I’ll bet you didn’t know that today is St. Lucy’s Day.  And that it is also my daughter’s half-birthday. And that her still-beloved American Girl doll, Kirsten, hails from Sweden, where St. Lucy is pretty much the only saint honored. If you’ve read my book, you also might know that we nearly named Ella “Lucy”, after my paternal grandmother.

For a few years, Ella has been lobbying to celebrate her half-birthday/Swedish saint day in a traditional way: with St. Lucia buns, brought by the eldest daughter, at the crack of dawn, to the other members of the household. Usually, this daughter wears a crown of candles.  Historically, December 13 would have been the winter solstice, the darkest night of the year, and thus the tradition of the eldest daughter bringing light and sweets.

Last night at dinner, Ella reminded me about St. Lucy’s Day and told me exactly where to find the recipe, and at 6:30 pm, I agreed and set to work making St. Lucia Buns for the morning. I didn’t have saffron or raisins, which means ours were not exactly authentic, but they were good enough.  They’re a sweet, yeast bread and easy to make.

This morning, at about 6:45 am, it was still dark, and Finn came into our room, announcing, “Stay in bed!” Not long after that, Ella arrived (sans scary candle crown) with a breakfast tray bearing two cups of coffee and 4 St. Lucia buns, plated and garnished with candied walnuts, which she’d added in place of the missing raisins.

It was lovely to have a break from the regular routine, to forget about making lunches and emptying the dishwasher and making beds.  We all piled onto our bed, and had a calm, sweet breakfast as the sun came up.

St. Lucia Buns

from Kirsten’s Cookbook

• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup lukewarm water
• 1 package yest
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron
• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 1 T cooking oil
• 1 egg + 1 T water
• 24 raisins

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes until  bubbly and smooth.
2. Warm the milk and butter over low heat until butter is just melted.
3. Add the milk and butter to the yeast.
4. Stir in sugar, egg, salt, and saffron.
5. Add 1 1/2 cups flour and stir until smooth.
6. Add enough of the remaining flour so that you can shape the dough into a ball.
7. Put dough on floured cutting board & knead, adding flour as dough becomes sticky.
8. When dough is smooth and  springy (about 5-10 minutes) cover with a towel and wash & dry mixing bowl.
9. Measure cooking oil into bowl, add dough, turn to coat, cover with a towel and set in warm place to rise, 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.
10. Punch down the dough, then divide into 6 sections.  Take one section and divide in half. Roll each half into and 8-inch rope. Cross the 2 ropes in the middle then coil the ends into tight circles. Repeat w/remaining 5 buns.
11. Place buns on greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Let rise until doubled, 30-45 minutes.
12. While buns are rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
13. Beat egg and water and brush lightly over the top of each bun before baking. Decorate with raisins.
14. Bake buns 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
15. Cool on cooling rack.

English Muffin Loaf
adapted from The Cate School Community Cookbook, 2002

5-6 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups milk
1 cup water

cornmeal for dusting the pan

Butter two 8×4 loaf pans and dust with cornmeal.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Combine 3 cups of flour, yeast, sugar, salt and soda in a large bowl.

Heat the milk and water until warm and then add to the dry mixture. Mix well. Stir in remaining 2-3 cups flour, to make a stiff batter. Spoon the batter into the loaf pans, sprinkle the tops with more cornmeal, and cover with a damp cloth. Let the bread rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove promptly from the pans and let cool on a rack.

These loaves freeze well, and make delicious toast.

One of my longest cooking (and eating) rituals is granola; I’ve been making an adaptation of Nigella Lawson’s granola recipe from Feast for over 5 years now, and eating it every morning with some Trader Joe’s O’s and a sprinkling of dried cranberries.

But when I spotted a tasty-looking recipe in the New York Times magazine recently, I thought, there’s nothing wrong with making a second kind of granola. Besides, I knew the coconut and dried cherries would appeal to Ben, who now might join me in my granola habit.

