weekend report: april 26-27

As John and I collapsed in a heap on the sofa last night, we looked at each other and said simultaneously, “What a good weekend.” Jinx. While it was a somewhat typical weekend for us—see friends, eat good food, do kid stuff, exercise, get the house in order for the next week—all was done in such a fashion that we weren’t worn out.

Saturday—I spent the day getting ready for dinner guests. The house had been cleaned earlier in the week so it was in unusually good shape. I ran errands on Grand Avenue with the boys—Creative Kidstuff for a birthday gift, Wuollets for dessert (brownies for the adults, cupcakes for the kidlets), Kowalski’s for groceries, and Whole Foods for the grocery items we couldn’t find a Kowalski’s (typical). Dinner was really nice. Our guests brought amazing bottles of wine (chateauneuf du papes and cotes du rhones) and happy demeanors. For pre-dinner nibbles, I served a nice spread of domestic raw cow’s milk cheese, including the Thomasville (GA) Tomme that is so amazing.

Typically when I have a dinner party, I try to keep the menu pretty low-key by preparing a one-pot meal—a fish stew, paella, or coq au vin—and a green salad tossed with goodies, such as cheese, nuts, and dried or fresh fruit. Or we grill. Simple but delicious meals, though, truth be told, it's quite a bit of work to make dinner look like it wasn't any work at all. Also, we always feed the kids first so they stay out of the adults’ hair while we’re talking about them over our meal (these week, those of us who aren’t already at Capitol Hill received our acceptance letters for the next school year)*.

I tried something different for this dinner party and served a first course and a main course. To start, we had white anchovies and avocado on crostini with basil oil, which is one of our favorite small plates at 112 Eatery. As a main, I broiled arctic char, then placed the filets on a bed of Israeli couscous and dressed them with an orange-pistachio vinaigrette. We also had a bit of Swiss chard, sautéed in olive oil with garlic, on the side. We drank a 2006 Sharecropper’s pinot noir from Oregon, which was fitting since the fish was from the Oregon coast. I know we should be eating locally, but we’re between seasons. Dessert was local, though: warm brownies from Wuollet’s, garnished with Izzy’s Hot Brown Sugar ice cream.

Sunday—I had a very good yoga session at Colin and Helena’s. I think my flexibility is improving, and I'm definitely not as creaky and sore at the end of a practice. Though, practice is the key word. I need to develop a practice beyond once every other Sunday. The rest of the day was mellow. John took the boys and a friend out to run around so I did the errands and picked up the house in peace. Made the year’s best batch of guacamole. Heck, this is just a warm-up for the season. I have come to the conclusion that guac is not about the lime or garlic, and it’s certainly not about the quality of the avocados. The key is chiles, which are oh so important for zip and a fresh, green-tasting balance to the raw garlic and citrus. I even had a chance to read—Miss Pettigrew.

*Our acceptance letter was the good news/bad news of the week. Good news: Winston got into Capitol Hill, ISD 625's gifted/talented school, for first grade. Bad news: Simon did not get in. Placement of qualified learners (minimum score on a standardized test) is done by lottery so it was just dumb luck that he didn't get accepted. We really like where we are now, so I would have few reservations about staying, but since other friends have been accepted, Simon's feeling left out. I have already mailed in Winston's acceptance, securing a space, and will call the placement office weekly until Simon gets bumped up the waiting list.

weekend report: April 18-20

Friday—Spent the morning web surfing and catching up on e-mail, then spent the afternoon shopping. First stop: 50th and France, ostensibly to pay a long-overdue visit to the Premier Cheese Market. I have to admit that the shop is a bit of a disappointment. The shop lacks character. The cheese selection is standard fare. Still, while I can find most of these cheeses at the Lund's or Kowalski's, unlike the grocery stores, Premier Cheese Market doesn't over-refrigerate their cheese, displaying cheeses in a case, cutting pieces to order, wrapping them properly for you to take away. I found the raclette cheese for dinner (the raclette grill and a typical array of veggies on which to pour the melted cheese), as well as some cured meats (the Spanish cured pork loin, lomo, and salchichon, a chorizo from the famed pata negra, flavored with black pepper rather than smokey paprika). Then I drove up to France 44 wine shop (at 44th and France) and splurged on a few bottles of wine that we probably should cellar but will drink immediately because I’m silly that way. The best part was finding a kindred spirit at France 44's cheese counter, as well as an unbelievable small selection of cheese. I came home with three very promising domestic, raw milk's cheeses that I plan to serve next weekend. I so can't afford to be unemployed.




