GG Mora

Dansk has some very nice stuff, too (though they also have some crap sold in boxed sets).

You are sure it's not the sugar doing it? I understood "head off" to mean something like derail. As in "had a headache coming on, but headed it off with a few ginger Altoids". I've been hearing tell of these babies for nigh on a year now, still haven't seen them. When I need a ginger candy fix, I head straight for the Ting Ting Jahe. I can finish off a bag of those pups inthe blink of an eye.

...the music playing not-so-softly in the background is Vivaldi's Four Seasons or Pachelbel's Canon. Or the soundtrack from "Out of Africa".

This is true of small dairy farmers all over the country. When you're getting 13¢ per lb. ( or whatever it is) for your raw milk, there's not much incentive to stay in the business. Many of the dairy farms in Vermont are now making (excellent) cheeses. There are 2 right here in Londonderry – Taylor Farm and Middletown Farm. There are some 60 cheesemakers all together throughout Vermont, but that includes goat and sheep, too. I'm really enjoying your blog. Glad I tagged you!

Ground pork. Black beans. Roasted poblano peppers. Beer. Turkish Urfa pepper flakes. Puréed guajillos. Sometimes leftover coffee. Plus the usual suspects.

Have you been able to find locally grown/made pasta? Do you make your own? When we were doing "Eating Vermont" week, I was able to get Vermont-grown wheat flour, but only stone ground whole wheat. I tried making pasta with the pastry variant, and it was pretty bad.

Yesterday added up to a big nothing in the food department. Leftovers, leftovers and more leftovers. Even dinner was an every-man-for-himself affair. Today calls for some kind of celebration. I finally got paid for the first time since late August. Yippee – break out the champagne! On Saturdays when all the kids are here and hub isn't working, we have a big feed for breakfast. The kids always request one of the following: biscuits and "cream cheesey" eggs, pancakes, or waffles. I had some buttermilk left from making cornbread, so I made scratch buttermilk biscuits and hub made the eggs. "Cream cheesey" eggs are great way to get kids to eat eggs if they otherwise wouldn't. They're just scrambled eggs with a whole lotta cream cheese mixed in. But they're delicious. Biscuit days call for hauling all the various jams and preserves out of the fridge. Today featured hot pepper jelly, rhubarb jam, mango butter, pumpkin preserves, strawberry conserve, and a pineapple/mango goo I cooked up a few weeks ago when a pineapple and a mango started to turn the corner. We were supposed to have a visit from the in-laws this weekend, and I'd bought some short ribs to braise for dinner. They cancelled, so the ribs will wait for another occasion. Tonight will probably be a paella night. I'd go deep into the paella tradition in the family, but I'm feeling kind of blogged out. Suffice to say it's a lifestyle. Paella happens at least once a month around here, sometimes in stripped down fashion, as it will happen tonight, sometimes gussied up for company. Any major event or big family gathering is sure to feature paella. A Mora family paella: I swore I wasn't going to get suckered into making a gingerbread house this year, but I've been badgered and cajoled and manipulated, so it looks as though we'll be baking sheets of gingerbread this afternoon. I'm going to take my leave now. It's been great fun blogging for you all. I've tagged jwagnerdsm to blog for next week. His experiment in eating only locally produced foods from Iowa for an entire year should provide great entertainment, and may be a real eye-opener for some of you. Thanks for playing along, GG

Does it have anything to do with thixotropy and colloids? This is sort of like a perverse game of charades.

For Fifi the chemist: It was once suggested to me that most commercial truffle oils were chemically enhanced, since the compounds that give natural truffle oil its aroma break down very quickly. The chemical named was methyl mercaptan. Does that get you anywhere?

Everything was good, but the gravy was stellar this year. And even though it didn't get eaten yesterday (see my my blog if you dare) the "pumpkin" cheesecake is awesome. Rather than use canned pumpkin, I made it with a purée of roasted kabocha and delicata squash. Bling.

