Author: NouveauSoileau

Optimistic mother, devoted lover, careful writer

The sweet taste of success

Published on by NouveauSoileau1 Comment

Say hello to Christopher, my 12-year-old son.

You know when you’re pregnant and imagining the life your as-yet-unborn little darling will have, invariably you picture cliched, storybook images.

Cooing baby wriggling in crib, vastly entertained by mobile.

Absorbed toddler builds with blocks on the floor.

Darling preschooler colors within the lines.

Diligent student brings home A’s.

Successful graduate lands dream job.

You know how it goes. Along the way, you expect that a kid’s personality will emerge and he or she will start doing whatever it is that interests them. And, if you’re lucky, some of those interests will mirror your own. But I never imagined I’d spawn a chef.

It started about like you’d expect: a hungry impatient kid whining around about dinner. “When are we going to eeeeeeeeeeeeat?”

“Well, if you’d like to help out, I’m sure dinner will be ready a lot quicker!” you respond brightly, hoping your enthusiastic tone conveys every ounce of joy that may be discovered in the culinary arts.

After a few years of eye-rolling, apparently a little bit started rubbing off on him and look, I’ve got a helper in the kitchen. Nightly, he chops tomatoes or eggplant, he shred lettuce for salads. He’s currently begging to “mince something.” Meat to be browned? He’s right there poking it apart in the skillet.

And last Sunday he petitioned to be allowed to make pumpkin bread, a project cut short by the fact that there was no pumpkin in the house. Undeterred, he consulted the cookbook and discovered that muffins were doable, and that is what he made. Blueberry muffins that turned into mixed-berry muffins when he found that’s what the suggested bag of blueberries in the freezer actually was.

So now I have a helper in the food-preparation business, along with a dishwasher-unloader and table-setter in the person of Claire, who performs these duties spectacularly each weeknight.

Ahhh. Shared time in the kitchen and actual, real, unadulterated assistance. Dinners taste so much better nowadays.

Top Tips for Busy Chicks

Published on by NouveauSoileau1 Comment

I’m a pretty busy woman. I work full-time, I have three children — one in high school, one in middle school and one in preschool — and a fairly large house.

A long time ago I decided that I can’t do it all; in fact, much of the time it’s hard to achieve the bare minimum. But there are a few things I have, over the years, come to insist upon in family life, and I’ve developed a method of achieving them. One of these is to eat a family dinner every night. Another is to drink coffee every morning. Both of these noble goals are reflected below.

And so … in the interest of raising the national level of sane food consumption and simplying daily living for working families, I offer these Top Ten Tips for Busy Chicks. Really, it’s just things that work for me. They may not work for you. You may not find interesting or absorbing many of the things I do (cooking with fresh herbs). You may rather spend your time vaccumming (low on my priority list).

So take a look, take what you like, leave the rest.

10. Grow your own herbs. Anyone who’s whining that they always kill houseplants need only to make the life-affirming decision to internalize these three words: Water. The Plants. That’s it. That’s all you need to do. Water them.

Start small and build up. You don’t have to install some giant intimidating kitchen garden off your patio. In fact, you can just grow one plant. I recommend parsley. If you make a lot of spaghetti sauce it really sparks up the flavor. You can also cut it up on your garlic bread. Throw it in your salad. Right now I’ve got a pot of parsley and a pot of basil. Even if you only do it for the color, it’s worth it in terms of presentation. You’ll feel gourmet. And you’ll have a houseplant.

9. Latex gloves. If you make a lot of chicken like I do, you know you have to touch that slimy stuff. Grody to the max right? Well, you can purchase disposable gloves that fit you like a  … well, they fit snugly and enable you to remove boneless chicken breasts from the package, rinse them and cut them up without ever touching the horrifying things. They’re also handy for washing dishes, potting plants or any number of repulsive jobs you don’t want your precious hands to touch. You don’t have to buy medical-grade gloves but they were the only ones I could find at the store this week. Tras claims they sell them at Lowe’s. I used to buy them at Meijer’s in the laundry section but they’ve chumped out on me.

8. Frozen vegetables for stir fry. Yes, you can stir-fry using frozen veggies. They’re usually available in the cheaper store brand and the quality is fine. Put oil in your wok or skillet, heat, and dump in the frozen vegetables. Stir-fry as usual. It takes a little longer to cook because you’re working from frozen, but it’s so much easier than standing there cutting up 5 million pieces of 86 different veggies. Sacre bleu.

7. Laundry. It’s hideous, right? Especially if you have children. So, the answer is give them each a basket for their room, and train them to throw their clothes in it and then — and this is the clincher — take the basket to the laundry room. This sets up your Evil Plan for later, when you actually require them to take the laundry to the laundry room or basement, where you have several baskets waiting for them to deposit their white, light and colored clothing. Get them trained on this system and by the time they’re in middle school they can put the clothes in the washer and TURN IT ON. You will feel so free.

6. Oh, and by the way, if you’ve got ’em, use ’em. And by this I mean the free labor of children in your household. They aren’t going to magically learn how to clean a bathroom when they leave for college, so you’d better make sure they learn it now. And hey: it gets you out of the work.

