Moms + Kids + Pizza=Party

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by Lisa

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When I moved to the suburbs, I quickly fell in with an excellent group of moms.  These women were  funny,  friendly, well-educated, down-to-earth.  They had adorable, energetic, smart kids.  They made me feel welcome and they fed my soul.  We and our yearlings became fast friends…and the years sped by.   More than five years later, this group has been through a lot. Pretty much everything, really:  births, deaths, divorce, remarriage, being hired and fired, moving house  (internationally, even), serious illness…truly the gamut of what can happen in the middle years of breeding, parenting, and relating to one’s spouse. We’ve celebrated and consoled together, taken day trips and had plenty (okay, maybe not enough) of nights out.

But as often happens, when the oldest of our children entered kindergarten, the group began to fracture. Our kids attend different schools, and a few have moved out of town, though still within reasonable driving distance.  So when weekly meetings became impossible, we convened a monthly Pizza Night. The goal was simple:  to sustain our friendship and those of our kids.  The overarching plan was to to Keep It Simple.  No fancy cooking, no competitive potlucks, no late afternoon kitchen work allowed. We knew we’d never keep it up if this were the rule.  To keep the emphasis on the friendship, we would order in pizza and bring a few simple sides to supplement.

We gathered the first Friday of every month, chipped in for pizza, and potlucked the rest: we brought appetizers, salads, sides, dessert, drinks for the kids, & plenty of wine.  I’m pretty sure we all just chipped in whatever we could make that week, depending on the state of our pantry and the level of our weekly insanity.   It was really, really fun.   The kids ran a little wild and free, and we got a chance to catch up–sometimes around the living room, often outside on the patio.  Since the kids have been together for so long, they were  as eager to hang out as the moms were and, once fed, required minimal attention.

And something happened when we went from the morning playgroup to the Friday Night Pizza Party.  Sure, we always had great food in the mornings, but there’s something different about convening for an easy dinner at the end of the week.  We were all relaxed,  and the event felt more social and less like a scheduled kids’ activity.  It was something to look forward to for moms + kids alike, and something both groups were equally happy about attending.   Of course, it’s great–and necessary–to get out without the kids, but there’s a certain excitement generated when the party is for them, too.  There’s something about gathering for a meal, even–maybe especially–a  simple one, that feeds hungers that are not always apparent. And that is what this group of women (like so many groups of women across the country, I’m sure) has always done so well.

For a while, we were good about keeping this up pretty regularly, but inevitably,  it got harder. Now we get together only every few months, but the thing is–it’s still the same.  Each time we meet, it’s still as if I’ve seen these women yesterday.

At our most recent night in, one friend made her flan, which is a little bit of a dessert staple for the group.  It’s mostly for the moms but the kids sometimes finagle their way a slice, too.  A  quick search on Epicurious turns up nearly 60 recipes for flan, including coffee, orange, almond, corn, dulce de leche….but this is my friend’s version, and it’s always pleased us.

Mom’s Night In Flan

4 large eggs
1 can sweet and condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1-2 tsp.vanilla

1.boil water for “water bath”
2.mean while, in saucepan bring about 1 cup sugar to boiling over medium low heat till browns into carmel, watch and stir constantly, (I don’t use a thermometer or anything, I just eyeball it.
3. in any baking pan pour hot carmel into botton of pan (I’ve used glass, metal bread pan, corning ware, any size. My preference is a round dish about 7-9″)
4. Combine eggs, both cans of milks and 2 tsp. of vanilla in blender,mix on high spead 30-60 secs., depending on which kids are screaming
5. pour mixture over carmel and use a larger pan to pour the boiling water into for the “bath”
6. cook for 1 hour-1:15 mins. in 300 degree oven
7. cool to room temp.and then put in fridge for as long as you like

Frozen Pesto Cupcakes

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by Caroline

Every summer, I feel torn. The grasshopper part of me (do you remember your fables?) wants to gorge on all the varieties of stone fruit, gorgeous red tomatoes, tender peas and sweet corn, all the bright colorful variety of fruits and vegetables that remind me that even when it’s cold and foggy in my neighborhood of San Francisco, not far away the sun is shining on warm and summery farms and orchards.

And then there is the other part of me — the ant part– who can’t help thinking ahead to the days when it is cold all over the bay area, and our produce selections are far more limited: chard and kale, apples and pears, oranges, oranges, oranges. That’s when I want to freeze the berries, turn the stone fruits into interesting jams, make gallons of pesto for our winter pasta.

