Barbie Blissdom
Anybody connected to the world of bloggers and tweeters has probably heard about the convention that was held for mommy bloggers in Nashville, Tennessee this past weekend (in the same facility that housed the Mennonite National Convention a few years back). I don’t mean any disrespect, but the name of the convention—Blissdom—kept me in a constant state of inner giggles. I just kept thinking of Barbies and pink convertibles. I couldn’t help myself.

Par-tays
I got some good advice back in the sloggy days of yore. Some people suggested I fix myself up some parties. So I did. My outlook on life has improved exponentially. Thank you.

4 – 2 = a whole different life
My parents came to visit for the day and whisked the two littles back to West Virginia with them. The first night the kids were gone, I slept nine hours. The next day we had friends over for Sunday waffles and we actually had prolonged adult conversation while eating our food. In the afternoon Mr. Handsome and I went on a long walk by ourselves. In the evening he and the two olders enjoyed a movie that would’ve made the littles pee their pants. And now, this morning, the sky is lightening and nobody is fighting for prime hot spots on the hearth or curled up next to me on the couch, breathing gusts of dragon breath everywhere and whimpering for food. (Blissdom, for free.)

An egg is just an egg
So okay, not really. I know that homegrown eggs do taste way better (and are healthier) than store bought egg lookalikes. But the way some people crank them up, you’d think a fresh egg equaled salvation or something.

I just finished reading Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl. I really like the woman—I find her refreshingly down to earth—but I think she goes a little (a lot) overboard with food fireworks. The whole book is full of explosions and meltings and deep sighing.

It’s all about her affairs, too.

The thing is, I didn’t catch on to how overboard it was for quite a large number of pages because she was describing food I’d never eaten. Food like brains and caviar and dacquoise. And wines. Wines of all vintages and price tags, consumed at all hours of day and night. It made me feel sloshy just reading it.

But then she started rhapsodizing about fresh eggs. Eggs that—get this—had just popped out of the chicken. “A fresh egg doesn’t taste like anything else on earth … It’s a real treat; once you’ve had one you can never go back. You should see the color of the yolks! Bright orange, which makes the mayonnaise absolutely golden.” (And um, sorry, but that was Alice Waters speaking there. But it’s Ruth quoting her.)

If these foodies are so insanely happy over a freshly laid egg, eggs that I happen to think taste quite deliciously ordinary, than what’s to say that all their hoity-toity food and all the slushy-gushy wine isn’t just as ordinary?

But about the mayonnaise, Alice is right. A fresh egg does turn homemade mayonnaise into a bowlful of creamy gold.

I’ve tried making my own mayonnaise before, but it’s never worked out. This method is perfectly simple. It takes a food processor and a little patience when it comes to trickling in the oil, but the liquid transforms to solid most charmingly and consistently.

Beware, though: the more oil you add, the thicker the mayonnaise. The last time I made the mayonnaise, it got a little thicker than I like.

Mayonnaise
Adapted from the America’s Test Kitchen DVDs

In the DVD, Julia made this recipe. When Kimball pointed out that she was using a raw egg and that some people would be worried about that, she said, “Yep,” and laughed.

He pushed her. “Don’t you think about, er, aren’t you concerned…?”

“Nope.”

Thanks to that conversation, I am now a Julia fan.

Note: other seasonings that can be added: garlic, soy, chipotle, etc. Whatever is your bliss.

1 egg (fresh, and from free-range hens, if you want the mayonnaise to be golden)
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
dash each of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco
salt and black pepper, to taste
1 to 1 1/4 cup canola (or vegetable) oil

Put all the ingredients, except for the oil, into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.

Now, with the processor turned on, slowly, slowly, slowly pour in the oil. (I use an ample cup.) This will take 3-5 minutes and your arm will get sore, but persevere. When finished, take off the lid and admire the gorgeous mayonnaise you just made yourself. Taste to correct seasonings before transferring to a glass pint jar and storing in the refrigerator.

Yield: about 1 ½ cups, I think.

This same time, years previous: curried lentils, rock-my-world cocoa brownies, Nana’s anise biscotti, cream-topped homemade yogurt, and orange-cranberry biscotti

I apologize for flooding you with my moody ups and downs this week. I’ve been so imbalanced—blue one minute, happy the next, and then sick for two days. I’ll try to stabilize things for a little while here so you can recover from reader whiplash. Heck, I need a chance to recover. Living inside my body can be so trying.

Despite all my kvetching, things have been moving along quite nicely (at least in hindsight). It was freezing cold on Saturday so Mr. Handsome couldn’t work on his barn and had to find things to do around the house. He repainted whole stretches of soiled walls.

Talk about giving the house a face-lift. It made the place feel so much cleaner. (He didn’t touch Yo-Yo’s room. Yo-Yo’s room needs more than just a coat of fresh paint.)

Nickel was everywhere he wasn’t supposed to be. He made Mr. Handsome get all ruffle-y and hot under the collar. The two of them were like some sort of live slap-stick comedy show.

