Monday, June 14, 2010

OIL SPILL

Okay, okay, I shouldn't follow up that last post with this....I try to keep my personal blog on a lighter note and also things like the oil spill make me feel not just sad, but helpless.  I don't own a car (which is not to say I never drive, and I live in NY which makes it easier for me, I realize this is not a choice everyone can make)  I try to buy local and vintage, both for myself and my clients (though I definitely have a little bit of an IKEA addiction) and I avoid petroleum based products (did you know crayolas are made with petroleum?) but I can't clean up the gulf.  I am a decorator not an engineer.  I am a mother not a politician, and over the last several years, though of course I continue to vote, I feel like the system is so corrupt that means very little.  So I just feel helpless.  I sign petitions and read and try to educate myself and my son, but seriously, there are dead dolphins and they are cleaning it up with paper towels.  Thanks? Mother Jones reporter Mac Mccleeland for kayaking into the oil-filled gulf to get some truth on camera.

Thoughts on Food While In TN

No photo here.  I am down south visiting my parents, both of whom have type 2 diabetes.  For all of my thoughts on food and pictures of what I serve my son, I live in a place where most of the parents and children I hang with take it as a matter of course not to feed their children fast food and high-fructose corn syrup.  You would probably be ostracized from the play-group if you gave your child a sip of soda, but here all of those things are a way of life for children and adults alike.  I am not making a blanket, biased statement, I am saying this based on very unscientific observation and a lot of reading.  I don't think there are any parents who set out to feed their children (and themselves) poison, but they (all of us really) are victims of not just un-education, but actual mis-education, an under-funded, under-staffed FDA put up against companies with massive ad budgets.  Even the companies serving organic are part of the system.  They just discovered lead in juice, in brands running the gamut from organic to big company, and no one knows how it got there!  What chance do our children have of growing up to be healthy in this environment?  To borrow the words of Jamie Oliver, we need a revolution!

Also, I just found this blog, a lot of interesting articles.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Daily Lunch Box

Banana
Broccoli
Snappea Crisps
Cheese Tortellini with olive oil and Parmesan cheese

This was another popular lunch...though B did not eat the broccoli.  The  banana is a lot, and I usually try to avoid sending them with his lunch.  Though nanas do have some good stuff in them (and they are delicious!) they also have a lot of sugar! which makes B a little crazy.

Peacock Butt

 

I couldn't resist one last picture from our trip to the Bronx Zoo last week. I don't think I have ever noticed the back of a peacock's tail....I find the structure amazing! Not as technicolor as the front, but certainly as beautiful. Not many animals that are as beautiful from the ass as they are from the front, but because peacocks are so beautiful from the front here is that pic also:

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Daily Lunch Box

Sliced Jack Cheese
Broccoli
Sesame Bread Sticks (these were an experiment, B keeps begging for those gross, little, chemical-laden Snackables, the ones with the fake cheese spread and bread sticks, which the grocery store displays at kid eye-level. Anyhoo, before I let my rant go to far, I tried to make him his own, and made a sort of pimento-esque cheese spread for him, but he, of course, refused to eat it.  The breadsticks I bought to go in his fake lunchables he likes however.)
Blackberries

This was super easy to throw together, the only thing that even took a tiny bit of doing was steaming up the frozen broccoli.  Successful as well.  B ate almost everything.

Vintage Table

I like this table, spotted at the sidewalk cafe of Five Leaves.  The picture really doesn't do it justice (man I need a better camera!) but it has a great patina of age, under the green you can see spots of mustard-yellow, and deep red.
I really like this restaurant in general, beautiful, amazing decor and I could eat their home-made ricotta cheese every night.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Daily Lunch Box

Jack Cheese
Hard-Boiled Egg
Strawberries (now at the Farmer's Market!)
Red Grapes
Snap Pea Crisps (oh my god, if you have never had these, go out and buy a bag right now, delicious for children and adults alike)

This lunch was a little heavy on the fruit and nary a grain in sight, but B ate almost all of it...except for the egg yolk, came back perfectly intact minus the white.  How did he do that?

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Bronx Zoo


Do you ever have one of those of days? One of those days where you realize you are the crazy Mom yelling at your kid, and talking to your kid, even the things he wants to do, is like talking to a brick wall and you just want to lock yourself in a room for a while? Well B and I are having one of those days and right now he is laying on the floor of his room playing (after a no nap day) and I am sitting here on the computer. So instead of dwelling here are a whole bunch of pictures of a beautiful day we had at the Bronx Zoo earlier this week when B's godfather was visiting from Chicago.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Waiting for the Reveal

I have been watching this house for a while, in fact I am sure I have a bunch of pictures I never posted somewhere......Underneath that tarp it had been peeled completely back to the original facade...then it just sat there for months, freed of the vinyl siding, but no work. (I wonder if they were doing work without a permit and got shut down?) Walked by the other day and it was completely covered up.  I can't wait to see what happens!  Probably something hideous....but all that work makes me feel hopeful.

Mother's Day with Baby Boy--a really delayed posting

Sometimes things sit on my desktop for a while waiting to be posted.  Take this gold chocolate shoe for instance; this is what B picked out from Jaques Torres to give me for Mother's Day.  Odd, but delicious (FYI: it was real gold dust)

Rat Houses