First bites

Two weeks ago Lindsay wasn’t drinking from her bottle at dinner so we decided that then would be a good time to start her on solid foods.  We had some bananas around so I mashed a little piece up; she hasn’t looked back since and is now eating/demanding three meals a day.

Between banana and some sweet potato I roasted and mashed up the other day, it’s difficult to tell which is her favorite.  It’s always fun to see your children experiencing new tastes for the first time, watching them taste and then deciding whether or not they like it.  It’s also rewarding to provide them the food they’re eating and knowing that it’s wholesome.

Which sort of brings me to my point:  how can anyone honestly justify feeding their kids that ghastly jarred shit purchased from grocery stores?  Really, it’s not at all difficult, time-consuming or costly to mash up a banana or roast a sweet potato (or roast a squash, or simmer and pureé an apple or pear in 10 minutes) while you’re watching TV in the evening or cooking yourself dinner.  I do realize that it becomes a little more complex as they get a little older by having to add protein in, but again, it’s not that hard, timely or expensive.  And by the time I’ve about run out of ideas of what to cook for her she’ll have teeth and decent enough motor skills to be eating exactly what we’re eating by her first birthday.

I observed a guy at Harris Teeter recently buying that shit for his daughter who was with him who was plenty old enough to be eating real food.  I just  shook my head.

Sure, Nate has become more selective of what he eats as he’s realized he has the power to not put stuff into his mouth, but he still eats pretty well and by and large eats what we are eating.  He’s also pretty excited about food and even tasting new things from time to time.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that most kids who are really picky eaters have probably never really eaten all that well since they started eating solid foods.  It’s all too easy to see feeding an infant as a chore – I know it takes a lot of time – but if you aren’t willing to put in the time I won’t shy away from telling you that you shouldn’t have had children.  They’re little folks who demand a lot of our time and ask a lot of our patience.

Ultimately taking the time to sit down and feed Lindsay, while frustrating at times with her flailing arms (I ended up needing to change my shirt after lunch time today), is really relaxing because there’s nothing else I can do at that time.  How many times a day do you really get the opportunity to say you couldn’t be doing something else?

Cinnamon-Raisin Bread for a Rainy Friday

Last Friday was one of those misforecasted days that seem to occur with disconcerting regularity.  My non-rainy day plans were shot and I didn’t really have a backup plan.  Fuck, even the library was closed.

What then to do with a 3 1/2-year-old with our 3-month-old in tow?

Nate just began pre-school last week and one of their first daily activities is to bake something like muffins or a quick bread.  Whatever bread they baked on Thursday I knew he didn’t like, so I felt inspired to make him some good bread and started flipping through my Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  I thought about ciabatta, but it takes two days and we didn’t have enough bread flour.  A few pages later I stumbled across the solution.

It’s been a while since I’ve baked anything new from Reinhardt’s Bread Bakers Apprentice, despite my stated mission from nearly two years ago to attempt every recipe in it (I may still get there one day).

Since I’m not a fan of nuts in bread I left the walnuts out of the recipe, other than that I followed it exactly.  This is a good one for kids because it only takes one day.  Nate helped me mix all the ingredients and while he was napping I was able to shape the loaves, proof them and then bake them so that when he woke up the house smelled quite lovely.  The next time I make this (which will probably be somewhat soon) I plan on doing the cinnamon swirl.

Who knows, with it looking like a rainy week there might be another bread baking day in the near future.

Parallels – December 13

What I’m finding out is that when the parents are living, they stand between you and death.  They have to go first, so you feel pretty safe.  But when they die, you’re next, and there’s nobody ahead of you in line.  At the same time I see already that I’m taking the wrong slant emotionally, and I know I’ll pay for it later.  I’m part of the system, whether I like it or not.

Thus says the emotionally stunted and otherwise general idiot and half genius, Wallace Gruner in Saul Bellow’s excellent Mr. Sammler’s Planet.  This certainly isn’t the most profound passage I’ve read in Bellow’s book, but it did strike something meaningful and reflective within me.  No doubt I’ve had time to reflect upon various topics at odd hours of the day for the past couple of months.  And some of these thoughts have been a response to the oldest member(s) of my Mom’s side having both passed away within months of each other this autumn, thus placing an entire generation of my family into the past tense, the memories we the living hold the only meaningful record of their existence.  Once we go, they go completely.  I’m part of the system, whether I like it or not as the idiot genius pointed out.  (On memories Bellow’s Wallace Gruner made this salient observation:  “Well, I need them.  Everybody needs his memories.  They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.”  True enough.)

