TWD: Molasses-spiced cookies

My mom came to visit us this weekend, which means that I made her sleep on a sofa, share a bathroom with us, and experience Boston Drivers' Road Rage. I say this because there is probably nothing worse than having your loving daughter pick you up from the airport and immediately hear the C word come out of her mouth while merging onto the freeway.

Patience has never been my virtue.

But we had an amazing, lovely weekend. It was actually a very special weekend, in that she had the chance to meet the Lawyer from Southie's parents. Since we spend so much time with them, it was about time they all got to know each other.

Now, for any of you young, idealistic couples out there who are considering this very same move, let me let you in on a little tip. See, what you THINK you are doing is making it so that everyone is comfortable hanging out together. They all WANT to meet each other, so you think this is a good idea that they all get the chance to spend some time together.

But let me make this very clear - you are opening yourself up to a very dangerous experience here. With the age of the Internet, you are risking the fact that your mother and his mother will become email buddies. Worse yet, they will most likely friend each other on Facebook. They'll sit right down and get that Facebook thing figured out so that they can communicate openly to each other about you and the man with whom you're living in sin! Before you know it, they will be swapping tips for Mafia Wars and sending each other Lil' Green Patch requests while posting things on each others' walls like "So when the heck are those two going to get engaged?!?!?!" with the response "Well, if they do get married, is wearing white still an option? Or was that idea lost a long time ago?"


This is a future you should be aware of. This is no science fiction.

And our mothers? Insta-BFFs, as we knew they would be, due to their similar personalities and interests. There was a hardly a moment of dead air between them before they were off, arm in arm, talking about my most embarrassing moments, TLFS's trouble with spelling as a child, and whether or not he and I have the same profile when we both turn our faces in the same direction. By the end of the first night, they had dropped hints as to what our children should be named, where we should live for the best school districts, what kinds of strollers were popular now, and what they wanted for Christmas.

I should go on, before getting too far ahead of myself, and send out yet ANOTHER warning to all of the teenagers who read this blog (there are four of them, tops). But you who have teenagers, you need to give them fair warning about this. You need to remind those teenagers that every time they act fussy in a mall, complain about how they're treated, or simply snarl at you from afar, THESE ACTIONS ARE BEING RECORDED AND WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN, O LITTLE ONES. It's like in every parents' head there is a giant abacus, and on each bead there is written one evil deed, one embarassing moment, one time when a parent wanted to strangle a child but instead remembered at the last moment, "Oh yeah, I'll be able to use this to embarrass the hell out of her at the engagement party."

So. That eyebrow piercing that made you such a trendsetter in 1996? Your boyfriend's mother will get to hear all about it in 2009. Your penchant for SKIDS in 1987? They'll get to see pictures. And oh yeah - whose idea was that perm? Not your mother's? Did she try to talk you out of it, but instead you screamed "IT'S MY HAIR, NOT YOURS, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH IT!!!" Well I hope you love the pictures of you looking like a deranged poodle, because your mother has been carrying them around in her wallet for the last 17 years waiting for this opportunity.

And both of our mothers were pretty tame, but I will say, there were moments of humiliation that made me look at him and say out loud, "You won't break up with me over the fact that for a while I really was serious about becoming a professional trumpet-playing horse jumper, will you?" Because I really felt there was a chance it might happen. On Sunday morning, we woke bright and early to hear them chatting downstairs. The Lawyer from Southie said "I'll go down and see what's going on - you get a few more minutes of sleep." He was back within 30 seconds: he made it as far as the top of the stairs before he realized they were sitting at the kitchen counter, poring over his baby pictures.

We slept in another half an hour.

So you really can't blame me that these cookies turned out so miserably. On the one hand, I was so distracted by having the two of them in the kitchen with me, I forgot to add both the salt and the baking soda. On the other hand, while the second batch was in the oven, TLFS and I were so busy shotgunning Kahlua left over from Christmas or something (it was all we could find) that I left the cookies in the oven for 45 minutes. The final batch came out decently, but he and I had them finished off so quickly that there was not a chance to take an artsy blog food shot.