It's a pie-for-breakfast day! More precisely, cheesecake for breakfast. There's apple pie left, too, but I have to confess here that I don't care for apple pie. If it's the only dessert offered, I'll have some, but I'd never request it. Wierd thing is, I love tarte Tatin, there's a golden cream apple tart from "Bistro Cooking" that I'm wild for, and I'll often make a simple apple tart for a dessert when I'm entertaining simply. Can't explain it. Maybe it's a simple matter of crust-to-apple ratio. I got up at around 9 this morning, and the house was perfectly quiet. All four kids still asleep, and hub long gone for work. Ate my cheesecake in silence & shot my coffee, then checked in with linens in the laundry. Not good news, but I'll get to that later. The T-Day Recap Let me start by apologizing for taking not a single food picture yesterday. A bowl of just-made stuffing and an uncooked turkey really didn't offer any photo ops, and by the time the bird came out of the oven, I was up to my ass in alligators trying to get through that chaotic final half-hour. I started the day at @8:30 with a quiet cup of coffee. Hub slept in a bit. My goal was to get the bird in the oven at noon. I figured on anywhere from 3.5 - 4.5 hours for a fully stuffed 21-lb. bird, and planned for sit-down at 5:00. Still had to make stuffing, but wanted to dawdle a while since the house was still empty. First task was polishing candlesticks. No biggie. Got hub to bring the bird up from the basement so I could let it sit out for an hour or so. Went and dug out table linens (never got around to it Wednesday night). Determined which cloths to use, etc. Started the stuffing at @10:30. The cornbread I baked on Wednesday afternoon was already crumbled and oven-dried. Started with 2 lbs. of sausage. While that was cooking, I went and helped hub bring an extra table in. Bless his heart, he spent nearly an hour Wednesday night going up and down the stairs measuring every table in (and outside) the house, counting chairs, measuring the room, and working out the best possible configuration for seating 14. If that makes him sound like some anal-compulsive freak, let me assure you that he's simply tidy, organized and conscientious, and a dream of a helpmate because of it. Back at the stuffing, I toasted a few cups of whole pecans and chopped up some celery, onions and garlic. When the sausage was cooked through, I drained it and used the fat to sauté the aforementioned veg. All of this went into a big bowl (includeing all the sausage fat), and to that I added about a teaspoon each of rubbed sage and marjoram and a small can of chicken broth to moisten it all. Seasoned with S&P. We have a deep, wide double porcelain sink (badly in need of refiring) that makes an excellent work station for stuffing and trussing a large bird. Stuffing on one side, bird on the other. Whenever I roast a bird of any sort, I tie its wings tightly behind its back, which serves to make it sit up nice and tall to let hot oven air circulate all around. This is my method for an evenly browned bird, and I'm quite convinced of its effectiveness. If you roll the bird over breast down and pull the wings tightly together at the "elbows" and tie them, you'll see what I mean. Or, try touching your own elbows together behind your back. See how it forces your chest out and exposes more surface? Try it on a bird sometime. Anyway, I stuffed that baby and sewed it up tight, rubbed it down with OO and S&P, and had it in the oven at 12:05. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with ironing, while hub suited up in his chaps and helmet and fired up his chainsaw to drop some trees (pant, pant). What is it about guys doing guyish stuff that's such a turn-on (especially if they're wearing Carhartt's)? Not that this has anything to do with food or Thanksgiving. There are so many damn trees to be taken down around here, it's become his favorite leisure time activity. Now that the place is ours, we can hire someone to come in and log out all the pine and hemlock in the spring, which will really open up some views and bring in more light. The kids arrived just in time to help set the table. When I checked the bird at 3:00, the breast was already at 150°, so I dropped the temp down to 275° and tented the bird with some foil (after giving it a thorought basting with the pan fat.) Guests started arriving around 3:30. We had plenty of beer on hand (Long Trail) and several bottles of not important red wine. (I've been virtually unemployed for the last 3 months, so I didn't dare get extravagant; it looks like I may finally get some of the money due me by next week – phew.) We snacked on olives and a couple of Vermont cheeses and some freshly-fried almonds (all of this brought by guests). Guests also brought: turnip/sweet potato purée, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans amandine, a lovely huge basket of freshly baked rolls – plain and dill, an apple pie, chocolate mousse and more red wine. I pulled the bird at 4:30 and started gravy. Helping hands got busy putting cranberry sauce and relish and butter on the table, reheating sides, assigning serving utensils, opening more wine. I took the bird apart while the gravy finished, served it all up and – une miracle! – we sat down to dinner at 5:00. We ate like royal pigs. Everything was fabulous. At the end of the meal, the feast was pronounced by various participants "a historical food rampage", "gluttony at its finest" and "the swoop-de-verve of Thanksgiving dinners" (whatever that means). The highest compliment, though, came from my friend Toby, who has eaten many a swoop-de-verve dinner here. He said "How do you do it? That was amazing...", to which I answered "It's what I do". "No", says Toby, "It's who you are". The Chocolate Mousse Which deserves its very own subhead. It was spectacular. It was an outrage. It was da bomb. It arrived pre-portioned in lovely wine glasses and was garnished a la minute with whipped cream. It was delivered to the table as the apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake were about to hit the deck (as yet uncut). It was to be a celebration of excess. And everyone inhaled it. How can anyone stuffed to the gills with turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes and and and...how could they possibly eat nearly an entire cup of chocolate mousse? But we did. We all did. We couldn't stop ourselves. And then we all sat staring in silent horror at the untouched pie and cheesecake. Then the groaning began. And the recriminations. And the hopeful prognosticating that in an hour's time, we'd all be ready to eat again. Ha! It never happened. And that's why I'll be eating pumpkin cheesecake for breakfast for days. About the Laundry One of the guests was a 2 1/2 year old named Chloe who charmed us throughout dinner with her lovely behavior and pleasant conversation. We even thought it was adorable when she stuck her whole hand into her chocolate mousse, and then her other hand, and it was hilarious when she started licking her fingers and rubbing the mousse on her face. And then I watched in horror as she wiped both hands on the white damask tablecloth and started rubbing it in like fingerpaint. I was mortified when her mother took her white damask napkin and carefully wiped off Chloe's hands and face. I bit my tongue and lied when I said "Oh, that's okay. I'll just....I'll...". As soon as everyone had left and the table was completely cleared, I grabbed the Spray&Wash Gel with Bleach and smeared it into the chocolate mess (and dabbed any other stains while I was at it) and hustled the whole pile off to the washing machine. That Spray&Wash stuff is great – takes out red wine, lipstick, tomato sauce, beef juices, motor oil. But apparently not chocolate, as I discovered this morning. I'm going to try some Oxy-Clean this afternoon. I managed to snap these photos for the curious: BEFORE AFTER I'm trying to scare up a blogger for next week. By my reckoning, you're stuck with me for another day or so.