I’m trying to do both. Instead of being a miser with berries (or any of the rest of it), I’m trying to buy plenty to eat now, cook with, and stock for later. If strawberries are $4 a pint at the market but $10 for three, I’ll buy the three pints and freeze two. Basil is a couple dollars a bunch, so I buy four at a time for pesto now and more pesto in February. I’m spending more money at the market than usual, but with any luck this will translate into some winter savings and, perhaps just as important, a bright taste of summer when we’re deep in our rainy winter.

And at the risk of getting more “how-to” and advice giving than I am comfortable with, here is the new way we’re keeping pesto. Our ice cube trays (a gift to one of the boys from a friend) happen to be small stars and penguin shapes, and while they’re excellent for lemon and lime juice cubes, they’re a little small for pesto. So in the midst of my all my muffin baking earlier this spring, Tony proposed we freeze cupcake-size portions of pesto. Works for me:

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One Step Forward, One Step Back

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by Caroline

A friend, with boys about the ages of mine, takes comfort in the fact that my children are picky eaters. “I get that my kids don’t like my cooking,” she says,  “but if your kids don’t eat, then it really must not be about the cooking!” And every time we talk, and we commiserate about the newest things our children have dropped from their diets, I reassure her that I really do think it’s about the kids, not the cooking.

But still, it’s hard. It’s exhausting to keep putting the food on the table when you know it will be met with frowns, groans,  or worse. It’s tempting to give up and set out plain pasta every night — and I do mean plain, because a certain someone in this house won’t eat melted butter. And you do tend to forget what it’s like to set out food that people eat unquestioningly, not to mention with pleasure. It’s also, of course, incredibly worrisome (as Lisa and I have both written) as you begin to fear that your beautiful children will shrink and grow stunted from nutritional deficiencies.

This is where I’ve gotten with Eli and vegetables. Every night, no matter what else is on the table, I’ve gotten in the habit of putting out a bowl of carrot sticks because he will eat a good handful of those. That, and a taste of the spinach/chard/broccoli/etc that the rest of us are eating satisfies me. I’d given up even suggesting he try anything more.

But the other night I happened to notice him eyeing the salad. It was pretty, I agree; I wish I’d taken a picture. I’d tossed some gem lettuces with pea shoots and wild arugula, all from our mystery box. Ben, who is a big fan of salad (despite his reservations about taste and texture), was messily pushing leaves into his mouth.

“Eli,” I offered, “Would you like one of these crispy lettuce leaves?” “OK,” he agreed, “But just the crispy part.” So I broke off a pale white rib from a gem lettuce and handed it over. He munched it like a little bunny. I gave him another, and another, this time with some more tender green leaf attached. He asked for more, and I passed him a few leaves tangled up with the nearly translucent green pea shoots. “What are these?!” he asked happily. “Pea shoots,” I answered.

He pulled a tiny leaf off one of the pea shoots and ate it. He ate a couple more, and then started to sprinkle them on his pasta.
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He took a bite of his pasta and smiled. He asked for more pea shoots, and again tore the leaves off the stems and flicked them on to his pasta. A small pile of pea shoot stems started to grow next to his plate (later, I scooped them up and ate them all in one bite). “This is my new recipe, Mama!” he said proudly. “My recipe is pasta and pea shoots.” Of course, if I’d offered it to him that way, I expect he would have turned up his nose, but that’s ok — I’m glad he’s finding his way to food he likes to eat, and the meal was just one more reminder to keep putting a variety of food out there, because you never know. Or as Eli put it, “Maybe if I start to eat all these foods, I’ll be someone who eats every food!”

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But I’m not holding my breath. The next night I put out the pea shoots again and they were roundly rejected.

Life is a bowl of…

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by Lisa

All of a sudden, it seems,  the stone fruit is in the market. We have peaches, plums, apricots–and big, sloping piles of bright red cherries.  The cherry season is short, and very sweet. And while we have a cherry pitter, and sometimes use it (ice cream, tarts, once in a red wine reduction for lamb), the cherries rarely last long enough to make it into something as complicated as a recipe.

I’m all about simple, these days, and letting my children experience food in its whole, pure state, so when the cherries come home on Sunday I pour them into a big glass bowl and set them in the middle of our home’s Command Central (aka the Kitchen Table) with a small bowl of water for rinsing and a smaller bowl for pits.  We have an open floor plan, so all day long the kids & their friends & Kory and I pick, dip, & eat.    On Memorial Day they were ravaged before, during, and after dinner as the kids carried the three bowls back and forth from appetizer to dinner to dessert table.

