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Are You Insulting My Cooking?

April 10, 2012 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Cooking is actually quite aggressive and controlling and sometimes, yes, there is an element of force-feeding going on.
-Nigella Lawson

I have a pet peeve. Okay, fine, I have a lot of pet peeves, but there’s one that’s been getting under my skin lately, and it’s about kids and food. No, it’s not about how our culture dumbs down so-called “kids’ food” so that it’s nothing more than fat and sugar held together with mountains of salt; that’s another pet peeve for another day. But wait, while we’re on the subject, why are we obsessed with “kids’” food?! Do the children in China not eat tofu? Do the children in India not eat curry? Do the children of Sweden not eat smoked salmon?! I don’t understand why our children are born craving mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Oh, wait…they’re not! Sorry, hang on, wrong soapbox.

So the pet peeve we’re discussing today is when kids respond to seeing or tasting a food item with “Ewwwww! That’s gross!” or “That’s yucky, I don’t want that!” Makes. Me. Crazy. I know that kids go through stages where new foods are genuinely scary for them. We’re biologically programmed to not go around eating everything in sight because it’s dangerous; I get it. What I don’t get is the total and utter lack of respect their word choice demonstrates to the person who prepared the food. We all have our priorities, but I spend a lot of time, money, and effort making sure that my family eats well. My parents and grandparents on both sides pathologically demonstrate love through food, and we work damn hard when we cook. When someone else cooks for us, be it at a restaurant or a friend’s house, I assume that the chef/cook also exerts some level of effort and concern into preparing us a decent meal. So when a child says “That’s so gross!” or “That’s disgusting!” I’ll admit it, I’m horrified that our culture generally allows and accepts this because it’s “age-appropriate” behavior. I don’t care if the food DOES look or taste gross. To me, it demonstrates blatant disrespect for someone else’s hard work. If a friend or family member painted a picture, we wouldn’t allow our child to say “That’s ugly!” If a classmate came up with an idea for a game, we wouldn’t allow our child to say “That’s stupid!” So why is it that I hear so many children say “That’s gross!” or make gagging noises, or make faces in response to someone’s hard work in the kitchen?!

Believe me, I have put my heart and soul into my cooking only to serve my family something completely vile. But if they made faces and gagged and told me “That’s gross!” I would be crushed. In our family, we have a few rules around this issue. First, you don’t get to say anything about how a dish tastes before you’ve tried it. Second, you must try everything. If Mama decides she’s going to try her hand at toxic blowfish sashimi, then you have my blessing to take a pass, but otherwise, you must try everything. Finally, if you try something and you don’t like it, you will NOT make gagging noises; you will NOT make disparaging remarks; you will simply say, “I don’t care for it,” and you will eat something else on your plate. That’s it. Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics, but it’s not hard to say. It’s respectful and kind to the chef. And it accounts for the fact that everyone has different tastes and appreciates different flavors.

What do you think, am I splitting hairs and being overly picky about their choice in words? Does it bother you when kids respond that way? What are the rules around foods kids don’t like in your house?

© 2012, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Eggs, eggs, eggs

April 9, 2012 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Easter is over, and I have 3 dozen hard-boiled eggs to use up. Yes, I only have one child. No, I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to dye 36 Easter eggs. Yes, I like eggs, but no, I don’t really like plain hard-boiled eggs that much. How do I like them? I really prefer them poached, fried, or soft-boiled. No, I don’t plan to have my cholesterol checked in the next month. Any further questions?

When Cagey posted her recipe for Egg Curry, I was thrilled. YES! 8 eggs down, 28 to go! So that’s what’s on the table for dinner tonight. Then yesterday, I saw that BlogHer Food linked to Grab a Plate’s recipe for Avocado Egg Salad. Avocados + eggs = why had I never thought of this before?! Although I use avocado in a variety of cuisines, her egg salad recipe made me think of Tex-Mex right off the bat, so last night, I used what I had in the kitchen to whip up a batch of Southwestern Egg Salad, and oh my, was it delicious. So that’s 6 more eggs down, 22 to go…

Southwestern Egg Salad

Ingredients:
6 hard-boiled eggs, roughly chopped
2 avocados, cubed
1/3 cup red onion, diced
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 Tbsp of green salsa
2 Tbsp of lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) I am fundamentally very lazy about making egg salad, so I combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mash them together. It held together well enough to be called egg salad, but stayed chunky enough to eat with tortilla chips or as a sandwich (my favorite sandwich bread for egg salad is toasted English muffins, YUM). I think you could also add chopped tomatoes, black beans, or even a half a teaspoon of cumin to this, too, depending on what you like.

