Graduation day

DP, Miss B, and I often joke that we’re “not a math family.” Words, rather than numbers, are our preferred medium, by a long way, to transmit information. So when DP suggested that I say a few words at Miss B’s graduation dinner, I was surprised to note that what kept coming into my mind were numbers. Those had more impact for me in capturing Miss B’s singular experience so far than any words I could corral onto paper. So here they are, documented for posterity.

26+3 Miss B’s gestational age when she made her unforeseen early entrance onto this plane of existence - at the very end of July, rather than her due date of early November.

590 That’s her birthweight, in grams; for those of you working in imperial, that’s 1 lb., 5 oz.

225 Days spent in hospital - about 7.5 months on the calendar, from the end of July 2004 to mid-march 2005.

When Miss B came home, her health was stable and her physical life and development became more typical in many ways (albeit on her own schedule). But her life experience continued to follow a road less traveled:

3 | 3 | 4 | 4 Miss B has lived in three countries on three continents, as well as in four US states. She also navigated four intercontinental moves between the ages of 3 and 13. 

(When we moved back to the US five years ago, I promised her that the next time she moved, it would be her decision. I’ve been able to keep that promise, and she has taken the decision to move again, to attend university. She will also be moving to her fourth country, but I’m grateful to say that she will be remaining on the same continent.)

10 | 7 In the course of all these moves, Miss B has also lived in 10 houses (or apartments), and attended seven schools - a metric that testifies to her resilience and adaptability.

For the final number that came to me, I tried to calculate the number of air miles that Miss B has logged. I gave up when I passed 100,000, and was not close to finishing.

Reflecting on these numbers brought me back to some words that I feel describe, at least somewhat adequately, the person she has always been and continues to become.

Intrepid

Creative

Curious

Passionate

Kind

Funny

Focused 

Brave

To Miss B: I offer you congratulations and admiration for all that you’ve learned and achieved as you complete this milestone and look to your next phase. I’m so glad that I’m your mother and riding this roller coaster with you. To me, you are first, last, and always - the mighty Miss B.

Easter 2022

Here's this year's edition of my annual Easter post...

...freshly completed tarrale...

...a piping-hot pizza chiena...

...a bouquet of tulips from my visit to the first farmers' market of the year on Saturday morning...

...all culminating in this morning's Easter breakfast spread.

I also discovered from a friend's post that this weekend is a rare confluence of spring festivals in a number of different cultures and traditions. So I'm sending good wishes to everyone celebrating Easter, Passover, Ramadan, and Vaisakhi this weekend - and a weekend of peace, goodwill, and abundance to everyone. 

Circuit 53

This past week was pretty packed with meetings and deadlines, and so I didn’t have the time or the brain space to cook anything new or different. I only made one thing that I wouldn’t usually make in the middle of the week, and it is very old. (And it’s not the only one.) 

I’ve been making my own birthday cakes for more than 20 years now, since I first moved away from Boston. Before that, my mother made them, and the combination of yellow cake (or gold cake, as she called it), and chocolate frosting was the one I chose most often. It still is. I’ve had the occasional celebration cake or dessert produced or procured by someone else, but all I ever really want when my birthday rolls around is one of my mother’s cakes. Making it myself is as close as I can get. 

My personal new year starts a little bit later than everyone else’s. I haven’t set any major resolutions, intentions, or goals this year, as I have tended to do in the past. I’m just hoping that the good outweighs the bad in 2022, for all of us.

Day 256

Photo credit to a sister who was there - I was only a virtual participant!

It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the US. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not hosting anyone, I’m not doing any of the things that would normally preoccupy me on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. But I’m so ready to take a break from the daily grind.

This past Sunday was Pie Day - a family tradition that has endured for decades and which I can’t believe I’ve never written about here before. At its peak of production, my parents, sisters, and I gathered on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to crank out more than two dozen apple pies for our large extended family and to serve on the day - homemade crust made in a washtub by my mother, apples by the bushel peeled and sliced mostly by my father. The tradition itself starts with my mother and her own mother, somewhere around 65 years ago, before any of my generation came along, tackling an American custom and making it their own. 

