SO CLOSE YOU CAN FEEL IT

Dream that you forgot to study for your college statistics final.

Wake up to radio news of more tornadoes.

Poke, yank, drag your kids out of bed.

Stare blankly into the fridge.

Calculate that today is approximately the 1,620th day of making school lunches.

Feel totally uninspired.

Find your son asleep on the dog bed.

Marionette him up, whisper into his ear one week till summer one week till summer one week till summer, quadruple-kiss his delicious neck, rudder his body towards the kitchen.

Notice the time.

Abort the kitchen.

Yell out don't worry about your beds or your teeth just put on some clothes and let's get in the car.

Feed your kids a very special in-transit breakfast of BBQ chips, fruit rope, and Altoids.

See the relief in your daughter's eyes when you pull up just in time for drop-off.

Go to the market to buy breakfast cereal, school lunch items, and vegetables.

Walk out of the market with red wine, anchovies, six of your favorite cheeses, apricots, and cherries.

Re-enter the messy zone.

Ignore the dishes.

Make your bed.

Make your son's bed.

Make your daughter's bed.

Ignore the dishes.

Perform a floor-to-ceiling purge of the pantry.

Pick a dozen of the yellow flowers that shoot up every June and remind you of the day your son was born.

Ignore the dishes.

Regret never having written your son's birth story.

Sigh out he's six he's six he's six oh how could he be six.

Almost cry.

Add insult to injury by trying on all of your bathing suits.

Clear your desk to clear your head.

Blaze through dozens of emails to make sure you haven't missed out on a teacher gift, a birthday party, a memory book, a let's-do-soccer-in-the-fall push, a trophy presentation, a we're-done-with-kindergarten party.

Rant we are ruining our children with all of these celebrations and making them feel too special and we need to let them be ordinary once in a while.

Distract yourself by thinking about what you're going to do with the apricots and cherries.

Feel the magnetic pull of your kitchen.

Realize when you bite into a firm apricot and then a lackluster cherry that you've jumped the gun a bit on summer.

Broil half of the fruit with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, thyme, and ricotta.

Bake the remaining fruit into an apricot, cherry, and brown-butter crisp.

Groove to the extractive and color-enhancing properties of salt, sugar, and heat as they transform the apricots into tart and fluffy pillows and the cherries into a sticky sweet jam.

Rejoice that it's not even noon and fuck yeah the beds are made, the pantry is summer-ready, dinner and dessert are cooked.

Blast some music.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Sit back down at your desk.

Sip your coffee.

Float your way back to that sunny Saturday morning in 2007.

Remember your daughter holding your gaze, gripping your hands, swaying right along with you during those first few contractions, repeating you can do it mama you can do it mama you can do it mama.

Smile.

Write the story of your son's birth.

BROILED APRICOTS AND CHERRIES WITH RICOTTA AND THYME
printable recipe
serves 4-6 as a side dish

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (thick if you have it)
4 sprigs fresh thyme

3/4 cup ricotta or fresh goat cheese (or both!)
1/3 cup chopped parsley

Preheat broiler to high.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and thyme. Toss to coat. Broil (not too close to the flame) until tender, gooey, juicy, and just starting to brown, maybe even blacken along the edges (about 15 minutes). Remove from the oven and tuck spoonfuls of cheese around the cooked fruit. Broil again until cheese just starts to brown. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve immediately with grilled bread and  a green salad. 

APRICOT AND CHERRY BROWN-BUTTER CRISP WITH VANILLA-LEMON SUGAR
printable recipe
serves 4-6
If you have any extra vanilla-lemon sugar, it's delicious dissolved into warm milk (says my daughter).

for the vanilla lemon sugar:

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon lemon zest

seeds scraped out from 1/2 vanilla bean

for the fruit:

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

for the crisp topping:

1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar

To make the vanilla lemon sugar: In a food processor, pulverize the sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds for 30 seconds. Set aside.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish (it's okay if it overlaps a bit). Sprinkle 2-4 tablespoons of the vanilla lemon sugar all over the fruit (up to you how sweet you want to go). Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss together flour, oats, walnuts, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-sized pot, melt the butter. Let it foam up a bit and then settle back down. Watch carefully. Remove from heat just as the milk solids start to brown at the bottom of the pot. Stir in brown sugar. Add the flour/oat/nut mixture. Mix until just combined.  