So. As of tonight, I will have 22 eggs remaining. Any suggestions on what to do with them?

© 2012, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins

November 15, 2011 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

I think I’ve mentioned before that I adore food. ADORE IT. It borders on an unhealthy obsession. I (mostly) like to cook. I really, really, really like to eat out. I make my family try all varieties of gastronomical experiments, some good, some never to be spoken of again. I dream of going to culinary school for fun (seriously, how awesome would culinary school be?!) I’ve thought about a food blog, but I’m really not a recipe developer, so I’m not sure what new things I would have to contribute. But, Cagey‘s Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude have me thinking that maybe I could contribute a bit, too. After all, I’ve experimented A LOT, and there’s no need for anybody to repeat some of the tragedies that have come out of my kitchen. So with that, and in honor of fall and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, here’s a recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins. There is nothing healthy about this recipe at all. But it has pumpkin in it, so you can convince yourself there are vitamins to be enjoyed here! Beta carotene! Fiber! Chocolate!

Makes approximately 12-15 muffins

2 eggs, preferably at room temperature
1 stick of butter, preferably at room temperature (you may as well know now that that’s how I like to roll)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 of a 15 oz. can pumpkin
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
12 oz. coarsely chopped, semisweet chocolate (I’ve also used toffee chips and Heath toffee bits and they taste amazing as well)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a muffin tin with paper liners and set aside. In a stand mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time until just blended. Add the pumpkin until just blended. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients on low until just combined. Add the chopped chocolate chunks and mix briefly until combined. Scoop the batter into the muffin liners until they are approximately 3/4 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

© 2011, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Regrouping

November 4, 2011 in Uncategorized | 4 comments

For the past few weeks, life has been, shall we say, off-kilter for me. Each morning, the beeping of the alarm finds me more tired than the previous morning, and waiting until the weekend to catch up isn’t working. I’m feeling physically and emotionally DONE. And although I generally feel like crap at the moment, the good news is that I have figured out why, and for the most part, I can fix it (and heavens knows how I love to fix things).

First and foremost, work has been an incredible drain on me. I have the privilege of working for a company that has valued my contributions as well as my commitment to my family and has allowed me to work the vast majority of my time at home around sweet C’s schedule. This has been an incredible (albeit somewhat schizophrenic) arrangement for me, and I have never taken that for granted. I have been able to be my daughter’s primary caregiver, which I determined after her birth was very important to me, AND I have continued to grow in my career. This is rare, and it has been unbelievably fulfilling. But. BUT. (hehe, butt….) The past months have been challenging at work, and although I can’t go into details (although believe me when I say I wish I could share my grievances with you, sweet interwebz), suffice it to say I am feeling the physical and emotional results of that stress. Not good. I am actively working to resolve the issues, but there is no discernible light at the end of this tunnel at the moment.

Secondly, I stopped exercising after we traveled in late September. If you recall, I had taken up a challenge to exercise every day, and I felt amazing. Then I fell right off the bandwagon as soon as I stepped on the plane, and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I felt like crap. No happy exercise endorphins = crabby me, DUH.

Thirdly, I recently started eating like crap. Skipping meals, snacking on junk, eating out too much, then Halloween landed in our house and hellooo, chocolate.

Fourthly, I’m not sleeping well, likely because of the three aforementioned stressors. I’m falling into a coma every night when my head hits the pillow, then tossing and turning for the second half of the night until the alarm goes off. You could put your groceries in the bags under my eyes.

Fifthly, my sweet daughter is testing the everloving hell out of the boundaries in our household lately. And my patience to deal with that (see previous four items) is thin. I’m trying not to be a jerk, but no we DON’T make fun of how people talk and no, we DON’T hit people even if it is in the bum and you think it’s funny because OW that HURT and no you MAY NOT eat a candy bar before dinner and you had better spit out that M&M you just stuck in your mouth when you thought I wasn’t looking.

Sixthly, I’m anticipating the annual out-of-town-guests, Thanksgiving, child’s birthday, Christmas, New Year’s balancing act that starts oh, basically NOW, and omg can’t process…brain exploding THEeffingEND.

Seventhly, there are so many events on my calendar, I can’t see straight. Birthday parties every weekend since the end of September, continuing on through the next weekend, dinners, parent-teacher conferences, meetings, phone calls, playdates, trick or treat, ballet, piano, school functions, UNCLE!!!

