Archive for the ‘Holiday’ Category

Cotton Candy

I can’t honestly say that I hold my country’s independence deeply in my heart.  It happened 234 years ago.  And while it’s a nice concept, it is simply too hard to relate to.  I give up.  And so, on the 4th of July, I resign myself to just being generically American.

But in the end, it’s probably not even being American which really gets me in the spirit.  I like decorating the house with red, white and blue, and putting paper flags on cupcakes, but only because it works aesthetically.  It has that old-time, Americana feel, which most of us embrace in the summer. I think because in summer we like to simplify things, and recalling simpler times is a good start.

We flee from our hipster urban condos (well, I don’t, but maybe you do), with all their stainless steel angles and exposed halogen bulbs, and we carve out a few weeks on a New England shore, a Midwestern lake or casino in Nevada.  We actually want to visit the cherry capital of the world, and sit on screened-in porches, and eat blueberries and drink lemonade and margaritas made from scratch.

High on Fear

And fairs and fireworks don’t make us feel more independent from the Queen, Chaz, Camilla and those elegant boys of the beloved, late Lady Di.  But fairs make us think of summer and celebration and other things, having nothing to do with all the people who complained, wrote declarations, and died over taxation without representation, back when people were only charcoal sketches.

And Yankee Doodle does make me want to march and whistle, but it mostly makes me want to catch the sale at Macy’s who uses that song to underscore Independence Day ads every year.

So in the end, we are all going to live, go to fairs, shop Macy’s and die.  And 230-something years from now, no one will have the capacity to know or care that you bled for independence, didn’t bleed for independence or that you just sat around, ate chicken and told a few really good jokes.

My brother skydives and he won't ride this. "Too dangerous," he says.

‘So, gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’

I’m going to enjoy this red, white and blue marker of summer.  And I’ll have fun at the BBQ, the picnic and listening to my favorite washed up band rock the State Fair, before a sea of shaking mullets.  I will rejoice in not dying on the giant ferris wheel that is so very tall and portable, and I will pretend for my kids, who shake in terror as they ride, that I feel that the ten-story high attraction is completely safe.

I’m going to misplace my to do list, try to forget my goal weight, and not even think about the heinous humans in my county who oppose affordable housing.  (MORE ON THEM LATER!)  Independent of burden and obligation, I will enjoy the sweetness of summer life.

Because around the corner, school bells, time clocks, and Father Winter lurk, waiting to jolt my ease into action.

Peace Through Pilsner

In our post-feminist world there are so few men who get a shout-out just for being dudes, and when they do it’s usually in an annoying form, like, via a vocally and ideologically shrill talk show host named something like Dr. Laura Schlessinger who seems to have a love of not liking women so much.  Or via an extremist, overly fundamentalist freak who thinks that women should sit in silent submission of men, but we’ll talk about Becca Suzanne and her friends from Pepperdine University later.

But men, while far too overestimated in history, have not gone out of style, and they are so much more fabulous than not that bad.

Foamy, Frothy Peace

I would personally like to give a shout out to my husband who literally makes our family whole.  Without him, we are like a pizza without sauce.  Brittle, dry, and spiceless, unpalatable really.  When he comes home from work the kids are catapulted into a greater sense of joy.  Meaning even.  Times without him are fine, but they seem like treading water until the Olympic event of Handsome Husband/Fun Daddy begins.  He makes us happy, he invigorates our often tired spirits, and he makes me coffee.

He is liberated enough to do laundry and dishes, too, AND he thinks the work I do at home with the kids is just as important and challenging as his job.  The job at which he physically and mentally slaves away for some forty-eight hours per week so that we can eat and download movie rentals.

He is conveniently both traditionalist and feminist.  Thanks be to his mother and the year 2010 and his ability to take both to heart.

Don’t get me wrong, he is man through and through:  proud, a hair macho, and he likes watching mixed martial arts on YouTube.  He likes beer, meat and softball, and would not hesitate to kill a deer with his own hands if his family needed food.  And I have caused him to suffer through numerous vegetarian meals, to the point where he doesn’t completely hate them.  To make matters even more girly, I have engendered in him the acceptance that every meal I prepare will involve at least one tomato and, quite possibly, olive oil.  And despite whichever M.I.L.F.’d-out, surgically enhanced hottie walks by, he turns nary an eyelash, and he always maintains the very kind untruth that I am the most beautiful.  That’s cute.

Peace Through Protein

So I need to thank him for being the superstar of our family, even though I probably hijack most of the attention most of the time.  And I would like to gift him the peace that he brings us every time he walks through the door.  Well, almost every time.

And I gift the same peace to all those important men who walk through the doors of homes, and kick the family dynamics into a Yay! zone.  And though we KNOW you’re all thinking about the remote control and the beer in fridge, your ability to patiently stand like a tree while you are climbed by children does not go unnoticed.

Oh, and it’s my man’s birthday today.  I suppose having a baby was his mom’s idea of celebrating Father’s Day or the beginning of summer.  And blogging about him is mine.  Happy Birthday and Father’s Day, handsome, Handsome Husband.

Here is a grossly inadequate nod to the American servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the preservation of peace in the United States.  In fact, we Americans have been so charmed by safety, that on Memorial Day we think of beer, hot dogs, and how dangerous our freeways are.  Even as war rages abroad.  My, we have it good.

I still don’t know why we have to eat so much.  I suppose that’s always the way we honor the dead.  And maybe we are just jerks.  But actually, I think we’re just spoiled rotten by a strong military.  Lucky us.