Last year I spent Pie Day in Boston with my siblings and niblings for the first time in probably 20 years. This year, of course, everything looks different, but we adapted. Most of my Boston sisters gathered in sister S’s backyard to assemble pies in the frosty air, while those of us who were remote zoomed in from possible-exposure self-quarantine (no symptoms so far), Chicago, and metro DC (yours truly). We produced a total of 10 pies across our various locations - all apple, as usual (we’re not pumpkin pie people). 

My pie specs, for anyone who’s interested: a double batch of this amazing pie crust and a dozen Granny Smith apples tossed with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and sprinkled with lemon juice.

And so, come what may (and please let 2020 not have anything left in its arsenal), the holiday season begins. 

Day 30

This weekend marks completing our fourth week of quarantine. It continues to feel almost normal to me, interspersed with moments that feel very strange or unreal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about meticulous mindfulness, which I wrote about a lot about four years ago. DP and I have both joked that we already knew how to do social isolation, because we were doing it before it was trendy. Like many jokes, this one holds a painful truth. A significant chunk of our time in Australia was marked by experiences of profound isolation for all of us. And well before that was the watershed experience of Miss B’s premature birth and long hospitalization, the crucible in which our family unit was formed. 

In those situations, our only real recourse was to focus on each other, and on the next task at hand. When looking outward or forward brought only pain and anxiety, we found it best to focus inward, on routines and rituals that brought a sense of security and comfort. Friday movie night. Sunday breakfast. Summer vacation at the beach. They’ve adjusted to fit our circumstances as we’ve moved from place to place, but they’ve provided a sense of security and continuity when everything else felt uncertain and unpredictable. These are the essence of what meticulous mindfulness has become for me.

Our established schedules have provided some much-needed structure over the past month, as DP and Miss B have adjusted to home-based life, and I’ve adjusted to having other people here all the time. We’ve made some adjustments to our shared schedules as well: DP and I have started taking a walk together most afternoons. We all forage together in the fridge for lunch, and if there’s time afterwards, we might fit in a game of dominoes. And Miss B is getting more involved in dinner prep and baking. 

Food highlights this week were a combination of new and old. To help keep me from getting stale in the kitchen, I’ve re-introduced Wild Card Wednesdays, where I get free rein to make whatever I want for dinner and my two picky eaters have to at least try it before resorting to cheese and crackers or other backup sustenance. This week I tried my hand at falafel, using a Dinner with Julie recipe involving canned chickpeas and other pantry staples. Served with homemade pita bread and Greek salad, I’m happy to report that they were a hit.

And over the last two days, honoring a family tradition that’s older than all of us put together, Miss B and I made taralli and pizza chiena, in preparation for Easter. We won’t be able to host or join any celebrations this year, so we’re going to play Easter bunny and make some deliveries around our neighborhood and beyond. And I’ll feel grateful for the fact that, even in the current circumstances, I feel fortunate to be where I am, and far less isolated than I have been in other times and places.

I wish you all a peaceful, safe, and healthy weekend, however you’re spending it.

Hello 2020

The proudest accomplishment of my staycation: learning to crochet granny squares.
Afghans for everyone!

Home On Monday we all returned to our regular schedules after a two-week holiday break. After spending a week in Boston over Thanksgiving, we didn’t travel anywhere, and it felt almost decadent to have two weeks off with no major commitments other than catching up with friends and family within a two-hour radius, seeing movies, and sightseeing locally. I even had time on New Year’s Eve to sit down and work through a guided reflection on 2019, and sketch out my intentions for 2020. If you’re interested to do the same as 2020 starts to crank up to speed, here’s the link. I found it a worthwhile exercise to put the past year in perspective and prepare for the one that’s coming. I revised my New Year’s Resolutions, which over the past couple of years have followed a numerical format that I wrote about previously. Framing them this way helps me to stay on track and keep them present in my mind:

1 handmade project/month - see picture above of my first one in progress!

