SO CLOSE YOU CAN FEEL IT

Dream that you forgot to study for your college statistics final.

Wake up to radio news of more tornadoes.

Poke, yank, drag your kids out of bed.

Stare blankly into the fridge.

Calculate that today is approximately the 1,620th day of making school lunches.

Feel totally uninspired.

Find your son asleep on the dog bed.

Marionette him up, whisper into his ear one week till summer one week till summer one week till summer, quadruple-kiss his delicious neck, rudder his body towards the kitchen.

Notice the time.

Abort the kitchen.

Yell out don't worry about your beds or your teeth just put on some clothes and let's get in the car.

Feed your kids a very special in-transit breakfast of BBQ chips, fruit rope, and Altoids.

See the relief in your daughter's eyes when you pull up just in time for drop-off.

Go to the market to buy breakfast cereal, school lunch items, and vegetables.

Walk out of the market with red wine, anchovies, six of your favorite cheeses, apricots, and cherries.

Re-enter the messy zone.

Ignore the dishes.

Make your bed.

Make your son's bed.

Make your daughter's bed.

Ignore the dishes.

Perform a floor-to-ceiling purge of the pantry.

Pick a dozen of the yellow flowers that shoot up every June and remind you of the day your son was born.

Ignore the dishes.

Regret never having written your son's birth story.

Sigh out he's six he's six he's six oh how could he be six.

Almost cry.

Add insult to injury by trying on all of your bathing suits.

Clear your desk to clear your head.

Blaze through dozens of emails to make sure you haven't missed out on a teacher gift, a birthday party, a memory book, a let's-do-soccer-in-the-fall push, a trophy presentation, a we're-done-with-kindergarten party.

Rant we are ruining our children with all of these celebrations and making them feel too special and we need to let them be ordinary once in a while.

Distract yourself by thinking about what you're going to do with the apricots and cherries.

Feel the magnetic pull of your kitchen.

Realize when you bite into a firm apricot and then a lackluster cherry that you've jumped the gun a bit on summer.

Broil half of the fruit with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, thyme, and ricotta.

Bake the remaining fruit into an apricot, cherry, and brown-butter crisp.

Groove to the extractive and color-enhancing properties of salt, sugar, and heat as they transform the apricots into tart and fluffy pillows and the cherries into a sticky sweet jam.

Rejoice that it's not even noon and fuck yeah the beds are made, the pantry is summer-ready, dinner and dessert are cooked.

Blast some music.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Sit back down at your desk.

Sip your coffee.

Float your way back to that sunny Saturday morning in 2007.

Remember your daughter holding your gaze, gripping your hands, swaying right along with you during those first few contractions, repeating you can do it mama you can do it mama you can do it mama.

Smile.

Write the story of your son's birth.

BROILED APRICOTS AND CHERRIES WITH RICOTTA AND THYME
printable recipe
serves 4-6 as a side dish

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (thick if you have it)
4 sprigs fresh thyme

3/4 cup ricotta or fresh goat cheese (or both!)
1/3 cup chopped parsley

Preheat broiler to high.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and thyme. Toss to coat. Broil (not too close to the flame) until tender, gooey, juicy, and just starting to brown, maybe even blacken along the edges (about 15 minutes). Remove from the oven and tuck spoonfuls of cheese around the cooked fruit. Broil again until cheese just starts to brown. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve immediately with grilled bread and  a green salad. 

APRICOT AND CHERRY BROWN-BUTTER CRISP WITH VANILLA-LEMON SUGAR
printable recipe
serves 4-6
If you have any extra vanilla-lemon sugar, it's delicious dissolved into warm milk (says my daughter).

for the vanilla lemon sugar:

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon lemon zest

seeds scraped out from 1/2 vanilla bean

for the fruit:

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

for the crisp topping:

1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar

To make the vanilla lemon sugar: In a food processor, pulverize the sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds for 30 seconds. Set aside.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish (it's okay if it overlaps a bit). Sprinkle 2-4 tablespoons of the vanilla lemon sugar all over the fruit (up to you how sweet you want to go). Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss together flour, oats, walnuts, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-sized pot, melt the butter. Let it foam up a bit and then settle back down. Watch carefully. Remove from heat just as the milk solids start to brown at the bottom of the pot. Stir in brown sugar. Add the flour/oat/nut mixture. Mix until just combined.  