Saturday—Setting the alarm clock on Saturday mornings is just plain wrong. We had a soccer meeting at 8 a.m., followed by practice in the fairly miserable cold, but we met the coaches, and as we suspected, the attorney is an ass. That’s all I can say. Simon and I ran errands in the afternoon, including a stop a Izzy's (hot brown sugar, unadulterated by an izzy). That evening, friends Colin and Helena hosted a dinner party to celebrate the birthdays of friends Sarah and Dave. We had a marvelous time, drinking far too much red wine and Knob Creek. The food, as always, was sensational—a grilled flank steak marinaded in a thick chimichurri with spring onions and cherry tomatoes, gratineed potatoes, and a green salad (arugula, blue cheese, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes tossed with a unabashed balsamic vinaigrette).

Sunday—Six months after turning 40, I finally accept my limitations when it comes to carousing. We didn't get home until midnight. Morning came painfully, mostly because the boys woke up at the crack of dawn. I don't know how they function. Winston (muffins) and Simon (scrambled eggs) helped me make breakfast, but mostly chased each other around the house with Winston's new video camera. Winston tried filming his butt, because he's six. When pressed for details, he was very embarrassed, admitting that he'd tried to film his butt but it was too difficult. Sigh. The high point of the day was sneaking out for a movie with Caryl. We saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day at the Grandview. Based on a novel published in 1938, the story is a fairy tale set in London at the outbreak of WW2. I don't want to give away much, except to say that I really enjoyed it and would urge anyone who likes a romantic escape. Amy Adams was a delight, and Frances McDormand is, as always, solid. The styling was spot-on, with a luxurious Deco sensibilities. Since the Cities were in the throes of a geniunely lovely spring day, I sat outside and dipped into Miss Pettigrew, the novel. Delicious. John and I wrapped up the day by watching four—yes, four—episodes of Dexter, thus concluding the first season. What an intense series. Highly recommend it, especially if you like well-written police procedurals with a little quirk. Also a bit creepy. Months ago we cancelled our premium cable channels, but I'm seriously considering ordering Showtime for Dexter, Weeds, and more.

TGIF

This day is going entirely too fast. Funny how that happens when all the time in the day is yours to fill with things you enjoy doing.

Here I am, on the second day of the rest of my life, enjoying obscene amounts of coffee made from the most perfectly roasted beans, blogging and e-mailing and reading and working up the courage to now, finally, start my book group book (Joshua Ferris's Then We came to the End).

We have some fun weekend plans, including helping two friends—a married couple—celebrate their birthdays. Her birthday is April 18 (oh, today!). His birthday is April 20. They went to high school together in Wisconsin, but weren't high school sweethearts. I love the coincidence.

John and I have some responsibilites to Simon's soccer team that we need to fulfill over the weekend. We're the team managers and need to receive some training. We're also trying to track down the coaches so we might meet them and make a plan for the season. Stop me now—feeling a lot of agita over our The Organization That Shall Remain Nameless. Let's just say communication from the club SUCKS, and there's a serious time crunch to get a very long list of things done. Good thing I don't have a job getting in the way (heh heh).

I'm off to Minneapolis to make my premier visit to Premier Cheese. At Simon's request, we're pulling out the raclette grill tonight so I need to get some supplies, such as cured meat and the raclette cheese. It's a chilly, overcast day so this mostly winter meal won't seem out of place.

