Sleep-Deprived

When Pete and I moved to North Carolina I was 36 weeks pregnant and I had exactly one weekend (by myself) to find a home for us and our new family. I chose one on the outskirts of Durham against my better judgment. Now I wish I hadn't been such a little snob.


Durham is a really lovely town - kinda gritty, kinda highbrow - qualities I love in both cities and friends. We went to the farmer's market on Saturday and ran into some birth center friends (and babies!) and got lots of yummy finds. Check out the purple pepper!



Pete made a pizza to celebrate the weekend. Man, it was good.


I worked most of the night at the birth center last night so that's why this post probably doesn't make much sense. For some reason I had a hard time falling asleep this morning so I went to Trader Joe's by myself and it was lovely. Sometimes after I've assisted with a birth and I do something really ordinary like go to the grocery store I think, " I wonder if anyone else in here saw a birth this morning?". Probably not.

I'd never bought fresh figs before and something told me to get them while I could. I don't know what I was prepared for, but I had always thought that the skin of a fig was tough and bitter. Wrong. It's tender and yielding and fragile. And the inside of a fig...no wonder it's associated with fertility.


I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I really need to get some food and sleep, but until next time, here's a flower for you:

To Market, To Market

I always need to remind myself that if I want to enjoy a day but am uncertain what to do, I should proceed directly to the Farmer's Market.


I ate a whole pound of cherry tomatoes, dirt and all, while selecting other produce.


We made a dinner from our finds and ate it outside in this gorgeous weather.


This is the sweetest little peach I saw all day, though:

Popover Morning

Popovers are the magical breakfast food.

Such humble beginnings, such triumphant results.



Popover Recipe

makes 6, adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook:

Preheat oven to 425. Grease popover pan with butter.

Whisk together 3/4 c. whole milk, 3 eggs.

Add 3/4 c. flour and a good pinch of salt. Maybe some sugar too.

Whisk until smooth, pour into popover pan and bake for 25-30 min.

No peeking!

While popovers are still in the pan, poke them with a skewer to let steam escape.

Serve them hot, hot, hot with good soft butter and jam.

What Ails Ya

Just when I thought the worst was over, boom - back to my sick self. However, on Monday I did manage to rouse my couch-bound body from an Anthony Bourdain marathon to make Nigella's Chocolate and Peanut Granola.

Although it seems as if I am endless grocery shopping, I am always surprised when I find a recipe and miraculously have all ingredients on hand. I took this as an urgent directive from the culinary goddesses and went straight to work on the granola, half expecting to see the likeness of Jesus or the Virgin Mother appear within the countours of my baked oat clusters.

It was pretty incredible, I have to tell you, as evidenced by the fact that it is already gone. Just a few suggestions, offered on behalf of my very crude palate: I think that when I make it again, I will use less ginger and cinnamon and maybe leave out the sesame seeds all together. I appreciate this about Nigella - I find her recipes very adaptable and subtly refined, just like her.

Hinges of Hades

It is 8000 degrees here in NC. It's true - I saw it on the thermometer.

Well, maybe not exactly 8000, but definitely over 100. When I got in my car this afternoon it was 120. Lawhdy.

I took the sorbet over to our new neighbors last night, and they are just the sweetest things - going to get married in October, so he's moved in now but she is going to wait until after the nuptials. So old-fashioned....I love it. I mean, I lived in sin with Pete for 2 years before he "bought the cow" (as my mother was apt to put it), but I still love the idea.

Anyway, I couldn't help but think how lucky they were to have me bring sorbet, because for goodness sakes, who in the world can eat lasagna in this weather?!? I just want to crawl between cold sheets, a George Pelecanos novel in one hand and some frozen grapes in the other.

So you want to hear a funny story? Well, I have this friend - a new friend - who isn't too much older than I am but has a daughter in her late teens and another baby on the way any day now. I taught her some childbirth education classes a while back, and when I discovered that she lived right around the corner from me I invited her over for dinner. It was supposed to be on Saturday but I had made myself horribly nauseated on too much BBQ and sweet tea, so we postponed it for last night.

Her daughter is really cool and I invited her along as well, but my friend said she'd be unlikely to make it, so I prepared a small dinner for just the three of us (Pete included). I set a pretty table and had everything ready to go, so all I would have to do was barely lift my hand to combine the topping for the pasta (as my other hand was busy tending to a wine glass).

