Letters written, not sent

Dear [Wonderful] School After Care workers,

Sophie brings to my attention that she was recently disciplined for using the words crap and hell. I object on the grounds that these are not, as you claim, swear words. They are not, for example, included in George Carlin's list of words you cannot say on television (for your reference: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock sucker, mother fucker, and tits). And if they're good enough for television, they're good enough for your program. Kidding.

But seriously, whereas these words may not constitute refined language, you are not running a charm school. I've worked hard to teach Sophie to use her mouth, not her fists, to express her feelings. And whereas I would not expect you to permit words used to hurt another (e.g., "Go to hell, Oliver!"), I think using certain words as expletives is fine (e.g., "Oh, hell," which is, I think you would agree, preferable to "Oh, fuck" and infinitely more satisfying than "Oh, sugar"). 

I would therefore like you to reconsider your policy in this area. Perhaps a list of words forbidden under any circumstances and another list of words forbidden  only in certain circumstances.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,

Cindy

Mom of Sophie

Dear Sophie,

The After Care Program at school brings to my attention the fact that I am not in charge of the After Care Program. I do not, therefore, determine the rules for the program. Because it is their program. Not mine. And so they make the rules. They are happy to have my feedback but remind me that I should pick my battles wisely. 

So I think we should go along with the After Care language rules. That is not to say to you should not question whether a rule is right or wrong and whether it makes sense or not. As long as you keep thinking, you're a winner to me. 

And don't worry—we can still use all the other words when we are in the car. 

Love,

Mama

Sophie wants to grow up

What evidence do I have of this? After all, she still wears elastic waisted jeans. She still comes in our bed in the morning for a snuggle. She still has me brush her hair in the morning. And she still wants to hang out with me on weekends.

But then I found THIS in our basket among her loot from the dollar bins at Target.

"Do you know what this is???"

Yes, it's a lint roller.

"We don't care about lint. Why do you need one of these? Do you think this is a good use of your allowance money?"

Well . . . . Grandma and Grandpa always have them at their house. So I thought it would be very grown up to have a lint roller.

"No! Put that back right now! You are nine years old!! You are not old enough to have a lint roller!!!"

Thank goodness she is still little enough to have said "Ok, Mama."

My brain floating in a jar

No, it's not, but I feel like it could be.

It's actually something much more interesting: The makings of what is called a 44 Cordial.

An orange that has been pierced 44 times is stuffed with 44 coffee beans and is added to a liter of light rum that has been sweetened with 44 teaspoons of sugar (a scant cup). This mixture steeps for 44 days, after which the orange is removed and the liquid strained through cheesecloth and decanted.

I am not a drinker of rum, but Husband is, and we'll see how happy this makes him in 44 days. In the meantime, stabbing the orange and stuffing the beans was right up there with shelling fava beans for therapeutic value.

Many thanks to blogger pal Laura for sending me the stack of Saveur back issues from which I found this gem (March 2008). You'd think I would have started with a recipe for food, but my failure to do so probably explains why, in a recent report on products of California, Sophie was sure the main agricultural crop was the wine grape. Sorry, honey. It's the almond. But your taste is on the right track.

Help name our kittens!

We're so excited! Our application has been accepted and our deposit received, and we have two new kittens! They were just born, so we won't be bringing them home until later this summer, but in the meantime, we have baby pictures!!

So either the kitten on at the top or on the far right is our chocolate spotted girl.

And one of the four at the top or the one at the bottom is our tawny spotted little boy. Although they are from different litters, they're spending time together so they will be a bonded pair when they come to us. Or rather, partners in crime for tearing apart our house. We were laughing the other morning remembering the last creature who tore apart our house. Sophie was so fond of the cats' food that we had to build a chicken wire fence around their bowls to keep her out of it. We were tired of finding her sitting beneath the kitchen table with her cheeks stuffed full of cat food, and we were even less amused by the resulting bad breath.

In the meantime, while we realize you need to spend time with a pet to assign them an appropriate name, we're having an interesting time developing our list of potential names. 

Husband prefers names of mythical origin, and I think when he was younger he even had a cat named after some yoga posture. His beloved late cat was named Zeus. Lately he and Sophie have been reading through a series of books Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and I suspect some of these names come from there. He was tapping away at the computer the other evening and came up with this list, presented along with my opinions:

Kumi: Ghanaese meaning forceful. Not horrible.

Loki: Norse legend figure. Sometimes a god, sometimes a trickster or shapeshifter. Sophie liked the character of Loki when she was in SF Opera's Das Rheingold, but I'm not sure I like the idea of Wagnerian characters running around my house. 

Jaeger: Hunter. No, because I cannot stop of thinking of Jaegermeister and the snowboarder I saw last year order a Jaegermeister and RedBull cocktail from the Sugarbowl lodge bar at lunch.

Moriko: Japanese meaning forest child. OK, but I would call the cat Mori, which people would think is short for Maurice, in which case why wouldn't we just name the cat Maurice?

Silas. Meaning sly. OK.  Makes me think of George Eliot's Silas Marner, which is not a bad thing.