The Beastie Boys last album, The Mix-Up, has been in HEAVY rotation chez Shepard. Most of the videos I found online were filmed at concerts or festivals. While I enjoy listening to live renditions, I cannot abide by the bobbing bald pates that inevitably fill the screen of the "videographer's" camera phone. Instead, I'm leaving you today with some classic, mid-career Beasties. Natch, Simon and Winston LOVE this song.



As a bonus, I found the "Off the Grid" video. I love the sweet groove, the penetrating bass, the spacey keyboards. Perfect modern funk. Let me know what you think.

then we came to the end: a true story

For our next discussion, my book group is reading the critically acclaimed Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris—winner of a Hemingway/PEN Award and a National Book Award finalist. This is how the publisher (Little, Brown) pitches the book:

This wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer.

The characters in Then We Came to the End cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, secret romance, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. By day they compete for the best office furniture left behind and try to make sense of the mysterious pro-bono ad campaign that is their only remaining "work."

For reasons that will become obvious, I have been completely unable to crack the spine. Here is my true story:

Over the past six weeks, I have been toiling at work under the duress of uncertainty. If you've been following along, feel free to skip this excerpt from February 29:

Our parent company no longer wants us. They’ve never been able to make us fit in their mix, even though the synergy is obvious. Move's fault, not ours. Since before calendar year 2007 ended, the Home Office has planned to sell us. A deal was nearly completed, too, and was meant to have been announced at our company lunch. Done deal. Here's your new owner. Instead we have a long lead time in which to fret about who might buy us, will we all have jobs, what if no one wants to buy us, and so on. The Home Office's goal is to have us spun off by the end of second quarter, which is a little over three month from now.

A new owner could be good. We could have a budget for a new database as we move toward database publishing. We could have a budget for freelancers so I could assign someone else to write articles. We could fire unproductive employees (no names necessary).

Even before this announcement, I had decided to put myself back on the market. I’d like to be better compensated for my work and have a little more authority. It’s time. I’ll be exploring this move further here in weeks to come as I’m thinking it may finally be time to work in a different industry. Yes, publishing is and will always be my first love but I do have other interests.

For weeks, gossip consumed my coworkers' every working moment. One rumor had a group of designers vying for the deal; another rumor identified a former Homeplans' VP—backed by an investment group comprised of past owners and (possibly) a current employee—who wanted back into the business. We ran every possible scenario of how these deals could work out, and invariably they concluded in the same way: we each had a 50/50 chance of keeping our jobs.

As the weeks progressed, with nothing but conjecture to mislead us, it became increasingly more difficult to stay focused on work, the outcome of which may not even matter. New rumors that a deal was close started circulating last Friday. This past Monday we heard murmurs that an announcement would be made on Wednesday. On Tuesday I used my final sick day to get myself in a good place. I enjoyed an overpriced massage at Juut on Grand, after which I checked my work e-mail to find a flurry of coworkers exchanging personal e-mail addresses. With promises of staying in touch and getting together over the summer, it felt like the last day of high school.

On Wednesday—yesterday—the office was abuzz with word that there would be a meeting at 10 a.m. And by 10:45, The Skipper announced that the sale was complete. Hurrah! The new owners, in order to afford the acquisition, however, had to lay off pretty much everyone (eight lucky [?] employees are staying on to run an incredibly stripped-down company).

Yes, I joked about losing my job, but I really didn't expect it would happen. Of course, letting everyone go is the only scenario that could work. In addition to publishing shelter magazines, Homeplans sells blueprints to peeps who are building new homes. If you've read the news over the past two years, you know that housing starts (privately owned homes under construction) are dropping dramatically daily. It does follow, then, that Homeplans' business has dropped dramatically, too.

I don't know how the new owner—the former VP—plans to rebuild, let alone keep the company afloat in this economy. But more power to him, and them.

I loved my job as a magazine editor. While holed up in hotel rooms through the '90s on business trips, reading shelter magazines, like House Beautiful and Martha Stewart Living and Home and Garden, I dreamed about becoming a magazine editor. It was a pipe dream—I wasn't a writer, or so I thought. My journey to magazine editor was quite accidental, and I do realize my good fortune. I will be looking for another job as an editor, but will expand my search to book editing as well. I'm also going to explore one of my passions—food—by lining up some freelance food writing.

