-
morning off
Frequently on Saturdays I have to take two or three hours to pause and jump free, as a swimmer would into a pool, for a clean kicky dive with the bubbles rushing past. There have been book cuddles and hugs and kisses and infant fingers grasping my hair and trailing across my chest. Every time I do a downward dog, Lux clambers below my arched abdomen and shouts “tent tent!” Every time I stretch out my arms in child’s pose, she climbs onto my back and joyfully shouts, “I’m riding you like a horsey!”
I’m not a runner anymore but I will be someday soon. I spent a number of years pounding the pavement at all hours of the day, running miles upon miles in the hot and cold weather, in the dark on cold mornings or in the late afternoons as the bugs gathered near the trees. I imagine I’ll take it up again. Perhaps in my thirties, as I like to say. I’m not sure how much I’ll manage to do in my thirties but the list is rapidly lengthening. I’m a better long distance runner, meaning I pass more people if you give me more time. I’m good at the long game and good at coming up from behind.
But back to the children. A run would do it, but for me in the city, it’s very nice to drift away for a few hours and flip quickly down the sidewalk with both arms swinging freely at my sides and the sun in my eyes and a place to go in mind. It’s nice to slip narrowly through an opened shop door and weld your way delicately between display tables, no stroller wheels to mind, no chattering to acquiesce your mental space to.
Here’s a dreamy itinerary: take the train to Central Square. Stop by Piccante for a horchata. Walk down Inman Street, get a chill at the overgrown homes and the old fashioned Cambridge living happening before your eyes, and take a left to go to Dwelltime. Order a cappuccino that must take at least ten minutes to make by their standards, and a few of the delectable macaroons. If they are pink, it’s from the rosewater, or the strawberries. Stop in at the fabric store Gather Here, and think about women owning small businesses and how wonderful they make them. Continue on your walk to the Cambridge Public Library. Take a right inside and pick out every magazine you’ve wanted to read for the past month to page through. Find a seat in front of the enormous glass windows that frame the even larger sprawling lawn. Leaf through beauty tips to your heart’s content. Walk to Harvard Square. Stop for a tranquil moment at Oona’s and debate becoming a lady who only wears jackets from the ’20s, with heels. Stop at Follow the Honey and taste, in succession, several of the best honeys you’ve ever had. Get a text that the girls are up, and hop on the T, homeward bound. The funny amazing thing is that it takes me so little time to reset. I think that’s why parents talk about looking at photos of their kids when they are asleep. They already miss them, though it’s been just an hour or two.
This one is for the narrowest time slot: nestle into the open corner table at a coffee shop. I have four shops within walking distance so I can leave the apartment while the girls nap and still come back refreshed in time for the family to do something together. The coffee shops downtown have a speedy jive to them—so many people are passing through in a rush. When I take a table, with a book to read and mug in hand, I feel the envious eyes narrowing. Such simple thing, but you would think I’d set up a hammock with a side of strawberry daiquiri for the looks people rushing through give me. Get with the program and hurry on, they urge. No no, not me, I say. I’m doing something else here.
-
Soon Spoon
Last week, alongside six bloggers and a rather hip Twitter up n comer, I attended a Popup dinner for the launch of Soon Spoon. A new startup, they discover last-minute reservations at fine dining restaurants in Boston and tweet, email or text them to you. These are restaurants which would often need at least a week’s notice to get you a table. A super helpful service to locals, and for tourists who only have a few days to eat at Boston’s best spots.
People who book frequently with Soon Spoon are rewarded with invitations to popup dinners catered by local chefs. A twist on your typical promotion, it’s a communal local foodie idea that I love.
Our dinner was six courses, with wine pairings. Hello. Lucky ducks we were.