I made the recipe exactly as written, and it’s delicious, but sweeter than I like in the morning, so I might cut back on the sugar and syrup the next time around.

Eleven Madison Park Granola
By SAM SIFTON
2 3⁄4 cups rolled oats
1 cup shelled pistachios
1 cup unsweetened coconut chips
1/3 cup pumpkinseeds
1 tablespoon salt
1⁄2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3⁄4 cup dried sour cherries.

1. Preheat oven to 300. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, pistachios, coconut, pumpkinseeds and salt.

2. In a small saucepan set over low heat, warm the sugar, syrup and olive oil until the sugar has just dissolved, then remove from heat. Fold liquids into the mixture of oats, making sure to coat the dry ingredients well.

3. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, and spread granola over it. Bake until dry and lightly golden, 35 to 40 minutes, stirring granola a few times along the way.

4. Remove granola from oven, and mix into it the dried sour cherries. Allow to cool to room temperature before transferring to a storage container. Makes about 6 cups.

Adapted from Daniel Humm, Eleven Madison Park, New York.

If it didn’t make the kids happy, you’d call it a rut because they’ve been eating the same thing for breakfast nearly 5 days a week since August. It’s true, that on weekends we mix it up with pancakes, and there’s french toast, or oatmeal, or granola thrown in on occasion, but for the most part, they eat the same thing every single school morning.

This is familiar to me: as a child I ate pb & j on cocktail rye for at least a year straight, along with probably 5 other foods.  My kids aren’t picky, and there’s some variety in their lunches and lots in the dinners.   It seems they’re just hungry for the same thing at this particular meal. Also what changed is that I am now making breakfast. This used to be the husband’s domain, but I took over when we was on deadline illustrating this book, working around the clock.  I figured I could pitch in, and for now, its stuck.

For me, the advantages of consistency are just that: I have a routine. No decisions, no second-guessing, no options.  I know exactly what dishes to pull in what order and how to assemble and cook the parts so that there is food in front of them in less than five minutes, which is less than the time it takes to brew the pot of coffee. I pre-slice and freeze the bagels. I use the same dishes. I pour and slice in the same order every single. I am a breakfast machine.

The magic meal is a fried egg, over easy, a mini-bagel and cream cheese, fresh fruit. and juice. Some times they get toast instead of a bagel.  If we’re out of juice they have milk.  And  plums have replaced the berries of summer, but basically, this is the meal.  I get the eggs at the farmers market, so I feel okay about eating a lot of them.  As I’ve written before, we’ve discovered that small amounts of protein really make a difference in the energy and mood of our athlete daughter, which is how eggs on a weekday first came about.

And this morning, I discovered that unbeknownst to me, they have been competing over this meal. Not only do the eat the same thing every day, they eat the same thing in the same way every day. First they eat all the white away until only the round eye of the yolk is left, then they carefully scoop up the yolk and eat it in one bite. Whoever manages not to spill or break any of the yolk is the winner.  The score is now 27-22, in Ella’s favor. Which proves I’m not exaggerating about how many eggs they eat. Repetition. Routine. Consistency. We don’t think much about these things, and certainly, they’re not as easy to write about, but they’re as a much a part of how we eat as new food, traditional food, celebratory food.

It’s true, he’s not winning the breakfast series, but his picture came out better.

You know we are big fans of pancakes around here. We make them with pumpkin and lemon and leftover quinoa and corn; we eat them when we’re out and when we’re at home; we follow recipes from picture books and children’s books but for the most part, aside from the occasional airplane or Eiffel Tower when Tony is wielding the pancake flipper, pancakes here are plain, round, circles.

The cookbook I’m offering you today wants to change all that. Jim Belosic’s OMG Pancakes! shows you how to use a couple squeeze bottles, some food coloring, and one uncomplicated pancake recipe to add some fun to the pancakes on your plate. Cats and dogs, sure, but also giraffes, frogs, rocket ships, bulldozers, guitars and more. The publisher sent us an advanced copy, so the pictures aren’t in color, but the techniques and the recipes are clear and easy to follow. Leave a comment with your email by the end of the week and I’ll draw one winner.