Distribute the crisp mixture all over the top of the fruit. Press down firmly. Bits of fruit might poke through a bit. That's okay. Bake until the crisp starts to bubble around the edges and the top is golden brown (about 40 minutes). Serve right away with ice cream, whipped cream, créme fraîche, or yoghurt. It's great for breakfast.

CONNECTING

Dash has bursts of energy that can result in television-punching, sister-mauling, and one very pissed off mama.

I'm not always proud of what comes out of my mouth. Find some ahimsa, dude. Settle down. Get it together. Chill out. Control yourself. Shit. You're insane.

But sometimes I manage to meet him at his level and say the right things. Why are you so angry? I want to help you. Where do you feel the intensity in your body? He points to his chest. We knock knock on his sternum. Come out crazies, we plead. Just come out and we'll take care of you.

We channel his waves of fervor into drawings, diaphragm-squishing hugs, and maniacal scooter rides around the block. And when these releases aren't enough, we bust out the tape and the rope.

Dash's intricate tape and rope installations freak out the dog and cause my grandmother to trip. But I think they're beautiful. A chair connected to a hanger, around the door knob, under the sofa, down the hall, and around my favorite boots.

Sometimes a list can stop Dash in his tracks. There's nothing quite like hearing the what, when, where, why, and how of a mama's love. 

"Dash. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." As my list builds, you see the intensity drop down and out of his body. He melts. And then he slips into my lap.

And sometimes, I'm the one who gets grounded by a love list.

"Mama, now let ME count the ways of YOU."

"Okay. Go."

"Number one. I love your sparkly shirt. Two I love how you cook. Three is that I love that you let me stay up at night for one minute or two to get out my energy. Number four I love how you match me on Halloween. Number six I love to hold your hand. Number seven I love your feet.  And I love your eyebrows."

"One more?"

"Okay. Number 10, right? I love those package things we made with fig leaves and ricotta."

So we make them again.

Place one large fig leaf (or several smaller ones) seam side up. Add a big scoop of fresh sheep's milk ricotta.

Always an anchovy, says Dash.

Always some lemon zest, I say.

A handful of pine nuts. Some salt. 

Some garlic confit? Some scraps of prosciutto. A few drops of olive oil.

And then get busy tying.

Your kids can do every step of this process. Have them tuck in all four corners. And then they can just go crazy wrapping, tightening, and knotting.

If you ask Dash, he will tell you that a chocolate and ricotta package would be "exterminably delicious."

Throw them onto an open fire. Or bake them in your oven. Or grill them (just like we did) on a pancake griddle.  High heat for 10 minutes or so—just enough to infuse the ricotta with the essence of fig leaves. The flavor of fig leaves, by the way, is indescribable. We all tried to find the words. Herbacious? Green? Disgusting? Sweet? We all failed.

Open the packages up at the table, smear the contents onto some grilled bread, and experience what my brother described as an "awesome savory cheese danish with pig fat." 

You heard him right. Pig Fat Cheese Danishes. Bring it on.

A LIST ABOUT RICOTTA PACKAGES:

1. I've tried these packages with leaves from three different kinds of fig trees: Adriatic, Black Mission, and Brown Turkey. They all imparted slightly different flavors—all pleasurable.

2. The old-school ricotta I grew up with was firm and gelatinous. Not appealing unless puréed into pancakes. But more and more cheesemongers and markets have fresh sheep or cow's milk ricotta that's moist, fluffy, and sweet. Make sure to eat it within a few days because sour ricotta is not appealing.
3. Or make your own.

4. Try different flavor combinations with the ricotta. Figs and honey. Pomegranate arils and parsley. Plums and balsamic. Preserved lemons and apricots.
5. These packages can be re-heated in the oven with great success.
6. I experienced ricotta baked in fig leaves for the first time at Oakland's Camino restaurant. Just wanted to send out massive thanks to chef Russell Moore. Wow, can this dude work a fire. His food is such an inspiration.
7. The figs are just ripening on the trees around Berkeley. But I realize that some of you from other areas might need to wait until next summer!
8. Have your kids taste the milky substance that drips out of the stems. And then ask them to describe it. Dash and I need some help.