I drove my mom to the airport yesterday and realized that I was going to miss her more than I had in the past. I was going to miss her more than I would when she let me go to sleep-away camp in 1988. I was going to miss her more than when she dropped me off at military school in 1995. And I was going to miss her more than when she let me fly to China in 1998. I was really going to miss her, because of all the silly things I've done in my life, she's the one who's really been paying attention. And for all the embarrassing moments that we put ourselves through, how lucky are we to have anyone pay attention to us at all?

Cabin Weekend: Good Friends and Gluttony

Life is, to some extent, all about managing desire.

For instance, you know that if you are married with children, you cannot just start dating a coworker. You cannot go shopping at Bergdorf's every time you feel sad. You cannot adopt 48 cats and keep them in your house effectively, despite your best efforts.

And I try to manage my desire. I really do. This explains why I am not wearing adorable Italian leather shoes at the moment. The Lawyer from Southie is not massaging my shoulders with French oil and whispering in my ear that my hair smells like sunshine. I have not taken that plastic surgeon up on his recommendations, despite his promise to transform me into a New Millennium Raquel Welch.


I am certainly not eating Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake, because oh my lord, just reading that makes me bloat.

And honestly it's not entirely my fault. It's Jon Jon's Mom's fault. Seriously, it is. Because of her, I'm running to work off the 8,000 calories I put into my system. The chicken piccata that I had seconds of, the banana bread pudding with (wait for it) buttery rum sauce, the wine, and more wine, Nancy Silverton's ginger scones, the best bacon ever, and OH MY GOD SIGN ME UP FOR A JUICE FAST PRONTO.


I think that had I decided to try to make anything remotely resembling a Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake, TLFS would have first said "Ooooh nice" and would have then said "I really hate how you're so blatantly letting yourself go."

Because honestly when you have gluttinous weekends like the gluttinous weekend we are just now recovering from, well, you can't just jump back into eating Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake and all. You have to taper. I mean, besides the incredible menu I just mentioned, there was absolutely no activity on the part of six adults, unless you count the times we had to bounce a baby on our laps, the trips back and forth to the cabin to get the boys (ahem, the men) more beer, the marathon bouts of laughter that overcame me when hearing the most hilarious stories from TLFS's childhood.


Last night I went on my normal little run around the neighborhood and I swear, it was as if that bread pudding was on my hips running with me. It was like the person in the gym who is super fit and makes you realize just how many mistakes you've made in your personal dietary choices recently. But instead it's three pounds of fat riding around like an inflatable o-ring just above the elastic band in your pants. It was just hanging out, reminding me that it would be there for me unless I made good on that vow to start doing situps until I barf. Which right about now seems like a distinct possibility.


The best thing about the weekend was realizing just how damn talented our friends are. Jon Jon's dad is really good with woodworking, and besides amazing furniture and design elements in their house, they put in a cabin on the backside of their property. This was the absolute perfect excuse to get all of our sorry asses out of bed on Sunday morning to hike back to the cabin, bloody marys in hand, to make breakfast over an open fire. There are incriminating videos of boys (ahem, men) doing boy things as soon as the ladies went into the house, but I love my boyfriend and so I will not be posting those. Although I will just advise all other ladies planning Fall Cabin Weekends out there - hide the axes and kerosene.

The Bun is Out of the Oven!!!

I've hardly been cooking this week - no chocolate cherry torte, no pumpkin muffins, nothing. Last night I even made the Lawyer from Southie order Thai food with me. But look! I have an excuse!


The Lawyer from Southie's brother and sister in law had their much anticipated baby over the weekend, and ever since then we've basically just been sitting around, refreshing their Facebook pages to see if they'd updated yet with more photos. Their mother was sent down to be with the baby for the primary reason of personal assistance and the secondary reason of acting as the Family Photographer. Apparently the baby's mother was too tired after 14 hours of natural childbirth to do this.

He was born on Sunday, and all day long TLFS and I walked around looking at the colorful leaves, thinking about how the baby picked the perfect day to be born. It was still Fall but just on the verge of Winter, at the point of the most vibrant color and the strongest gusts of wind. We anticipated his many birthday parties following, filled with apple cider donuts and hay rides and corn maizes. Birthday parties which we cannot wait to become a part of.


