It was a sad day in Mudville

It's no secret that we're a football family.  We have High School football, NFL Football and Fantasy Football all around us. In the off season, we are fundraising for the Athletic Boosters.

But what you might not know is that I am merely an onlooker. After years of raising girls who have moved out, the boys have now become the vocal point of the household while I shake my head in amusement at how wrapped up on can get in a sport.

What I did not know is that I had become a participant. After countless dinners and Sunday brunches where salaries, staffing and play after play had be discussed I had absorbed some of it - and formed opinions.

Being the wife of a die hard Eagles fan it is not always easy. We have ups and downs. This year was more downs then usual. For the rest of you, it can't be hard to imagine what this day in history is like. After 14 years the NFL's "winningnest" coach, Andy Reid, has been fired… with one year left on his contract.

I did not see myself getting getting caught up in this, I also did not see it coming. Why? Because I look at the NFL from a business perspective. Apparently, so does ‪Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie‬ - the only difference is that he is in the business of winning NOW.

From where I sit Reid had a tremendous record from joining the Eagles in 1999 until this less than stellar year. That has value. Add that to the fact that this year kicked off with a personal devastation of losing his son and that value of 14 years could still be at status quo. maybe. But what really made me feel that we'd see our beloved Andy Reid around for one more year is $15 million. $15 mil is what it would have cost the Eagles to buy out his contract and let him go. Now that has value.

It is possible that in my absorption and interest of the business side of the game I did not realize how little value $15 million might be to Lurie. What is more possible is that as much as he claimed to love and respect his head coach, he valued a winning season far more, at what ever the cost.  He wished him well, he wished him a big win ahead but still he wished him gone. It felt like the end of a marriage.

For me, this Eagles family wife, I wish Andy Reid the dignity of a first wife. He moulded them, shaped them, and at times rode the roller coaster with them. After 14 years, I hope he looks forward to his next chapter as much as I look forward to seeing it.

What's to eat? Go ask Alice.

Just yesterday, I was telling my email partner (you have one of those don't you?) that I come from the Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) practice of seeing what is fresh in your garden or at the fresh market before deciding on your meal plan. Moving to the city and away from my gardens has not been any less inspiring and in fact, like having a whole new playing field to discover. Now I attack the local Ralph's and seek out the bright orange stickers for Manager Specials or enjoy sales at the Japanese Market, weekend Farmer's Market or even Trader's Joe's. Filling my kitchen with specials of the day as I meal plan on the spot.

This method also means that many recipes "evolve" over time based on what one has available… and if you're trying to get something into your football worshipping family that resembles real food sans pretzels and cheese whiz. 

December 30 is generally a Grilled Cheese type winter day no matter where you are, and I had just the stocks for it, kinda. What I had in mind was grilled gouda cheese and Anjou pear on Sourdough.  Instead, my fridge had .98 lb ham that got sliced and layered on the $2.99 a dozen croissants. Gouda was out, I didn't feel like going to the market when I had picked up white american cheese yesterday, all sliced up and ready to go at an affordable $3.99 a pound. Affordable for LA, I might add. Now about that pear, what to do? aha! I had 2 large Fuji Apples on my kitchen desk - perfect.

Slicing the apples thin, I placed those in between the cheese, on top of the ham and set the croissants into the electric skillet.

My son was a bit hesitant about the apple thing going on in his grilled cheese (surprisingly, no one minded the adulteration by adding the ham), but his first bite yielded 16 year old eyes rolling back in his head and nummy sounds. My husband walked out of the kitchen with his plate, took a few steps and came back with a mouth full, and OK symbol of his thumb and forefinger and something about "the apple adding just the right snap".

Touchdown.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.  
  -- W. Somerset Maugham

"Cultivate excellence by coming from a position of helping. "

For those of you who are boycotting Black Friday in general, something to think about...

• Black Friday is the day for which each store manager can visibly see their sales trend for the rest of the season and schedule (or even hire!) accordingly.
• 70% of retail sales are made in the last 10 weeks of the year
• In the last hour selling of December 24th a retail location will do sales that surpass the entire month of January
• On December 24th a retail location's sales will equal or surpass the sales of January, February, March and in some rare cases April.

... and lastly, for those of you who are opting to boycott, I invite you to consider the economy, the job market and your own piece of mind by planning ahead and shopping evenly throughout the year.

What Say You?

I saw this post on FaceBook today. A business friend of mine is looking for advice, feedback and opinions.

Need your help: My son was invited to attend a friend's birthday celebration at an amusement park (only 3 boys were invited.) The dad sent me a text saying it would cost me $77 to cover my son (with dinner, souvenir and a present we're looking at at least $100)

I sent the dad a text saying I can't afford that amount for my son to attend a birthday party. So he sent me this back: "I'll cover him. Maybe he can work it off around my place or something? Washing car, cleaning with the kids, etc?"

I'm not sure how to respond to him. Does my son need to work for another parent to be invited to a birthday party? Isn't a birthday party an invitation to have fun?
I'm confused on what to do. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks :-)

What say you? 