When my husband and I decided to get married, I told him I could imagine making a life in his native San Francisco as long as we spent one week every summer somewhere I wouldn’t need to wear a scarf.

That means, happily, an August week in Northwest Connecticut, visiting my parents, and that also, very happily, means corn. Usually, we’re eating my Dad’s corn, but this year the crop failed so we’re getting it from local farm stands. My Dad likes the one the First Selectman sets up at the end of his driveway (presumably because he can get caught up on local political talk); my Mom (and I) like the bigger one that also offers fresh, homemade mozzarella. Either way, with this much corn around, you are bound to have leftovers, and this recipe is my new favorite way to use them. Don’t be put off (as I nearly was) by the somewhat fussy step of blending and straining some of the corn with milk: it makes a difference.

You can eat these the way my kids do, drenched in maple syrup (and when the syrup’s homemade, I won’t stop them), but you can also eat them savory, as I’ve pictured, with guacamole and fresh tomatoes. It’s summer on a plate.

1 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3 to 4 ears corn
3/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Accompaniment: pure maple syrup, or guacamole and salsa

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl.

Cut enough kernels from cobs to measure 2 cups. Using back of a knife, scrape pulp from cobs and transfer to a blender with milk and 1/2 cup corn. Purée until smooth, then strain through a sieve into another medium bowl, pressing on and then discarding solids. Whisk in eggs, oil, and butter.

Add to flour mixture with remaining 1 1/2 cups corn and whisk until just combined.

Heat a griddle or heavy skillet over medium heat until hot, then lightly brush with oil. Working in batches, pour 1/3 cup batter per pancake onto griddle and cook until bubbles appear on surface and undersides are golden-brown, about 2 minutes. Flip with a spatula and cook until undersides are golden-brown, about 1 minute more. (Reduce heat if pancakes brown too quickly.) Lightly oil griddle between batches if necessary.

The force was with them even though they hadn’t eaten breakfast

Our kids, like many, take breakfast seriously. They eat shortly after waking up and are used to a fair amount of variety: porridge, eggs many ways, waffles, pancakes, cereal, sweet rice, granola….lots of whole, fresh fruit.

Since we were staying in hotels on our trip, eating right away–even coffee right away–was not so possible. I suppose I could have kept breakfast fixings in the room, but we were moving around a lot and I didn’t want one more thing to tote and pack and, probably, waste.    At several hotels we had a breakfast package, and if you’re traveling with kids, I would highly recommend these.  Hotel breakfasts had variety, were easy to get to, and meant we could get on with our day without any effort. On these days, which was maybe a third or half of the time, we had a solid breakfast. Other days, not so much.  As opposed to the breakfast-included package, purchasing breakfast food a la carte at our hotels proved prohibitively expensive. We loved adored our hotel, but $40 for 2 coffees, 3 bagels, 2 waters and 1 fruit cup is absurd.  Breakfast quickly became the least important meal of the day. It was all about the grab & go.  We made sure to find something decent and relatively healthy for the kids, but really, we bought just enough to tide them over to lunch.  We found this place on Coronado, which was a great place to grab & go on our way to wherever we happened to be going for the day. We relied on bagels, smoothies, and one fine day, a totally delicious bacon burrito and french toast.

We learned that California Adventure has far superior coffee and breakfast options in the early AM than does Disneyland.  Our most egregious meal failure was the day we arrived at the Disneyland gate for the 7 am, hotel-guest only hour, without having eaten.  Anything. Not even coffee for the adults, which frankly might be more important than food for the kids. Especially at Disneyland. In our defense, we had assumed we’d be able to grab food at the park (since we had done this the day prior at CA). Also in our defense, we all rode Star Tours and Space Mountain before 8 am, and got FastPasses for both.  We avoided a near meltdown with pizza at 10 AM.