As I told Winston last night, as he gave me a hugely comforting hug and condolences, "onward and upward." Rather Mary Poppins-ish, I agree, but I'm a little overdue for a bigger and better job company. While I don't relish the job search—who does?—I am truly looking forward to a new work adventure.

In the meantime, while I'm enjoying my big fat severance (she says sarcastically) and the benefits of an unemployment check, I will be whipping our home into shape. I have robust plans to toss and organize the detritus of our busy lives.

This gift of time allows me to reconnect with friends, and I consider myself most lucky for that!

doing

reading
The View from the Seventh Layer, stories by Kevin Brockmeier, who is so fucking amazing. Last April, I devoured his novel, A Brief History of the Dead. His stories are even more powerful, and I’m inclined to say this may be his genre. I’ll write more on this later. Let’s just say I’m not plowing through the book. In the first 100 pages, each story has required a moment for rumination as a wave of WOW washes over me. His other backlist titles, Things That Fall from the Sky (stories) and The Truth about Celia (novel) are going on my TBR list. Right. This. Minute.

listening
The Beastie Boys did an instrumental album last year, called The Mix-Up, and I’m all over it for the funk. And, for Adam Yauch’s penetrating bass line. It seems like the right thing for them to do—explore musical styles, evolve. “Suco de Tangerina” is my favorite track, but a few minutes ago when I heard the first track, “B for My Name,” it made me happy.

avoiding
~ taxes
Our accountant doesn’t do much for us beyond asking if we donated any money or saved the receipts for our car tabs. Even I could have figured out those things. Still we end up paying stoopid amounts of money in taxes. This year, we vowed, we would hire a new tax preparer. By mid-March, without a prospect for a new accountant (inertia is to blame) and with encouragement from a few trustworthy folks who use TurboTax, we thought we’d do our own taxes this year. So yesterday, with less than a week before taxes are due, I mailed all our W-2s and 1099s to our usual, useless accountant.

Looking ahead to paying 2008 taxes, I’m getting a jump by asking Do you have a good accountant whose name you’d like to share with me?

~ a birthday party for Winston
Since Winston was spending his birthday away from home, for the third year in a row, we had a family celebration the weekend before the blessed date. Then, my mother threw him a party on his birthday. How much cake and how many presents does a six-year-old need? I don’t mind taking the boys to their friends' birthday parties, but I hate entertaining oodles of loud kids and making small talk with their parents. I know I have a bad attitude about this, but somewhere something went amok with kid parties, and now there’s no going back.

anticipating
Dinner at Meritage tonight with Tracy and the Jills. Mostly I’m looking forward to the big, fat cocktail I’m going to drink at the bar before my friends arrive. A little campari and sweet vermouth, with a splash of soda should revive me.

happy birthday cheeky monkey!

Belated wishes to my handsome husband, who celebrated another birthday yesterday.

I almost didn’t mention it here because John hates having a fuss made, though we did celebrate with a favorite meal (shepherd's pie) and chocolate cake. For many years he teased me about his age in relation age his father was he had his massive heart attack. For example, on John’s 37th birthday he said, “You know, I’m five years older than my father was when he had his dissecting aorta.” Would scare the shit out of me. Thankfully, John's father (70 y.o.) has long exceeded his life expectancy (36 y.o.)!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I love my life with you, Cheeky Monkey. Many happy returns of the day!

