Cheryl Katz

It wasn’t a hundred bazillion degrees in my house today, so I also cooked a pretty awesome dinner.  I made a pan-fried salmon with chard and onions and seared polenta cake, all topped with an orange-mustard sauce.  I’m pretty modest about my cooking, but I sort of blew myself away on this one.

Most amazingly, it didn’t take all that long to make.  My one cheat was that I started with pre-cooked store bought polenta in a roll.  I spied it while I was at the market picking up fish, and since I hadn’t actually thought out my meal plan, it struck me as a simple element to finish up the salmon and chard.  Oh, but this was one of my favorite cooking experiments of late, and I was probably only actively cooking for about half an hour, plus a separate 15 minutes to decide on what to put in, and then to make, the sauce.  It wasn’t a Julia Child recipe, in that I didn’t use a recipe at all, but I’m pretty sure I did her proud.

The best thing was being able to use butter, since I was cooking fish.  I can’t use butter with meat and still be kosher.

Like I said, it was a thoroughly reasonable temperature outside today.  In fact, it was so downright comfortable that if the weather holds, I may go for a lengthy run tomorrow morning.

I am technically training for the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon on December 6th, but I have some challenges.  I’m a few weeks behind where I should be in training owing to 1) having taken the month of August almost completely off and 2) trying to avoid running when it is too hot and sunny out.  Now that the temperature is taking a nose dive, I may be able to get somewhat vaguely reasonably on track.  If I get up to a 19-mile training run at least 2 weeks before the marathon, I will consider myself prepared to run it.  I’ll be able to finish, even if I don’t finish fast.  If I don’t get to 19 miles, I will scale back to the half marathon, which I already know I’d be ready for.

Until recently, I had a never-say-die attitude about this marathon, but the cloud of potential injury is hanging over my head, so I am somewhat forced to accept reality.  I’m sticking to a reasonable training program and also getting all my practical responsibilities covered, and so what will be, will be in this case.

In other miraculous news, Sami napped yesterday.  Not for super long, maybe 45 minutes, but the new leaf in this story is that I told her:  you don’t have to sleep, but you do have to rest quietly.  Every time I come in here and you are not trying to rest, I am taking a toy away.

Toy #1 she thought was a joke.  Toy #2 she stood at her door crying, “My toys… my toys!” for about 15 minutes.  Toy #3, she threw a raging tantrum, and Toy #4 resulted in actual attempts at resting quietly.  I didn’t hold my breath, but when I checked on her about 20 minutes later, she was out cold.

Huzzah!  I found my method!  I know it worked because Mel, who watched her while Ben and I went to Yom Kippur concluding services last night, told me the following story.  She asked Sami to start picking up toys from her bed and the floor to put them away.  Sami flung toys one by one onto the floor, adding dramatically, “It doesn’t matter.  I’m bad, so mommy’s going to take them away anyway.”

I was guilt-ridden for about 30 seconds before I realized… that meant it worked.

Who says an old mom can’t learn a new trick or two?

Sami’s school held a special Mother’s Day event yesterday, and of course I attended.  Here’s a picture of us during craft time (colored and scented bath salts in a jar pre-decorated by Sami!)

It was unexpectedly sweet; last year Sami had been in the 18-month class for two months, and we did a craft project together and the children gave the moms gifts that they’d made – a picture frame with a snapshot of each child. But the kids were so young, it was fun but not so poignant in the same way.

This year, the class had prepared a song, which they sang slightly proudly, slighty shyly, well directed by their teacher. Sami was so overwhelmed by the song that as it ended she ran across the room and hugged me. I don’t think I need to write it, but I will anyway tell you that I was choking back tears for the rest of the morning. Video below; blurry but so, so cute.

There will come a day when I am not the greatest joy in Sami’s heart, and she’ll probably tell me she hates me and that I don’t understand her. I hope that I can build an open and trusting relationship with her to avoid a lot of the drama and anger, but I know that we’re talking about normal adolescent rebellion and the establishment of her blossoming independent adult identity. What comes, I believe that with love and patience on both sides, we’ll take everything in stride.

