So, Chiara and I, with Jemma sleeping in her stroller, made our way through the Meatpacking District the other weekend. We were going to check out Jussara Lee, where a friend of ours was working that day. I had no idea that Jussara Lee shares store space with Sue London, maker of expensive basic ballet flats that come in a dizzying array of metallic pastels, or at least did on that day.

So, after Chiara tries on a pair in bright metallic pink, I whisper to our friend, How much?

She comes back in a couple moments with this look on her face like, Sorry I brought you here! The shoes were $138.

Chiara starts begging me to buy them and I tell her that we just cannot do that today and we will have to go home to discuss it. There is some variety of begging and pleading, although for the most part, she is as restrained as a 4 year old could possibly be in the presence of pink metallic ballet slippers that come in their own matching pink metallic leather drawstring bag!

I remind Chiara that I just bought her a pair of brown patent leather winter boots with faux fur trim (thanks to Daffy’s children’s section!). I think I have succeeded in getting Chiara to realize it just isn’t going to happen when she says to me, Oma, when I have babies I’m going to let my babies have whatever they want. How come you don’t let me have what I want?

Oh boy!

Last night’s dinner was mostly put together the previous night. I soaked the farro to reduce the cooking time since I’m cutting things so close after I come home from work. I peeled, seeded and cubed the two small pumpkins we’ve gotten in our CSA share the last two weeks. A pumpkin we received earlier had almost no flavor so I was crossing my fingers that these would be better and they were. But also, I marinated them in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and thyme overnight, which may have had something to do with the delicious flavor. Basically all I had to do was finish cooking the farro, and braising the pumpkin with onions and garlic. Tossed the whole thing with some goat cheese, drizzled olive oil and served.
Delicious! Thanks to 101 Cookbooks food blog for the recipe inspiration! http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/farro-and-roasted-butternut-squash-recipe.html

Tonight while I was helping Chiara get ready for bed, she asked me: Oma, can I tell you a joke?

Sure, I said.

An onion and a pear are dancing.

And?

An onion and a pear are dancing.

Is that the joke? What’s so funny?

Vegetables dancing!

[Me, cracking up]

See! Oma, I told you it was funny.

Chiara turned 4 last Thursday! We celebrated at the beach with three of her friends and their parents. It was a beautiful day (although I didn’t take any photos. I am so delinquent. The photo above was taken a week before Chiara’s birthday, when Luke invited the NY office of weplay.com to join us at the beach and work from the kitchen in our rental house, the only room that got a wireless signal). I sound like every other parent on the planet but I honestly cannot believe how much and how fast she has grown. It is an absolute privilege to be a parent and to witness a human life in development. I try to enjoy each moment!

Interesting what you find when you google recipes. I found a mouthwatering recipe for cold soba noodles that reminded me of a dish I ate often in Seoul, at the Japanese restaurants at the top of the Lotte Department store. Just cold noodles, topped with scallions, that I dipped in a soy/ponzu sauce. So cold, so perfect in the summer time.

But this recipe really appealed to me because it was everything I remembered plus cubes of soft tofu, lots of sugar snap peas (I was searching for recipes with sugar snaps because we were getting a pound that week from the CSA) and spinach. I thought it was a little weird that the recipe called for a bottled ponzu sauce that had no dashi in it, and for me to make the sauce base with a dried mushroom boiled in water.

Anyway, the recipe was a big hit and I am making it again for dinner tomorrw, preparing the dipping sauce tonight before I go to bed. Since I didn’t save the recipe I searched for it again and discovered that it is actually from Gourmet magazine, and there is a “backstory” from the chef who created it. Aha! The recipe was meant to be vegetarian, hence the dried mushroom, instead of bonito, and the sauce without dashi! Now it all makes sense. Since we eat seafood, I can make my usual base with dried fish, and I didn’t have to shop so intently for a ponzu sauce without dashi. Oh well! I am just as happy without the dried fish and dashi! It is truly delish!

I have been lazy lately so no prettifying urls, I just shows ’em as I sees ’em:

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2008/07/chilledsoba

Off to prepare the sauce, now!

