Comfort Food

The note from the editor in the most recent Cooking Light was very interesting, lamenting the fact that upscale chefs have hijacked the notion of "comfort food." As he said, the idea of comfort food has been "roped to spectacular quantities of cheese, meat, fat and sugar when, in fact, the emotional dopamine of the perfect dish can just as easily come from chicken soup, or Proust's cookie, or, in my case, a bowl of wild raspberries."

I thought about this as I marveled at the internet's ability to provide even the most obscure bit of information. Living up here in NJ, one thing I REALLY miss are all the good restaurants back in Dallas. Because for all its faults, Dallas has a great selection of restaurants. And one thing that has been on my mind lately is the dal with rice that I used to get from Cosmic Cafe on Oak Lawn. When I was pregnant with Grace this was one of my lunch staples (a very spicy "comfort food", if you will). So I Google "Cosmic Cafe dal recipe", and sure enough I actually get a hit. Not for the restaurant's recipe per se, but for a dal recipe that had a comment saying it tasted just like the dal at Cosmic Cafe. So very soon I will try to make it, accompanied with some jasmine rice with toasted cumin seeds, to see if I can replicate that awesome taste.

I also found a recipe that is supposed to approximate the cashew tamari dressing from Mother's Cafe in Austin. I used to buy it at Whole Foods in Dallas, but it's not carried at the Whole Foods stores up here (probably because it's refrigerated with about a 2 week shelf life - not real good for shipping 1500 miles). This is the salad dressing that would actually make me eat salads. Don't get me wrong - I love salads, but don't like the amount of work that goes into making one for lunch when it is so much easier to reheat leftovers from the night before. I just got the rest of my ingredients yesterday, so tomorrow I shall try making the dressing to see how it turns out.

Thinking again about comfort food, probably the one I think of most from my childhood would be grilled cheese sandwiches. Or tomato soup with cheddar cheese in it (maybe with a grilled cheese on the side?). Or the ultimate, though I bet it wouldn't give me too much comfort to eat it now because my palate has hopefully matured a bit, Spaghetti-O's with a slice of buttered bread on the side. Sigh.

Zoo!

We had our first zoo visit since moving to New Jersey, and we made it a good one. The Bronx Zoo! We went with Alex's two best buddies and their siblings and mothers (three moms and seven kids total aged almost-9 down to 2 1/2). It was our Wednesday-of-Spring-Break activity, Wednesday being the day at the Bronx Zoo where you donate whatever amount you want for admission. Surprisingly it wasn't crazy crowded like we thought it would be, probably because NYC schools were not out this week.


Here's the three musketeers, ready to start the day. SO happy to be at the zoo together. In fact, I think they were so happy to all just ride in the car TO the zoo together.


Everyone (except for Donald) at the beginning of the day.


The big rope spider web in the children's area was a huge hit, as seen by climbing participation with the entire group. They probably would have stayed on this for an hour or so if we didn't have a school group right on our tail.


I like this picture of Alex and Peter on the web, because you can see that Alex is "webbing" me Spiderman-style.


For some reason the turtle shells were also a huge hit. Lots of climbing fun.


Pretty Kate the turtle.


Grace specifically wanted to get a picture with the white llama (or alpaca - I'm not real sure what they were) at the area where kids can feed the animals. It was very friendly, probably because it was thinking it was sure to get some food pellets. Unfortunately it was disappointed this time (we moms decided it was too much hassle to coordinate seven kids feeding at the same time).


Everyone posing with sad faces upon discovering the reptile house was closed for the day. They really wanted to get inside to see the cobra that escaped a week or so ago.


Grace made a new friend in Peter's older brother Matthew. Even though they are a grade apart, Grace is only about 3 months older than Matthew. So they bonded over their extreme devotion to all things Harry Potter, and shared irritation at the three 6-year-olds with us.


Good thing I shoved an entire package of Chips Ahoy cookies into my pack. They were used for all sorts of incentives, whether it was a sugar pick-me-up or as a bribe (seen here) for keeping someone in his stroller.

It was a VERY fun day, though I have to admit I was exhausted by the end of it. Don't know if it was from all the walking or just the stress of keeping up with all those kids, but it was totally worth it.

Spring blooming

Time for the annual posting about what is springing up this Spring in the garden.

This should be a fun year with the yard. Due to the downsizing of Hutchinson household finances and the increase in Jim's time at home with the new MUCH reduced commute, we ditched the lawn service and are going back to doing it ourselves. Now I'm very excited to get started, and frustrated that planting is done about a month later here than in Texas, so I still have to wait even though I'm ready to DO IT.

For now I have to be content with seeing what sprouts up that had been planted by previous owners, and really start thinking about what will be moved/yanked out/supplemented.


Our snowbells are the first thing to show up each year (as you can tell by the ragged look of these last remaining few). The biggest group of them is actually a strip that snakes into the back yard, left over from the incredibly overgrown beds that we yanked out when we moved in (we needed more grass in the yard for two kids and a dog). Each year I'd be surprised when they poked through and bloomed, but always missed relocating them because the lawn guys would show up and mow before I had a chance to dig them up. So this year I took a stab at moving them. Hopefully they will show back up next year in their new locations.


The crocuses are my other early bloomers. Just a few of them left in the beds to get pictures of.


The forsythia are blooming brightly all over town. This one is next to the corner of our house. We also have one in back and one right between our house and the neighbors.


Daffodils are in the middle of blooming right now. We have a lot of basic yellow ones.


We also have some of these really pretty lighter ones.


We have a scattering of these beautiful hyacinths.


And some fairly large mounds of grape hyacinths in various areas around the house.


And THIS was the bane of my existence on Sunday. All the darn leftover pokeyballs in the back yard. Very hard to get up - they like to just spring back away from you when you pull the rake over them. And I only did about a third of the yard. Tell me again why am I excited about this?

Acclimation

First a note to say that I know it has been a while since I've posted. Honestly when dealing with the reality of your family having no income it makes it hard to get your head in the game and do all the little things you were used to doing when life was "normal." And once our situation corrected itself (yippee!) I had a bevy of house guests. So now life is approaching boring old "normal" again, which is truly grand in my opinion.

Now with regard to acclimation, it's funny how our bodies can do that so quickly to where we live. After living through a few COLD winters up here we now find ourselves like those people that once the temps hit 45-50 degrees and sunny we are outside in short-sleeves ready to enjoy the day. I can honestly say I don't believe there was ever a 50 degree day in Texas when I was out in just a t-shirt. And don't even get me started on that first summer back visiting Texas when it was 100+ on the 4th of July (I can tell you my kids probably wouldn't have seen fireworks that year even if they hadn't been diagnosed with strep that day!).

So after a couple bouts of snowfall that occurred AFTER the first day of Spring this year, we have two weekend days to kick off Spring Break that are sunny and in the 50s. Meaning yardwork for me and Jim and an outside lunch on the deck for the kiddos.

Here's my two kiddos enjoying a 53-degree afternoon (note Grace in just a tank top!). Yay Spring!