Distribute the crisp mixture all over the top of the fruit. Press down firmly. Bits of fruit might poke through a bit. That's okay. Bake until the crisp starts to bubble around the edges and the top is golden brown (about 40 minutes). Serve right away with ice cream, whipped cream, créme fraîche, or yoghurt. It's great for breakfast.

S'MORES ICE CREAM FOR FOOD52

Mama. Just so you know. You have a chocolate mustache. And marshmallow on your butt.

Bella, please turn up the music and hand me my gin and tonic.

It’s day three of developing a s’mores ice cream recipe. I’m standing on the back porch table, camera dangling around my neck, listening to Prince, straddling a cutting board covered with graham cracker crumbs and chocolate shavings. I squat down and start talking to what looks like a burnt rug of mini marshmallows, trying to coax it off the greased parchment with come on baby, you can do it, come on, please. The sticky mass flies apart, a chunk of it swinging onto the lens of my camera, the rest sticking to my forearm.

(For the rest of the story, step-by-step instructions/photos, and the recipe, please head on over to the kick ass food52.)

THIS MORNING I YELLED

at my son for refusing to put on his shoes, at my clean unfolded laundry for covering the couch, at the rats for reproducing and forcing me to kill their babies, at my daughter for taking 30 minutes to choose a pair of earrings, at the black mold in my bathroom, at my kids in the carpool drop-off line to hurry up and don't forget your lunch please say thank you to the woman opening the door Bella don't hit Dash even though he's annoying. I thought I was done yelling. And then that new Taylor Swift song came on. So I yelled at Taylor as I drove to the grocery store.

No, Taylor, I really don't feel 22. I have a cranky sacrum because something shifted down there during my second pregnancy. If I jump up too quickly to prevent my son from stepping out in front of a moving car, my right knee snaps like a rubber band, but I run through the pain because trust me, that's just what you do. My brain is a bit shaky lately as in I never stop saying where are my glasses, where are my fucking keys, where's that camp form, who stole my sunglasses. But here's the good news, Taylor. I've started reading entire books again for the first time in 10 years, slurping up hundreds of pages just like I used to inhale the Esprit Catalog. Let's talk about my breasts, Taylor. I think they would scare you. Last week my husband stared at them lovingly in the light of day and started singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot. I didn't punch him, Taylor. I kissed him. Hard. Because he's funny. And as he taught me, comedy ain't pretty. I used to cry over episodes of ER. Now I cry while spying out the attic window on the all-grown-up tuxedoed neighbor boy, piling with his buddies into daddy's minivan, smoothing down his hair, gearing up for the big prom night. Without missing a beat, I can answer questions like do people eat cow brains, what is a MILF, when is our dog dying, can we go to Disneyland this weekend. I actually say things like do as I say not as I do, don't run with scissors, use your inside voice, if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all. I have this uncontrollable urge to watch my children sleep. I kiss kiss kiss them until they're awake enough to say I love you back. On a daily basis I hear how much I'm hated, how I never say yes, how I'm the meanest person on the planet. I haven't breastfed in almost five years but an expression of love, via a kid's hand on my heart, or a word uttered at just the right moment, or a glance smile sigh, will make my milk let down. My weekends are no longer mine. I will never ever sleep through the night again. But if people are telling me the truth, this phase will be over in a flash and I will be left with that quiet house I currently crave so much and an obsessive lifelong desire for my kids to come home please come home as often as you want please come home. So when I need a break or a breath or a boost or a shift, I make some ice cream. The great neutralizer. I think you might like my strawberry ice cream, Taylor. I would love to serve you some on my back porch. And then we can listen to The Cure and dance around the kitchen with hairbrushes as microphones and be hella carefree. Much to my kids' horror, I do this on a regular basis. I don't know about you, Taylor, but I feel 43.