But this weekend, Sami loves me with all the space she has in her mind and heart, except for the corners saved for chocolate and for her tricycle. And my awareness of her awareness of our relationship is completely humbling. In fact, beyond humbling and more like being steamrolled entirely flat by the love of my child.

I wish this exploding heart joy to every mom out there, whether you’re already someone’s mom, or will be one day.

Also: I am thinking I need to start a photo series called Asleep with Book. Sami loves to read, but dang does it wear her down!

(Photo forthcoming.)

Yesterday was Day 2 of the failed Roast Turkey Project.  On Sunday Ben got me a full on, 15 lb organic free range sans-antibiotics frozen turkey from our favorite butcher shop.  I put it immediately into the refrigerator to begin thawing, thinking that on Monday afternoon it would be ready to roast.

Well, one thing led to another, and come roastin’ time, there is a plastic handle thingy sticking out of the butt end of this turkey, and I can’t for my life get it to come out.  (Especially not when I’m trying my hardest not to touch the turkey or anything inside it with my bare hands, but my sissy-tude is not in question at the present moment.)  I donned rubber gloves and fought and wrestled and fought some more with this godforsaken turkey, to no avail.

A quick IM conversation to  one of my many friends of exceeding culinary talent later, I am advised that under no circumstances am I to attempt to cook this turkey if it is not fully thawed.  At first I thought this was because of health concerns – and it is, but not entirely.  The concern is that if you cook the frozen inside of the turkey to a hygienic temperature, you have essentially charred the skin and outer flesh, and/or set your house on fire.  So, scratch that plan.

Instead, I used the recommended recipe: Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey.  I prepared the brine and soaked the turkey overnight in the fridge, turning once in the morning (that was a debacle, but not worth posting about.  Just know that it involved a full small load of our kitchen rags used to sop up brine on the kitchen floor, and let your imagination do the rest.  But don’t imagine a turkey on our unsanitary floor.  That part didn’t happen.)

I didn’t wind up getting it into the oven in a timely way, but it was finished cooking not too long after Sami went to bed, and boy does our house smell good.

And here’s the punch line.  I covered it and let it cool some before popping the whole covered roasting pan into the oven.  When I went to research how to carve a turkey, I noticed that all the pictures of mid-carving turkeys were like mine, but upside down.  Yes, I roasted my turkey back-up, breast-down.  *sigh*

So I let it rest, covered, in the fridge overnight, and turned it breast-up in a 500-degree oven for about 20 minutes, just to get that final crisp on the skin of the breast.  It worked just fine, even if it didn’t get out the roasting-rack wire marks from the otherwise luscious, moist skin and meat.

I got my info on how to carve from Google, here and here.  The video is just hilarious, getting the rundown of carving a turkey from the British accent just puts some extra polish on the experience.  And I relied more on the text and images (second link) because I couldn’t keep up with the video.

Now, one can say that in our family, I am the one who has the first clue about how to carve a turkey.  And I think we will give Thanksgiving a try at our house this year.  Though I don’t have *much* of a clue, I can get the job done if given enough time (and some more practice turkeys!)

On to planning my turkey stock, soup, and future turkey-based meals with probably the best roast turkey meat I’ve ever had.  Thanks for the recipe recommendation, AB!

I had every intention of roasting a turkey today, thinking that about 16 hours thawing in the fridge would be enough.

Sadly, I was wrong.  I had to ask around because there was a plastic ring-handle-thingy sticking out of the butt-end of the turkey, and I couldn’t for my life get it to budge!

It occurred to me only much, much later that it wasn’t budging because the inside of the turkey hadn’t yet thawed.  Sigh.  Thankfully a culinarily talented friend admonished me in no uncertain terms that this turkey should be thawed completely before cooking.  I had visions of salmonella poisoning and the like, but in reality I bet it was because in order to cook the inside to a safe temperature, the outside would have had to wind up charred beyond recognition.

