Blog - Two Red Bowls

more bits and bats

04.10.2018

Today is the very last day of B2’s trip to Korea! For the last week, B2 has been taking depositions in Seoul and we odd-numbered bowls have been fending for ourselves in a papa-less wilderness. For me this has meant subsisting solely on the weird-but-maybe-balanced diet of roasted Brassicas (of which B2 is not fond), ramen, and gigantic M&M pancakes. For B3, it has meant having to suffer through my far poorer renditions of daddy’s lullabies. As much as I like M&M pancakes, it is difficult to tell which one of us is more excited that my husband is on his way to LAX right now.

salt & pepper garlic fries with jalapeno & cilantro

02.23.2018

The calendar tells me that it has been more than one month since I was last here, which feels both much shorter and much longer than the reality (as always seems to be the case). The biggest event of the last month for us, though, is definitely this: We are now officially the proud parents of a bona fide, honest-to-goodness toddling toddler. Our little man can walk! A few weekends ago, B3 graduated from his half-lunging, half-toppling three-step walk to teetering halfway across the room on his own, and in the last few days he’s been making his way around the entire apartment–usually with both fists up, his belly stuck out, eyes opened as wide as they will go, and mouth open in a grin like a manic puppy. It is the craziest thing. If someone could bottle up the giddiness you get from looking up to see your previously quadripedaling baby suddenly wobbling towards you on his two feet, no one would ever have a bad day again.

pho noodle salad

01.18.2018

We are in the midst of a thoroughly January state of affairs: We got home on New Year’s Eve from our trip to see B2’s parents in Honolulu, where I was lazier, more relaxed, and more rested than a parent with a toddler has any right to be (God bless grandmas), and in the midst of our post-Hawaii gloom, were all promptly felled by the Great California Flu of 2018. Well, more accurately, I was felled by the Great California Flu of 2018, B2 was mildly sick, and B3 was sick for exactly one night before bouncing back to his same exuberant self, charging around the house while casting me mystified looks and wondering why his mom was being such a baby.

cookies and christmas pjs

12.20.2017

Hi! In less than three days, we’re jumping on (or, more accurately, “squeezing a toddler and many bags and a stroller and a car seat onto”) a plane and heading to Hawaii for the first time since our two-bowl household became a three-bowl one. There are aunties and uncles and cousins for Luke to meet for the first time, beaches to explore, galbi to chew on, and to say we–and even more, his grandparents–are excited would be an understatement. Our fellow passengers are probably less excited, though they don’t know it yet. (If you have any tips for entertaining a 14-month old in an enclosed space for five hours, I welcome them and our seatmates will thank you.)

super savory greens with lap cheong and garlic

12.06.2017

We are now solidly into the magical stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that no-holds-barred span of weeks that I typically use to indulge all of my wildest cookie and hot cocoa and cinnamon roll whims, and yet, much to my dismay, I’ve spent most of it so far thinking about, not chocolate or candy canes or marshmallows, but vegetables. In particular, these leafy greens. I am as surprised as you are.

sticky toffee pudding with mascarpone butterscotch

11.15.2017

I’ve been meaning to make some form of sticky toffee pudding for at least a few years, ever since a friend of mine first waxed lyrical about one she’d had at a pub near our offices called the Shakespeare. At that point, I’d never had sticky toffee pudding or, possibly, even heard of it, but her description alone had me sold–of a sticky, soft, eat-it-with-a-spoon cake, gooey with dates and draped in an abundance of caramel sauce, served warm and ideally with ice cream on top (which, in and of itself, is enough to get me on board with anything).

halloweens and first birthdays!

11.02.2017

Our sweet boy is one!

chai masala bundt cakes

10.11.2017

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d enjoy anything about fall other than, say, eating pumpkin-y things and, nominally, wearing fluffy slippers, there’s not a chance I would have believed you. (This is how deep my fear of the cold runs.) But then we moved to a quixotic land where my Michelin Man puffer jackets are happily useless, so I no longer had the cold to dread; and shortly thereafter a very important fall birthday was added to our calendars that B2 and I are way more excited about celebrating than we’ve ever been about our own. A year later, here I am: recovering SAD-sufferer and cautious fall enthusiast.

braised beef and orzo

09.21.2017

Do you ever, once you’ve made it through a pile of scary deadlines and come out the other side, just kind of melt into a blob for a week or two, one that can sit semi-upright in an office chair and guzzle coffee and maybe make ill-advised purchases of overpriced throw blankets but otherwise accomplish none of the tasks that are still remaining but that are simply not yet due? No, just me? Well, it is definitely me right now. I cannot promise that any of this will make any comprehensible sense. You have been warned.

summertime bits and bats

08.10.2017

blueberry hand pies

Hi friends! Are you having wonderful summers? Here are just a few odds and ends from ours — it’s mostly been a sunny mix of visits from friends, recipe testing and manuscript scribbling, baby cuddles, and the occasional baked treat. I have also rediscovered the glory of regular old ice cream sandwiches, that kind with all the hubbub about not melting, and may or may not have taken down a box in the last week — which is neither here nor there.