This December 13 marks the 18th anniversary of my Great Grandmother’s death, the first time in my life when you could say the generations ‘shifted up’.  At the time though we were still the ‘children’ generation, so in that respect the event went unnoticed until much later, though probably not so much to my own parents.

Today also marks the 16th anniversary of my flight home from a semester spent abroad at Oxford.

The two events themselves are seemingly pretty random and unconnected, the latter of which isn’t even all that remarkable.  But with my erratic and limited free time these days I’ve had occasion to dwell upon them and draw some parallels to that two-year interval of my life to the recent one with varying emotions and reactions.

At the age of 21, contemplating life in a window seat of an Airbus hovering over the Atlantic ocean, I most certainly didn’t recall the death of two years prior.  At that time and at that age something that happened two years prior was a distant memory; it could have been two or 10 years.  Such is youth, concerned so primarily with the present, eschewing the past and only mildly aware and concerned that there (hopefully) happens to be a future.  At 21 the age of 40 seemed inconceivable, and as I sit here slowly encroaching upon 40, I have the firm feeling and response that if my life were to end in 20 years then that time would be far too insufficient for what I would like to do and experience.  Alas, I realize I have very little say in the matter.

This New Years’ Eve will mark the second anniversary since Erin’s Dad informed us that his prostate cancer had metastasized.  Perhaps because our lives become more static as we age (I’m sitting in the same room and on the same couch that he was when he told us), perhaps because as we age we understand the nature of life (and conversely how easy it is to lose), these two years that have passed since then remain as vivid in my mind as if all the days happened yesterday.  And not just easier is it to recall the days but the emotions too:  I can recall the emotions of my 19 year-old self more ably now than when I was 21.

Perhaps the strangest occurrence of all is that no event has made me more aware of my own mortality than having children.  Through years of losing family members I was appreciative of the fact that life was fleeting and tenuous at best, but for the most part the people who died were all considerably older than me.  But when we had our first child I became intensely aware that (again, with any amount of luck) I wouldn’t ever know how his life ended.  And with the passing of the oldest generation in my family, it’s clearer that I’m more standing between death for my own children than I was just a couple of months ago.

No doubt this more recent two-year interval has been more tumultuous than the previous one that I’ve drawn parallels to as of late.  The losses and suffering have been closer, but then so have the joys.

While at Oxford I recall having a discussion about which sort of life we each preferred:  one of contentment, more average or one more emotionally erratic with more exultant highs and more painful lows.  The discussion was really a tangential discussion after reading Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, a discussion I think we were both enjoying greatly.  Presumably because he was older and wiser and with more to lose, my tutor chose the emotionally simpler life of contentment.  And presumably because I was younger and with less to lose I chose the less predictable and emotionally higher risk life.  It’s reassuring to know that my 21 year-old self wouldn’t feel let down then by the present version and if given the opportunity I’ll be interested to see if that still holds true in another 16 years.

What the kids are listening to these days

Or at least my 2 and a half year old.

With [alot of] my help Nate and I made a playlist of his favorite songs last week.

It all began because his favorite song is Walls by Shout Out Louds, and ever since he learned that songs have names, he frequently asks “How about listen to some Walls?”

As much as I love the song, hearing it a couple of times a day can get a little tiresome.

Thus I decided to make him a playlist of his own favorite songs on my I-pod.  I obviously knew some of his favorites (the aforementioned song Walls, Need You Now by Cut Copy), but had to play him a bunch to find out whether or not he really liked them or not.