Like grass. It's the carotene in grass that gives butter its (natural) yellow color. Spring/summer grasses have more carotene, so butter from grass-fed cows will be brighter yellow that time of year. Also, certain breeds – Jersey and Guernsey, for example – process the carotene differently, so their butter tends to be yellower still.

The relish gets served with the bird. It's also pretty great on a bird sandwich. Here's a pic: And here's the cheesecake: It was a long afternoon, but I got done everything I wanted to get done. The creamed onions are, I think, a smashing success. Rather than make a plain ole bechamel, which I find pretty boring, I made what might technically be called "bechoutay". For liquid, I steeped half a cup of chicken broth and a cup of heavy cream with half a small onion studded with two cloves. From there, I proceeded with the roux and added the aforementioned liquid, then took it off the heat and whisked in about half a cup of very sharp white cheddar. Seasoned with S&P. Fab. Had to run to the store for a few last minute provisions & decided to swing by the farm for milk (the kids will be back in the morning – all four of them). Snapped these while I was at the farm: The girls: The barn: The Steel Teat: Ran into a friend at the grocery store & spent 45 minutes catching up. That's one of the things I love about living here. The most mundane outings can turn into delightful social exchanges: trips to the grocery store, the hardware, the post office, and even the dump often stretch out unexpectedly when you run into a friend or neighbor. And sometimes it's a chat with a near stranger that keeps one. There's a sense of community you wouldn't find most places. Blah, blah, blah. Are you sick of me yet? BTW, when I went to dig out the springform for the cheesecake, I discovered that I'd bought a new one last year. Does anyone else ever do shit like that? Last Christmas, I went looking for two new loaf pans I swore I'd bought but they were nowhere to be found. So I went and bought myself two new loaf pans, only to discover come February that I had indeed already bought two new loaf pans – I'd simply found a more clever place to store them. Don't know how many of you viewed the picture of my kitchen, and if you did, I don't know if you got a sense of how limited space is, especially for a gal with a serious kitchenware habit. Much of my equipment is stashed in the "attic", which is handily accessed just up some stairs from the kitchen. Add that to an aging, overstuffed, stressed-out brain, and you never know what you might find neatly stacked at the back of some shelf. Right. I'm pooped, but I need to get some cleaning done. I'd like to get the kitchen floor washed and spread a coat of wax on it just before we climb into bed. Don't imagine I'll be online tomorrow, but I'll take a lot of pictures and get back to the blog on Friday. A blessedly excellent holiday to all.