STRAWBERRY VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM
printable recipe

This recipe works very well with early season strawberries, ones that aren't very sweet and might not be red all the way through. Macerating them all day results in a beautiful red juice. The strawberry slices stay quite firm which adds a nice texture to the ice cream. The leftover strawberry sauce is delicious over greek yoghurt or on buttered toast. The strawberry sauce and ice cream base should be made ahead of time and chilled overnight. This recipe makes a pretty big batch. Depending on the size of your machine, you might need to churn it in 2 batches.

ingredients:

1 pint of strawberries (a bit more than a cup once sliced)

2 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise. seeds scraped out

1  1/2  cups half and half
2/3 cup sugar

6 egg yolks

pinch of salt

1  1/2  cups heavy cream

directions (strawberry sauce):

Stem and thinly slice strawberries. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar. Add vanilla bean pod and seeds. Stir. Set aside for most of the day. Stir every hour or so. Once the berries have spewed out their vibrant red juice, refrigerate  for a few days (careful, it will mold fast due to minimal sugar) or freeze it for a few months.

directions (ice cream custard):
Set up an ice bath for the ice cream base. Add a few cups of ice to a large bowl. Put a smaller bowl in the larger bowl. Place a fine strainer on top of the small bowl. Set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together half and half, sugar, yolks, and salt. Set aside.

Place heavy cream in a medium-sized saucepan. Turn to medium heat. Bring to just under the boil. Turn off heat. Slowly whisk hot cream into half and half/yolk/sugar mixture. Pour  mixture back in pot and place on low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon. Do not leave the custard even for a moment. Stir the whole time or you will have some scrambled eggs on the bottom. It will slowly thicken. It's done when you drag a finger across the back of the spoon and it leaves a lingering trail that doesn't close in on itself.

Pour custard through the strainer and into the smaller bowl. Add water to the ice until it rises to the level of the custard. When custard is cool, cover and place in the fridge overnight. 

Place a serving container for the ice cream in the freezer. Mix together cold custard with one cup of cold strawberry sauce (juice and chunks; vanilla pod removed). Churn in your ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions. Freeze for a few hours before serving. 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY, MAMA?

I have to start writing my book.

You don't HAVE to write your book. You WANT to write your book.

True. 

Well, mama, I think it's super duper amazing that you're writing a book.

Why?

Because it's so so so so hard. Mama. Question. Once it's done, are you going to buy your own book?

Well, I think they might give me a copy.

Oh. Good. So they will print up more than one?

Yes. 

Can I help you with the book?

You can check in every few days and see how my writing is going. Just to make sure I'm not drowning.

You're not going to drown!! That's impossible.

Do you know how much I love you, Dashi?

No words. Infinity.

That is correct.

----------

I'm writing a book for Clarkson Potter! It's a family/food memoir (with recipes) called THIS DINNER WILL NOT KILL THEM. My editor is the wonderful Jessica Freeman-Slade who has been following my blog since my very first post. She has gotten me all can't-sleep-at-night excited about writing some longer narratives. I'll be intertwining the current madness in my kitchen with some adventures from my youth. It will be published in fall 2015.

People keep bringing me congratulatory bottles of gin, so we've had lots of martinis this week. Alongside the cocktails, we've been enjoying 5-minute eggs topped with crème fraîche, Sriracha, crunchy salt, and chopped parsley. Each half a creamy, spicy, fatty, salty, glorious, celebratory bite.