Some days, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The best breakfast of all–food and fun wise, was the character-themed Critter breakfast at our Disney hotel.  This of course, was a surprise to me, but not to my Disney loving family. My husband, who worked many character breakfasts (as Pluto, for instance) in his 6 years employed at the park, was full of fun stories about what was really going on around us, and was able to speak to Chip and Dale and all the rest in some secret language unknown to the rest of us mortals. Our kids don’t give a hoot about princesses, but what’s not to love about enourmous, cuddly stuffed animals come to life and wandering through a pretty swell arts and crafts/mission style restaurant?  There was kots of fresh fruit, grits, bagels, cream cheese, capers, lox, eggs to order, Mickey-shaped waffles. And the husband knew enough to have a mimosa waiting for me. Which was swell.

So the moral here is: it was good to lighten up temporarily about that most important meal.

And if you have a choice, definitely eat with the animals.

Up next: Surviving the theme park food. (Or maybe not so much.)

We are big time into the Women’s World Cup right now, which is turning out to be one of the greatest sporting events of the year for us.  Amazing female athletes, an amazing US team, little commercialism, or ego, or marketing, and heart-stoppingly dramatic games.  The games have been a tremendous source of inspiration, especially for our athlete-daughter who is so fortunate to have opportunity and mentors all around her.

For the US quarter-final game against Brazil, a couple of Ella’s teammates came over for a pajama-party USA themed breakfast: pancakes with red/white/blue strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream. It wasn’t about the food. The food was fun, but the game was the centerpiece of the morning.  Offering pancakes was just an excuse for getting some of them together to root for their players, then celebrate, and the extra whipped cream came in handy when we all needed a pick-me-up during the nail biting overage time.

After, they swarmed the park & had an impromptu meet up with another teammate and her dad.

Caroline makes a lot of different kinds of pancakes: lemony, snack, picture perfect, pumpkin . We just make one.  Let us know what you did for the semifinals today!

There will never be a better meal.

Do I really need to give you another pancake recipe? We’ve already given you Lisa’s classic griddlecake recipe, and I’ve contributed recipes for quinoa, pumpkin and lemon pancakes. But I am going to give you one more, because this recipe is so easy you can make it in your sleep, which, frankly, is often my state when pancake-making for my children: vertical and sufficiently responsive, but not entirely awake yet.

The recipe comes from Eric Carle’s picture book, Pancakes, Pancakes!, a book I have been reading to my kids for years about a boy named Jack who asks his mother for pancakes. She tells him she’s busy and will need his help, and then proceeds to direct (but not assist) him in each step, from cutting wheat for the miller to grind into flour all the way to milking the cow for milk (and churning some of it into butter) and gathering the wood for a cooking fire. Jack’s quite happy to do all the chores, and at the end he and his mother flip the pancake together, she spreads it with jam, and he tucks into an enormous, strawberry-jam topped pancake. It’s an excellent story — I revere Jack’s mother — but I have never dreamed of actually making the recipe with which the story concludes:

Until one day recently, as we finished reading, Eli said, “Let’s make these pancakes!” and he caught me at a moment when I was in the mood to say yes. I really didn’t think they’d be very good — no sugar, no baking powder — but I couldn’t sneak in any extra ingredients because Eli was determined to do the cooking himself, plus he can read now. He hardly needs my permission or participation at all:

And I have to say, the pancakes are perfectly good. They don’t hold up very well (no snack pancakes here), so eat them while they’re hot, whether they are stacked with jam:

Or poured and sliced into a homage to Giants’ closer Brian Wilson:

I’ll give you the ingredients, but pick up a copy of Pancakes, Pancakes! to get the whole story, read it with your kids, and then make some pancakes.

1 c flour
1 egg
1 c milk

Stir into a batter while your frying pan is heating, melt a bit of butter in the pan, then proceed, one ladleful of batter at a time, to cook your pancakes.