2 outside events/month - book club, work meeting, civic activity, volunteering: anything that will get me out of my home office and encourage face-to-face interaction with other humans

3 minutes/day meditation - this is a fixture as I'm still working on achieving this consistently, but see the benefits when I do

4 books/month - 1 fiction, 1 nonfiction, 1 children’s/YA, 1 cookbook - last year I pretty consistently managed 1 fiction and 1 nonfiction, so I'm adding a bit more to the structure

5 30-minute exercise sessions/week - another fixture I'm still working to achieve consistently

6 pages/week of creative writing - I've committed to getting up 45 minutes early to make this happen, as I'm pretty confident based on past experience that it's the only way it won't get pushed aside for something else

7 hours/month on personal admin/financial maintenance - mundane but necessary, especially as I want to continue to focus on improving financial health and literacy this year

World I would be remiss if I didn’t put my own personal focus during this period into the context of larger events which marched on, festive season or not. The two countries that were (and are) on my mind the most are the US and Australia, both contending with epic existential crises on such a scale that they are likely to leave one feeling paralyzed with horror and despair. If you, like me, feel the need to take some kind of practical and useful action, a couple of suggestions:

US: Swing Left is coordinating a range of efforts targeting the critically important 2020 election cycle, ranging from making donations to writing postcards to getting out and canvassing.

Australia: This blog post, shared originally by one of my Melbourne friends, has some excellent practical advice about how to help - and how not to. Useful for anyone who's paying attention, either in Australia or from overseas.

Food I was re-reading Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year over the break (her memoir of the year after Gourmet magazine folded and her Editor in Chief job disappeared along with it), and was struck by this comment:

“...there will never be a time when terrible trouble is not stalking the earth, and I began to see how important it is to appreciate what you have.”

(And, I feel compelled to add, recognize what a tremendous privilege it is to be able to do so.)

It can often feel frivolous to focus on food and festivities when there is so much terrible trouble in the world, but I think they are also at the heart of what we are talking about when we say things like “preserving our way of life”. Franklin Roosevelt talked about the Four Freedoms when much of the world was neck-deep in World War II, fighting to secure those freedoms for a large chunk of humanity. Plentiful, nourishing food that we can cook and share with those around us makes good times better, and provides solace - sometimes the only solace - in times of trouble.

I’m going to try to spend more time here in 2020. I wish you and yours all the best for the coming year.

Next phase

View of the Potomac and Georgetown from the Key Bridge on a hot August afternoon

We are poised at the top of the roller coaster - that brief, interminable pause before the plunge. We've spent two and a half months in transit, and now we're on the threshold between this phase of the transition and the next one.

School starts tomorrow and Miss B, brave and resolute, will walk into a population of some 4,000 students, of whom she knows not one. On Wednesday, our shipment arrives from Canberra, and we begin the process of unpacking the boxes and settling ourselves into our new house and community.

As I write this, late on Monday night, I have a baseline hum of anxiety that flares up with every thought about any aspect of any of our futures. It's all unknown, and right now that's a little bit terrifying. We're stepping out of limbo and back into reality. I've been re-reading this BrainPickings post to remind myself that what I'm feeling is not only normal but universal, and trying to focus on the fundamental things to keep my perspective: we're together, we're healthy, and we've got a roof over our heads. From that foundation, we'll find a way.

Wish us luck: here we go.

Status update

New kitchen installation, Day 1.

Short version: our transition is ongoing.

Slightly longer version: we've been camped out in northern Virginia in a friend's basement for 5 weeks; tomorrow we shift to a short-stay apartment closer to our new house/construction site. We have now officially entered the intensive phase of renovation, and our household goods are expected to arrive in port from Australia shortly. Summer vacation 2.0 is entering its final phase for Miss B, with just over 2 weeks until school starts. DP is enjoying settling into his new job, and my working life has entered an interesting phase, of which more later - right now I'm mainly focused on juggling between work and contractor responsibilities, interspersed with occasional interactions with spouse and child.

My mantra of the moment: "It'll all get done somehow." And I'm not complaining - I knew what August would be like when I signed up for this.

One of the main reasons that makes it all worth it: being able to join my family's Cape vacation for the first time in ten years:

S'mores

Desserts: my mum's chocolate cake, with vanilla buttercream frosting (top);
Food52 Shortcut Pie with a gluten-free cookie crust filled with roasted peaches and raspberries (bottom)

Highlights included s'mores on the back patio and a mass birthday party for all the summer birthdays in my family (about half of the 15 people in attendance - I contributed the desserts). Other highlights, not pictured: the cousins' sleeping loft; Mexican train dominoes; loafing in rocking chairs on the porch; unscheduled time with a lot of people I've been missing for a long time.

