Last weekend we took our first big trip with B3 in tow, up to Berkeley for my brother's graduation. It wasn't until we were on our way back, winding our way through the mountains on the last stretch of the I-5, that I realized how much Los Angeles has started to feel like home. This little ham can probably take most of the credit for that (isn't ...
Diet
spring pea pasta with lemon & shiso
As of a couple of weeks ago, I'm officially back at work. Unlike his mama, B3 thought the transition was a total breeze -- he sees me off to work every morning with such blasé cheerfulness that I'm wondering whether I shouldn't be at least a teensy offended. (He is, however, in a war of attrition with his Public Enemy No. 1, The Bottle, so there is ...
buttered eggs on toast with radish & parsley
Ever since I found their story a few years ago, I've been awed by Sonja and Alex's journey to parenthood. Sonja's poignant, thoughtful words and their constant light throughout their experience have been humbling and inspiring; it gives a whole new perspective to this stage of life that B2 and I have been figuring out our way around lately, and ...
roasted mushroom, avocado & ricotta toasts
I had it built up in my head that taking B3 out to an actual, sit-down, non-Jack-in-the-Box-drive-through meal was going to be an endeavor that involved at least one meltdown and/or leaving before the food actually came. But while our friends were here we ended up going out to eat not one, not two, but three nice, awesome, meltdown-free times. ...
kimchi potato skins
I spent the summer between high school and college working two jobs, one as a hostess at a Chinese restaurant and the other as a waitress at a T.G.I.Friday's. Most of my time at T.G.I.Friday's was spent (1) trying to raise my voice enough in the kitchen that they could hear me when I asked for more ranch, (2) forgetting to enter orders, or (3) ...
macau-style almond cookies
The day we visited Macau was a rainy one. We splashed around from Senado Square to the Ruins of St. Paul, hunted down Margaret's Cafe e Nata for caramelized, blistered Portuguese egg tarts only to discover to my utter dismay that it was closed on Wednesdays, and eventually ended up, soggy-toed, in the Venetian Macau, which I suspected meant we ...
almond white chocolate flax oatmeal, for mamas
Happy 2017! This is the year that my brother graduates from college (!) and when he first started as a freshman I kept telling everyone that 2017 didn't seem like a real year that would actually happen. But somehow, it's here. (Despite 2016's best efforts.) Our waning weeks of the year were spent eating (of course), avidly watching B2 make a dent ...
pear, parmesan, & balsamic salad
Our Christmas tree is up! It's the first real, live, non-plastic tree to make an appearance in our household. We chose it in about five seconds flat last Saturday with babe in tow, in the signature haste of panicky new parents who are still not very good at this "taking the baby out into the world" thing. (Luke, meanwhile, was just passed out ...
thanksgiving leftover stuffing waffles
A few years ago I came across an Alton Brown diatribe against one-use kitchen gadgets (or "unitaskers," I think he calls them) and thought it would be a good rule not to buy them for our New York kitchen. This more or less worked (mostly thanks to B2 putting his foot down on random Amazon purchases and the fact that we just had no room, lest we ...
garlicky spaghetti with lemon, capers & almonds
So, our freezer is officially ready to burst. I wish I could say that it's packed to the brim with healthy, ready-to-heat casseroles and nourishing breakfasts that I tucked away for the zombie days ahead, but that's only about 30% true -- maybe more like 0% true depending on how you interpret "healthy" or "nourishing" -- and the remainder is more ...