FOR JAPAN

We had a small earthquake today. It was a big enough jolt that my first instinct was to grab Bella and pull her away from the big kitchen window. We held each other for a minute, her hands firmly gripping my lower back, her head resting on my sternum. I could feel my heart pounding into her forehead. There was absolute silence except for my deep breathing as I attempted to slow my heart rate. Then our dog started barking and a bunch of frazzled deer ran down our street.

We felt so lucky.

We sat right down at the computer to look at the earthquake map. "Wow, mama. There it is." Yup. There it was. A little red square.

4 minutes ago. 3.4 on the Richter scale. 2:57 pm.

"Bella, just so you know, the earthquake in Japan was 9.0. And it lasted for several minutes."

We both exhaled loudly. No talking as we imagined what it must have felt like. A shake so strong that it moved the earth on its axis.

Last week, Dash, Bella, and I talked about the earthquake. Dash had picked up a bit of information from the playground.

"Mama. Did you know there was an earthquick in Japan. And all the waves came from underground?" 

Bella set him straight. "Dash. It's an earthQUAKE not earthQUICK. And the waves weren't underground. The earthquake was underground and it caused a tsunami that came to shore and killed lots of people."

Dash looked terrified. "Is the earthquick coming here?" He gets the same look when I tell him to buckle his seat belt or the police will come after him.

Bella froze. I answered carefully. "Yes, it could come here. But we will try to be prepared."

But Dash felt like he needed to do something right away. "This is for Japan." Dash slowly piled orange sections, salt, pepper, thyme, and lemon juice into a tall glass. And then he covered it all with water. "I'm going to save this in the fridge for Japan." We kept it there for a week. He wouldn't let me throw it out. Finally he felt satisfied that he had done his bit for Japan.

Bella and I also made some food for Japan.

Over the years, I've cooked for many sleep-deprived new parents, sick family members, a friend with a broken heart. The attention you give the ingredients, the care you take in packaging up the food, even the delivery, all feel different from daily cooking. And cooking for Japan felt the same way.

Bella's school had a bakesale. She made chocolate chip cookies. "Bella. Don't lick your fingers. Don't eat the dough. These cookies are for Japan." She listened. Her second grade class made $389 dollars in 35 minutes. $1 a treat. That's a lot of treats.

We contributed cookies and a chocolate cake to chef Samin Nosrat's Bakesale For Japan. This started with four Bay Area locations and exploded in a few weeks to a nationwide bakesale. $124,000 and counting.

I was also asked to contribute a recipe to a food blogger cookbook called Peko Peko: A Charity Cookbook for Japan. It features some of the best food bloggers out there. Such an honor to be in their company.

Bella's recipe suggestion was Green Tea Snickers Bars. I countered with Avocado and Navel Orange Salad with Ponzu Vinaigrette.

"Mama, I'll make that salad with you as long as there is sushi rice. Lots of sushi rice."

"Deal."

I'm not going to post the recipe because Bella and I are hoping that you will buy the Peko Peko Cookbook. For Japan.

EXPLORATION #3

I grew up thinking snails were something to be crushed by my mom's clogs in the garden. Intentionally and with twisted glee. I can still hear the gooey CRUNCH. They were always eating her vegetables.

"Dash, do you want to eat some snails? They're mollusks. Just like oysters."
"Nope. Snails live in the dirt. They're DIR-TY."
"Okay, I"ll find you some clean ones."

I told my husband I was headed to the garden to collect snails for dinner. Good thing he talked me out of it. You can eat garden snails (Helix aspersa) but first you need to purge the snails' systems of toxins by feeding them healthful snacks like cornmeal and lettuce. For a few weeks. Otherwise you risk eating snail bait, pesticides, and whatever else they've been nibbling on around the neighborhood. The final cleansing step is to boil the heck out of them to remove the mucus.

So I tried to buy some fresh and purged snails. I called six markets and EVERYONE laughed at me. It's like I was asking for horse meat. I finally tracked down some frozen Roman snails (Helix pomatia) that were already cleaned and packed with a parsley and garlic compound butter. Roman snails have much harder shells than garden snails and they're the ones most commonly farmed and eaten. And, as the butcher pointed out, they're called ESCARGOTS, not snails.

We still call them snails around here.

Dash filled my favorite bowl with eight of these creatures and we admired their three-dimensional spiral houses. Bella started to cry when Dash showed her the snails. They offended her on every level.

I tried to excite Bella with some dramatic details. These hermaphroditic gastropod mollusks stab each other right before copulation with love darts. The dart is covered in a substance that makes the incoming sperm more likely to survive.  I modified a bit. "Bella, before they have babies they throw knives at each other made from calcium carbonate."