So she was a tiny bit late, and when she arrived I saw that she not only had her daughter, but her daughter's sweet boyfriend in tow! I was thrilled to have more company (really, truly - I was), but historically I have not handled last-minute changes to plans very well. I'm kind of rigid about stuff like that, but I have to tell you - you would have been proud. I nearly effortlessly rearranged the table and rustled up some more eats. The only glitch was when I was about to serve the crab-dressed pasta and the boyfriend shyly informs me that he is deathly allergic to shellfish. Oops. He graciously dined on a frozen pizza with fresh basil instead, and it was an all-around lovely, fabulous evening.

If there is anything better than sharing a delicious impromptu dinner with delightful friends, I do not know what it is.

The Scoop

I guess I must be about to ovulate, because I can't think of anything else that would account for my recent burst of domesticity, an urge so strong it has me just short of propping Pete's feet up on an ottoman, scotch-on-the-rocks in hand, when he returns from work.

Some time last week I borrowed The Perfect Scoop by David Leboviz from our local library. I've mentioned ice-cream making before, but I am a bit suspect of new recipes, especially ones that call for things like Jello and pudding mix. David's recipes are fantastic and inspired by his life in Paris, and it wasn't until I read the back cover that I realized that this was the same David whose blog I just love and have been reading for the last 2 months. Cyber-world and real world collide once again.


Saturday I whipped up a bit of Strawberry-Rhubarb Sorbet and then yesterday concocted Toasted Coconut Ice Cream. Both were so good I wanted to hit the container face-first. It made me a little sad to eat the coconut one because my dear, dear friend Bo just loves coconut and I wish he'd been there to share it with us instead of all the way across the country. He would have flipped. Today I've made some strawberry sorbet for our new neighbors.



Pete even got into the action and whipped us up some DIY pizzas for last night's dinner.



I made this little tablecloth for our kitchen table. I love the ruffle but forgot how tricky they can be to make...my thread kept breaking. To be honest, I probably would have rather bought one, but I looked and looked with no success. Why is it so difficult to find a decent-looking tablecloth out there? They all look like they should be on some banquet table at the Sheraton.



Today Andrew and I were returning from our early-morning jaunt to Trader Joe's and I suddenly became obsessed with the sensation of entering our house and having it smell clean. Like, really, really clean. And cool. It's about 100 degrees here today and I just ached for that feeling I used to have when we'd go to the beach and be tired and hot and then walk into our hotel room which would be almost icy and smell so sanitized.

This could also be due to the fact that I was raised in the Church of Bleach, a cult in which my mother and sister are still active followers. Nothing in our house was clean until it had been doused with Clorox. Today I returned to the fold. I scrubbed our kitchen to within an inch of its life and when I was done, I actually stepped outside on our porch for about three minutes and then walked in the front door to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Heavenly.

The Queasy Need not Read

Stephanie, one of my dearest girlfriends, one of The Most Succulent Women of All Time, Living or Dead, came to visit on Thursday with her family. I was at her son's birth almost 4 years ago and have not seen him or his lovely mama (or papa or little sis) in 2 whole years. The thought of it brings a tear to my eye.

Alex, age 4 (almost)

Ruby, age 2

Stephanie's birthday was on Wednesday and I promised to continue the celebration onto the next day, as all birthday celebrations should rightly proceed. I decided to make her Nigella's chocolate cheesecake, a treat befitting the Queen of Succulence. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to make it to any good grocery stores around here so after dinner I headed off to our local place, the Food Lion. Or, as it's known in this house, the Hood Lion. We actually live in a pretty nice neighborhood, but this grocery store is pretty rough. Pete and I joke about it. Por ejemplo:

• If your checker-outer is named Destynie and her fingernail length prevents her from ringing up your items correctly, you might be in the Hood Lion.

• If the person in front of you has 4 children and has placed on the belt 12 2-liter bottles of grape soda and an extra-large bag of generic Cheetos, you might be in the Hood Lion.

• If the guy behind you starts to cuss a blue streak because he left his wallet in his pick-up and can't purchase a case of Milwaukee's Best Beer, you might again be in the Hood Lion.