xxoo, lt

weekend report: april 5-6

Friday—My weekend began Friday morning. The little boys are back from SD where they were visiting Grandpa and Grandma so I happily spent the day with them, undoing the damage, as they finished spring break. We had breakfast at the Grandview Grille because Mommy was in serious need of eggs with runny yolks and toasted English muffins (I know, neither healthy nor difficult to make at home). Mostly I wanted to get out of the house. A trip to Target yielded a spring wardrobe for each boy—short-sleeved shirts for the big one, who has outgrown every shirt he was able to wear last fall, and jeans for the little one, who has not grown much but has blown holes through the knees of almost every pair of his pants. Also, since Mommy is totally indulgent—and because I love them—the boys each picked out an Ironman action figure. They see Tony Stark, I see Robert Downey, Jr. and I love Robert Downey, Jr. Then a trip to the video store and to the grocery store for, among other things, popping corn so as to keep boys busy while Mommy surfed the web for the remainder of the afternoon. Kind of pathetic, I know, but the path of least resistance works best for me right now. John and I watched the season premier of Battlestar Galactica, which was the fastest hour of the entire week. I think it's criminal that this is the final season for some of the smartest, most exciting TV.

Saturday—We squandered the most gorgeous day of the year, so far, by running errands that keep us indoors. I hate when that happens. Friends Scott and Renee and their boys came to dinner. To celebrate the approach of spring-like weather, I made a clam roast with fennel, potatoes, kielbasa, and clams, which we served with a chilled, crisp rose—our first of the warmer-weather season. Because Scott and Renee are thoughtful guests, they arrived bearing Izzy’s ice cream—Norwegian Chai and yogurt. Not frozen yogurt. Yogurt ice cream, and it was very, very good. I think the sweet and tangy would play nice with booze-macerated fruit or with warm chocolate brownies. After we put the little boys to bed, John and I conked out watching an episode of Dexter, my new favorite show.

Sunday—John and I took the boys to Bruegger’s for bagels, then we schlepped to REI in Bloomington to look at gear and spend our dividend (rain jackets for the John and the boys). We’re so ready for hiking, rain or shine. It poured rain all day, so I spent the afternoon tinkering over dinner—osso bucco, which you can read about here. After we put the little boys to bed, John ran to Lund’s for chocolate because he loves me so much. Then we watched more Dexter. Isn’t TV on DVD the very best thing ever?

Happy Birthday Winston!

I cannot believe you are six years old today, my dear son. Where does the time go? See how much you’ve grown.

This past year has been such a huge one for you with many milestones, most of which were achieved because of your drive to outdo your older brother. For example, you decided that this would be the year you scaled the climbing wall at REI, and twice you came to within a toehold of reaching the bell on the nearly 55 ft. high wall. The first time you told us that, from where you were at the top, we appeared like ants on the ground. Funny that: you’re so little, that from where we stood on the ground, you looked like an ant to us, too.

You started kindergarten, at which you’re excelling. I’m so proud of the way you have learned how to navigate your environment, gaining more independence. You’ve made friends. You’re learning how to read and are mastering the lost art of shoe-tying. Soon, you won’t even need me.

Spending time in the kitchen with you has become more fun. You’re a great helper and have become quite accomplished at measuring and mixing. Even though you’d rather stay home in your jammies all day, I’m glad when you consent to keep me company running errands.

After all, you are adventurous, especially if food is involved. It was fun watching you eat salmon roe sushi, one fish egg at a time—“Dabby dots of jelly. Pretty on my plate and yummy in my belly.”

I’m pretty excited for all the things the next year will bring!

Happy Birthday, Winston. Six. Years. Old.

wiki wednesday

It's time for Wiki Wednesday!

1. Go to wikipedia.
2. Click on "random article" on the left-hand sidebar.
3. Post it.

This week's random offering is short and sweet. I wanted to find a photo online, but found none of the village. Plenty of Calvados and Lower Normandy here. If you like Norman castles, the Bayeux tapestry, and dairy (especially cheese), these photos will make you want to travel.

Poussy-la-Campagne is a commune of the département of Calvados, in the Basse-Normandie région, in France. Its postal code is 14540. The INSEE code is 14517.

dinner at red stag

Top left: roasted bone marrow with garlic toast and sauteed mushrooms
Top right: "steak fries," these were creamy inside
Middle: empty bone
Bottom: elk stroganoff, with amazingly sweet toasted garlic