Dash said, "They love each other and they stab each other? That's not fair."

I threw the snails under the broiler. Bella slammed her door and started making a pot holder.

Dash, on the other hand, got himself a small fork and started digging for some flesh. These little buggers are hard to get out. I can see why there is a special tool out there called an escargot fork.

"Mama, do the snails have faces when they're dead?"
"I don't know.  Let's look."

"My love, I don't see a face."
I guess that was what he wanted to hear. In it went.

"Yum. Okay, mama. You eat one."

Holy shit. It took some strength. Like when you don't want to go into the freezing cold pool but your child really wants to swim. Or when your child is sick in the night and you hold them in the most uncomfortable position for hours. You just do it. I put a snail in my mouth. I gagged. I chewed. I gagged. I smiled. I gagged. And then I swallowed.

Dash crawled into bed with me the next morning.

"Giddy up, aaaarrrrrr, sssssssssssss."
"Dash, what are those sounds?"
"I swallowed a cowboy, a pirate, and a snail."

We got out of bed to draw some innocent pictures of mommy and daddy snails firing off love darts.

EXPLORATION #2

Dash was sick for almost a week. He found his way into my bed every night, writhing, crying, and moaning. We would fall asleep in fetal position, back-to-back, connected at our sacrums. I wanted my Dash back. When he is sick he won't eat anything.

When he got better I bought him a present of 20 oysters.

"These are the present? These, mama? Really?" He stared me down. "I wanted a toy." He picked up an unshucked Kumamoto and licked it. "This moister tastes like the ocean." 

Moisters. Perfect. 

"They're still alive, Dashi. They were pulled out of the water this morning."

"Oh mama. When I die I want to be with you. Okay?"

"Dash, I don't know what happens when we die."

Actually I think I do know. But I'm trying not to force atheism down his throat.  I shifted the focus to the challenge of opening one of the oysters.

He asked for help. He clasped his hands to his chest in anticipation.

I showed him how to fold over a napkin and protect his hand while using the oyster knife. We angled the knife at 45 degrees and inserted the tip into the corner of the oyster. Jiggle, jiggle, and then joy as the tip slid in. And then we pried open this magnificent bivalve mollusk.

So much to discuss. Colorless blood. Three-chambered heart. Shifting gender. Potential for pearls.

No hesitation from Dash. No mignonette needed. This living breathing creature from the ocean went right into his mouth. Salt water dribbled down his chin.

"Mama, I wanted  a toy. But I do like what's inside these shells. I like the inside of the present." Much like the sardines he ate the week before, I chose not to mention that he was eating something very good for him. I'm getting really good at keeping my mouth shut.

EXPLORATION

Dash likes to poke my chest and say, "Mama, your bones are beneath your skin." Somehow it's comforting to know what I'm made of.

We bought a pile of fresh sardines that came from Monterey Bay to see what they were made of. Dash leaned in for a thorough examination. He couldn't feel the bones by poking the fish.

When Dash is learning something new, his shoulders creep up to his ears and he holds his breath. I often find myself holding my breath with him. It's such a relief when he finally exhales. 

"Phewwwwwww. Mama. Look at those eyeballs. Can I lick one?"

I couldn't think of a reason why not.

"The fish aren't real when they're dead, right?"

I tried to connect the dots a bit between life and death. "Yes,  Dash, the fish are real. Even when they're dead. Someone killed them and we're choosing to eat them." He didn't hear a word. He was spinning around and totally tuning me out. So we focused on what he could follow. Cooking.

These were huge sardines. But the fish guy told me we could eat everything (guts, eyeballs, bones and all). I smothered the whole fish in garlic, wine, capers, lemon, parsley, and bread crumbs. They cooked in about 8 minutes. Then we tore the fish apart with our fingers and scooped up the yummy sauce with some gooey country bread.

Along with the flesh of the fish, we ate some intestines, some bile, and some eyeballs.

"Yum," sighed Dash. "I love this dish. Except for the bones."


DASH'S BAKED SARDINES
printable recipe

You can marinate the fish for a few hours or overnight. Put the bread crumbs on right before cooking. If you grill the fish, leave off the bread crumbs.

serves 2

• 10-15 sardines (beheaded, gutted, and filleted if you wish)
• salt 
• pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated or chopped
• 2 anchovies, chopped
• juice/zest from 1/2 lemon
• 2 tablespoons capers plus a bit of brine
• 1/4 cup white white
• 1 cup San Marzano-style diced tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 2 green onions, finely sliced (white plus a bit of the green)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs

directions:

Preheat oven to 450° F. Place whole sardines in a baking dish (skin down if gutted and filleted).  Season with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine garlic, anchovies, lemon juice/zest, capers, white wine, tomatoes, olive oil, parsley, and green onions. Spread the mixture all over the fish.  Sprinkle bread crumbs all over the top. Place in the oven. Check them after 3 minutes. They're done when the fish is just past translucent. The sardines will cook really fast, especially if they're small. Eat right away with bread and a salad.