Crap on a cracker, folks, is it any wonder I feel like shit? (And no, you don’t have to remind me that these are ridiculous first-world problems, I KNOW.) So here’s the plan. First? I sleep. I’m no 8-hour-a-night kinda’ gal. I’m a 9, nay 10-hour-a-night kinda’ gal if you want me to be, you know, not unpleasant. I will move heaven and earth to get enough sleep these next few weeks. Second? I eat right (starting by putting down this Kit Kat bar). Thirdly? When my energy level comes back, I get back on the exercise bandwagon. If I can just get a handle on those things, everything else is manageable. I think. I hope.

How about you? Am I the only one struggling right now, or do you need to take time to regroup, too? If so, what are you going to do about it?

© 2011, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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‘Tis the Month of Food

November 18, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

I think I’ve mentioned before that I love food. I love to read about food. I love looking at pictures of food. I love to eat food. I love to eat out. Sometimes I love to cook food, but lately not so much. So November to me is simply awesometastic. It’s not that I can’t find an excuse to eat the rest of the year, it’s just that this is the month when there is a social expectation, nay OBLIGATION, to eat oneself senseless. For days on end. It’s a beautiful thing. As I was thinking about our plans for Thanksgiving, I realized that I go through what can only be described as food…obsessions? For instance, I’ll discover something new, or re-discover something old, and I’ll want nothing but to eat it all the time. I can’t decide if this is strange or if other people do it, too.

For instance, Mr. Shoe got me a hand-crank stove top popcorn popper for Christmas last year, and we made popcorn every day for…a long time. Other examples of previous food obsessions include lifesavers (the candy) when I was a kid, gum (for a long time when I was in middle school), Doritos, guacamole (on and off forever), Parrano cheese (this stuff is AMAZING), brie cheese, various noodles in soup, casseroles (blech, that wasn’t a fun phase), white tea, Starbuck’s lattes, flank steak, Mountain Dew (as a teenager), Snicker’s bars, Indian food, Thai food, Vietnamese food, arthichokes. When I get obsessed, I want that food all the time for loooong time. Am I the only one who does this? If not (and I would like to think it’s not just me), what are your latest and greatest food obsessions? Right now I can’t think of anything but Thanksgiving food, but I’m sure a new one is just around the corner.

© 2010, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Thanksgiving Feast

November 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

ETA: I totally forgot to post this last night after I finished writing it. Oops.

Well, I’ve spent the last half hour prepping my Thanksgiving 2009 Plan of Attack since we are D minus 2 days from the big feast, and without a plan, I couldn’t pull this off. Here’s what the menu will include:

Appetizers:
Artichoke dip
Veggie tray with hummus
Relish tray including home-canned dilly beans

Dinner
Turkey (duh)
With Stuffing (also duh for our family)
Classic Sweet Potato Casserole (more like dessert than a side dish)
Corn Casserole (my MIL’s recipe and very corn pudding-like)
Mashed Potatoes (with lots of butter and milk)
Green Beans Almandine (hands down the healthiest thing on the dinner menu)
Cranberry Apple Relish (wait, this may actually be healthier than the beans)
Bacon with Brussels Sprouts (Mr. Shoe loves brussels sprouts. I don’t. But even I can tolerate brussels sprouts if they’re bathed in bacon-y goodness)
Gravy
Rolls (because why NOT have a few more carbs)

Beverages
Sparkling apple cider garnished with pomegranate seeds
Red Wine (no, I can’t be more specific, I don’t know what we’re drinking yet)

Dessert
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Pumpkin Cream cookies
Dutch Apple Pie
Whipped Cream (why yes, this is a dish in and of itself)

I’m full already.

© 2009, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Food Bank-Making Good on My Promise

November 24, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Firstly, between work and now this post, I feel like I’ve been writing my fool head off all night. Secondly, there are worse feelings. I actually kind of like writing now that I have some critical distance on Dante’s seventh circle graduate school and I’m no longer required to spew forth academic nonsense on command. Incidentally, for those of you academics and recovering academics out there, have you seen this Random Academic Sentence Generator from the University of Chicago? It’s hilarious, although it brings back memories of that intense terror that I’m the only person in the classroom that doesn’t know what the hell is going on. So yeah, funny in a traumatic kind of way. Ha?

So summary of previous paragraph: writing = good, graduate school = v. expensive therapy

Right. Moving on.