THE FIRST TIME

I am 18. He is 20. I am two months away from moving to New York City to dance my ass off. He is visiting California for the first time. We are counselors at a French camp. I wear frosted lipstick and cutoff Levi's. He wears light blue eyes and strong legs. I don't remember the campers, the face painting, the sing-alongs. I do remember the fumbly first kiss behind the redwood tree. He holds my gaze for so long that I have to turn away so as not to self-destruct. He plays the trumpet with such abandon and excessive spit and smiles that I want to bottle up his spirit and take it with me off to the big city. He chats up any stranger walking down the street. He eats everything. He drinks too much. He feeds me. He challenges my atheism. He talks dirty. He flirts with my 42-year-old mother. He picks me up, throws me in the air, spins me around.

After a few weeks, I find myself kissing him goodbye in one of those dramatic airport farewells. As he walks away, blowing kisses and mouthing je t'aime Phyllis je t'aime, I hit the ground, sobbing hysterically. These are the snail mail olden days, so no emails or photos or sexts. Not even a phone call. Just weeks and weeks of pining before the next tracing-paper-thin Airmail envelope arrives with promises of how someday we will meet up again.

The following summer, I fly up up and away to Belgium. I land and meet his parents and siblings and cousins and best friends. They wrap me up in love and frites and tartes aux pommes and moules and beer. At long last, he and I stumble home to his apartment somewhere deep in Brussels where Jazz musicians live in 1989. It is a funky rambling mess of rooms with huge windows, nooks and cranies filled with books and music, and a bed so high up in a loft that I'm scared I will fall to my death while looking for the bathroom in the middle of the night. I sleep belly-full heart-content deeply.

I wake to an empty bed and start floating about the apartment, flipping through LPs, peering in closets, sniffing bottles of Drakkar Noir. When I find the lipstick and photo evidence of a female companion shoved to the back back of a drawer, I slide to the floor and try to soften my seizing heart, to unscramble my churning belly. And just when I've decided I'm ready to make my way back to Berkeley as that loser who convinced herself she totally had a Belgian boyfriend but really didn't, he bursts through the door with fresh croissants and the newspaper.

He kisses my shoulders. He makes me coffee. He kisses each finger. He searches the refrigerator and finds cheese and jam. He kisses my cheek forehead nose mouth. And then we scramble giggle our way back upstairs to tumble about some more in that crazy loft. And then back to the dining room where he tucks me into my chair with a napkin and the newspaper. And then a lot of slamming around in the cupboard until ah je l'ai trouvé and bam he places this mysterious jar of chocolate spread on the table. He feeds me a fingerful. I sip my very strong coffee. I gesture feed me more please now don't stop. He moves too slowly so I grab the jar and take over.

(24 years later, I'm still eating Nutella out of the jar. But this year, I've been playing around a bit by throwing it into ice cream. Creatures big and small have been digging it.)

CRUNCHY NUTELLA ICE CREAM

printable recipe
The Nutella must be room-temperature.

ingredients:

6 egg yolks

1 cup half & half

1 cup room-temperature Nutella (for the custard base)

pinch kosher salt

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup room-temperature Nutella (to swirl through at the end)

directions:

Whisk together yolks, half & half, Nutella (1 cup), and salt. Set aside. Add a few cups of ice to a large bowl. Put a smaller bowl in the larger bowl. Place a fine strainer on top of the small bowl. Set aside.

Heat cream until right before it comes to the boil (it will bubble along the edges). Turn off heat. Slowly slowly super slowly whisk hot cream into the Nutella/yolk mixture. Pour mix back into pot and stir constantly on medium heat until until it thickens slightly. For some reason this custard thickens quickly so be vigilant. It's ready when you draw your finger along the back of a wooden spoon and your finger leaves a trail. Turn off heat. Pour custard through strainer into the small bowl. Add just enough water to the ice so that the cold water rises up to the level of the custard. Stir occasionally. When cool, remove from ice bath and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for several hours.