Soon Spoon introduced us to our chefs for the night: two guys getting PhDs in Immunology from Harvard Medical School start a side catering project. PhaDe Food Labs. They can only cook like this two or three times a month, but when they do, they brainstorm the menu for days, tweak endlessly, and throw in a few last minute dishes based on what they saw at the grocer the day before. It was my first real encounter with what I think of as “Modernist Cuisine” style cooking–foams, dried powders, and using the sous-vide method to cook one of the meats. It was fantastic. Everything was just a little bit quirky but delicious and satisfying.
And they were game to discuss their technique on just about anything, going into tangents about chemicals and taste, and explaining the tools they used. So, basically my dream come true in a cook: knowledgable nerds who love food and discussion.
The dinner was held at a lovely and warm South End brownstone. Each dish was paired with an equally spectacular wine, all of them selected by Jonathan Fenelon from Clio. Based on what we drank, evidently Clio’s wine list is dynamite.
I loved this “dish”–a puree made from the first fava beans of the season, underscored with pickled ramps from last seasons, finished with a salty crunch and a pretty flower. Fresh, tart and green–it tasted simply like Spring.
But, this dish was my favorite! Nantucket bay scallops wrapped in black pasta, a smear of uni, and what they termed “sea and sand”: froth made from clam broth (see the foam?) enriched with a little kombu for an extra seaweed kick, and brown butter powder which had the slightest sand texture to it. Yup, brown butter powder as the sand. It was delicious, and clever to boot.
⌃⌃Here are the cooks leaning out of the tiny apartment kitchen, mid-pro-con delicious debate.⌃⌃
At the very least I recommend that you follow Soon Spoon on Twitter to keep up (+ they retweet a lot of food Boston news). You can book PHaDe for a private event in your home using Kitchensurfing right here, and follow them on Twitter. Soon Spoon, call me again, anytime.
-
This Week
Lux: Three months short of three, such a complex age. By turns defiant, endearing, and infuriating, she keeps this mama on the tips of her toes. 
Joan: so, so eager to be a walker, or a crawler, anything! It feels as if she can’t wait to grow up. -
11 / 52
“A portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Joan: Yawning post-snack. She loves to settle in and pivot in her chair so she can keep eye on everyone in the kitchen. 
Lux: in a friend’s dreamy kid space. Sorting colorful buttons with glee. Thanks to Anna for telling me to stick with this. She’s right, you know.
-
Alden & Harlow
It’s a treat to visit a place you’ve been watching from afar. I saw Alden & Harlow, a new restaurant in Harvard Square next to Brattle Theatre, photographed on a thought for food, and then thoroughly written up on tiny urban kitchen. Between the two of them, and this Boston Magazine post about AH’s cocktail menu, I was positively desperate to check it out. Fortunately Natalie and Anna are always game to visit new spots and we got a date on the calendar quickly.
What is really fun about the menu is the fact that everything is a small plate, but very shareable and priced well. Three of our favorites–the kale salad, the butternut squash salad, and charred broccoli (with squash hummus!)–were priced at $9 and completely divisible by three. In all, we shared eight plates, including dessert. It was so nice to get to try so many flavors–especially when each plate was packed with different textures and tastes–nuts, seeds, oils, yogurt, seasonings of all varieties. The flavor medleys matched our conversation as we found ourselves talking almost exclusively about travel–past trips and future dreaming. Natalie, just back from Thailand, is planning trips to Turkey and Argentina. And Anna has a nearly perfect West Coast trip just a month away.
The service style is spot on–no rush to continue ordering, we were encouraged to just enjoy and relish, and order more as we wished. The cocktails are wild–local, extremely seasonal, and unlike anything I’d seen. I hesitate to recommend a specific one for you, but I will tell you not to miss the house bitter with your dessert.
One last thing–I couldn’t believe how good the chips and dip where. You’ll hear from everyone all about their salads and amazing veggies, but I love a good chip & dip snack and this three-onion-dip was delicious and the chips were so crunchy and fresh. Best chips, best dip, respect for that.
