Why sex ed is important, and other stuff

Nutmeg returned home this afternoon with a "gift;" a dead bird. Oliver opened the back door and was like "WTF?!" in a child-appropriate way. "There is a dead bird here, Mom, and it's WHOLE." "Oliver, are you serious?" Obviously I thought he was pulling my chain.

He was not. There was a darling, seemingly woundless, dead little bird on my doormat, and my heart broke a little. The kids wailed, "PUNISH, NUT, Mom." Like I can punish a cat. So instead I tried to explain instinct and evolution.

"Boys, cats hunt. It's what they do. I mean, how would Nutmeg eat if we didn't feed him? He would go find food and kill it if need be."

"But WHY? We FEED Nutmeg."

"I know, honeys, but it's what he's evolved to do. It's like, when you were born, how did you know how to nurse? No one taught you, you just knew."

Oliver: "I don't know."

Jack: "Mom, duh, it's NOT like we put our mouths on your boob!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm thinking, "Well, actually, that's exactly how it works. How does he think it works?" And then I realized anew why it pays to stay silent sometimes because...

Jack continued: "I mean, Mom, you put on the machine with the straw and stick that into the baby's mouth."

I love the knowitall'ness of kids. I mean, this description of nursing is ludicrous, and yet it makes perfect sense to Jack. Enough so that he "DUHs" me repeatedly with his eyes and tone whilst relaying his knowitall'ness of nursing. Which is not even something he'll ever do. It was great.

I cleared things up lest Oliver's single take-away of this conversation be, "Mom once fed me with a straw attached to her boob." And I feel even more strongly than ever that kids be taught all about their bodies and babies and reproduction and so forth because otherwise they think babies nurse from boob straws (Jack) or that you can get pregnant by touching butts with someone else (I actually believed that to be true, many moons ago). ~~~ Tonight for dinner, I attempted my own version of the potatoes with piquillo sauce that I had last Saturday at The Black Sheep. I smoked a sweet red pepper and then cooked it down with a Spanish onion, some parboiled russet potatoes, garlic, olive oil, a bay leaf and some pimentón. Before serving I stirred in some crème fraîche and to go alongside made coffee-rubbed steak. Not bad, not bad at all.

www.em-i-lis.com

www.em-i-lis.com

www.em-i-lis.com

Gabrielle Hamilton and passports

Gabrielle Hamilton and passports have little to do with one another except that during the twenty-one hour span that commenced last night at 7 and ended today around 4, I saw and spoke to Gabrielle Hamilton, she signed my copy of her new cookbook and I realized that my passport expired in June yet I need it to leave the country on Monday. You can imagine that the latter is the lame duck in the "which one doesn't fit" game.

Sigh, it is always something. However, I feel immensely grateful that I a) realized this today rather than on Monday and b) live in Washington because c) was able to make an emergency expedite appointment for Monday at 10:30am. The process is said to take 3-4 hours from start to finish, so if you don't think I'll be biting my nails in the cab out to Dulles later that afternoon, you're wrong. Immense waves of relief will rush over me as soon as I successfully check my bag and get my boarding passes.

Y'all keep your fingers crossed for me!

Last night was so much fun. Tom and I went with friends to a local restaurant, Buck's Fishing and Camping, for a dinner celebrating the release of Gabrielle Hamilton's new cookbook, Prune. (The event was organized by Politics & Prose, a tremendous independent bookstore here in DC.) It's a compilation of recipes from her restaurant, and I love that it's basically a bunch of sauce-spattered notes bound in a magenta shell. It's the kind of book from which I think I'll learn a fair amount and I am excited to jump in.

Gabrielle looked just like she does in her pictures which sounds as if it should be obvious, but you know how some people in fact do NOT resemble their photos. That is just weird. Anyway, it was a lovely evening. The bubbly was flowing, the lights were dim, people seemed truly enthused to be there. Once we'd sat, Hamilton gave a brief discussion of the book and later took a few questions.

Mrs. Student here had been thinking about how much I wanted to talk to her. I had to let her know how seriously I enjoyed her memoir (Blood, Bones & Butter), wanted to ask about a particular element of it and also thought I might throw in the fact that not two weeks ago, we ate at Prune.

Because I don't eat lamb and didn't feel interested in the rabbit leg, I'd had less solid food than perhaps advisable in the presence of freely-flowing booze (each course was paired with a matched wine). Perhaps because of that or perhaps because I was just really enjoying myself, my hand shot up -SHOT UP- when she inquired if there were any questions. My tablemates, 90% of whom I didn't know from Adam, were wildly supportive of this. I found their waving arms and cheers of "She has a question! She has a question!" very sweet if not slightly odd. Maybe they'd had a few glasses too.

Gabrielle called on me, I stood up and smiled and proceeded to let her know that my question was actually a three-parter that included two comments and one query. Nerd.alert! Swear to g, someone said, "Only in DC" which, frankly, I took as a compliment.

I told her about our visit to Prune, praised her memoir as masterfully crafted and asked if its structure -particularly around the arc of experience with her mother-in-law- was premeditated or if she'd discovered it during the writing process. "Well, as I mentioned, I have an MFA and yes, this was planned very carefully. Every word was intentional." Even more impressive really.

One of her sons is named Leone, so after thanking her, I said, "Oh, and Part 3, I have a new nephew named Leone." A collective laugh swelled when I started in on point 3, but hey, I raised my hand quicker than lightning. Today it seems possible that my knowing the name of her son may have seen vaguely stalker-like, but alas.

On our way out, I stopped by to thank her again and she was so warm and wonderful and thanked me for my question. In fact, look how she signed my book:

I floated home!

Tonight, when there was nothing more I could do about my expired passport, I started making a beef stew. It was cold today, and stew just sounded perfect. Comforting. Hearty. Midway through I decided to make potatoes to go alongside. I boiled these until al dente, sliced and fried them until golden and then topped them with rosemary, salt, pepper and a generous dollop of crème fraîche. Divine.

Last night's chard stew, yogurt-tahini dressing recipe

Although it's hard to photograph gloopy looking food, this was quite yummy and perhaps you get a sense of that despite the yogurt-tahini-slicked chard leaves, stems, tomatoes and potatoes. I'm about to go post the dressing recipe now.