Aside from peeling and blanching my replacement oranges and lemons, I accomplished next to nothing last night. Since we were without kids, hub and I decided to have a quiet, leisurely dinner together, one where we could simply enjoy one another's comany without having to "play 20 questions" throughout the meal. I rubbed down a rib-eye with crushed garlic, olive oil and S&P and grilled it to MR on the Weber. Blanched a bunch of broccoli raab & then sautéed it in oil and slivered garlic, then added some chicken broth and let it braise for a few minutes. Salad was mixed baby greens with toasted pine nuts and crumbled blue cheese, dressed with a garlic-dijon-sherry vinaigrette. Are you starting to get the picture the we go through a lot of garlic around here? I got into the vodka and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and had maybe half of one too many. Feelin a lttle hazy this morning. I had a quick bagel with schmear (sp?) and some coffee before getting work (the paying kind) out of the way. Now it's down to business. I'll start by getting the bird into a brine. I have one of those 5.5 gallon white plastic lidded buckets that bulk stuff comes in – think pickles, joint compound; mine had dog kibble in it. They're really handy to have around, but don't use one that had joint compound in it for food (I know this seems obvious but I do know someone that tried it). Anyway, it's perfect for brining a bird. And since the weather's turned seasonable again (it's in the mid-30's) I can just stick the bucket out on the deck for the afternoon. I'm going to try Russ Parsons' method of air-drying the bird in the fridge overnight (we have a spare in the basement for beer and such). Next I'll get the cheesecake going. Oh, yeah – I did manage to bake the squash last night. Dang, I meant to get a new springform pan when I was in town yesterday. I'll just have to finesse the old one. After that I'll do cranberries. I bought one bag of berries, half of which I'll cook with a little sugar and OJ. The other half I'll leave raw and make into a relish with onion, walnuts, orange peel and sugar. Once the berries are done, I can make the cornbread for the stuffing, & then I'll boil onions and make a velouté. By the time all that's done, hub should be home & he can help me clean. Or he can clean while I iron table linens and polish candlesticks and count plates and flatware and round up wine glasses. Okay. Time to step it up and go.

Oh, hey, Chickenlady: bout those eggplants. I have had moderate success with small varieties of eggplant. I don't remember the name, but a plant that produced slightly-larger-than-golfball-sized fruit did well planted in the ground, but it happened to be an unusually warm summer. Best success I've had is planting eggplant in large dark-glazed pots kept on a deck in blazing sun all day long. Those were some happy eggplant!

Bird's home. Not many good photo ops at the farm today. The light was SO grey and SO flat. But there are some birds for you. Those are Christmas's turkeys. They're penned today, but are let roam in a pasture adjacent to the barn most days. Their diet is mostly grain, supplemented by whatever bugs and worms they find. Free-range turkey ain't cheap – $2.25/lb., but it sure is worth it, if you ask me. Since I was in town, I decided to go ahead and provision for the big day. I think it's probably the case that we all have our favorite grocery stores for specific items. For example, Shaw's has the best meats around, and a broad selection of produce. There I bought more citrus to make up for last evening's failed efforts, got some lovely pomegranates and golden apples to decorate the table with, and stocked up on small boiling onions and cranberries. I also picked up something for dinner tonight: a rib-eye for the grill, a bunch of broccoli raab to braise in garlic and chicken broth, and a wedge of Great Hill blue, part of which I'll crumble on a salad. The rub is, Shaw's salad greens suck. Price Chopper has excellent baby greens from a local grower (with greenhouse), so I buzzed in there for a bag full. Dutton's farm stand (open year 'round) has locally grown winter squash, which I wanted for purée for my "pumpkin" cheesecake, so I stopped there and bought a small kabocha and two delicatas – I'll bake them tonight to bring out their best flavor. They're starting to make wreaths at Dutton's, and the air inside was scented with fresh balsam. Always smells like Christmas. I also made a stop at the natural foods store to get a bag full of evaporated cane juice, which I use instead of granulated white sugar. I love the slightly caramelly flavor of it, especially in baked goods. And I made one last stop at the IGA for eggs, since they were sold out at the farm and at the farmstand. No local ones for me today. After all that running around, all I really want to do is fix myself a drink and go hide in a dark room. Alrighty then. To the kitchen. I was careful NOT to clean before snapping this pic.