Do it now. Give each kid a turn cleaning the bathroom, mopping it on alternate weeks. They’ll be trained for a lifetime! If you’ve got boys, especially, this is a must. Their future wives will thank you — particularly if you also make them put the seat down when they’re done peeing. My theory is, I wiped your poopy bottom and kept you in clean diapers. Now if you’re going to piss on the floor, YOU can clean it up. It’s outta my realm.

5. Take care of your shoes. So if you know me you know I’m completely insane on the subject of shoes, right? Well, this makes sense: if you love your shoes as I do, you’ll take care of them so that they’ll look good for their entire darling little lifespans.

Save all the tissue paper that comes with the shoe. After you’ve worn the shoe each day, stuff the paper back down in so that the toe retains its shape.  For boots, put the cardboard back inside the shaft so they don’t bend funny. Keep the original box and replace the shoes after wearing, and tuck them gently in with tissue paper so they don’t get mud and crud on each other, or scratch the leather. If your shoes came with shoe bags, use them!

4. Three words: frozen ground turkey. It’s ridiculously cheap and better for you than ground beef. And best of all, depending what you use it for, no one — especially your children, they of the unschooled palate — will be able to tell the difference. You can even add things like zucchini to it when you make burgers and increase the nutrition. And — especially if you use my recipe — it’s delicious.

3. Eat breakfast. You’ll do yourself a diet favor by not snacking later in the day, save money by eating at home, and up your nutrition by eating oatmeal. Think it’s too mushy? Give steel-cut oats a try. They’ve got more texture and a nutty flavor. I make a large pot nearly every Sunday (16 cups water + 4 cups steel-cut, or Irish oats). Buy them in bulk; they’re way cheaper.

Toast the oats first in a dry skillet, add to salted boiling water and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool and place in a container or ziplock freezer bag. If you have access to a fridge at work, store it there, and eat it all week reheated in the microwave. We like to top ours with applesauce, walnuts and cinnamon. Or you can just reheat and eat it at home, if you have 10 or so minutes to spare.

2. Make coffee. If you like a hot delicious cup of coffee in the morning, don’t promise yourself you’ll run through Starbucks or McDonald’s. Reward yourself for being fabulous by making it at home. Just don’t do it in the morning. Do it the night before.

Here’s what I do: prepare the coffeepot before you go to bed. Set out your mug (or mugs if you have a husband or someone else you need to caffinate). When the alarm goes off, switch on the coffeemaker before you go pee or whatever. If you poke around like I do, your coffee may be ready by the time you get in the shower. If not, it’ll surely be ready and delicious when you step out, and you can sip while you get ready. Pour any leftovers into a travel mug. Leave.

Bonus tip: If you have the space in your bathroom, consider just putting the coffee pot right there next to the sink, bed ’n’ breakfast style. Or you can pour a small thermos full and take that to the bathroom, and dole it out to yourself as needed.

1. Zinc Oxide is MIRACULOUS for burns. Now, we all do dumbass things periodically, and late last week I took it to ridiculously new lows. After sauteeing some mushroom caps for stuffing, I decided to go ahead and bake them in the sautee pan. Everything went fine until I removed the pan from the oven …. set it on the stove …. removed the mushrooms …. and then moved the pan out of the way. With my bare hand. Holy Mary Mother of God.

A half-hour later I still couldn’t take the cold pack off my hand without shocking pain. Claire and Tras went on a mission of mercy to the grocery store for aloe, but in addition to the gel, Tras returned with a tube of zinc oxide the pharmacist recommended. When at last I could remove the cold pack, I slathered it with the zinc oxide, applied some gauze and Tras wrapped me in an Ace bandage. I slept all night with the ZO on the wound, and slathered some more on the next morning.

When I removed the bandages that evening the pain was completely gone. GONE. No swelling, no hideous blisters. The whole shebang just sort of dried up, as you can possibly see in the re-enactment photo yonder.

I’ve burned myself numerous times, and this was by far the worst yet. Possibly second-degree, although that’s in my 25-years out-of-date EMT medical opinion.

So … drum roll there you have it, to start your week: my accumulated housewifely knowledge in David Letterman List form.

Hope it all works out for you if you try any of these. Let me know how your shoes, in particular, are faring under the new regime.

Fab Friday photos

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When you’re from someplace as ordinary as Kentucky and go someplace as documented New York City, I’ve found, you’ve got to take photos that reveal if not the quirky side of Manhattan, at least the quirky side of you.

The Statue of Liberty, as you can see, does this not at all. Everyone has seen photos of it. Now, it’s a tiny bit awesome to see it for the first time yourself, but looking at the photos, I can’t help but think, yeah, yeah, that’s her.

This one was taken from the Staten Island Ferry. While we floated by, our guide recited, from memory, the entire poem inscribed on the statue’s base;  you know the one — it ends with something about tired poor huddled masses.