MILESTONES

I'm going to be so annoying but I have to say it. Dash and Bella are really growing up. 

Bella (creatively) loads the dishwasher with glee. She can read an entire chapter book before breakfast. She strokes my forehead when I have a headache. And she can follow a recipe from beginning to end.

Dash is "a whole three and a half." He no longer says "cimamin" (this makes me sad). He likes very stinky cheese. He slurps down anchovies like they're M&M's (this makes me cry with joy). And he has been quite busy in the kitchen ALL BY HIMSELF.

Last weekend, Dash got out of his big boy bed, ran down the hall, and started rummaging through the freezer. I could hear him grunting, and sighing, and setting out the plates for breakfast. I was lying there thinking that I could really get used to this behavior when Dash ran into my bedroom and said, "I'm making a special breakfast. I need help with the big knife." He started making a horror movie stabbing motion with his arm. "I"m having trouble separating the frozen pieces of cinnamon toast." It's true. My 9 inch Henckels chef knife is always dull. It was time for me to get off my butt and be a parent.

"And mama, where's the butter?" 

We're in love with butter around here.

 I was trained by my parents to love butter. Even in the Eighties, when it was considered evil and margarine was popping up all over, we were enjoying butter at almost every meal. Butter equals comfort. 

A few months ago I made my own butter for the first time.  I put cold heavy cream into a jar and shook it for 20 minutes straight. I almost gave up. The cream thickened and then it felt like I was shaking something solid. It felt impossible. And then I heard and felt a SPLAT in the jar that reverberated through my knees and down into my toes. I peered into the jar. No way. Butter.  I was drenched in sweat.  I added some crunchy salt and then ate the butter like it was kick ass French cheese.

I made butter a few more times with Dash and Bella. We learned some things along the way about science, magic, and determination.

Heavy cream is composed of butter fat suspended in liquid. When you shake the hell out of cream, the butter fat comes together into a lovely mound and separates from the buttermilk. This separation is the SPLAT. 

DON'T fill your jar up more than halfway with heavy cream. The cream expands as you shake it. Leave yourself some shaking room.

DON'T shake cold cream unless you really want this to be a sweaty workout. Leave it out on the counter for a few hours to come up to room temperature. You can even leave it out up to 24 hours to fester. The bacteria will munch away and produce lactic acid which will give the butter and the buttermilk a bit of a sour flavor. Dash kept looking for the bacteria bugs. He didn't see any. 

He got tired of waiting for the magic to happen. "Mama, is it the same kind of magic as when daddy downloads music and burns a CD?"

DON'T  tuck the jar of cream into the side of the the swing as a shortcut. You really do have to shake it. One splash per second. Slam the cream against the side of the jar. Like a crashing wave. This transformation takes some force, some time, and some patience. The grownups finished off the butter for Bella. Grandpa experienced the SPLAT. Bella was jealous.

DO save the buttermilk and use it to make pancakes. You can strain the butter with a coffee filter or a fine strainer. You can get fancy and rinse the butter in a bowl of ice water. Just make sure to squeeze out all the water and pat it dry. But the rinsing step is not necessary if you're eating the butter right away.  

DO buy organic heavy cream from grass fed cows. This will make butter with the best flavor. And at certain times of the year the white cream will produce a vibrant yellow butter. The yellow comes from the carotene in the grass eaten by the cows. No annatto coloring needed here.

DO use the butter or freeze it within 24 hours. Otherwise your butter will taste like really skanky cheeese. Too intense even for Dash.

PS: Bella did finally get to experience the SPLAT. It was late one night. She got this fierce look on her face and started shaking a jar of cream with a vengeance. 

"Is that the SPLAT? Did I do it? Did I?"

"Yes, my love. You strong girl. You did it." I did not cry. Not at all.

Of course you can just throw the heavy cream into a mixer and make butter in about 3 minutes. But that's too easy and your kids don't need to know that.

HOLIDAY RECIPE ON DAILY CANDY KIDS

I'm very psyched to say that Daily Candy Kids asked me to come up with some new recipes to make with kids. So a few weeks ago, Dash, Bella, and I slow-cooked pork and beef shoulder on a bed of vegetables for 8.5 hours. It was well worth the wait. Here are the details.