Nick: you can sometimes plant garlic very early in the spring and get away with it. I planted it in June just for the heck of it to see what would happen (nothing). But you can all rest soundly knowing that 2 weekends ago I planted a whole bed of hard neck.

Well, I totally fucked up the citrus peels. I managed to reverse the proportions of sugar and water (did 1 cup sugar to 3/4 cup water & couldn't understand why the syrup looked so thick. Der.) Left both pans simmering while I wandered back downstairs to my blog. Kitchen's on the third floor, office is on the first (don't ask), so I didn't smell it when they started to caramelize and then just plain burn. Guess I'll do it over tonight. Dinner last night was a quick plate of leftovers: meat loaf, caramelized onions, and puréed squash. Breakfast was a piece of whole grain toast with peanut butter (Teddy chunky) and coffee before me & hub scooted off to the lawyer's to sign a pile of papers. Little bit of work to do & then I'll go pick up the turkey. For Cusina, the garden list: 4 different heirloom tomatoes, one plant each: Orange Flame, Cosmonaut, Marmande, and Yellow Currant (Orange Flame were fab, even with too much rain) 3 different eggplant: Little Fingers, Asian Bride and Farmer's Long. Too cold for eggplant this summer – got a few Little Fingers in late Augaust & that was it 2 Peppers: Poblano and some unknown long, green, bland pepper that was marked Jalapeno at the nursery ( ) Season too short and cold for Poblanos 4 Tomatillo plants: bumper crop. Put up 7 pints of Salsa Verde. 2 beet varieties: red and golden Nantes carrots Haricots verts ("Nickel") Petits poids 3 lettuce varieties grown to full heads (Red Ruffles, Buttercrunch and Oakleaf) 2 short rows cutting lettuce 2 short rows arugula 2 short rows spicy mesclun 1 short row mache Tat soi Broccoli raab Leeks (disappointing) Garlic (disappointing) Brussels sprouts (started too late) 4 plants each: Spaghetti, Delicata, and Sweet Dumpling squash 2 trash barrels Yukon Gold "dumpster" potatoes (plants filched from compost pile and grown in plastic garbage cans slowly filled with soil – got 5 lbs. from each barrel 1 whole bed mixed sunflowers 1 whole bed mixed cutting flowers Not a great garden overall. The season was lousy – cold into July, grey and rainy for a month and a half. And the soil in the beds was only so-so. We've layered them all with 3 inches of excellent compost and amended with bone meal, dried blood and greensand. Next year otta rock ,especially if we can take down some more trees.

Café Bonaparte.

