

In other news, as requested, I am now going to attempt to distill my chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It is closely inspired by the King Arthur version but if you know anything about me and recipes, it's that I struggle with concepts like...recipes. 

Here we go...

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl mix:

2 sticks of softened butter, plus a little more, like a 1/3 of another stick.  I really waver on that last 1/3.
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs

Then add:

2 large tsp. baking soda
generous dash of salt (shake it into your hand, dust it into the bowl)
at least 4 tsp. vanilla extract (does anyone really measure that stuff??)
at least 4 tsp. almond extract (this is the magic and I would recommend more...but 4 tsp. is a safe place to begin).

Mix again.

Then add:

4 cups of flour and here, I regret to inform you, it is better to be exact.  Use a real "dry ingredients" measuring cup (something which took me about 40 years to figure out).  Don't pack the flour in tight, and do scrape off the top with a butter knife so it's nice and smooth.  Once that task is complete, hope the twitch on the side of your face goes away sometime soon.  

Mix.

Add pretty much an entire bag of chocolate chips (this is really a matter of personal taste--go for the ratio you prefer) and mix briefly one last time.

Place the dough in balls on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

NOW.  You may have to tinker with these guidelines to allow for the fact you probably don't live next door to me and enjoy the same balmy climate...or that your oven may be more or less aggressive than mine.  You may need just the two sticks of butter.  You may need only 14 minutes in the oven.  The only way you will know for sure is to give this thing a whirl.

That is all part of the joy of baking.

And finally, I have one piece of discouraging news.  I hurt my leg recently and it's become apparent I need to take a break from running.  It's going to be hard if I take the break, but perhaps worse if I don't.

I may need the girls to make up some more lion jokes for me.  

happy independence day

I hope you had a lovely day yesterday, dear reader, especially if you happen to live in/come from the United States.

I was raised with a strong sense of patriotism, with a love of country and of this beautiful world.  Even as a child it resonated in my bones, the thought all men are created equal, that we are meant to live in freedom with the responsibilities this entails, with love and respect for one another.  

I often reflect upon the origins of this country, in awe of indeed how revolutionary the founding principles were within the context of that time, of the overwhelming odds against them.  To this day I see the United States striving to emulate ideals of equality, opportunity, and independence.  I do not see perfection nor would I expect to, but I'm nevertheless touched by its remarkable achievements, by the great spirit and possibility which affect me every day through the gift of living in this land.  

I also reflect upon the price of such ideals in a world where people are often motivated to take them away. I feel a profound sense of gratitude for anyone who has sacrificed to establish or protect this wonderful way of life.  

Having said that...how did I spend my Independence Day?  

Well, first thing in the morning as always, I checked on my beetles.  

Guess where they were hiding? 

Beneath the watermelon, of course!  I think they like the moist covering and the fact they can revel in bacchanalia all night long.  

I don't know why, but it makes me happy to have figured this out, to know this much about them.

Then I made salad (my husband made this one),

after salad, 

 after salad.

It was nice to work in the kitchen like that with everyone home: an easy pace to the day, watching movies, the Tour de France, just...relaxing. 

After that it was off to spend the evening with more family and some of my favorite ninjas...

 With many pops, bangs, and sparkly things lasting well into the night.  

how to make dinner when it's late, everyone is starving, and you don't feel like cooking

 
1.  Come home from music lessons or whatever else has been keeping you out all evening.  Listen to your children say for the millionth time: What's for dinner? I'm starving!

2.  Consider saying ice cream.  But don't say it.  That sets a dangerous precedent.

3.  Hope against hope, as you walk through the door, that a magical nanny has come down the chimney during your absence and tidied the house, fixed your printer, and made a stout, hearty stew bubbling on the stovetop.

4.  Did that happen?  No.  So now you will have to figure something out all by yourself.

5.  First things first.  Turn up the music.  Loud.  And don't go for the logic of Bach, the pretty manners of Mozart.  Go for something that will shake the rafters.  Go for something that will make your heart pound.  Go for something that will make you forget it is late, people are starving, and you have yet to make dinner. 

6.  Light candles.  Which may seem like a contradiction to step 5, but light them anyway.  Candlelight always makes the quotidien seem fraught with possibility. 

7.  Decide upon crêpes.  Why crêpes?  Because you probably have milk, eggs, flour and butter on hand.  Plus your kids will think you're the best mum ever--gratification which may not seem evident on a regular basis and which is therefore not to be taken lightly.   

 
8.  Do you need a recipe to make crêpes?  That depends on your personality.  My main objective, as I see it, is to ensure the blender is filled to a certain level with negligible quantities of milk, eggs, flour, butter, and a pinch of salt.  Beyond that, I wash my hands. 

9.  Besides, I'm too busy dancing.  I'm too busy spinning and twirling and leaping around the kitchen to pay attention to the fact I'm making dinner, darling.  Why, if I gave that too much thought, I'd probably climb down from my chandelier, curl up in a corner, and go right to sleep. 

how to make homemade playdough

 

1.  In a moment of weakness, promise your children you will make playdough.  Spend the next three hours being hounded out of your mind.  Say things like, "When I said I would make playdough, I didn't mean right this very instant." or, "First I have to call Auntie Marina.", and don't forget, "Nobody's making anything until this kitchen gets cleaned up!"  Over time, you will run out of excuses.  You will feel like the object of a long and relentless foxhunt.  You will find yourself hiding in a corner, panting, listening to your children call out your name.  Now it is time to capitulate.  You must make the playdough. 

2.  Google a recipe from the internet.  It tells you to measure out a cup of flour.  Hah!  As if.  Just imagine how much playdough you want this recipe to yield, and stick that much flour in your pot.