I took Sweet Girl down to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank today to drop off some food per our previous conversation. We had never been down there before, and I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw. The people there were so kind and helpful, and took the time to talk to us despite the fact that they were noticeably busy. When they gave away Christmas baskets last year, they gave away 1 million pounds of food in two days. I can’t get my head around that number. They typically have about 3 million pounds of food stored away at any given time. They have a HUUUUGE warehouse that we got to see, and they have massive scales to weigh it all as it arrives. I have to admit that I teared up when I walked into the warehouse. It was SO MUCH FOOD. And our donation of about 30 pounds was so small. And despite all that food, people still don’t have enough to eat. I can’t get my head around that either. I am BEYOND privileged (I refuse to say ‘blessed’ because despite my currently ambivalent religious leanings, I refuse to believe that God ‘blesses’ some with enough to eat and then would rather the rest of us starve). My daughter is growing up with all she needs and then some. It is our responsibility to give what we can, and it is our responsibility to foster that little seed of generosity in our child. So we’re going to look into some opportunities there to volunteer where Sweet Girl can participate. They’re apparently starting up a young kid’s program at the food bank, and we’ll see if it’s something she can be a part of. Again, throwing this out to the locals: anyone else interested in joining up? Or maybe the local Columbus bloggers could host a food drive for them? Or something? Help me out here, peeps.

Finally, I’ve been telling Sweet Girl about all the things you guys do to give back and help the hungry. She likes that. She asks some questions while we talk, but it’s obvious she’s thinking about all of this and taking it all in. I know it’s a lot to ask a nearly 3-year old to think about. Hell, it’s a lot for me to think about, too. But I want her to know that there are lots of good people in this world who do good things, and that she has the potential to do her own good things to make a sometimes crappy world a little better. And if that resonates with her? Well, what more could I ask for?

© 2009, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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Generous Beyond Her Years

November 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | 9 comments

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about being Mama to my darling girl is the joy of watching her personality emerge and grow. Over the course of the past three years there have been several of these moments where she catches me completely off guard with her observations, where she gives me glimpses of the person she is and the person she’s going to become. It’s hits me in the gut each time, and it’s absolutely humbling. This little person is amazing and beautiful and so very much her own person, and I’m overwhelmed by my love for her.

Let me get to today’s story. I’ve been struggling for weeks now to be patient with Sweet Girl while she eats. She’s a frustratingly slow eater, precisely as I was when I was a child (yes, karma’s a b*tch, and yes, my parents think this is hysterical, haha…ha…) We remind her to keep eating, we try to help her eat, we remind her some more, but she’d rather be doing a million other things and then snack later, which is a habit we don’t want to encourage. We’re working on some ways to handle this better, and today, after getting quite upset with her because breakfast had taken nearly an hour and a half, I sat her down and started to explain why it is so very important for her to take the time to eat. She needs the food to grow big and strong; carrots help her eyes see better; milk helps her bone grow strong; you know the schpiel. Anyways, I decided to explain to her that she’s very lucky to have delicious food available and that there’s little boys and girls out there who aren’t as fortunate and don’t have food to eat, and some don’t even have a place to live . Yes, a few weeks shy of 3 years old is perhaps early to begin this very important discussion; however, she’s a very astute little girl and today seemed as prudent a time as any to mention it.

After we talked a little more, I could see the wheels turning in her head. I waited, and she finally said “Mama, can I give food to the little boys and girls who have no food to eat?” “Wow, Sweet Girl, I think that that’s a really fantastic idea.”

“Mama, can I give them someplace to live, too?”

“You can, honey. There’s special groups of people who help little boys and girls who have no food and no place to live, and we can bring them food and other things to give to those little boys and girls. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes, mama, I want to do that.”

“Well, the next time we go to the grocery store, how about we pick up some extra food to give them?”

“Okay, let’s do that.”

You know, this next month is going to be chaotic at best, and it’s SO damn easy for me to lose track of how Thanksgiving and Christmas are as much about giving back as they are specifically for our own enjoyment. Leave it to my daughter to bring that front and center for us. We’re going to buy food, and we’re going to take her to a food pantry for her first exercise in service. May she always be as generous in heart and spirit, and may I have the wisdom and humility to continue to learn from her.

What I’d really like to tell her is that I asked you all to undertake the same task to buy some extra food for local families who need it. Perhaps this is something you already do, which is awesome; I’d like to tell her that, too. Perhaps this is something you’d like to do, but needed an extra nudge, like I did, to put it on the priority list. Locals, who would like to come with us this weekend to drop off food? Non-locals, would you be willing to organize something similar among your friends and neighbors? I can’t think of a better use of this blog than to turn her idea into something bigger than what our little family can do. And I think I’ll forego the new recipe idea this year for spending a little extra time and money on those less fortunate than ourselves.

© 2009, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

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