They’re  a snack, of course, but because we eat only what’s in season at our local market things like cherries feel like a rare treat.  This is one of the great things about eating locally and seasonally. On the one hand, things taste the way they should–& impeccably fresh–but it’s also exciting every time something new shows up.  And yes, they are expensive. At $5-7/lb they cost us. But I think it’s worth it to have such an excellent snack to binge on for a few days, and in the long run, that $7 is teaching the kids about many, many things besides how great cherries taste.  And it’s keeping them healthy.  With seasonal eating, we appreciate each crop all the more, we look forward to each new harvest, and we really do celebrate every mouthful.  Even Ella and Finn know that they’re getting something special.

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The cherries, on the other hand, are lucky if they see Tuesday morning.

Fish. Tacos.

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by Lisa

We have a fisherman.

For more than half a decade, we’ve bought our fish from Pietro Parravano, who docks his boat, the F/V Anne, near Half Moon Bay, and who sells his catch only at farmers markets. He’s an extraordinary man, active in environmental politics and sustainable fishing for decades.  He’s smart, articulate, and kind; he has a sense of humor and a sense of wonder; he can tell you how to cook whatever he’s selling that week and he will remember to show my kids his live crabs, or ask about Ella and Finn on the days they stay home.   He’s taught me a lot about fish and sustainability, and our table and market would not be the same without him.

Many nights all I’ve had to say to Ella and Finn to get them to eat a new fish dish is, “Pietro caught this fish for you,” and they dig in.

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And his fish is extraordinary.

Fresh and local (with a few exceptions in the past year, including Gulf Prawns and scallops, brought on in large part to combat the closing of the salmon fishery), it’s worlds better than anything you can buy anywhere else. I’ve tried.  You might get a wider selection at a larger store like Whole Foods, but it’s just not as good.    There’s no comparison, really.    Of course, all Pietro’s fish is seasonal, but over the course of the year he has a good range on on offer, including: crab, salmon, albacore tuna, halibut, sand dabs, ling cod, petrale sole, red snapper, scallops, prawns, (cleaned) calamari, and a range of smoked fish that will blow your mind: lox, smoked salmon & salmon fins, albacore, etc.  The smoked fish is so good–smoky and salty and sweet–we have to sit down with the kids as soon as it’s on the table or we don’t get any.

Some of the fish, of course, can be expensive–like the salmon or halibut, and prohibitive for a regular family to eat every week.  But it’s worth every penny when we do get it.   We can always afford red snapper, though  which is affordable and satisfying and delicious. We broil or pan fry it–with fish this fresh you don’ t have to do a lot to it–but lately we’ve been eating a lot of fish tacos, which have become one of Ella and Finn’s favorite meals.

And this is one of the ways that their childhood is light years from mine. I didn’t even know what a fish taco was until I was in graduate school, here in California, and even then, it took years to convince me that they were something worth eating. Now, I lament all the years I lost not eating fish tacos.  Both my husband and kids still laugh at me for it. But I’ve made up for lost time and to please my fish taco loving family.

I would agree that the best fish tacos are the classic ones, built on a fried white fish, and we do this sometimes. But really, frying can be rough on weeknights (the flour, the hot oil, the dredging and clean up). So I improvise by broiling or grilling the fish and using as many good-quality pre-made sides as I can, and our table is not much poorer.   Also, since we have most of the fixings all of the time, this is a meal I can pull together in a matter of minutes.  It’s a Monday night standard, since we buy our fish on Sunday, and we like it to be very fresh.

First, I season the fish, drizzle it w/olive oil, and squeeze a little lime juice over it, and broil it in my convection oven until it’s cooked through.  I flake the fish and make sure the bones are removed, and set it on a plate.  Then, I set on the table:

  • warm fish
  • warm tortillas (the kids like flour and Trader Joes has great hand made or organic ones)
  • a bowl of salsa
  • a bowl of shredded cabbage  (A side benefit is that they have both realized recently that they like cabbage. Raw. I kid you not.   Piles of the cool, crunchy stuff have been disappearing, which is another weird habit that is just fine with me.)
  • a bowl of guacamole (or fresh avocado if they’re in season)
  • a bowl of baja sauce (one part sour cream, two parts mayo, lime & salt to taste)
  • a bowl of sliced limes
  • a bowl of chips

The kids craft their own tacos. And I say craft because they take very great pride in making theirs exactly the way they like.  It’s satisfying, really fast, really fresh, and really healthy.

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These of course, were made by The Husband. But they give you an idea of what one can aspire to.

If you’ve been in an aquarium anywhere in the last five years, you probalby know something about sustainable fishing.  More information on clean (though not necessarily local) fish here and here.

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