I would love one day to take an Indian cooking class. I love curries in all different colors and spice variations and I appreciate how quick it can be to cook up a flavorful, mouthwatering meal in a relatively short amount of time–from scratch. As it is, I learned one recipe a long time ago, and basically make it over and over again with different ingredients and I am positive I would probably insult an actual South Asian with my complete ignorance of which spices go with which to make curries that have names and distinct and particular flavors. All of my curries are the same color of yellowish brown. Nonetheless, it does seem to work for me to keep this simple spice mix in my repertoire.
We had a small piece of cod in the freezer that was probably just one adult portion if served as a entree, but could serve all of us if made into a fish curry. So last night I did my usual Indian spice mix (I hesitate to reveal it as I’m sure this is as inauthentic as it could be but I use various proportions of turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala plus whole seeds of cumin and mustard) fried with onions, garlic scapes (from our CSA — otherwise I would use garlic and if I had more energy, some minced ginger too) and olive oil (I know! but we are mostly non-dairy so ghee is out of the question) until it formed a paste. Then, because I wanted to make a soupy fish curry, I emptied an entire can of diced tomatoes and hoped for the best.

Once the mixture had simmered for a few minutes I added yellow squash, then green peas, then the cod, cut into bite-size chunks. Covered, simmered on low. And ready to eat!

Oh! So here’s where it gets weird again. I didn’t think I had time to make rice and anyway, I didn’t want to eat rice so I whipped up a quick soft polenta and served the fish curry over a large dollop of it on each plate. It was delicious, I must say.

The best part was that my three-and-three-quarters-years-old daughter stopped mid-bite and said, Oma, you’re a good cooker!

I had a smile on my face the entire night!

This is the ordinary aftermath of dinner at the Kimelias

these days.

Tonight’s dinner made really good use of several veggies in our share today. Escarole, spinach and swiss chard if I wanted to throw that in (I decided to save it for another night), plus I used the garlic scapes in place of garlic. And we had a tossed salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber and I pan-fried tofu to add a little obvious protein to our meal (I am told grains have protein so not to worry about adding it too much but I can’t help but feel the protein should be obvious — a holdover from traditional meat-centered eating I guess!)

The recipe is from Alice Waters’ Vegetarian book. It is linguine with a sauce made from red wine, escarole, spinach, onions and garlic. The onions caramelize and chopped capers are thrown in at the end to add some zing. I was not convinced this would be a great dish but I was willing to try it once. Now I plan to keep it on my list of go-to pasta dishes. My only problem was that the recipe I found on the internet was on a UK site so it was all in metric. I have no idea what the actual measurements are as I literally just guessed at everything but it turned out great except for being a bit on the dry side. Next time I will ladle some of the pasta cooking water into the dish before serving.

http://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=498&catid=4

Oh! and I want to try this recipe for Mizuna salad with crispy fried chickpeas and tahini vinaigrette.

http://recipes.rimag.com/recipe.asp?id=88

I am not sure we’ll be getting mizuna again though. Last year, I felt overwhelmed with large bunches of mizuna and this year the one bunch I got so far was on the small side. What an interesting growing season this must be. All the rain! I bought a pound of gorgeous red strawberries at the Union Square market last weekend and they were disappointingly tasteless. For Father’s Day pancakes with strawberry compote, however, I doctored them with some lemon juice and a teaspoon of raw sugar. It did work and Luke loved the pancakes and strawberries but given how much I paid for the strawberries, they were disappointing!

Tonight we had a delicious meal that I will definitely make again. I had to admit that it felt weird to make a one-dish dinner that had no main starch like rice, pasta or potatoes. I even bought a box of udon noodles just in case I was struck by inspiration with a pasta sauce that would complement the rest. But once the tofu was done on the grill, I just decided to trust that a great-flavored dish would satisfy. I was mostly right. As many an Atkins’ dieter can attest, it’s hard to change one’s eating habits to get rid of carbs!

