Tiny Visitor

Andrew--ready for some kitty chasing

Last weekend was busy and fun! On Saturday Kate, Scott, and Andrew came out for a visit. They've visited before, but this time Andrew was running all around and having a very joyous time. He LOVES animals, and Lula was no exception. They were both very intrigued by one another. Andrew's cat Aloha is a bit more docile than Lula, but no one was hurt (Thank God). It was very cute to see them hanging out together, but far too fast-paced to get any pictures.

Lovely to have guests over--and we're having some friends for dinner on Friday night. What to make? I have made rules for myself when it comes to having people over for dinner-- everything must be able to be prepared ahead of time and simply heated when we want to eat, and I like to cook foods I can eat, and I like to have vegetarian meals (because A: we usually eat vegetarian in the house anyway, and B: I have a tendency to dry out and destroy any meat dish I plan to make, and C: they say not to try a new dish out on guests, and almost any meat dish is a new one for me). So the last few times I've made the sweet potato and black bean burritos, but I'm officially SICK of that meal. Lasagna is always pleasing, but I avoid tomato-based stuff. So I've decided I want to make a WHITE LASAGNA. Any suggestions? AND, if I make a white lasagne, do I have to have a "light" dessert, b/c the dinner is sort of cheesy and heavy? Do I think too much about these things? Do I read too many cookbooks? Am I ill? How do you spell lasagne(a?)?

We made key lime pies last weekend--one for our dinner party, and one for Jean's St. Patrick's Day dinner. Corned beef and cabbage is something I really look forward to each year. My pie was okay, but not quite as "light" as I thought it would be (its the one in Betty Crocker). It was almost like a cheesecake. Not to be repeated soon.


baby's first key lime pie

GALA!

Ken here...

We went to our first ever Gala on Friday (at least, I don't THINK I've ever been to a Gala before), and it was quite an event. My mother was honored for her stellar fundraising on behalf of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. When the MS Society told Travelers Insurance CEO Jay Fishman that he was chosen as their Citizen of the Year, he went immediately to my mother and asked her to speak because she's the one who has organized and inspired so much of the fundraising there.


Mom's speech: the highlight of the Gala!

The Gala was held in a function hall at the Hartford Civic Center, and it was a wild crowd: Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, UConn Women's Basketball coach Geno Auriama (sp?), and an array of state reps and other dignitaries (i.e., lots of suits). We ate great hors d'oeuvres, sipped fine wine, and listened as my mom delivered an excellent speech. She said she was nervous, but you couldn't tell from the audience. She had the crowd riveted!

Then there was a fundraising auction. The bidding for an electric guitar signed by Paul McCartney started at $500.00 and ended up selling for $11,100.00! Egad!

As if that weren't enough, we then adjourned to the main Civic Center Hall to see a Billy Joel concert. Now I appreciate Billy Joel as much as the next guy (I was obsessed with him as an 11-year-old), but it took days for Emily and I to finally get some of those songs out of our heads. Try walking around for two solid days singing "Big Shot" aloud without even realizing it. It can cause some uncomfortable social situations.


Billy sits safely at the piano. Once he almost fell into the pit when his piano descended into the depths of the stage.

After the show we went back to the Gala for dessert. Quite a wonderful evening. Congratulations, Mom! You are the greatest!

Cookbook Mania

I have to admit that my favorite activity when I feel like vegging-out is reading cookbooks. I tend to favor those that have as much prose as recipe--and peruse the others only when I am preparing to have guests over. The only time I seem to really use a cookbook is when we have company--otherwise we just cook things as simply and quickly as possible (rice, veggies, and beans do not need much attention). My favorite cookbooks all have different features that make me love them. Here are a few:

Betty Crocker has pictures of all sorts of things, like how to roll up a loaf of yeast bread. It is sort of annoying that the hand models they hire to do these shoots have PERFECT hands--smooth, supple, manicured, etc. Oh please! Anyone who is making her own bread DOES NOT have hands like that. Sheesh. It also has these useful (if not sometimes insulting) little trouble-shooting charts: If your bread tastes too yeasty then a) rising time was too long, b) rising temperature was too high, &c. It's nice to be able to identify why my cookies are flat, etc., but I always want the recipe itself to have these hints. And best of all, good ol' Betty rarely asks for ingredients that I don't have hanging around my kitchen.

The Joy of Cooking seems to have a recipe for EVERYTHING! It tells you have to bone a hare, clean a fish, and make creme brulee. It gets an A for prose-y introductions to chapters on breads, appetizers, etc. For example, it offers an extended answer to why one should not freeze coffee. On the other hand, it suggests the near impossible: purchase beans that have been roasted within the past few days--not more than a week old. Uh, so the beans that have been in my freezer for 3 months are, like, stale? Oh crap. One interesting fact: coffee grounds absorb odors so readily that they used to be put in refrigerators for that very purpose, before people started to use baking soda. Joy is a joy--even if usually the recipes are a tad involved.

Laurel's Kitchen.... Beware sugar and white-flour addicts! This is NOT the cookbook for you. OVER half of this lovely 1970s classic is a vegetarian-homemakers-wholefoodie's manifesto. I love it! It has some extremely interesting commentary in the first chapters regarding women at home, women in the workplace, and homemaking in general. It's very PRO women in the home--complete with a woodblock print of a woman in a flowy skirt and apron kissing her husband goodbye in the morning as she hands him a basket (probably handwoven by herself) of wholesome food that likely took her 14 hours to make, and will take him 30 minutes to eat. There's lots of Hari-Krishna stuff to boot! It is hands down my #1 pick for reading. It would enrage feminists of a certain camp--but not feminists of my camp! Oh-- the recipes? I've tried a few, and they are pretty good--espy. the desserts that have relatively low sugar content. I still don't get the obsession with powdered milk--was milk that dear in the 1970s??

The Moosewood Cookbook! Mollie Katzen's gourmet answer to Laurel's Kitchen. This book is not overly concerned with whole foods, whole-wheat anything, or low-sugar anything. It has some of my staples for entertaining: lasagne with marinara sauce, spinach-rice casserole, cardamom coffee cake, Ukrainian poppy-seed cake, samosas... and so much more! This is THE book to buy if you want to have a lot of really yummy (albeit time-consuming) vegetarian dishes for company. It's usually far too elaborate for everyday cooking. Not a great READ--no prosy intros, no philosophy of the kitchen, though it does have an interesting section on ingredients. The Low-Fat Favorites I don't know much about-- but there is a KILLER recipe for Black-Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos. I mean, it's REALLY REALLY fantastic... low fat too!

The Bread Bible is only for those who want to spend an entire day in pursuit of the perfect loaf. You WILL get the perfect loaf (there are so many instructions that it's impossible for it to turn out poorly). You WILL wonder if it was worth 12 hours of your time.

Well... that's all the cookbook reviewing I'm up for today... I'm trying to shake a nasty cold (happy spring break to me!). Two interesting reads that I have used recipes from: French Women Don't Get Fat (a fun read, as long as you are not easily insulted), and M.F.K. Fisher's An Alphabet for Gourmets (bound to make most would-be gourmets ashamed at how little they know and how little money they have to spend, but a fabulous read). I'd love to hear if any of you out there have my taste for reading cookbooks (my mother apparently has "outgrown" it). Any favorites?