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

Et cetera. (There’s a reason he doesn’t have a shirt on.)

One morning we got out the roll of newsprint paper and the kids spent a couple hours drawing a town (or something).

We had a snowstorm! And we didn’t lose power!!!

There was one wild and crazy night when my kids dressed up and walked on the kitchen table.

They were full up to the brim top with themselves and couldn’t get enough.

Miss Beccaboo is taking sewing lessons from a church friend. She had her first lesson this past weekend. When she got home that afternoon, she made us all wait out in the hall while she shut herself up in the bathroom to change into her self-made pajama pants. When she came out, she was glowing.

Mr. Handsome got our sewing machine down from the attic (I love to not sew) and set it up in the downstairs bedroom. She loves her new machine and her new, different-from-anyone-else-in-our-house skills. Her lessons are sure to be the highlight of each month.

I let the kids do the unheard of: they watched two movies in one day. More, if you count that I let them rewind and watch the fun parts over and over again.

I was recuperating, Sweetsie had sprung a small fever, and Nickel was draggy.

It was the perfect way to spend a blah afternoon and evening.

The kids had spent the greater part of that morning playing in the snow while I shuffled around the kitchen, cooking up a storm in slow motion. I turned eight pounds of beef into sloppy joe meat, made a chocolate mayonnaise cake, and cooked up some deliciousness for our dinner. (Both the cake and sloppy joes were not for us, much to the consternation of my children. The way they acted, you’d think I never fed them cake.)

After living on a yellow and white diet—eggs, toast, oatmeal, potatoes, oatmeal, toast, eggs—we were in dire need of a real meal. And what I made was a real meal, alright. Green chili with sour cream and green onions and fresh corn tortillas. (And peas.)

Let me tell you, I am totally sold on these corn tortillas. I can’t get enough of them. I like them so much better than the fresh-but-thin locally made tortillas. They’re so comforting, so filling, so satisfying, so real. I’m afraid I’m a bit ga-ga over them. And Mr. Handsome, who isn’t really a corn tortilla lover, is rather fond of them, too.

But about the chili. My friend Gretchen brought us this chili back when Miss Beccaboo was a tiny new baby. I remember the entire meal (green chili, tortillas, sour cream, fresh cantaloupe chunks), it was that delicious. I got the recipe (of course) and made it a couple years later for my aunt and uncle when they visited. My uncle doesn’t like spicy food, it turned out, but politely suffered his way through a bowl of the stuff. I don’t think I’ve made the chili since then—not because I don’t like it, because I do, do, do—but because I don’t usually have stew pork on hand and because my kids don’t like spicy stuff, either.

But I spied a green chili recipe in the latest Bon Appetit (didn’t even look at the ingredient list, though) and it got my wheels a-turning. We’d be going to to the local butcher shop for all that ground beef anyway, so I called in my order (“cubed pork?” “yes, one-inch cubes, please” “huh? one-inch cubed pork?” “yes, cubed pork, like cubes of beef, you know, like stew beef, but just stew pork” “oh! you want stew pork!” “yes, stew pork, please!”), and Mr. Handsome picked it up on his slip-slide-y drive home through the snowstorm, and the next morning I browned up the pork pieces, drowned them in tomatoes, and then braised the whole mess in the oven for several hours.

I can guess your next question: so if it’s tomato-based, why is it called green chili? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I do know that you’re supposed to put in a couple cans of diced green chilis (I added diced, fresh jalapeños). In any case, it’s a totally red chili but it likes to be called green. Just go with it, okay?

Gretchen’s Green Chili

I’m giving you the recipe as I made it this week. The heat was perfect for my palate, but too spicy for the kids’—dial back or amp up according to your family’s specifications.

For what it’s worth, the original recipe called for two cans of diced green chilis and no fresh jalapeños.

2 pounds of pork, trimmed and cut into cubes
a little olive oil, for frying
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeños, minced
8 cups stewed tomatoes
2 tablespoons chili powder
1-2 teaspoons salt

for garnish: sour cream, diced green onions, fresh cilantro, grated cheese

Heat up your Dutch oven till it’s good and hot, pour in a little oil, and, working in batches, fry the pork cubes. I try to get good brown color on at least two sides of the cubes, though you could be pickier and do more than that. When the pork is browned, set it aside.

Add a little more oil to the pan, if necessary, and add the onion and jalapeño. Saute it for a couple minutes. Add the garlic. After a few more minutes, add the tomatoes, chili powder, salt, and the pork (and any juices that have collected on the pork plate). Clap a lid on the Dutch oven and pop it into a 350 degree oven for 2-4 hours. You want the chili to thicken up a bit, but you don’t want all the liquid to boil away, so keep an eye on it. (Conversely, you can simmer the chili in a crock pot for 4-6 hours, or so.)

Fancy up the chili (more of a stew, really) with sour cream and a bit o’ green, and serve with fresh corn tortillas.

This same time, years previous: shoofly cake, my real name, gripping the pages, ode to the Titty Fairy