So, the dish tonight was a vegetarian take on Nobu’s famous Black Cod with Miso signature dish. Instead of cod, we used extra-firm tofu. And we placed the hot slices of tofu on a mizuna and crisp lettuce salad dressed with a citrusy yuzu vinaigrette (except that I didn’t have a chance to go to the Asian market today so I blended lemon and lime juice instead). I adjusted from the recipe slightly by adding thinly sliced red bell pepper and cucumber, mostly just because we had it in the fridge, and also because I wasn’t sure baby Jemma and her big sis Chiara would find enough interesting things to pick out and eat. I didn’t have to worry about Chiara; she ate everything but the sliced bell peppers. Jemma liked the cucumber and ate some of the tofu. I didn’t put the miso paste on Jemma’s tofu, however, since it was made from reduced sake and mirin. I doubt it still had much alcohol, but why give her any at this age?

here’s the recipe, from a great site I just discovered, Vegetarian Recipes and Cooking.

http://www.vegetarianrecipesandcooking.com/vegetarian-nobu-tofu-miso-recipe.php

Nobu-Style Tofu with Miso Sauce & Mizuna Greens

2 blocks of extra firm tofu
1 TB soy sauce
1/2 TB brown rice syrup
1/2 tsp. white pepper

For miso sauce:
1/2 cup sake
1/2 cup mirin
1 cup white miso paste
1/2 cup sugar

4 cups mizuna greens or baby arugula
1 TB fresh yuzu juice (or half-lemon, half-lime juice)
2 TB grapeseed oil
1 tsp. garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. black pepper

Hajikami, for garnish
Crispy fried shallots, for garnish

Slice blocks of tofu crosswise to form 4 tofu “steaks”. Combine soy, brown rice syrup, and white pepper. Brush this mixture on the tofu and grill over low heat until tofu is nicely browned on both sides.

Bring sake and mirin to boil in a pan for 20 seconds to evaporate alcohol. Turn the heat down to low and stir in miso. Once miso is incorporated, turn heat up to medium and add sugar (continue stirring to keep from burning). Stir until mixture is smooth, being careful not to boil (which removes the nutrients from the miso).

Blend yuzu (or lemon-lime) juice with grapeseed oil, garlic, pepper, and soy and toss with greens. Place 1 cup of greens on each plate and garnish with fried shallots. Place one tofu “steak” over greens and ladle miso sauce over the top. Garnish with hajikami, if desired.

So, this blog is going to turn into a notebook of funny things the kids say. But right now, Chiara is the only one speaking, although Luke claims Jemma can say Oma and has on several occasions now, mostly when she is wailing for me. Eventually Jemma’s funny moments will be recorded here but right now, it’s Chiara, all the time.
So, Chiara and Jemma will be raised on a macrobiotic diet, which is pretty much like being vegan (no meats, no dairy, no eggs) except for occasional seafood, and with the additional restriction of avoiding cane sugar. This is basically the diet Luke was raised on.

Chiara calls herself vegetarian and knows that she doesn’t eat meat. At Thanksgiving time, however, her class at school was exploring the Thanksgiving tradition, and without really telling us parents, they made a Thanksgiving meal for the kids (we got a note saying there would be a Thanksgiving themed snack, but to me a snack isn’t turkey and trimmings!). I learned about this through our nanny, who said to me, “Did you let Chiara eat turkey? She said she ate it at school.”

What!?

I asked Chiara about it that day, and she said she ate turkey. She explained that she told her teacher she was vegetarian so they didn’t serve her the turkey. But then she said one of her classmates asked, “What is vegetarian?” in a tone that sounded suspicious and wary, or at least that’s what it sounded like in Chiara’s telling of her story. And then the same girl asked her why she didn’t eat the turkey and so, Chiara ate it.

Not being vegetarian myself, I was not happy about this incident but I didn’t feel it on any personal level. I was apprehensive about telling Luke, however. When he came home that night I said to Chiara within his earshot, “Tell Apa what you ate at the Thanksgiving snacktime at school the other day.”

Luke immediately got the drift and wanted to make sure Chiara understood he wasn’t upset. So he began to gently probe.