Farewell Australia

Sunrise over Mt Ainslie, June 2018

The time has come - after a hectic six weeks three months we are sitting in the airport waiting for our first flight on our last Great Trek north from Australia. (We're heading back to the US via a 10-day holiday in Italy, so updates from there as WiFi permits.)

It's hard to realise that we've been here for six years this time around - the longest we have lived anywhere since DP and I began our international roving twenty (gulp!) years ago. The process of wrapping up our life here and saying our farewells has been an emotional roller coaster at times, especially over the past week. But in spite of saying goodbye to many people and places that we love, I don't think any of us has any doubt or hesitation that this next move is the best thing for all of us. When we left in late 2009, I didn't feel like we had fully finished our Australian chapter; this time around I've given away all my UK/AU cooking appliances, which is about as significant a gesture as I  can think of to indicate my intentions.

So long, Australia. It's been good to know you.

Intercontinental 7.0

Once again I have a major announcement that I can't put off any longer than I already have, trying to wait for the "ideal" moment or way to announce. (You'd think after this many go-rounds, I'd have worked out there is no such thing; or if there is, I've already had my best shot at it.)

So: our Australian sojourn 2.0 is coming to an end; in late June, we will bid farewell to Canberra and set forth on our next adventure - back home to the US. (That's US 4.0, if you're still counting.) We won't be quite back on our home turf, but we'll be closer than we've ever been since we began our international jaunting 20 (!) years ago - metro Washington, DC, just a hop, skip, and jump away. And a pretty interesting place to park in its own right; we're looking forward to getting our second summer of 2018, and starting to find our way around as residents rather than tourists we have always been previously. But first we've got goodbyes to say, belongings to organize and cull, and a fridge and pantry to eat down - let the next stage of the roller-coaster ride commence!

Mass quantities

Despite the length of time since my last post, I can't face doing another round-up write-up. It feels like too much of a chore, and counterproductive to the practice of meticulous mindfulness. (Or mindful meticulousness; I still can't decide.) So for the time being, I've decided to take a different approach: I'm going to work through my photo backlog, one at a time. I'm hoping having a well of inspiration to dip into will motivate me to get back into a more regular habit of doing actual writing, as opposed to rapid-fire updates.

In any case, this one deserves its own post: it's my family recipe for lasagna, and as well as being iconic, it is fairly massive, as you will see. To give you a sense of how massive: I made this in August for a Sunday lunch we hosted for a group of DP's students and their families - 12 adults and 15 children, including us. Given the numbers, I decided to multiply the base recipe by 1.5. And we had leftovers.

Lasagna alla mia famiglia
As noted, even this base recipe makes mass quantities - it involves more than 15 lbs (~7 kilos) of ingredients. (When I say it like that, multiplying it seems kind of insane. But then, like Nigella, I am never knowingly undercatered.)

One of the good things about this recipe is that you don't have to do it all in one go; when I made this last time, I cooked the meats and the sauce the day before. This made assembly on the day much simpler. 

Sauce
a double batch of Disruptive Bolognese (or substitute your favorite Bolognese-type sauce; the key components you need are ~2 lbs/1 kg of hamburger/beef mince, and ~48 oz/1400 g tomato passata or equivalent. More is better than less.)

Lasagna
2 lbs/1 kg pork butt (confusingly, this American term actually refers to a cut from the upper shoulder of the front leg; also known as Boston butt)
2 lbs/1 kg sweet Italian sausage
4 lbs/2 kg good-quality ricotta cheese4-6 jumbo/extra-large eggs
3 cups/~10 oz/~300 g grated pecorino romano cheese, divided
2 lbs/1 kg lasagna noodles (ready-to-cook are fine)

Preparing the lasagna components
1. Make the sauce as you normally would.

2. Heat oven to 350F/180C.

3. Slice pork butt thickly (it takes much longer to cook if it is one piece), place in a shallow roasting pan, and put in the oven.

4. Line another shallow roasting pan with foil; place sausages in this pan, and put in oven as well.

5. Cook both meats for 40-50 minutes, or until just cooked, turning once. (Remember that they will cook further in the lasagna.)