So let’s eat our ambrosia salad and know that we are ungrateful gluttons, for that is one of the byproducts of peace.   And let us try, betwixt the marshmallows, mandarin orange wedges, and coconut flakes, to remember those whose acts of courage denied them the luxurious life that we now enjoy.

And in gratitude, let’s engender peace wherever and whenever we can.

Mom's Mellow Yellow

As a child, I would ask my mom every year what she wanted for Mother’s Day.  She always said, “Peace and quiet.”  I thought it was a cop out.  I hated that she doubted our ability to buy her unwearable, junky jewelry.  Or stuff that kids knew was cool.  But, no, she meant it.

Now that I’m a mother, I realize that Mother’s Day has a lot to do with not being a mother or, at least, not acting like a mother:  no laundry, no dinner, no vacuuming, no breaking up kid fights, and no pushing piles of clutter to different spots around the house.  And in addition to the glorious of gift of a husband-made breakfast and dinner on Mother’s Day Eve, I want what my mom wanted:  SILENCE.  The golden sound of peace, disturbed only by (maybe) the innocent giggles of children, and the roar of hot bath water filling a tub of sanctuary for my tired, though mostly happy, mommy mind.

So for peace and quiet, I give you mellow yellow in the most flowerful and powerful form of a daisy, which reminds me of my mom and her love of the color.  And she lovingly coated our home with it via wallpaper, butterfly curtains and duvet covers (which she sewed herself), and the pleather upholstered kitchen chairs, with mirrory chrome frames.  In hindsight, it was a design home run.  Go, Mom.

Lazy Daisies for Craisies

And though the 70s are a satirizable memory, I imagine my mom still has a place in her heart for that yellow, just as I appreciate the sunshine-hued backdrop of my days as a kid.  And Mother’s Day is less about being a mother and more about how we remember our mothers.  Because when it comes down to it, moms across the land are relaxing their way to achieve the peace they had before they got pregnant.

Photo from Recipe Matcher.com, only because it's late and I'm going to the bakery like I suggested to you, but I have made these numerous times and I stand by them, but would prefer to stand in them.

For Easter I wanted to give a dessert recipe because ham is so room temperature and so easy.  And, of course, you’re going to serve it with some asparagus, and a salad, and, that’s just easy, and for an appetizer you’ll just need some guacamole and bruschetta, nothing fancy.  But you need dessert.

It’s serious business and you’re running out of ideas, and I’m thinking about the bunny cakes that my mom used to cut out of two cake rounds, but that was the 70s, and you’re thinking about the Williams-Sonoma cake mold pan and how you can just sprinkle the 3-d bunny cake with powdered sugar, but in the end, you’re tired, and if you have kids, Spring Break is coming and we all know what that means, so I’d like to encourage you to go to the bakery or supermarket, and get some light tart, either lemon or berry, and just serve that.  It’s spring and it’s Easter and Passover, and it’s time to lighten up a bit, not just the palate but the ambition as well.

Bakeries make professional quality desserts, and why should you try to be a professional just because Jesus resurrected?  Jesus reverse sky dives and walks on water, but not you, nor do you have to at this time.  I urge you, go to the bakery and get something for people to carelessly shove in their mouths or something that the skinny people are just going to push around their plates to look like they eat.

But if you’re really dying for a dessert, okay, okay, here’s this one.  Lemon Bars. From the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. They are classic, perhaps a bit common, but they are very tasty and sweetly tart and they are not chocolate which is so Christmas and Valentine’s Day and Standard Time.  Plus you will be living in a chocolate Mecca of bunnies and eggs, so chill out with the dessert already.

• Combine 2 cups FLOUR, 1/2 cup SIFTED POWDERED SUGAR (Only don’t sift it.  Never sift things.  Sifting is crucial to a quality product, but if you sift you will feel so victimized that you will never bake again), 2 tablespoons CORN STARCH, 1/4 teaspoon SALT, and 3/4 cup BUTTER.  PULSE in the food processor, and you will know why people fall in love with household appliances.  When it resembles cornmeal, plop it into a greased baking pan.  Press it along bottom to form a crust.  BAKE in 350° oven for 18 MINUTES until golden.

• Next, in a bowl, WHISK 4 EGGS, 1 1/2 cups GRANULATED SUGAR, 3 tablespoon FLOUR, 1 teaspoon LEMON ZEST, 3/4 cups LEMON JUICE, 1/4 cup HALF-AND-HALF, LIGHT CREAM or MILK.  POUR the lemon mixture onto the crust and, whoa steady girl, don’t spill it all over the floor because your husband will hate to have to mop again.  I mean, he just mopped and now you…

• Let it BAKE for 15 or 20 MINUTES until the center is set or it’s the about the consistency of your thighs.  If you are really fit, don’t bake it to match your thighs.  Buns of steel is not a good consistency for lemon bars.  Men, don’t bake it until it’s as hairy as you are.

• Let it COOOL before SIFTING (go ahead, this time) POWDERED SUGAR on top or it will dissolve in the warm, lemony bar, and you’ll feel totally gypped, yet unable to take it out on something so inanimate and lemony and good.

Cut them in little squares and put them on a gorgeous plate for an elegant presentation.  Refrigerate, please.  Pray that your sister-in-law brought crappy wine, and that you will outdo her in your mother-in-law’s eyes, finally, for once.  Then go in the bathroom, look in the mirror and slap yourself for being such a competitive little twit on Easter.

Eat all the lemon bars that no one eats, feel intense remorse, and vow to lose 20 pounds before the Fourth of July.