“Oh, you had a Thanksgiving snack? What was in the snack?”

“Turkey.”

“Oh, did you eat it?”

“No, I’m vegetarian,” Chiara said.

I interjected. “Chiara, is that true, you didn’t eat the turkey?”

Luke said, in a gentle voice, “Were all the other kids eating the turkey so did you want to try a little?”

This gentle approach really worked as Chiara replied in a loud, enthusiastic gush:
“I wanted to try a LOT!” she said. “It was delicious!”

*****

Today, we were walking by a panhandler and as we always do with panhandlers whether I have money for them or not, I looked her in the eye and said hello, and since I wasn’t stopping to give her money I also said sorry I couldn’t offer her anything this time.
She said, “That’s OK,” and then looked at Chiara and said, “God bless you.”

Chiara looked up at her and replied, “I didn’t sneeze.”

Everyone who’s been a parent longer than I have has told me I have to write down the hilarious things Chiara says. That she’s going to ask about them when she grows up. I’ve already forgotten so many things that I have meant to write down! But this week there were doozies!

Yesterday, Grandma Mimi and Aunt Jessie visited in the evening around bath/bedtime so they took care of getting Chiara to bed while I took care of Jemma. While I was nursing Jemma in the darkened bedroom, Luke comes in with a huge smile on his face. He recounted: Grandma Mimi and Chiara were having a conversation that turned to Aunt Monica, GMimi’s youngest child. At some point, they talked about how Monica came out of GMimi’s belly, and GMimi asked Chiara, “How did Monica get into my belly?” (Don’t ask me why she asked that! I wasn’t there!) Chiara answered, her voice filled with authority, “First, you drink a lot of water. Then you pay lots of money to the pay person.”

Sometimes, I know I’m instigating Chiara by saying nonsensical or fantastical things. Like the other night, I was blowdrying her hair with our ancient mini travel hairdryer. It has only one temperature, and two speeds, and of course, Chiara wants me to use the low speed. But who has time? So I said, “Chiara, if we use the slow speed I’ll be a halmoni (grandmother) before your hair is dry.”

“Noooo,” she replied. “I don’t want you to be a halmoni.”

“Ever?” I said. “Don’t you want to have your own babies? Or Jemma to have a baby? If either of you have a baby, then I will be the baby’s halmoni.”

“Noooo. I want you to be my Oma. I want to live with you forever.”

“Really! You want to live with me forever? When you grow up and become a teenager, I’m going to remind you of this conversation!”

So there you have it! Posted on the web for posterity.

This is the munchkin last September on the roots of what I believe the groundskeeper called a kind of  fig tree at a mission in Long Beach, California.

Last night I had Luke in stitches recounting an incident earlier in the morning at the gym. We took both girls to the gym for Family Day. It’s become our favorite weekend routine to bring Chiara to the pool, and we’ve already started to do this with Jemma, who stays in the water for all of two minutes before it gets too cold to be safe.

Chiara has made quite a few friends among the other families, and yesterday, the first weekend back since Labor Day, there were a lot of families present. One girl in particular reminds me of Chiara, though she is three years older. She has the same exuberance tempered with a great deal of affection. She and Chiara can often be found hugging each other and sometimes have to be told not to hug others, because they have such strong embraces and don’t always know their own strength.

Anyway, this friend, her father, Chiara and I were all in the pool together when the friend called Chiara and me to attention. “Watch this,” she cried, and did a forward flip in the water. Then, still treading water, she cried, “Watch this,” and did a backward flip in the water. It was very impressive. I asked her father if she took swimming lessons but she hadn’t, she just taught herself through sheer enthusiasm.

My daughter, despite wearing a dayglo pink swimsuit with built-in flotation devices to keep her head above water, was not to be outdone. “Watch this!,” she cried, and then turned clockwise while paddling her arms and legs. Her head remained perfectly dry. There was more. “Watch this!,” she cried, then paddled herself counter-clockwise, too.

“That’s easy,” her friend said, with some disdain in her voice. But Chiara didn’t notice or seem to care. She was very pleased with herself.