6. In a large bowl, mix together ricotta, *2* cups of the pecorino, and as many eggs as you need. (The consistency of this once mixed should be creamy and somewhat grainy, more of a batter than a cheesy consistency. You may get to this point with only 4 eggs, or it may take all 6. Likewise, you may need a bit more than 2 cups grated cheese, but save some to sprinkle over the top of the finished lasagna.) Put aside.

7. After both meats have cooked and cooled, cut into bite-sized pieces. Put aside.

(Please note that all steps to this point can be completed up to a day ahead. Refrigerate the components separately until you are ready to assemble.)

Assembling and cooking the lasagna
(If you are using ready-to-cook noodles, skips steps 8 and 9 and proceed to step 10.)

8. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add 2 heaping Tbsp of salt, a few drops of olive oil, and the noodles.

9. Cook noodles for no more than 10 minutes after water returns to boil. Drain noodles and return to colander to cool for a few minutes, shaking to distribute so they're less likely to stick together.

10. If not already on, heat oven to 350F/180C.

11. Cover the bottom of a very large roasting pan with sauce to a depth of ~.5 in/1 cm.
(Please note that when I say "very large" - my mother used an oval 18 in x 12 in x 4 in/~46 cm x 31 cm x 10 cm turkey roasting pan to make this. I make it in 2 rectangular 14.5 in x 11 in x 2 in/36.8 cm x 27.9 x 5.08 cm roasting pans. Either way, you should be aiming to get three complete sauce-noodles-cheese-meat layers in a pan, plus a noodles-and-sauce cover, so divide your ingredients accordingly. I assemble both pans at the same time, essentially treating it like one giant lasagna, so I can divide the cheese and meat by 3 and the noodles by 4.)

12. Place a single layer of noodles in the bottom of the pan, making sure they cover it completely with no gaps. (Slightly overlapping the noodles at the edges is okay, as is breaking the noodles to  get a good fit.)

13. Cover the noodles with a thick layer of the cheese mixture.

14. Scatter a portion of the pork and sausage over the cheese.

15. Generously cover layer with sauce.

16. Repeat noodles-cheese-meat-sauce twice more. You should now have used up all the cheese and meat, and have some noodles left.

17. Cover the pan(s) with the remaining noodles. Spread top with sauce, and sprinkle with remaining grated cheese.

18. Cover pan with foil and bake in oven for 45-60 minutes, until hot and bubbling. During last 15 minutes, remove foil to allow top to crisp.

19. When fully cooked, shut off oven, re-cover lasagna, and allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.

20. Serve topped with more sauce and grated cheese.


Serves about 20. Can be halved or multiplied.

Late winter

Just when I was getting into a regular routine of publishing on Sundays, winter school holidays began and poof went the normal schedule! Here's what's been going on since my last post:

Traveling

Lots of Canberrans go to the snow during July school holidays, but I find the idea of getting away from the cold much more attractive, and that's what we usually do. This year we went to New Caledonia, a Pacific island which is also a French territory. July is the "cool" season, which means temperatures are in the 20C-23C (70F-75F) range - perfect beach (and tropical flora) weather for us, although we did notice several locals wearing puffer coats.

The sunset view from our balcony - a nightly highlight of our visit.

Celebrating

Miss B is 13! I didn't manage a birthday post this year, but we celebrated twice - once with dinner and cake for family and a few close friends (can you guess this year's obsession?)...

...and again a couple of weeks later with laser tag, pizza, more cake, and friends. (13! How did that happen?)

Cooking

I recently tweaked my method for cooking homemade pizza after reading something online that I've now lost track of; my takeaway was to put my biggest cast-iron skillet in a very hot oven and heat it thoroughly for about 10 minutes. Then, remove the skillet carefully and throw in a pizza crust. Stick it back in the oven for about 5 minutes, remove again, and flip the crust. Spread it with sauce, top it with cheese, and put back in for another 5 minutes or more, until the cheese is browned and bubbling. This method has produced the best homemade pizza I've made yet, and I tested it on Miss B and two visiting friends who seemed to agree; of course as guests they were very polite - but they also devoured nearly two whole pizzas among three adolescents, which I took as an endorsement.