Today’s Earthquake Fact

Be Prepared for an Earthquake: Look for items in your home that could become a hazard in an earthquake. Place large or heavy objects on lower shelves. Fasten shelves to walls. Brace high and top-heavy objects. Anchor overhead lighting fixtures. Bolt down water heaters and gas appliances.

Recycle, Renew, Reuse; Mantra of An Eco-Friendly Life or Just Frugal?

As a child of the sixties, my formative years were filled with an awareness of how our actions affected our environment and the greater world.

As a child of WWII Holocaust survivors, my years were also filled with not taking anything for granted, and the ever present question "you have so much money?"

The two teachings served me well into adulthood and raising my own young impressionable minds. That is, until the teen years.

What was once Mom's great commitment to our world and all of us doing our part, became "that's ghetto".  Remembering how my then husband and I secretly made fun of his World War II generation parents and how his mother saved every piece of tin foil ever used, I felt a little hurt, a little ashamed, but mostly surprised that they reacted as any teen would.

Now most of my brood is out of their teens, some even raising families of their own. We share cycling tips, yoga stories, found-art crafting and vegetarian recipes while the younger boys snicker and reach for another rib, thank you very much.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not the local Zen Mother. I still participate in filling our landfills, eat meat on occasion, weigh more than the typical yoga girl (way more), and while I may have issues with over packaging I will still buy a product wrapped in unneeded layers when I should protest.

All this is leading up to my sheer joy in finding a resource online that my daughters and I could share on our daily forays into the produce aisles, washable produce bags. Reminiscent of the ditty bags we used to make in Girl Scouts these bags come in sets and are available online at: http://washableproducebags.com/

Take them to the market, use, wash, repeat. Renew, reuse - its that easy.

You can take the girl out of Berekely...

In my 20s I put myself through college and started my family doing any number of things that any Art-Major-slash-Designer would to stay afloat including catering.

The nuances and talents of Alice Waters was lost on 20 year old me when my date tried to impress me with a dinner at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, but her story and philosophies that brought that diner to the table were not.

As a resident of highly populated apartment dwellers in San Francisco the idea of creating a meal with only the freshest ingredients from your garden and market place seemed exotic and foreign to me. As a broke college student it seemed completely out of the scope of reality.

But I was inspired (and determined) I started with herbs on my kitchen window sill, then container growing on the balcony of my LA apartment. Ripped out the front lawn of the most adorable rental home in Tujunga for fresh flowers and veggies - followed by amazing edible floral salads. By the time I moved to my first house of my very own in Lake View Terrace I was well past turning out gourmet meals ala' Alice Waters but on a mission of sustainability that seemed closer to survival. After all, I had a mortgage, a baby and a husband who was "finding himself" professionally.

As the family enlarged I wanted them to embrace my garden to table love. Thinking I was creating memories I would take the kids out to the garden and its small orchard to select items for feasting upon. A year ago, when I proudly told them how pleased I was to be able to do that for them and their personal memory books there was a silence. Finally, Sara spoke up and said "Yah, we hated that".

Now, three kids later, a grandchild and an upgrade (read: larger mortgage) to Century City our garden became the Ralph's at the end of the street and eschewing Alice Water's teaching for my mother's post holocaust frugal methods. No wait, not eschewing -- combining and transitioning into my own.

 

 Ralph's has an awesome deli counter with items like the Roasted Corn Salad pictured above. At $4.99 a pound it really isn't in my budget. I could afford it if it was just my immediate family but I don't have that kind of life. Pre-4th of July the dinner and over night drop ins started to arrive, we had 8 for dinner, 10 for breakfast, with a smaller group of 6 for dinner.  This is no different then my weekends as family and friends come and go. Amazingly, that is just the way I like it.

I might like it, but it does take marketing and preparation into a whole new arena. Everything is planned around what is available. I've gone from what is in the garden to what is on sale. You know what? That is just the way I like it.

Our Ralph's has a manager that I adore - they way they continually mark down quality items allows me to stroll the vegetables and yes, even meats to create yummies on a whim.

Finding 3 packages of baby spinach on sale I knew I had to come up with something that highlighted the tender leaves.  But what? I knew I didn't want to cook, the kitchen was just too hot and grilling was out since the fridge was packed with leftovers.

Wait! Did I just say leftovers? Behold; the leftover chicken transformed into a fa-bu lunch for 8.

How did I do it? 99 cents a lb chicken (picnic pack - breasts, thighs, legs etc) from last night's grill. $1.97 Ralph's fresh packed baby spinach, I threw in some of the roasted corn salad which was bought just to stretch other recipes and topped it off with Ralph's 70 calorie light ranch dressing, another mark down find at 98 cents!

I love my husband, but he has different methods then I do. He'll ask "What do you want from the market?" and of course, I'll answer that I don't know - what's on sale? Once I had the manager's special spinach and roasted corn salad I knew that I had to pull it together with something that could make it a side dish or an entree for our mixed use/semi vegetarian/meatarian family - on to the pasta aisle. Once again, Ralph's did not disappoint. An affordable family sized pack of 4 cheese tortellini brought the ingredients to just what I wanted for my group.

