"This is better than jam on toast!"

Sesame Noodles with Scallions & Roasted Broccoli

That's what B said about tonight's dinner.  Sorry for the bad phone pic with a few bites already gone, but I had to do something to preserve the memory of this historic dinner.  It came about as a series of happy accidents and odd substitutions. Friday I made Chicken Satay or Chicken on a Stick as B likes to call it.  I used this recipe because it seemed simple.  I made some liberal changes.  I'm not so sure it can even be called "satay" since I really just grilled the chicken without marinating it (I wanted to make some avocado chicken salad for myself).  I also discovered that I didn't have any soy sauce, so I substituted Worcester sauce (dark brown, salty, anyone?) but stayed true to the other spices.  I haven't been keeping any sugar in the house, so I used honey, and they say not to use natural peanut butter (?) but I ignored that and it seemed to work just fine.  However, this recipe made a LOT of sauce!

B liked the chicken all right (and I liked the salad okay, not great, no crunch, next time I am trying Martha's version) but when I tried to pawn off the same meal on him the next day for lunch he said the sauce was way too sweet (which it really was after sitting in the fridge overnight) but I had all this sauce to get rid of!  I froze half of it and then picked up some soba noodles today and made another batch of the marinade (still with the Worcester), and added it to the left-over peanut sauce with a little water to thin it out.  I also tossed some broccoli that was starting to look a little wilt-y in the marinade and then roasted it while I cooked the noodles.  I chopped up some green onions, which B likes ever since the kids from his old school discovered them growing wild in the park.  The kids all munch on them like candy....not sure what is in the soil of that park, but it really can't be worse than what's in the pipes at the house......I digress, back to the meal.  B loved it, he said "Yum!" a few times, he asked for seconds (I don't remember when the last time that happened!), he ate all of the broccoli, and the ultimate compliment, I already mentioned.  What's more I loved it!  I think this is the first time in B's lifetime (or at least since he quit nursing) that we both enjoyed a meal equally.

We are definitely making this again....in fact I still have some sauce left over so another night this week.  I am still planning on the creamy avocado pasta for tomorrow though.

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)

Bauhaus - ha ha ha!

So I am obsessed with the new blog Unhappy Hipsters, which takes photos, mostly from Dwell, and attaches some hilarious copy. Last week this picture appeared:

with the following caption, "Daddy was making them watch yet another documentary on the impact of Bauhaus on American architecture."
This made me laugh aloud for many reasons beyond that it was just funny, not the least of which my Dad was a big documentary/NOVA/politics watcher and forced us to sit through many things, like the presidential debates between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980 (I was 6) or cooler things like the time he woke us up in 1981
a few minutes before MTV debuted at midnight with Video Killed the Radio Star. I recently actually dragged my 3 year old son to the MOMA with me to see the Bauhaus retrospective.
Anyway,why this made me laugh is not really the point. What is my point, well humor. My BB has lately been trying to figure out humor, and so when I laughed aloud he stopped what he was doing and ran over and demanded to see what had made me laugh. I showed him the picture and read him the caption, and he laughed hysterically and said "Bauhaus" followed by more hysterical laughter. So now all I have to do is say the word "Bauhaus" and he cracks up.

What we had for lunch - adding some green

B pretty much refuses to eat anything green other than broccoli or peas. I have been forced to become a little sneaky and do things like this. Sautee a little arugula, add jarred marinara sauce (Newman's Own Marinara, in this case) heat and puree. Served on a snowy afternoon with pasta, peas, and some grated cheddar.

Baby Boy says something cute

Baby Boy watched an X-men cartoon yesterday with his Dad (we were snowed in along with the rest of the North East!) which has led to a new game. Jumping around on the couch and setting things on pretend fire by shooting pretend fireballs out of his hands. He says "SHHHHHHHHOOOOOO! Your Fired!"

Happening right now

WATCH out! The animals are alive?! WATCH out! DADDY and BOWIE and mommy...WATCH OUT, the animals are here?

These are the words (as far as I can decipher them) to Baby Boy's new song that he just made up.

Baby Boy-The Photographer

This is James, one of our neighbors. BB loves her.

B loves to get his hands on my camera, after which sessions I find images like these. I actually love these portraits....they have a strange otherworldly quality. I think though, that B does live in a world different than mind, all his edges are still soft.