Place your ice cream container in the freezer, preferably something flat so that it's easy to swirl in the Nutella. Churn the ice cream according to manufacturer's instructions. Fill the frozen container up halfway with ice cream. Drizzle half of the Nutella (1/4 cup) all over the surface. With a fork, swirl it through the ice cream. Break up large blops of Nutella because once frozen they are hard to chew and make the ice cream challenging to scoop. Cover with second half of ice cream. Swirl through second half of Nutella. Freeze for a few hours or overnight.

HOW WE MEDITATE IN BERKELEY

Call out I'm massaging some kale, who wants to join me?

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Receive the very familiar rejection chorus of I'm doing my homework, I'm snuggling with the dog, I'm going to clean my room, I need to work on my screenplay.

Dodge a kiss from your husband because you don't remember the last time you brushed your teeth. Throw six anchovies into a hot cast iron pan. Thwack the garlic cloves off the microplane grater and watch them merge with the melting fishies. Scare your husband out of the kitchen by turning the radio to Ryan Seacrest's American Top 40. Whisk in dijon, olive oil, scrappily chopped shallots, and one two three big splashes of sherry wine vinegar. Drag your finger through the warm mix. Taste. Forget who you are, where you are, what you are.

Wipe the anchovy grease off the stove with a paper towel and toss it into the overflowing compost bin. Wash, dry, stack, chop the kale. Place in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil. 

Smell a fire. Wonder if someone is smoking outside your kitchen window. Imagine smoking your first cigarette in over 18 years. See yourself enjoying an 11 a.m. martini along with that cigarette. Shake shake shake that dream right on out of your head.

Start shifting the leaves between your fingertips.

Smell a fire. Worry that someone's house is burning down.

Squeeze and twist the leaves until they wilt down and explode in all their green glory. Know that you could do this all day long and be quite content.

Look up from the kale and realize that the fire is three feet in front of you in your own kitchen. Yell out unprintable words. Dump an entire box of baking soda on the flaming compost bin. Hide the smoking mess on the back porch. Hose it down.

Resume the massage. Hear a 5-year-old creature creeping up from behind. Spin around and scare your son by flashing oily green hands. Evade his questions about the smoky kitchen. Turn up the radio. Massage the kale in four-handed unison. Belt out I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart. Tell your son that kale has been as overplayed in 2013 as this song by The Lumineers. Realize that he has no idea what you're talking about.

Toss the kale with the warm vinaigrette. Turn the radio off. Invite your husband to step away from his screenplay and into the kitchen. Give him a deep anchovy-garlic-flavored kiss. Watch your son scrunch his face up in disgust. Feel happy that he's more grossed out by kisses than by kale.

Motherfucking om.

I've made 20 different kale salads over the past month. A few thoughts:

—I 've used many different kinds of kale. Dinosaur, curly, Siberian, and premier. All with great success.
— You don't have to destem the kale. But according to Dash, it's more enjoyable if you do because then you don't have to pick the stems out of your teeth. Up to you. But don't bother when the leaves are small and delicate.
—If you choose to massage your kale, it will wilt down to about 1/3 of the original amount. So buy a lot of kale!

— These greens will suck up anything you put on them. The dressing must be flavorful or your salad will be boring. High acid. Hella garlic. Generous amount of salt. After massaging with olive oil, you can toss the greens with fresh garlic, olive oil, salt, and lemon juice. Or you can get a bit more complicated and make a warm anchovy garlic vinaigrette (see recipe below). 

— Kale goes beautifully with squash, potatoes, citrus, nuts, cheese, bacon, lamb, chicken. So you can make a side salad or pile on the components and turn the situation into a full meal.

— You can mix the already massaged kale in with other greens such as cabbage, fennel, romaine.

— Once massaged, it holds up really well in the fridge for a few days.

Things to add to the massaged kale:

— Toasted almond, navel orange slices, blue cheese.
— Pine nuts, parmesan, pomegranate molasses, chopped parsley (see first photo below).
— Roasted butternut squash, roasted garlic, thick balsamic vinegar (see second photo below).
— Avocado, tangerine, walnuts.
— Manchego, apple, pecans.
— Balsamic-grilled peaches, goat cheese.
— Flank steak, grilled onions.
— Chicken, caramelized shallots, preserved lemons.