Speaking of my giant cast-iron skillet, I put it to good use again soon after, making a batch of polpette for the first time in far too long - certainly the first time since we moved here 2 years ago. They were very well received at Miss B's birthday dinner; and even though the recipe makes about 40, I'm going to have make another batch soon because we're already running low!

Baking

Holiday in New Caledonia meant daily access to boulangeries and croissants, and going into withdrawal when we got home compelled me to do something I've been contemplating for years - making my own. It's definitely a project for a weekend when you don't have much else on - the recipe I used has you start 36 hours before you want to eat them - but the actual hands-on work was less than 2 hours total. And it was totally worth it, for the eating and the sense of achievement. I'm already planning my next batch.

Today I baked something a little less ambitious: a variation on this cake from Melissa Clark for snacking and lunchboxes this week. It's a simple recipe, but notable because it marks my official initiation as a user (and fan) of the Eat Your Books website - which indexes thousands of cookbooks, magazines, and blogs and allows you to register and search your own collection, and dig into what you have. (Apparently I have 60,000+ recipes on my shelves.)

That's what's been happening here - although before I finish I must note that I feel lucky to have the privilege to focus on these things as a distraction from recent events in the US - and to come from a city from whose response I can take heart and courage. 

Long weekend

It's a long weekend in Australia! (Have I mentioned before that I find it endlessly entertaining that the Queen's birthday is a public holiday here, but not in the UK? Because I do. Also I have to make the most of it because this is our last Monday public holiday until, I think, October. Yikes!)

Here's the latest news from around here:

DP's birthday was this past week - can you work out how old he is from the candles? Appropriately given his profession and interests (and name), his birthday falls on a major event in military history, and this year his seminar students found out and celebrated by giving him a running real-time recap of happenings throughout that fateful day 73 years ago. I took the easy route by making his favorite dinner (steak au poivre and mashed potatoes) and baking his favorite cake.

Also this past week - family friends of ours are dealing with some medical stuff and, like us, are far from their family support networks. So, on the day when one parent was in the hospital overnight and the other parent was wrangling everything else (including three kids), I volunteered to bring over dinner. Pasta bake to the rescue!

I didn't really use a recipe for this - just made a batch of Disruptive Bolognese in the slow cooker ahead of time, then boiled up 3 boxes (about 3 lbs/1.5 kg) of rigatoni. I mixed it all up together with lots of grated cheese and some baby spinach (vegetables makes it a nutritionally complete main course!), scooped it into a disposable baking tin, and wrapped it up. (I also made up a smaller pan for us to have for dinner that night, killing two birds with one stone.) With a loaf of bread and a batch of blondies, it made a complete meal and was a pretty low-stress way to lend a helping hand.

And a good reminder to be grateful for little things - like Sunday breakfast with my own family.

And flowers to cheer us - even on the gloomiest winter days.


 

While you wait

Nearly four years ago I wrote a post about how stressful I find waiting, at a time when I found myself in a state of limbo, awaiting significant outcomes over which I had no control in my personal, professional, and national life.

Well, here I am again - and it doesn't feel as though I've gotten any better at being zen about waiting. Possibly even worse, at least at the moment, compounded as it is by grief. My current strategy is something I call "meticulous mindfulness" (or would "mindful meticulousness" be better? I can't decide), by which I mean that I am trying to focus on the things that I want to accomplish each day, and then trying to give each of those things my full attention. In the short term, when I can accomplish it, it stops the hamster wheel in my brain from spinning; and in the long term, I hope it adds up to a period of sustained accomplishment and satisfaction, rather than one of fruitless frustration.

So: this morning, I woke up early for Sunday, slightly jetlagged after returning from my second trip to the US in two months (this one, a family trip, was the one I had been planning to take this year). I lay in bed and thought about what I wanted to do with this unexpected block of time. Did I want to stay in bed and read, enjoying having nothing to do after three weeks of non-stop activity (including stops in five cities)? Or did I want to tackle some task on my monster To Do list?