BELLA'S GUILT

When you have a blog with more than five followers, companies start offering you free shit. I won't name names but most of the time you couldn't pay me to give these "food" products to my kids. On the other hand, my kids would probably give me all their tooth fairy money to get their hands on just one of these toxic items. It only takes one lick of artificial cheese powder to get my kids high.

I finally got a product offer that I felt comfortable accepting. Pom Wonderful asked if I wanted to experiment with pomegranate juice in some of my recipes. We got the juice in the mail and Dash immediately pounded a few bottles.

This stuff is very tasty. And tart. I was worried that Dash would drink them all up so I hid the rest of the bottles in the attic fridge and forgot about them.

Then Bella started to feel really bad.

"They specifically gave us that juice so that we would make something. It's not okay to just forget about it. It's going to go BAD. They might even get mad at you, mama." She's a bit unclear on the concept of bloggers and marketing. I'm in awe of her sense of responsibility. Seems inappropriate for a seven-year old, but I still find it beautiful.

"What about Pomegranate martinis?" I suggested.
Bella rolled her eyes at me.
"Should we reduce it down and make pomegranate syrup?"I asked.
"NO!"
"Should we marinate some lamb in it?"
"No, mama. Let's make pomegranate jello with fresh pomegranate seeds on top."

For years I've associated jello with Bill Cosby, childbirth, and the stomach flu. Sort of a mixed bag of associations. But for Bella, jello was just that exciting neon stuff that her mom refused to buy and that other people had at their houses.

"Bella?"
"What?"
"Pomegranate jello? That's fucking brilliant." Yes. I did say that. To my seven-year old.

She started gathering pomegranates from the fruit bowl.

 

The first thing we needed for jello was gelatin. And I knew making gelatin involved a big old pile of meat parts. I learned this the hard way when I offered my vegetarian friends some of my homemade marshmallows last Christmas. They said they would have to give them away to their carnivorous neighbors.

Dash, Bella, and I headed over to the butcher to find out how to make homemade gelatin. I really want my kids to know where food comes from. And if I had to choose between them eating collagen extracted from meat or FD&C Red #40, I'd pick the meat every time.

"Can you get a hold of a cow's hoof?"asked one of the butchers.
I was confused. I stuttered a bit. "Um. Uh. Maybe I can get one. But can't you? You're the butcher."
"Nope," he said. "No hooves here. Just get yourself one and then grate it down into a fine powder." He smirked a bit so I wasn't sure he was taking me seriously.
"With a microplane grater?" I asked.
"Wow, you really are determined to make your own gelatin."
"I don't mess around."
Dash looked proud. Bella was slowly backing away from her embarrassing mother into the paper towel aisle.

The butcher dudes looked at each other, laughed, and went back to discussing whether or not a pint is a pound the world around. One guy believed it. The other didn't.

Inspired and determined, I was ready to search Berkeley for a cow's hoof. Bella didn't have the patience. She wanted to make jello RIGHT NOW. So we bought packs of gelatin instead. So much for knowing the source of our food. Next time with the cow's hoof.

Back at home, Bella dressed Dash up as a robot and told him to stay the hell out of her kitchen.

We followed the general directions on the back of the gelatin package. Mix gelatin with cold juice. Let sit for a minute.

Combine with hot pomegranate juice and a little sugar. Pour into assorted ramekins or glasses.

Add some pomegranate seeds. Refrigerate. 

The little seeds float up to the top as it sets. And then jello happens. Magic. 

"Bella," I said, "it turns out jello can be beautiful."

Bella had already moved on. "Mama, what a relief that the jello is done. Now we can drink the rest of the juice and not feel guilty."

Soon, I hope, she'll start organizing my papers and paying the bills.

TIP FOR REMOVING POMEGRANATE SEEDS:  Put on an apron. Sometimes I even do this outside. Cut pomegranate in half. Take one pomegranate half with the cut half facing down into a bowl. Whack the outside of the fruit with a heavy wooden spoon. The seeds will fall down into the bowl. Make sure you remove any white pith that has fallen into the bowl. Repeat with the other half.

POMEGRANATE JELLO
printable recipe
make 8-12 servings depending on ramekin size

2 packages gelatin

4.5 cups pomegranate juice

2 tablespoons sugar  (or more to taste)

seeds from 1 pomegranate

Mix gelatin with 1/2 cup cold pomegranate juice. Mix and let stand for a minute. Bring remaining 4 cups of pomegranate juice to a boil. Take off the heat. Add sugar and mix until dissolved. Taste. Add more sugar if it's not sweet enough. Whisk in gelatin mixture. Pour hot liquid into a pitcher. Pour into ramekins of any size, almost to the top of each dish. Sprinkle fresh pomegranate seeds on top. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.