She's ba-a-a-a-ck. I haven't been able to access the forums for the last couple of hours. is it just me? Anyway, here's a few pics of the summer's garden: It was our first year gardening on this lot; many trees to be cleared, so we just built some raised beds and brought in a truckload of topsoil. Magic instant garden. We have plans for much bigger, but this satisfied the urge for a season. Lunch: can of water-packed chunk white tuna, mixed with diced onion, chopped almonds and Ojai Cook Latin Lemonnaise. If you've never tried that stuff, well, you're missin it. Late afternoon snack: small bag of peanut M&Ms (sorry, I'm menstruating). The kids are off to their Ma's for a few days. Before they left, I fed them a quick bowl of mac&cheese – Annie's Shells and White Cheddar. If it has to be dinner from a box, I can do this one without a lot of guilt. Hub will probably get something on the road on the way home (it's a 3-hour round trip, both for him and for the ex, bless them both). Happy to be on my own for the evening, I unplugged a bottle of a 2001 Lirac – no great shakes – and set to work making candied orange and lemon peel for Christmas fruitcake. This is damned tedious work, but some loud music helps. Joe Strummer's new (posthumous) CD is a grand beat if you go for that kind of thing. I've even considered changing my member name to "Coma Girl". Not really, but the song kicks butt. Finally nailed down the Thanksgiving menu. We'll have a crowd of about 16 (±). All four kids will be arriving Thursday morning(ish), plus we've invited 3 other couples with 2 kids (9 months and 2 1/2 yrs.) in the mix, plus a single babe. And there's always room for stragglers. I may be a Nazi in the kitchen any other time, but at Thanksgiving I think it's nice to let everyone play along, cook or no. Let it be haphazard, I say – it's Thanksgiving. So I tried my best to zip the control freak as I planned the menu over several days and as many phone calls. I'll be doing the bird, the stuffing, the gravy, two cranberry things and a pumpkin cheesecake. Tom – with whom I worked in a restaurant kitchen some 5 or so years ago (little did I know at the time that he and his wife-to-be were harboring my soulmate in the form of their roommate; small world, indeed) I trust implicitly to do well whatever he signs up for, which I hope will include backing me up in that last insane half-our before the bird hits the table. Tom is bringing chocolate mousse and some bread he's concocting (he was a baking fellow at CIA). Moira, the single babe, who is a delight to hang with but couldn't cook her way out of a Coach bag, is bringing some sweet potato/turnip melange, and will also supply the Vermont cheese for pre-game noshing. Kristi was assigned a green vegetable, and when she suggested green-bean casserole I tried to sound convincing when I said "Oh, yes, that would be great". I finally lost my composure, though, when Toby volunteered for garlic mashed potatoes and promised to make them with "those red boiling potatoes". I could sense the attitude in his silence when I insisted on Yukon Golds. I bit my tongue before asking whether or not he'd peel them. Okay, the turkey stock is cooling in the fridge, and tomorrow morning I'll scrape off the fat and reduce it some (the stock, not the fat). Our never-a-dull-moment world features a real-estate closing first thing (finally making this place ours after 2 years of wrangling with the first Mrs. Mora). Afterwards, I'll take a leisurely drive over to Someday Farm to pick up my 20-lb. free-range organic turkey (I'll try and remember to take the camera). Then I can shop for provisions and maybe do the cornbread for the stuffing and the cheesecake tomorrow night. Wednesday will be brine-the-bird and decontaminate-the-house day and will, I suspect, also involve the ironing of some table linens. OOOOh....just remembered I have to add creamed onions to the menu. For those with queries: Toliver: I can't think of a single traditional Vermont dish. If I have time, I'll ring up one of my native pals whose Mom was a church-supper kitchen fixture until she passed away a few years back. If anyone would have the scoop, she would. Hillvalley: the big diff with raw whole milk comes from its not being homogenized, so you get a much keener sense of the butterfat. And the color is certainly different. It looks almost like reduced fat milk, since the butterfat isn't particle....erized...erated? You know what I mean. And Thomas doesn't help out in the kitchen much. He may or may not be a little ADD; most likely he's just a normal 12-yr. old on the cusp of hormonal distraction. Either way, he doesn't make for reliable kitchen help.

I once burned the crap out of my hand with spattered lamb fat, right on the side of the fleshy part of my thumb. Hurt like a bitch, turned bright red in a flash. It was right before service, too. We kept a bottle of 99% aloe gel in the walk-in for just such an occasion. I poured a small ramekin and kept it with my mise for the night. Put some on the burn, and every time it started to dry, I applied some more. The burn never blistered, and in 2 weeks' time there was no sign of it. I wish I'd been as concientious with other burns. A Mexican friend told me to try peeling out the thin membrane from between two layers of onion and placing it over the burn like a second skin. All it did was sting like fury.

I have a Perfex and one of those tall brass Turkish numbers. I love the Perfex for small quantities because the action is comfortable and natural and because the grind is endlessly adjustable. One drawback is that it needs frequent refilling due to its small stature. The Turkish grinder is aces for cranking out large quantities, fast. Grind is adjustable, and the receptacle catches and holds it neatly. The only problem is that it has "The Frugal Gourmet" engraved on the side. It was a gift (I swear).

Surprisingly, the kids are pretty open-minded about what they eat. They know that a PBJ is always an option if they don't like what's in front of them; the only time either of them opted for PBJ, it was because something was too spicy (Thomas: thai soup, Isabel: chili). Thomas has a pretty remarkable palate for a kid his age, and has expressed an interest in being a chef when he's older. He's already learned to make a decent vinaigrette, and he loves red wine (good boy). He gets a real charge out of taking relatively bizzardo leftovers to school. I guess you don't see many kids on the lunchroom gnawing on rack chops from last night's lamb. Last week, he pronounced the risotto I made "ravishing". I know, he's starting to sound like a pompous dolt, which he really isn't. He's a scream to have around – like when he timed an expletive at the table so perfectly as to cause his little sister to blow milk out her nose. I guess kids do stuff like that all the time, but it was still hilarious. Once we'd all stopped laughing, and the milk was wiped off the wall, the table, and my spectacles, his Dad allowed that it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen. And then he promised to kill him if he ever did it again.