MASSAGED KALE SALAD WITH ANCHOVY GARLIC DRESSING
printable recipe
Here's a template. See above for some possible additions. Almost anything works with kale. It also tastes great very simply dressed.

ingredients:

6 anchovy fillets, packed in oil

3 cloves garlic, grated or very finely chopped
2 tablespoons sherry wine vinegar

1 shallot, chopped (about 1 tablespoon)

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

4-8 tablespoons olive oil (for dressing)

2 big bunches kale (any kind)

3-5 tablespoons olive oil (for massaging kale)

crunchy salt

directions:

Heat a pan on medium heat (I use cast iron for this recipe). Add anchovies. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to help them disintegrate. Once they're a paste, turn heat to low heat and add grated garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds until the garlic smells sweet and fragrant. Whisk in vinegar.  Add shallots and cook for about 30 seconds. Take off the heat. Whisk in mustard. Slowly whisk in half of the olive oil. Taste. Add more olive oil if it's too tangy. 

With a knife or your fingers, strip kale leaves away from the stems. Save stems for vegetable stock or a gratin. Stack leaves. Chop into 2" slices. Wash. Dry. Place kale in a large bowl. Drizzle over a few tablespoons of olive oil. Massage for about 5 minutes. It will wilt down and soften quite a bit. 

Add big pinch of crunchy salt. Drizzle with a few tablespoons of anchovy vinaigrette. Toss. Taste. Let sit for 20 minutes. Taste again. You'll probably need to add a bit more dressing. Serve like this. Or toss with pretty much any meat, poultry, nuts, cheese, or fruit. See options above.

Once massaged, you can refrigerate the kale for a few days and the texture will remain the same. But don't add the vinaigrette until the day you're going to eat the kale.

CONTINUING

He places his empty mug in the dishwasher, puts his breakfast scraps in the compost bin, and starts to walk away.

You shiver with the anger of wanting to be anywhere but here. 

It's not the kind you dream about. You know, the whipping-you-around-and-throwing-you-against-the-kitchen-wall kind. This one is like an aside. 

You feel one hand on your shoulder and another on your lower back as he leans in to kiss you on the curve of the neck where the hair sometimes stands up. It is so unexpectedly gentle that some sort of warmth spreads along your spine until you feel all wrapped up in this casual kiss. And you start to cry from relief because you no longer want to throw a plate at his head or tell him to move the fuck out. You just settle. Into the dishes. Into your cooking clogs. Into the mess that you've made. The chaos that you've chosen. And hard as you try, you can't even remember why you were mad in the first place.

You make him some pancakes. And you tell him that you need more of those kisses. Please. More. 

CRÈME FRAÎCHE PANCAKES

printable recipe

Makes lots and lots of pancakes.

(This is adapted from a recipe that comes from my parents. They got it from a babysitter who lived in the apartment above ours in San Francisco in the '70s.)

Best to make the batter the night before. Keep it in the fridge. They are thin, delicate and crêpe-like. You can replace the crème fraîche with sour cream or yoghurt. Don't get all crazy and add whole grain anything because I swear they won't be as tasty. 

ingredients:

7 eggs

1 cup cottage cheese

1 1/4 cups crème fraîche

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

directions:

Place all ingredients in the blender. Blend for 10 seconds. Scrape down the sides. Blend for about 15 more seconds. Pour into a pitcher. Use right away if you want. Or (even better) place it in the fridge overnight. It separates a bit when it sits in the fridge. The color can also look a little funky and green. Don't worry. Just mix it well right before use and all will be well.

Crank a griddle to high heat. Add some butter. Carefully pour batter to desired size (it will spatter a bit). They cook very fast (about 30 seconds per side). You'll need to keep regulating the heat between batches. Best to eat them right away. They don't hold up for long. Serve with butter and warm maple syrup.