So here it is, Nate’s playlist:

• Walkabout by Atlas Sound
• All Possibilities by Badly Drawn Boy
• Once Around the Block by Badly Drawn Boy
• All About Time by Tim Booth
• Beauty Above All by Craft Spells
• Need You Now by Cut Copy
• Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat by Cut Copy
• Days by The Drums
• Bedroom Eyes by Dum Dum Girls
• Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People
• Secretary Song by The Go! Team
• Rocket by Goldfrapp
• Lookaway by James
• There She Goes by The La’s
• Dance Yrself Clean by LCD Soundsystem
• I Can Change by LCD Soundsystem
• Home by LCD Soundsystem
• Midnight City by M83
• Raconte-Moi Une Histoire by M83
• The Coast is Always Changing by Maxïmo Park
• I Just Love You More by Kate Nash
• Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order
• Regret by New Order
• Dig a Little Deeper by Peter, Björn & John
• Method of Modern Love by Saint Etienne
• Walls by Shout Out Louds
• Tell ‘Em by Sleigh Bells
• Road to Nowhere by The Talking Heads
• Giving Up the Gun by Vampire Weekend
• Brothers by The War on Drugs
• Soft Shock (acoustic) by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s
• Always Loved a Film by Underworld

Personally I think the kid has great taste, but then again, these are all songs he knows from riding around town in the back seat or from listening to music at home.  And there are definitely songs he doesn’t like that I do.

Oh to be 2 again. . .

Yesterday Nate and I were walking on a paved trail that goes from one playground to another and also parallels a creek.  Instead of making it to the second playground, we instead stumbled upon some work to widen the creek bed and shore up the banks to help against erosion.  What fun!  We stood for a while and then when we started to continue on to the second park, Nate stated that he wanted to “go watch diggers” instead.  So we turned around and sat down on the path for half an hour or more watching the excavator place large rocks in the bottom of the creek bed.  What could be better?

How I’ve actually managed to lose weight (and get fit) while taking up baking

I never got back into riding last autumn like I’d wanted to, which is a shame, because it’s something I really enjoy.  It’s just very hard to work into the schedule with a 20-month old.

Instead of getting pissed off about it though I started working out in late October of last year.  Erin had bought the P90X series some years back when we lived in Chicago, and I’d always sort of scoffed at it.  Until I became unhappy with the weight I’d put on since I’d become a relatively inert stay-at-home dad.  And now I’m addicted.

Since late October, I’ve lost around 12 pounds.  That may not sound like much, but you have to consider that during that time I’ve also managed to put on muscle while taking several inches off here and there.  I’ve gone down 2 belt notches and can fit into pants, comfortably, that I couldn’t squeeze into a year ago.

This isn’t to say that P90X is solely responsible, because I have cut down on my calorie in-take as well, most notably the amount of calories I drink.  I’ve reduced myself to one can of soda a day (I don’t drink coffee or tea so I need my Mountain Dew in the morning) and have cut back on the amount of alcohol I consume.  It’s possible (I guess) that just based on calorie reduction I could have lost weight, but most likely not.  Cutting calories alone isn’t going to get you into shape, and most likely if I was just to diet, I’d have given up ages ago.

But the P90X videos have been fun to do and the program works well with the stay-at-home parent schedule.  I can do more now at the age of 35 than I could at any other age in my life.  And though I scoffed at first at the yoga routine in the program, I’ve learned to really enjoy it and have come to realize that it has made me more flexible than at any other point in my life, even with the back surgery I had as a teenager.

And the greatest part is that I just found out last week they’re producing a second set to the series, that’s supposed to come out late summer.  I can’t wait for it.

Ciabatta

I’ve never really been that into baking.  Maybe it’s the dependence upon some other organism and the relative slow pace at which it does its thing.

Sure, I’ve baked bread in the past, the occasional baguette, some brioche, but not consistently and not enough to where I don’t have to be glued to a recipe.

Last week I was invited to my friend’s house who had baked two loaves of ciabatta that day, apparently inspired by Michael Ruhlman’s mission to get people to bake more bread.  Someone later in the evening said that if they stayed home they’d bake tons of bread.  Which all got me to thinking:  I stay home, why don’t I bake a lot of bread and at least become mildly proficient in something I currently don’t know a lot about?

It turns out that baking bread is the perfect thing for a stay-at-home parent to do.  There’s a lot of down time in the process.  Plus Nate loves bread, loves helping, and it’s far easier to have him help me when knives (and for the most part heat) aren’t involved.  Not to mention it’s cheap – some flour, yeast and water aren’t the most expensive ingredients.

Fortunately I’ve got Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, so I decided I’ll do my best over time to make every recipe in it.

I decided to start with ciabatta for obvious reasons.

To begin I made my pre-ferment, I chose to make poolish over biga the day before and stored it in the fridge overnight.  If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering what the fuck poolish and biga are.  All I can say is that they are two different types of pre-ferments, the poolish variety dating back to Polish bakers and the biga variety having an Italian ancestry.  One has more water than the other, and biga has salt whereas poolish does not.

