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When you are a kid, the whole concept of taking turns and sharing is pretty challenging to grasp.

Image from GoComics.com

Then, when you get older, sharing becomes almost normal. Think group projects in college, or carpooling to work.

When you have kids, divvying things up is less optional and more a matter of preserving your sanity and achieving critical mass in the face of overwhelming odds.  And then, when the kids get older or even disappear, shared arrangements between friends become a coveted luxury.

I hit the jackpot with my carpool moms, and I've hit another home run with my weekly game night group.  Hostessing duties move from one home to another, giving us a chance to cook fancy or light as the mood strikes us, to try new things or old favorites, and crack open a bottle or two while we're at it. I've collected awesome recipes from my cohorts, like roasted chicken, summer pasta salad with roasted baby tomatoes, or a light and easy Caesar dressing for any weeknight. Mostly the dinners are low key, although I do go a little bit nuts with the birthday desserts for the group.  Most notably this one, this one, this one and this one. 

And now, this one.



Super simple supper with a crazy celebration dessert.  Both recipes are going right into regular rotation*.

Sausage and Kale...for Days!

-- From UrbanDictionary.

I'm not normally a "for days" kind of person, especially when it comes to food*.  But once I stumbled onto this combination?

I was hooked.

It's this crazy, easy mix of spicy, hearty sausage and quickly braised kale.  I literally eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  With eggs, rice, pasta, soup or just in a bowl for a snack.  It's scarily healthy, since you use lean turkey sausage and cook out nearly all of the fat.  Then there's kale, the perfect slightly bitter foil for the salty warm sausage.  Kale is ridiculously good for you of course, but you'll forget all that once it soaks up the lemon juice and all those spices and becomes tender and delicious and perfect.

Yep. I got killer meals FOR DAYS, people!

Of course, it may last that long because my husband won't touch the stuff**.

Root Vegetable Study

At the kids' elementary school, the first grade class theme was How Food gets to the Table. The curriculum was very comprehensive*.

Going out to a local vegetable farm for a day? Perfect.

Creating a replica farmers' market in the classroom?  Makes total sense.

Field trip to Whole Foods? Count me in.

Making farm vehicles out of wood? OK, I can see that.

An entire unit** on root vegetables?

Seriously?

My kid got jicama.  He liked it because it started with a "J".

Don't get me wrong. The artwork was fantastic. But how much time can you spend learning about jicama?

Turns out that teacher*** was a savant on the topic, and I was completely wrong to doubt her.
Jicama is incredible:

Cut into sticks, throw in a little lime juice, mint and chile, and oh, baby! Fresh, clean, crisp, tart, juicy, a little sweet, a little spicy...just wow. Almost no calories and great for you, too? Double wow!

Root vegetables that start with "J". Seriously phenomenal.

It's not about the food after all

The turkey comes out dry as a bone.  The mashed potatoes are suspiciously lumpy, in solidarity with the gravy.  You have too little sparkling apple cider and way too many vegetables*.  Someone at the table hates onions, and you spent an hour caramelizing an entire skillet full of them. The stuffing needs more salt and something else you can't put a finger on. The pie is distinctly dark brown on one side.  Plus, to add insult to injury, the cream won't whip properly and is runny as all get out.

It doesn't matter.

Because this happens.

And you can't imagine a more perfect Thanksgiving.

Grateful beyond words for all the lumps and the leaps today.

* You should be so lucky as to have too many of these brussels sprouts.  They are incredible.

Grilling 'em? Genius!

Double Rainbow from a can (with a side of grilled cheese)

When the sky looks like this:

The ground looks like this:

And you feel like this:

Give yourself a break.  Stop stressing about work and Thanksgiving and whether you remembered to clean the gutters in time for the storm.*

Pop open a couple of these cans of sunshine:

And enjoy this:

It's like a rainbow, I'm telling you.

A double rainbow.

It's that good.

P.S. This trick also comes in handy on snowy days, sleet-y days, foggy days, freezing days, and all the days when a bunch of crappy stuff happened and nothing but a crispy, gooey, buttery grilled cheese sandwich with warm, smokey tomato soup will do.