3.  The recipe tells you to add a 1/2 cup of salt for every cup of flour.  Do you own that much salt?  Does the ocean own that much salt?  Actually, I do own that much salt.  For some reason, I have tons of it.  So I pretty much follow that step in the recipe.  But I follow it implicitly.  Not explicitly. 

4.  The recipe now calls for 2 T of cream of tartar.  Do you know what that is?  Do you have any?  A quick check of the cupboard reveals that I do not.  But!  I do discover a white powdered substance in exactly the same little jar reminiscent to that of cream of tartar.  The label tells me it is granulated alum.  Listen.  Only a con artist could tell the difference.  So it will have to do. 

5.  What next?  Water.  Add the same amount of water as you did flour...in math class, this would be called a ratio.  As in, the ratio of water to flour should pretty much be equal. 

6.  Finally, you better grease these wheels!  The recipe calls for 2 T of cooking oil.  I got confused and thought I was making pizza dough, so I added more.  The world kept on turning.   

7.  Stir this all up over a medium heat.  Does it look too dry?  Add more water.  Too swampy?  More flour.  And don't ever become a mathematician. 

8.  Take the playdough off the heat.  Your children will be clamoring all over you like a pack of wolves, so warn them the dough is hot.  They won't listen, the little beggars...try counting to twenty and I guarantee you before that time someone will cry out, "Ouch!  This is hot!" 

9.  Now pay attention, because this is probably the only important thing I have to say about the entire process:  Let your kids color their playdough.  Resist the temptation to tell them red, blue, and yellow make brown.  Let them make brown.  Let them make puce.  Let them tint their dough in hues of liver, henna, and dung.  Why?  Because it makes them happy. 

This is why they wanted you to make playdough in the first place. 

ebelskivers

Just another reason it's great to be Danish.  Or partially Danish.  I made these for breakfast on Father's Day and they were so amazingly yummy.  The recipe is from Williams Sonoma and because it was a special occasion, I followed it less vaguely than I would have otherwise done.  That's love, dear reader--don't let Hollywood tell you any different.  Side note: I sort of take umbrage with Williams Sonoma and their ilk (meaning you, MS), because I suspect them of targeting perfectly approachable recipes and saying things like, "How would you like to become mysterious and unfathomable?"  And the recipe, who is fresh off the farm, says "Shucks!  Why not? Sounds like fun!"  So the WS people make the recipe talk with a fake accent and say things like, "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains!" over and over, until she is finally ready for her debut.  Then they take her to Ascot and before you know it, the room is abuzz regarding the origins of this lovely ingenue and bookies start taking bets over whether or not she hails from the kitchen of an obscure European monarchy.  And after that, you can never talk to this recipe without first whipping out a Tahitian vanilla bean, slicing it lengthwise, scraping the seeds from the pod and laying them at her feet.

Because I was looking at this particular recipe (at 7:00 in the morning) and thinking, "Really, Williams and Sonoma?  Really.  You want me to separate three eggs, beat the whites on high speed until stiff but not dry peaks form, and then, using a rubber spatula, gently stir them into the batter in two additions?"  I mean, I may as well go ahead and italicize the entire sentence--that's how wrong it is!  Just thinking about this made me so irate I was practically on the verge of not separating those eggs altogether!  But then I thought about my mom, and how proud she would be if only she could see me getting a recipe right for once in my life, and I went ahead and did it just like WS said.  Except when it came time to add the stiffened whites?  I dumped them in all at once.  We all have our limits, franchement!

p.s.  franchement--that's French for "frankly", but the great thing about franchement is that it's like the Mafia hitman uncle to its simpering English counterpart.  You look way tougher when you say franchement.  Which is about the only time French will do that for you.  

hello monday

Okay, this was a fantastic weekend (and would have qualified as such even if nothing else had gone right) simply because it started off with the consumption of mass quantities of Thai food.  We had to find another unwitting couple to accompany us, since our last set of friends were repulsed by my swan dive into the mussaman curry.  This particular couple has a coolness factor of five stars, since he hails from Ottawa and she is from New Orleans.  See what I mean?  Five star cool.         

 

Ottawa is the capitol city of Canada and, as you know, is especially famous for having provided refuge to Princess Juliana of the Netherlands during World War II.  As a token of their gratitude, the Dutch royal family scoured their palace, thumbing through their collection of van Goghs, Breughels, and Vermeers. “Maybe Canada would like Girl With a Pearl Earring”, they mused.  Suddenly, the queen herself had an idea.  “Seven billion Apricot Beauties should do the trick!”, she exclaimed.  And that is how Ottawa came to have what is known as "The Great Northern Tulip Crisis."  Once the bulbs arrived, they lost no time in cloning themselves and mutating into perennials.  Next they were running around in garish bouquets and harassing tourists down by canal. But before you dismiss them as a bunch of petty thugs, let me assure you—these tulips are mobilized.  They're savvy.  They're in the right pockets.  It’s not uncommon to see them out blanketing Parliament Hill, waving placards, protesting the brevity of spring.

 

 

I also made a new drawing, this one in honor of my own violin girl.  I was at her lesson last week, watching Izzy and her teacher work through some very challenging passages, and it actually overwhelmed me for a moment to see this little girl’s capacity to be so sophisticated with her instrument.  Even more amazing is how happy it all makes her.  

 

My husband made a breakfast on Sunday morning that will go down for the ages.  Waffles with maple-glazed bananas, which apparently he had to scale Mount Olympus and clash with the titans to procure.  That's how good they were.  And better yet?  The waffles actually moo before you eat them.