  I might not be the green gardener I once was but with local stores, our farmer's markets and a little creativity in the kitchen I still adhere to a pick-n-eat and enjoy as many drop-ins as wish to join the table.

“ The shell must break before the bird can fly. ”
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson

From Farmer's Market to Your Table

Sundays are like a getting a free card to pass Go!, collect $200 and enjoy the spirit of the non work day. I ride on Saturdays, but this time of year I head right to our local Farmers market(s). We are fortunate to have a few near by and each week is a foray into a different area to see what is in store.

Farmer's Markets offer fresh fruits and veggies. Whether or not you are into health foods you probably know that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you. If this isn't reason enough to spend a bright, sunny morning among the stalls of produce brought just for you to purvey then you might want to consider all wonderful things you might find that aren't at your local Piggly Wiggly (or Ralphs).

This past Sunday had a mission to it, return the mason jars to the soup lady (with delish reloads of course!) and pick up some fresh hummus and other assorted goodies at the West LA Farmers Market (11338 Santa Monica Blvd). I know I am doing the vendor a disservice by not listing all the variations of items we buy there, this time it was orzo, feta, olive salad, avocado hummus and artichoke salad (yum!).


I was delighted to find lemon cucumbers at the Brentwood Farmer's Market (741 Gretna Green Way). These light yellow cukes don't have a lemon favor at all, it is the size and shape of them that give them their name. They are perfect for summer salads in every way. In fact, I have a plan for them as a solution to tonight's left over salmon. I plan on slicing them thin, adding small pieces or flakes of the left over salmon, adding some sliced green onion and Trader Joe's Ginger Soy dressing to create a salmon salad for lunch. Easy peasy!

It was hard not to dawdle at the coffee guy with his amazing caffeine cafe set up, but I was on limited time. My direct route did not go unrewarded, I found red onions as big as coffee cups!

I trekked home with the usual bounty of squash, japanese cucumbers, eggplant and multicolored carrots all ready for magnificent munching.

Phone Stack - Play and enjoy the company of the people across the table from you ... in the real world.

It's not clear which blogger came up with the idea for this game, 20 year old Stephie as I read about last night, or Blogger Brian - either way it's a brilliant and fun way to ensure that you and your dinning partners interact with each other and not the digital world over a face to face meal.

There are five rules to the game: 1) Game starts after everyone has ordered 2) Phones are placed face down on the table 3) First person to crack and flip over their phone to check a text or feed loses 4) If someone is unable to resist his smartphone's siren's song, he's responsible for picking up the check.
5) If no one falters, everyone is a winner and pays their own portion of the bill.

This seemed like the perfect thing to break out for my husband's 50th Birthday Brunch. With a table full of family and variety of phones I knew the temptation to withdraw to our phones was too great.

As soon as everyone sat down the rules were explained with a series of groans, one by one the phones came out and put face down on the table (we opted not to stack). As phones started ringing the pain was evident. Waiters started noticing and spreading the game around. Some offered looks of amazement but mostly words of support.

The results? No one caved and Mom paid the bill.

2012 Kicks Off With A Culinary Win

The last month of 2011 had me running to the market and to my Mom's constantly. As I bought fresh foods for her, she returned to the hospital just as frequently. In the midst of this cycle my kids were here and there (read: not home for meals), Holiday celebrations cancelled plus Dave and I too tired to do anything other than grab a quick something somewhere and fall into bed for sporadic cat naps with the cell phone tucked under the pillow.

Is it any wonder that I spent New Year's Eve scouring the web for yummy recipes that would use up the veggies-on-the-edge-of-forever in my fridge and not send me to the market, thus sending 2012 into a budget deficit?

Committed to creating a hearty breakfast or brunch that would send us to the hospital (post Football game of course) and see us through the visit with enough yummy in our belly that we did not succumb to the hospital cafeteria, I opted for VeganPiggy's Vegan Breakfast Burritos To Die For.

Since I had 6 packs of Tofu that I bought on sale for 59 cents in addition to all the veggies on hand this seemed like a winner. After swapping the carrots for broccolini, sautéing a few heirloom tomatoes in what I had left of shallots I had the happy experiment of omitting the salsa and using up what was left of Basiltops Vegan Pesto Habanero. We buy this at the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica but you can get yours at their online store. 

Did it work? I'll say. MeatatarianMan Dave happily helped himself to seconds and confirmed that this was a do-again. Yay! A kitchen victory so early in the year.

But wait! There's more. The all important Eagles game ended (Let's not go there), kids confirmed they would not be home and there was the emotionally exhausting hospital visit. No way did I want to cook. I just wanted to sit in a dinner and be served copious cups of coffee (say that 3 times fast). Hubby had other ideas, he wanted to go home. Ugh. What to feed upon? I threw the left over breakfast burrito innards into a big bowl of wild rice that I had forgotten to serve last night and added artichoke hearts, more tomatoes and the few mushrooms I had on hand.  No photos, but trust me - it looked great and tasted great too.

Dave liked this so much that he didn't ask for the Kelbasa he missed out on at breakfast and chose not to add the diced chicken breast I had set aside for him. Another win!