Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
Moon Pies for Rocket Boys
June 10th, 2010by Caroline
It’s all about rockets in our house lately. The boys are reading about Apollo 11 and the other moon missions, drawing rocket pictures, building cardboard and foil rockets, and making plans for their future lives as rocket scientists.
I play along as much as I can, but my kids understand two fundamental things about me: [...]
Review: In the Kitchen, by Dona Schwartz
May 27th, 2010by Caroline
Lisa lives in a modernist Eichler house, with glass doors opening from its bright, efficient kitchen to a sunny back yard with citrus trees and a generous picnic bench. I live in a renovated San Francisco Edwardian, with a cork-floored kitchen, a maple island and deep red tile fired in a local pottery studio. [...]
A Celebration
May 25th, 2010by Caroline
My father-in-law, James Grant, would have been 86 today. He was a husband and father, an engineer and artist, a backyard wine maker and meat smoker. He is remembered, by his friends and family, for his generosity, his straight talk, his gorgeous paintings and sculpture, and his great cooking. I regret that I never [...]
Farm Morning
May 18th, 2010by Caroline
Henry James famously wrote that “summer afternoon” were the two most beautiful words in the English language, but to me, the words “farm breakfast” are equally sweet and evocative. They make me remember childhood Saturday mornings spent rereading Farmer Boy’s descriptions of maple sugar pancake stacks, or my mom’s stories of summer mornings [...]
Pickles!
May 13th, 2010by Caroline
We joke around here sometimes about how I don’t cook dinner, that I only cook the accessory foods (ie, granola, desserts), and thanks to my dinner-cooking husband there’s more than a kernel of truth in that. I like baking, and also it appeals to my sense of economy (there may be a greater discrepancy [...]
Planting Potatoes
April 25th, 2010by Caroline
Last summer when we visited my parents, the boys experienced the treasure hunt of digging potatoes. This spring, to bring the process full circle (backwards!) they planted. Both boys have done a fair amount of seed planting, both at home and at school, and Eli’s recent picture demonstrates some understanding of the process:
But potatoes [...]
Three Lovely Salads
April 21st, 2010by Caroline
As I approach my tenth wedding anniversary, I’ve been reminiscing about our extravagant celebration of my parents’ fiftieth, a cruise in southern France, guided over by a wonderful crew, including the inimitable Chef Charlie. Charlie made every meal an event, and now when Eli asks to light the candles or Ben folds all our [...]
The 2A Farmer’s Market
April 18th, 2010by Caroline
The 2nd grade curriculum at my son’s school is built partly on the study of communities, so every month or so there is a field trip to a different part of the city, where the kids hear stories about the neighborhood and eat some snacks: fried chicken feet in Chinatown, tacos in the Mission, [...]
Thousand Island Dressing
April 16th, 2010by Lisa
It’s a snack food, a packable lunch dish, a side dish, an appetizer, an all around helpful thing to have in your kitchen. It’s lightening fast to make. It’s completely addictive. It’s a way of getting your kids to eat more raw vegetables. And even you won’t be able to stop eating it with [...]
Eat at Eli’s
March 24th, 2010by Caroline
One of my favorite preschool activities is “Dictation:” an adult sits with a piece of paper and a pencil, and asks the assembled kids a question: What do your parents do for work? What do you like to eat for breakfast? How do you get to school? The responses are unpredictable, creative, and often [...]