Kind of like I felt there on the ferry, huddled together with commuters, tourists and surly natives, the kind which made me fear for my very life. In particular, one skinny redheaded teenage girl who could have effortlessly ground me to a pulp with her accent alone. I would have loved to have taken HER picture, except I was trying to avoid the grinding to a pulp part. I couldn’t help but be amused, though, listening to her give her boyfriend down the road about taking her out onto the deck and exposing her translucently pale skin to the glaring harbor sun. “You ain’t takin’me out here t’get sunburnt, BOIEEEE,” she said from about an inch and a half away from his dark African-Hispanic face.

So while this interesting couple escaped my lens due to fear of being beaten to death by a 97-pound 15-year-old, I did find a few other things to occupy myself. Most notably, as I have said before, the gorgeous art in the Metropolitan Museum.

Here we have Joan of Arc, by Pierre-Auguste Cot. Doesn’t she look totally psycho? As is widely known, Joan was possessed by the fervor of doing God’s work by leading the French into battle against the English; good old Cot seems to capture that can-do spirit of matrydom well here.

On the other hand, we have another of his works, Spring:

I’ve got a weird irrational love of this thing. It’s so completely consumed by classical idealistic passion. And besides, just look at the way he’s looking at her. He TOTALLY wants her, and right now. You just have to admire that in a work of art.

I can’t decide how touristy these next two are; I found both sites compelling. This is the Dakota Building, where Yoko Ono apparently still resides, and where John Lennon was killed in 1980.

Right there, outside those gates, right there, Mark David Chapman shot him. I stood before this landmark that thousands have passed and millions have seen in video and print images and just could hardly believe that I was standing right there.

I do sort of hate all the air conditioning units poking out of the windows, though.

Here is a mosaic on the walkway through a section of Central Park near the Dakota that has been christened Strawberry Fields. It’s to be a place for meditation, and was constructed with the funds and blessings of Ono. I think it’s striking, and though there were tourists a-plenty looking at it the day I was there, it was indeed a hushed place, rare and beautiful in a place as teeming with humanity as New York.

This I consider art, too, but in a rather different way. It’s a little like performance art, except it’s named without a single shred of irony. This is a real store sort of between Chinatown and SoHo.

I also saw stores called OMG and Rat Bastard, so this probably isn’t even all that startling. But still. Rather rare around here. OK there are NO stores with Chinese names here — or any that are fancy.

I don’t care how many times I see this next photo, it never fails to crack me up.

This is not a statue that is broken.

This is not a statue they’re just a little slow on getting around to gluing back together.

This is a statue of a saint, one St. Firmin, and he is holding his head.

That’s the title of this work of art. St. Firmin Holding His Head.

And ah, the best for last.

This piece of statuary stands in an entire room filled with the entirety of a castle porch, patio and plaza. The paving stones are there, the portico, the windows, everything. It obviously was dismantled at some location where sensuous statues are embraced.

No, I’m not generally such a prude that I have to sit down and and recover myself after the mere sight of marble nudity. No it’s just that I’m prone to juvenile observations, and felt compelled to take the following shot for the benefit of the two similarly equipped sons I have at home.

In most of the world, as you may know, the uncircumcised male is pretty much the norm. Here in the U.S. though, not so much. And since it’s rare, and since I apparently have yet to adequately smother the giggling teenage girl that still resides within, I had to take this photo for the boys at home. It’s Your Anatomy in Marble in a Museum, guys!

Yes, we’re snickering at peenies today, God bless ’em, in order to start the weekend in a proper frame of mind.

Make the most of it!

Halloween — LIVE!

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On the occasion of this annual festival of all that is gory, dead, undead and disgusting, I bring you this thing of beauty.

It’s a positively pumpkin sky. Which I’m convinced the heavens gifted me with, after seeing my aversion to the whole “holiday” yesterday.

Yes, you read that right. God reads my blog.

Well at any rate, tonight was Trick-or-Treating, and we did the neighborhood laps, extorting candy from the neighbors.

This particular neighbor happens to be my mother, so the extortion is entirely justified. Grandmothers, after all, are entirely set up to ply their grandchildren with sweets they’re not supposed to have.

It’s quite a sociable neighborhood, is it not? With friendly signs telling it like it is. I chose not take offense.

Other houses sported carved pumpkins in varying states of decay. This one looked pretty much freshly killed.

Where is my carved pumpkin you might ask? Still in its pristine state, I answer. I’m still not over the year I sweated and slaved to carve this great enormous thick-walled bastard the likes of which I’d never seen. You could have gotten 12 or 15 pies out of that thing. I traced a simple triangle-eyes, circle nose, gap-tooth mouth upon its lumpy countenance — and 45 minutes later I had like an eye and a half out. It was unendurable. I haven’t carved a pumpkin since, though I’m sure if I mustered up the energy while trolling down at the old pumpkin patch, I could discern one that had a little more scope for carving.

But I doubt I will.

I just say, now that I prefer the harvest decorating style of pumpkin and dare anyone to make me carve it. Eviscerate — maybe.

Let me be clear, though — Halloween, in my eyes, is for the small fry, and this particular tater tot had a marvelous time. “This is the BEST HALLOWEEN!” he kept squealing, the whole way home after a good hour or so of neighbor-extortion. “I remembered to say thank you!” he also was wont to report.

For that, it was worth just a little death and dismemberment.