Yup, diet tonic water. It's not just plain soda water, it's tonic water sweetened with one of the artificial sweeteners. I generally find that stuff to be unspeakably gross, but the inherent bitterness of quinine and a healthy squeeze of fresh lime mask the bitterness of the sweetener. My preferred brand is Schweppe's. Great to hear from other cyclists out there. It's a way of life for us. My husband works in a bike shop in the summers, and we met over my purchase of a new bike 2 1/2 years ago. He'd like to see the whole world bike-propelled, and he commutes by bike as often as he can (in fairer weather). Another guy who works in the bike shop is a commited year-round commuter, and does the 30-mile round trip in the dark in several inches of snow (it only sucks when the plow goes by). Check out his rig here: All-Season Rural Vermont Commuter Bike. Breakfast this morning was a 2-egg cheddar omelette and my standard dose of espresso. My husband gets up to feed the kids, pack their lunch and see them off to school. I wait until I hear the bus pull away down on the road before I get out of bed. It's our way of sharing responsibility for the kids, and it keeps me sane by giving me the morning quiet time I need. I work at home – I produce automotive technical literature for a boutique arm of one of the Big 3 – so I'm here for afternoon duty. I'm still adjusting to this whole kid thing, and for that matter the husband thing, too. Until 2 1/2 year ago, I lived blissfully alone in a little 1-BR house, where I cooked or didn't cook as I pleased and shopped in small doses. Enter soul mate with 4 kids. We married 5 months later & moved into his big crazy house, which had plenty of room for the kids when they visited every other weekend. 6 months later, his 12-yr. old son opted to come live with us. 1 year later, his 10-yr. old daughter did the same. Insta-family. From swingin' footloose single chick to soccer mom in 2 years. Or, as one of my girlfriends commented after spending an hour at Costco with me, "fuck that soccer mom shit, girl, you're a Costco mom". This has required a seismic shift in the way I think about, shop for, and cook food. I can't just blow off dinner, I can't ignore an empty refrigerator, and my days of shopping with a hand-held basket are long gone. In an average week, our staple usage looks something like this: 2 - 3 dozen eggs 2 loaves of bread 1 1/2 lbs. butter 1 1/2 gals. milk 1/2 lb. cheddar cheese 1/2 - 1 lb. cream cheese 1 lb. Cheerios 1 dozen bagels And so on. We have a dry-erase board in the kitchen where one is to write items on a grocery list as they are used up. Milk, eggs and bread might just as well be written in permanent ink. Okay, I've rambled on enough for now and I really need to get some work done. Maybe after lunch I'll get down to some real Thanksgiving talk.

So "lunch" was a couple of Fig Newtons and some leftover Mu Shu Pork. The kids fended for themselves. Isabel, age 10, made herself some pasta and sauce with garlic bread. No idea what Thomas, 12, had (probably several bowls of Cheerios or a toasted bagel with cream cheese). That must make me sound like a neglectful Mom, which I'm not. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I don't get a lot of "me" days; today was officially designated as one. And the kids – my step-kids, actually – are self-reliant enough that they can take care of feeding themselves in order to stay out of my hair for a day. Once I'd stopped the hunger pangs, I set about taking that turkey apart. I actually took before and after shots, but the afters are so damned gross that anyone not accustomed to butchering their own meat might feel the urge to retch. Anyway, it all went into the oven with some onions, carrots, celery and a bit of garlic and I sat down to the Sunday NYT with a cold bottle of beer – Mich Ultra. A few words about my eating habits: since I'm trying to cut back on carbs (not anything so radical as Atkins or anything) wherever I can, but I'm not very good at it (read: not disciplined), I may seem like a perfect schizo when it comes to food. Breakfast one day may be two plain eggs and some black coffee, and on another day toast with peanut butter or a bowl of Cheerios or a bagel and cream cheese. I'll try and be good by nursing a single Mich Ultra (ick) or a vodka with diet tonic (not so bad if it has enough fresh-squeezed lime) through an entire evening. Then the next might will find me throwing in the towel and guzzling 3 real beers. "House brew" is Long Trail Ale, a local Vermont brew. For dinner, I thawed some beef/barley/vegetable soup I'd made a couple of Sundays ago for a night just like this – one on which I really didn't feel like doing any more cooking. Now we're all fed, sated and sleepy. The turkey stock is bubbling gently on the stove, where I'll leave it for the night.