Poolish after a night in the fridge

Anyway.  My house is kind of cold, probably colder than yeast would like to work in, so my poolish took longer to get going than it should have.

As for the final product, two things went mildly wrong, even though I still ended up with some tasty bread. 

The first is that I’m pretty sure my dough wasn’t slack enough, which I’m assuming is due to the complete absence of humidity in the atmosphere.  Maybe another quarter to half cup of water would have helped me out, and upon further reading and investigation, Reinhart even recommends adding more liquid as you feel more comfortable working with slack doughs.

Ciabatta

The other problem occurred in shaping the dough the way Reinhart says to.  Not that it’s a huge issue when it comes to a pretty rustic bread, but mine was perhaps more rustic in appearance than I’d have liked.

At any rate I ended up with two tasty loaves of bread that we’ve been enjoying for a couple of days now.

I’m not sure what I’m going to make next, though I might just make another couple of loaves of ciabatta to see if I can improve upon what I did this week.  If I do I’ll be certain to use more water and maybe even add some milk to it.    But even if I make something else it will probably still be something rustic and hearty to go with some braises or stews seeing as it’s supposed to be cold for the next several days.

Nate enjoying some ciabatta

Friday’s list

Somehow I still feel tired this morning, and that’s after going to bed at 8 last night.  Plus I have “MmmmBop” in my head and have no idea how it got there.

Anyway, there shouldn’t be too much to do today, though it’d be nice to get the place clean so I can enjoy the spring weather this weekend, after of course watching the United match tomorrow afternoon:

• Go to Sherwin Williams for paint samples
• Get dog food
• Straighten the place up
• Make dinner (it’s last night’s intended dinner of duck confit with frisee salad, we swung by Federal in Durham after the home inspection)

And that’s it.  Now my friends don’t need to wonder how I fill my days up.  It’s pretty easy, as there’s tons of shit to do.

March 4 to do, coming up with menu for week of St. Patty’s Day, Black Box revisited

The US match yesterday could have been better, but at least they ended on a positive note, scoring a goal and having a chance to equalize.

In terms of items to do today, there’s not much, but what has to be done is pretty important, as we’re having the house we have under contract inspected.  We received the results of the appraisal which the bank had performed Monday. 

And dinner tonight reflects the fact that I won’t be at home for most of the afternoon.

• Walk to Trader Joe’s and pick up a banana or two as well as some bacon
• Pack Nate’s bag for the afternoon
• I need to cook and puree the celery root for his lunch as well
• Go to house for inspection and to meet the paint and flooring folks who are giving us quotes
• For dinner tonight there’s not much to do – we’re having a bistro type salad with frisee, lardons and crispy duck confit.  The pick-up on it’s pretty quick seeing as the hardest part is already done – confiting the duck legs.

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In a week and a half a friend of mine who I’ve known since 6th grade will be staying with us for 5 or so days.  I haven’t seen him since his wedding in December 2002 and am planning a menu for the week, bearing in mind that I don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen because I want to see him.

So far I’m planning to make braised pork belly with lentils and the crispy braised chicken thighs from the Ad Hoc cookbook with potato pancakes.  I’m thinking the other meals will focus on quicker cooking techniques, maybe grilling.

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And finally, our friend Dean will be taking his turn at cooking a black box dinner, in which we will be bringing the ingredients to him and he’ll be supplying the beverages.  I think I’ll have some fun selecting the ingredients though I won’t be able to list them here in advance.  The date for the dinner is March 20.

Have a great day.

What I’m up to today – the 3rd of 5 days

Today doesn’t look to be too challenging a day, done intentionally because the US vs Holland match is on at 2:30 this afternoon.  I think Nate’s really looking forward to it.

• Do Nate’s laundry
• Figure out something for lunch (Sandwich? Jersey Mikes?)
• Vacuum
• Possibly finish organizing the garage if I feel up to it (the bakers rack we have out there needs sorted)
• Watch the aforementioned US vs Holland match
• Cook dinner (duck breast, polenta, roast eggplant and candied red onion, anise/duck jus); all I have to do here is make polenta and pan roast the duck breast as I took care of the eggplant and red onion yesterday

I think that’s it for the day.