We Skyped with the father for about 45 minutes last night, reminding him every two minutes that we didn't call to see his face, we called to see the baby's face, so can he just hold him up a little more please? And the New Dad was so amazing with his New Son. By his own admittance, he was the kind of person none too thrilled about the "gore" of natural childbirth, but when his wife decided that she wanted to have the baby medication-free with the help of two doulas, he knew he was going to have a huge role to play in the birth of his son.

We were sitting there, 450 miles away, watching on our computer screens as this person looked so natural holding a 4-day old, 8lb human being. It was as if his life had all been amounting to that moment - cradling his sleeping son and making sure the little guy was happy. When he decided to stretch, we had to re-angle the camera while four of us hovered over him, cooing and ooh-ing at the size of his arms (tiny!) and the little sounds that erupted from him, like a combination between a volcano erupting and a Guinea pig's grunt. And his dad, who had previously struggled with putting his nephew's diaper on correctly, all of a sudden just knew exactly how to rock his son in what seemed like the huge cradle of his arms. The baby seemed to know exactly who this guy was, and that he'd be able to trust him and depend on him for the rest of his life, because instinctively he nuzzled his little nose into the crook of his dad's arm, snuggled deeper into his dad's tummy, and fell sound asleep again.


Guys, I was bawling. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen. I mean, prior to the baby coming out, I knew two things about TLFS's brother. First, that he makes the best blood marys of anyone, bar none. And second, that if I ever have $10,000, it's a much better idea to give it all to him rather than head straight for Sephora. But watching him with that little baby, I realized that he was just so much, much more than I had ever seen before. And I saw that this little baby isn's just a little baby. He is a person who is going to grow up in a family who loves and cherishes him more than anything else in the world, and he's never going to doubt that for a second. You could just see it in his father's eyes, as he took the little guy's head in the palm of his hand and made sure the blanket wasn't bunched up under him. It was incredible.

So you honestly have to forgive me if you came here looking for some food and instead got a 4-day old baby. I'm too busy refreshing their Facebook pages to cook. I figured, though, that you guys wouldn't mind.

Apple Granola Bake

About ten days ago, I decided to take the frightening step of independence and leave behind the one factor that has been inhibiting my true happiness and freedom. I was afraid, but I knew that deep down, co-dependence is not for me and that I had to grow up at some point. I realized that I was depending on a false support and that I needed to strike out on my own in order to truly be happy.

So I decided to stop taking my sleep aid.

What? Did you think I meant something else?

I realize a bunch of people don't care, and they're saying to themselves "She never should have been on a damn sleep medication in the first place. I mean, who does she think she is? Courtney Love?"


And honestly, those people are partially right. I hated having to go to bed at the same time every night. I hated the idea that during the night we could have a fire, or a break-in, and I would be of absolutely no help. The Lawyer from Southie would have to drag me out onto the street in my most embarrassing set of pink sheep PJs. I'd use the dog as a pillow while I slept in the gutter. I would have a conversation with the police involving 50% actual, reality-based events, and 50% dream verse.

Yes, the fire started in the kitchen. It could have been that we left the gas on or something. Although did you see the pesky monkey? If you find the pesky monkey, he will give you the key. I'm simply awaiting further instructions.


So nedless to say, while I'm absolutely thrilled to be medication-free, the last ten mornings have been a little rough. My coffee intake has gone up about 300%. And afternoons haven't been particularly easy. There have been a couple of mornings when TLFS has come home to me, pants-less and confused, mumbling "I swear I just had them a second ago," to no one in particular. He's also upset about the influx of appliances that I've ordered at 3am after watching infomercials. Although, I swear, that Awesome Auger will come in handy this spring.

To make our mornings a little easier, I made this recipe using some of the most amazing apples that are now everywhere. My personal favorite are the Magoun, although I used MacIntosh for this recipe. But the combination of granola and apples goes perfectly with Greek or European yogurt, and it heats up well day after day. It really is just as delicious as it looks, with or without an adorable newborn to act as your food model. At the very least, it makes things so much easier when you have this to greet you in the morning. With or without pants.