-
winter endings
I was out to a nice dinner with a bunch of girls the other day. Several of them are lawyers, though none of them bring it up every other minute, as I would for sure, if in their position. One of the girls works in the junior courts as an advocate, meaning if a five year old expresses an interest in returning to his mother, who everyone is aware is a drug addict, her job is to represent that wish in a convincing way to the court. This was received with some shock around the table, “really, a five year old gets to decide?”
This was NO news to me because I’m already delegating half our planning to Lux, with mixed results. The polls aren’t fully in, but I think it’s crimping our style. It seems to be a citywide epidemic among her peers to not want to go outside if asked, but once you get them outside, to steadfastly announce, “I don’t want to go home.”
“What are we doing? Not going home, right?” Lux quizzes me when we switch directions mid-walk through the park. It’s nice to know her geography skills will rapidly develop under the duress of trying to determine whether we’re headed home or not. “Oh, just walking in this direction now,” I murmur. Thus it is that we end up not going to the gym because it’s been deemed “too crazy” that morning, or put off a library trip until it’s too late. “Oh Baby Joan says she wants to go outside!!” Lux declares at the last minute, when I announce it’s nap time. Sorry kiddo.
But anyway, the list of nice things we like to do instead is steadily growing: books on tape with a book to page along with, painting, cookie baking, long bubble baths, a solid forty minutes of reading out loud with Lux loyally working to keep the books from Joan’s drooly grasp as we read. During Joan’s morning nap, Lux and I have begun a habit of spending fifteen minutes on my computer typing out words, with the typeface size set to 48. The words seem to always include “Lux Lou, Daddy, Bunny” but also sometimes “chickadee” or “cucumber.” Then we print out those pages and she can color them in.
Maybe I write all this so cheerfully because I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just looked up to see that carousel on the Common will open April 11th, which is so soon! That’s the day before the grand Easter Egg Hunt at our neighborhood playground, and two days before Palm Sunday which is heralded at our church with a march outside around the church. The fun things will be happening outside, and that’s a good good sign.
-
Future Perfect
What I imagined to be the largest hurdle of two children has come to pass: they are sleeping in the same room. It was fine, fun even. Joe ramped up the thrill of sharing a room, and had Lux help him construct Joan’s crib. I briefed her that Joan would probably cry a bit and that Lux would have to ignore her, just like she does when Joan cries next to her in the car. She nodded solemnly. Honestly, I think Joan was very pleased to be in the same room as Lux, despite her five minutes of noisy protest. Joe and I congratulated ourselves and marveled at the convenience of using our closet in the evening again.
And this week we skimmed over another hurdle, though it was one I had not anticipated: taking Lux to a specialist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital. A “toe checkup” as we pitched it to Lux. Children’s feels like a hospital crossed with a fine hotel that boasts great service. Art everywhere. Brightly colored walls. Valets waiting to park cars, enormous airlock doors steadily opening and closing, a garage with clean signage in several languages. It felt like there was one staff member per patient as security, nurses, receptionists, doctors, students and interns churned past us.
Most of the parents looked like hell because that’s what you look like when you feel as if it’s you v. traffic in order to to be on time to an appointment you scheduled three months in advance. The kids looked like mini professors, standing quietly in their zipped up winter jackets, trooping down the halls as if they’d done this many many times. As Lux and I waited to check in at our front desk, a woman swept by with a handful of bright pinwheels and handed her one. This pinwheel apparition from heaven only topped off the waiting room stacked with books, building blocks, a chirping television, a bright plastic box labeled “treasure chest”, and three enormous cylinders filled with bubbly water and bobbing plastic fish. Dream world to Lux but it only meant one thing to me: people have to hang out here a lot.