I split the difference - I read for a while, and then I got up to bring my blog up to date. Here's some recent happenings, aside from what I've already told:

An impromptu family trip to Perth and the southwest corner of Western Australia during July school holidays that almost didn't happen, between DP's travel schedule and my father's hospitalization. But it did, and I'm glad we managed it - as well as this, which was on Miss B's must-see list: sunset over the Indian Ocean. Our last night before we flew back east, we went down to the beach in Fremantle and sat there to watch it happen.

The saying goes that in the midst of life we are in death, but the reverse is also true. My father died five days before Miss B's twelfth birthday, and I flew to Boston the day after. We had a family dinner and cake on the day with a few close friends, and with the help of some of the aforementioned meticulous mindfulness I was able to give Miss B the cake of her twelve-year-old dreams, even if I didn't manage a birthday post.

And to continue the theme: my oldest sister's birthday was the day after my father's funeral, and for my gift I made a birthday dinner, for her and all available family members. For dinner we had spaghetti al'amitriciana three ways: the standard version, as outlined in this post; a batch made with gluten-free pasta, for the GF contingent; and a vegetarian version for the birthday girl, substituting fried halloumi for the bacon. For dessert we had her favorite treat: birthday pie. I tested out Nigella's GF Pie Crust (a smashing success, even made under sub-optimal conditions in someone else's kitchen) and made maple-blueberry for the birthday girl (who doesn't eat refined sugar), and peach-raspberry for the non-blueberry fans.

That takes us up to early August...more to follow soon.

Vale Pater

One of the things that was weighing on me when I last wrote was that my father had been hospitalized in May, and that his condition didn't seem to be improving. I haven't written since because, as it turned out, it wasn't, and he died in late July.

My father was 88. He'd had a long, full life, and had been dealing with a number of medical conditions that had caused his physical health, emotional wellbeing, and quality of life to deteriorate steadily and significantly over the last decade. It turns out none of that prepares you when the time comes to say goodbye.

I went back to Boston to be with my family for the wake and funeral. My sisters and I spent hours composing an 8-page eulogy in which we tried to distill his essence - his kindness, his steadfast reliability, his sense of humor and enjoyment of life, his love of sports and music, his devotion to our mother and all of us. The priest who said his funeral mass - who also married DP and me 20 years ago and has known my family even longer - described him as a man whose "true vocation was fatherhood."

Our Boston community of family, friends, and colleagues turned out in force to commemorate him and condole with us. I've heard so many people say how much it means to have that support when someone you love dies, and now I know how true it is. I will always be grateful for that solace and care.

My father was a romantic but not sentimental, and couldn't abide most of the traditional choices for father-daughter wedding dances. All of us who got married chose instead to dance with him to songs that were his favorites, and that are bound up with our memories of him. This is mine.

No brainers

Ommmmm

Well, I tried to write a blog post about the latest developments at work, but it didn’t really come off. (Anything that makes DP flinch visibly is destined to oblivion in the ‘Drafts’ folder, I’m afraid.) So I’ll just say that the situation remains in flux, and that I’m taking it one day, task, project at a time. Working on maintaining my zen. You know.

It does use up a lot of a mental energy though, which has been sapping my cooking mojo of late. I haven’t mustered the energy to cook anything new for a good couple of weeks, and when I do my weekly meal plan (Saturday mornings, before heading into the farmers’ market), I have found myself relying almost exclusively on fallback recipes – the ones I barely have to think about, let alone look up recipes for. With two experimentation-wary eaters to feed, and 5-7 evening hours a week spent on work calls, I can’t spare the brain space.

Which got me thinking: I bet everyone has at least a few no-brainer recipes – the ones that you can essentially make in your sleep. What are yours? I’d love to know, if you’d be kind enough to share in the comments.

These are mine. It's a rare month when I don't cook most of these at least once anyway, and they've been in heavy rotation of late, both for ease and for comfort:

Chicken: Lemon-mustard chicken

Pasta: Spaghetti alla carbonara | Disruptive bolognese

Pork: Italian bangers and mash (ie Italian sausages + Italian baked potatoes with oil)

Soup: Basic tomato soup

Dessert: Blondies (aka Fudgey choc chip slice) | Browned butter chocolate chip cookies | Frosted cake/cupcakes (chocolate | vanilla) | Oat-fruit bars

Snacks: Popcorn | Salsa