Thiazzi. I know this came from the series of books. By why not just Theodore? (See explanation above concerning Moriko.)

Tofi. Meaning thunder. Too much like tofu, which I've never really liked. (It's a texture thing.)

I prefer to give animals people names. Like Simon (my current cat).  I had another cat named Oscar and have had mice named Beatrice and Sabine. I have suggested Lucy, Ricky (how funny would it be to have a Lucy and Ricky pair??), Walter, Maude, and Fritz, all of which cause Husband to make a bad face. I know I'm not alone in preferring these names. A fellow blogger has a late cat named Leonard. And I am Facebook friends with a dog named Monty. 

Or how about author names? Like Willa or Truman? (Husband knows who Truman is—he saw the movie.)

Or a tribute to Husband's hard work in his Spanish classes this year? I would love to have a cat named Juan. 

What do you think? We are open to suggestions. 

Easy Chicken Cordon Bleuand a big fat lie about dessert

Last Sunday I resurrected a recipe I developed as a teenager—my first big trip off-road from cook books and Sunset Magazine. I've been incorrigible ever since, absolutely unable to follow a recipe exactly to save my life.

One summer during college when my parents were out of town, I had a boyfriend over for dinner, and I made him this version of Chicken Cordon Bleu. Eliminating any sauce and baking it makes it ridiculously easy but impressive on the plate.

The boyfriend? After picking at his dinner, he finally confessed that he had eaten three (!) sandwiches before coming over because he got hungry at the last minute. Smoking a couple bowls will do that to you. And I don't think dinner was exactly what was most on his mind. I wised up though and married a man who compliments me on and thanks me for nearly every meal I prepare. As he should.

EASY BAKED CHICKEN CORDON BLEU

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/2 inch thickness
thinly sliced Gruyere cheese
thinly sliced ham

1/2 cup butter, melted
six green onions, sliced
fresh herbs (I happened to have some tarragon; parsley or thyme would be nice too)

1 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine butter, green onions, and herbs in a small sauce pan and heat until butter is melted. Cool slightly.

Lay out the pounded chicken breasts on a clean surface. Place a slice of ham and cheese on each. Fold in two. Dip each chicken piece in melted butter, then roll in bread crumbs.

Place in a shallow baking dish. Pour remaining butter mixture over chicken. Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until chicken is browned and juices run clear.

I served this with saffron-scented couscous and sauteed green beans. 

For dessert I made a lemon cornmeal cake with lemon glaze and crushed blueberry sauce. Usually I'll make dessert for Sunday dinner earlier in the day, but I was sleeping off the effects of a late night on Saturday (not used to those anymore!) and went for a trail run in the early afternoon. I put this cake in the oven while I was making dinner and took it out right before we sat down, reasoning that once I sat down I wouldn't do a good job of watching it (my oven heat is not very dependable). It looked fine, but when I went to serve it I realized that the middle was seriously underdone. Runny even. Ugh. I don't usually screw up desserts, you know?

So I carried it to the table and announced to my family, with great authority, that I was serving a lemon cornmeal pudding cake. They totally bought it and practically licked their plates clean. I can't stop laughing about it—just not when they're around. When I make it next time, with the center baked properly, I'll tell them it's a different cake.

I'm not allowed to slap other people's kids, right?

Are you sure? No, I didn't think so. But that's sounding like a GREAT IDEA right now because I'm going to see a kid who has been picking on Sophie at her gymnastics class tomorrow. A mean girl.

She repeatedly cuts in front of Sophie in line. She told Sophie she was bad at doing various tricks. She told her she has a big butt. WHAAATTTT??? Those are fighting words in my book. It's wrong to call a child a bitch, isn't it?

So Sophie and I discussed why someone would treat another kid like that. She's probably not happy about about herself. Maybe other people treat her that way somewhere else. And we talked about things Sophie could say back to her: "Why are you looking at my butt?" "Are you having problems at home?" We laughed a lot, and I don't thinking it's dampening Sophie's spirit, but I don't want her to have a favorite weekly activity spoiled by something like this. After all, it bothered her enough to tell me about it.

So what to do? Probably not a good idea to confront either the kid or the mom. Got that. Should I talk to the instructors? The director? Leave it alone for the kids to hash out on their own?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Saturday morning strawberry scones

After being away last weekend, I wanted nothing more than to hole up in my kitchen for a little baking this past weekend (that along with a big party on Saturday and a little trail time on Sunday).

All my baking this weekend was inspired by the berries recently in at my produce market: strawberries for scones, raspberries for a tart, and blueberries for sauce to top a glazed lemon cornmeal cake. They're pricey but worth it in small quantities right now.

There are lots of strawberry scone recipes out there, but I like this one from a food blogger with that deadly combination of culinary and photography skills. And some really nice flowers to boot. I'm in awe. And grateful to her for this recipe, which served ably as the centerpiece of Saturday morning brunch at the Figs. 

When I know we've got a big event to go to where I will only see Husband from across the room and Sophie as a blur as she races by in a crowd of kids (or in this case, flies by on a zip line), it's nice to have a little "we three" time. Although now that we're all three in our separate places on Monday morning, it seems like a long time ago.