The doctors and nurse kindly treated us like the over-concerned parents we turned out to be. When you fill out that check-in paperwork and are faced with all those little boxes, you are reminded of all the things you could be checking off. No, she doesn’t complain about them. No, she has no trouble walking. It was clear we were small beans compared to what they saw every day. In fact, they pointed out that her gently curving toes, officially diagnosed “curly toes,” are usually genetic–which reminded me that I have them too, though to a lesser degree. Ah. Odd how I never thought of it that way when I was worrying over hers.
It turns out I’m terrible at estimating these things–the trouble or ease of future events with children. What’s that trick you learn to portray perspective in art? Vanishing Points? I finally get to my scary vanishing points and they turn out to just be smears of chocolate sauce on my favorite shirt. Leaving Children’s this morning we felt lucky, but also in it somehow with all the people who weren’t breezing back home with us, in this so-worried-over-something-you-love thing, for good.
-
Tis the season
tis the season for banana bread with coconut or chocolate pudding with ancho chili powder.
tis the season for throwing out old socks with holes in the toes.
tis the season for risking a smile for stranger.
tis the season for heating up some water, grabbing a towel, tucking underneath, and taking some deep breaths.
tis the season for asking your partner for a backrub.
tis the season for pulling out a calendar, turning to June, and writing in every fun thing that you miss.
tis the season for asking your best friend from high school what movie she loved lately.
tis the season for keeping five dollars in your jacket for the next person who asks.
tis the season to practice your easter egg dyeing skills and then make your grandmother’s egg salad recipe.
tis the season for deciding that a pint of raspberries isn’t so extravagant after all.
tis the season for going to the museum and searching for the painting with the most flowers.
calendar from philadelphia’s omoi zakka shop, who specialize in Japanese imports.
-
veggie tricks
Since I last posted about plated.com, I’ve ended up cooking almost twenty dishes through them! I’ve also gifted plates to several people in place of making them meals myself. At this stage in my life, they are my favorite takeout place and my favorite-recipe-for-a-friend rolled into one.
I thought I’d post a couple tricks they used, ones I liked so much that I use on my own now.
Broccoli: My favorite part was their suggestion to break the broccoli off leaving longer stem pieces. The stem are delicious roasted! Toss the broccoli with olive oil, sprinkled with grated pecorino or parmesan cheese, and roast at 450 for ten minutes.
Cucumber ribbons: I had never tried this before but it was such an elegant way to serve cucumber. Plated had me toss them with a tahini dressing, but next time I’m going to try what my friend suggested on Instagram–salt and light vinegar. As a child I loved marinated cucumber but I had completely forgotten about it.
Citrusy Carrot Hash: Saute diced onions in olive oil for five minutes. Add diced carrots and three tablespoons water and saute them for ten minutes. Add the juice of one orange and one lemon to the pan, and let cook for two more minutes. Stir one tablespoon butter at the end. Delicious!
-
Toddler iPad
At 2.8 Lux can be happily ensconced with the iPad for close to the entirety of a four hour flight. She didn’t really engage with movies or games on it until around age 2, so this is a big change (sweet relief) for our travel now. I thought I’d do a quick update on what we keep on there. We only use the iPad for travel like this, or serious emergencies at home, so everything stays fresh and exciting.
We have purchased both seasons of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood from iTunes. Love him. When’s the new season coming, Daniel??
For this trip, I bought the 30 minute Lost and Found film, on tinybop’s recommendation. It was $10 on iTunes which seems steep but she ended up watching it about six times and it’s really really lovely.
We also bought the Japanese film My Neighbor Totoro. We all watched that one together, really sweet and I love all the Japanese lifestyle details. I think Miyazaki films are great for kids. They remind me of folk tales and seem to encourage imagination of all sorts.
Our current favorite apps for her are: the Human Body, Monkey Lunchbox, Petting Zoo, Soundtouch, and Ants Lite (actually, just Lux approves of this one. I find it confusing).
Other travel items we rely on: her panda headphones, and sugary yummy earth vitamin C suckers for take-off and landing.
image from the Lost and Found film, by Oliver Jeffers.