Possibly over-reacting

Him:  Hey, Mom, I need your credit card so I can pay for my college applications.
Me:

I may have also threatened to impale myself on these skewers.

Tomatomania makes even me look good

I am such a crappy gardener that last year I actually paid a farmer to grow vegetables in my own back yard for me.

My farmer's name was Anthony, and he was awesome.  I had beautifully tended raised beds of exotic produce, and bumper crops of squash and eggplant.  I also had a husband who informed me that I needed to stop hanging out with my girlfriends who were doing things like hiring farmers.  

So this year, I was on my own.  

Consequently, my carefully selected* baby heirlooms from the good people at Tomatomania, planted lovingly back in April in neat rows and tied up with string, are now a massive jungle of crazy ass tangled up tomato plants.  Plus, there's a scraggly patch of sage and some sad, leggy basil bushes with holes in all the leaves, probably from some kind of icky bug.  Anthony would know, but I'm not allowed to call him anymore**.

Amazingly, the tomatoes are thriving under my policy of complete and utter neglect, and the thicket is spewing out fruit like there's no tomorrow.

I can't take any credit for the crop, but I will take credit for all the delicious food we've been having as a result***.

Heirloom Tomato Pie

Consider the reunion

My food writing class ended a while back.  I didn't mind.

Class turned out to be both more and less than I expected*  Recovering from the initial anxiety, I showed up at a stranger's home and read my piece, Consider Chopped, out loud.  Six pairs of eyes stared at me blankly.  No one, it seemed, had ever watched the show.

WTF?

At least there was wine.

But then, despite their evident confusion and concern about why I was stifling a case of the giggles as I spoke, they gave me feedback that made my work better**.

I think it was kind of like that for everyone. The range of sensibilities in the small room was huge, and it was an effortful thing, the writing about food.  Talking about food, though, was easy.

It makes perfect sense then, that almost as soon as class ended, someone planned a five course dinner party reunion.

With wine***.

Jess' spectacular cool, creamy and spicy avocado soup (recipe below)

 Amelia's light and summery Arugula Salad with Parmesan, heirloom tomatoes, homemade croutons, and lemon vinaigrette.

 Keitha's meltingly tender Pan-Seared Salmon in a Sorrel Cream Sauce (recipe, from Daniel Boulud's Cafe Boulud Cookbook, is here)

 Catie's marvelous cheese course

 My (Ridiculously Good) Lemon Tart

We may never write together again, but I sure hope we get together again.

* More earnest reading about oysters and making dinner out of weeds, and a lot less snacks. I did enjoy Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace, and the one week we had cake.  The best part for me was the directed short in-class writing time. Most of Cherry Blossom Picnics was written during a 15 minute exercise on food memories.
** You can read it here.
*** Keitha, our hostess and a wine aficionado herself, invited a fellow wine expert Alexander, of The Maverick Palate, to do pairings with the meal.  Words like "chalky" and "zingy" were used by many people (Not me.  I used, "yummy").  Alexander has posted the wine list, some great photos, and notes on the evening here.

Raining Corn

One of the sure fire signs of summer* is fresh corn on the cob.  It's amazing roasted over an open fire, or simply boiled according to this classic recipe**:

 

Even my normally veggie-loathing small children adored the ritual of gnawing their way delightedly along a hot ear of sweet, juicy goodness, usually winding up with a sheen of leftover melted butter gleaming on their grinning faces.

So when this happened:

I'm referring to losing their front teeth, not having to hold a giant slimy toad

It was devastating.
No teeth = No corn.

Wobbly lower lip. Brimming eyes.

Mom with a big sharp knife.
Flick! The cob tilted over the plate. Golden kernels pouring down in a stream into a messy, gloriously edible pile.

Wide, astonished, hopeful eyes.

"Mommy! Can you rain my corn***, too?"

You bet.
As a bonus, I'll bake it with a little butter, and turn it into sweet-salty-creamy-dreamy-almost-better-than-corn-on-the-cob corn.

Moms are magic like that.