So instead, on Alex B’s recommendation, I am using more or less this recipe, and the turkey is brining in the fridge as we speak.

I went ahead and roasted anyway the potatoes and onions that had been slated to roast WITH the turkey, and I added some sesame oil and a little cumin since there was to be no turkey fat or turkey seasoning in the pan.  They turned out excellent nonetheless, and went well with the leftover chicken-garlic creation from last week.  (Anything that contained 10 heads of garlic, as did that dish, has no excuse but to be downright delicious, and it didn’t disappoint.)  This was the final appearance of those leftovers.

I also baked cookies!  I made Melting Moments, a cookie of which I’d never heard before but sounded irresistable to me.  They turned out all right.  I’ve never made them before, and I’m not sure that I’ve even had one before, so I may be disappointed for nothing.  They tasted wonderful.  I just wasn’t excited about how the crust of the cookie turned out.  Chalk it up to my food texture peccadillos, I suppose.  I’m happy to report that both Ben and Sami begged for seconds, so they couldn’t have been half bad.

And, to not send you home empty handed, here’s a picture of the cookies.  It’s not a glamour shot, but they do look edible.  Lucky San Diegans might get to try one, depending on who you are and whether or not you’re already in my calendar. 

Since I had all that butter-laden tart crust in my fridge unused with our roast chicken dinner Monday night; and with tarte tatin out of the question because of no more apples because I caramelized them beyond recognition, I bust out my kitchen-fu and made a strawberry tart instead.

The recipe I used came from The Kitchen Sink, and is called Rustic Strawberry Tart.  Please note that I didn’t use the crust recipe, and I also didn’t exactly follow the tart filling recipe.  It served as more like inspiration.

Above is the pre-baking shot.  I basically licked my fingers thoroughly after the tart was assembled and baking – the crust batter is scrumptious, and who doesn’t love the goo of fresh strawberries + sugar?

Here’s what it looked like post-bake:  not altogether different, but now with more integrity!  It was mountains of yum.

Also known as: One resolution executed.

Did I come home from Perú bitten by the handicraft bug? Absolutely. I’ve been carrying this Schacht spindle around with me and worked the very last yarn that I could fit onto it before I wound off today and started anew. This heathered denim-blue Merino wool is just about the softest thing I’ve ever touched. I can’t wait to see a) how much of it I get and b) what it will become one day.

This is but one of my resolutions. I have no excuse not to spend at least a little bit of my time each week engaging in productive handicrafts, especially since I have more raw materials than the deity of your choice, and as a fully employed woman it was not moving fast, to say the least.

Other resolutions:
- Read more (books), dawdle about online less.
- Post more frequently to this here blog, about the more substantive matters of life: food, books, religion, crafts, and anything that remains interesting to me about current events
- Buy only what we (I) need, and buy used when possible.
- Stay on track with nutrition and fitness (I started this year more than 50 lb lighter than I started 2008. I don’t expect to maintain this trend, but I’d like to stay in my current ballpark.)
- Cook at home more and eat out less.
- Eat only ethically raised and farmed animal proteins (once I finish what’s already in our freezer.)
- Squeeze all the meals I can out of our CSA box and whatever supplemental vegetables we need to buy.

Hmm, this came out sounding like a lot more work than I think it will be. Ultimately, it’s more of the same. More of last year, but tweaked and improved.

Cheers, 2009!

Buenos dias, damas y caballeros!

For those who don’t know, Ben and I have taken a very brave trip to Peru with Sami in tow. We’re having a great time, eating well, and haven’t succumbed to elevation sickness (thus far) after our journey from Lima to Arequipa today. And our español is getting a very good workout.

We’re not spending a ton of time online, but I’m uploading pictures as often as I can. If you want to see snapshots of what we’ve been up to, you can find them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cinediva

What? You want them to have Titles and Captions? Tough luck I’ll get to those when I can. Until then, comment away and discuss amongst yourselves. I’ll try to fill in the gaps later.

Please feel free to share with anyone who may be interested!