Not very sweet of me, eh? But I digress. When Stephanie and her delicious family showed up at my door I had to choke back tears and I thought my heart would burst. A few times in my life I have had the experience of not seeing a beloved in a long time, and then once I see their face in person it's like a familiar shock of recognition - like they're just so completely vivid and vibrant and there.


Even though I am a nurse-midwife, anyone who knows me will tell you that I defy some midwife-stereotypes. I, for example, am only crunchy-granola on the inside. I don't smell of patchouli, wear Birkenstocks, or smoke pot. Stephanie is intimately connected with all-things childbirth (a childbirth educator, doula, lactation counselor, infant massage therapist, birthed her second at home) yet is even less crunchy than I am. She lives in Boca Raton, for goodness sake! I had to teach her how to bargain shop! This girl is full of contradictions. So when she parked the car, hugged me and Andrew and then thrust a small cooler in my hands, I could only assume what was inside. Her placenta from her last birth. Frozen. She's in the process of moving from OH back to FL and was transporting it. The cooler looked very official - like there might as well be a beating heart or some corneas in it.

I am loathe to tell you, less you think I am a complete freak, that I too have my placenta stashed in my deep freeze. Not to ingest or anything, just to maybe plant a tree over (although the threat of it does come in handy when Pete complains there's nothing to eat). I knew that I could not let Steph's visit pass without documenting the crunchy just oozing out from us. So here it is, the birth-junkies and their frozen placentas. (they're in bags - don't worry!)


The visit was far, far too short, but my home has such lovely residual energy from her family's visit. Miss you, miss you, miss you, girl.

Total Joy

Ooooohhh, boy! It has been busy in our little house! It seems like we've had one big revolving door this summer, with friends and family stopping by to stay a bit and then off on their way. Last week Pete's brother and sister-in-law came with their two kiddos for several days. The "little ones" are now 11 and 13, ages that seem incomprehensible to me since they were in our wedding 5 years ago and seemed to be getting too big then! They were a total joy to have about and Andrew thought he was in baby-heaven with all the activity and attention.


I'd made French vanilla ice cream for dessert the first night they were here and both of the kids exclaimed that it was the best vanilla ice cream they had ever eaten (emphasis theirs). So I got busy the next morning and stuck them both in the kitchen with me to make the best chocolate ice cream of all time. It then, of course, became the best chocolate ice cream they had ever eaten. They flatter me so.


Of course we went to get BBQ (or just Q, as it's known around here) and then we took them to the Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. Hard to say who enjoyed that museum more, the kids or their biology-major-dork aunt. I think that place is so amazing because everything is fantastically larger than life, exactly the way all my memories of childhood seem.


This is from a butterfly exhibit. Some of these are chrysalises. Chrysalis. Prettiest word ever.

Oh, couldn't you just melt? This is a photo of a photo taken by Brooks de Wetter Smith. It's called Whiskers.

We had pizza parties and played poker and monkey-in-the-middle in the pool. It was fantastic to have some older kids around as it gave me an itsy-bitsy gimpse of what it's like to have older children. So, so much fun.



I made Lemon Bread Pudding French Toast which I found on the delicious food blog Cream Puffs in Venice. It was to die for.


After they left on Sunday we took Andrew to a big birthday bash for the 5 babes in our playgroup who are turning one this month. It was such a sweet get-together and tons of fun was had by all. Check out my mama friends - aren't they just beautiful??



I want to thank those who sent me such kind words about my little quilt. Craft blogs are filled with such gorgeous creations that I am often insecure about showing mine, but you've given me a boost of confidence! xoxo to you.

I scream

The first year Pete and I lived in Manhattan we decided to buy an ice cream maker with some wedding-present credit we had at Williams Sonoma. This was a very logical purchase, since our kitchen was (literally) 21 sq. ft and we were already storing canned goods in our shoes.

Space issues aside, I have to say that I've never regretted the purchase. In fact, I nearly dropped to my knees and kissed its little base when it helped me produce Nigella Lawson's World's Best Chocolate Ice Cream this weekend. I urge you to get your sweet tooth on a copy of How To Eat and make some magic happen in your kitchen.

I won't kid you and tell you that it's an effortless creation, but you will be amply rewarded. It's everything I love in chocolate ice cream: smoky, dark, heady. Any ingredient would be honored to meet its end as part of this concoction. It will make you happy when temperatures soar.