Monthly Archive for March 2009
sloppy joes
Growing up, my mother really knew her way around a pound of ground beef. And I mean that as high praise. She could come home from work, bone tired, and unsheath a pound of ground beef (you know the packages—with the colored foam trays and snug-fitting plastic wrap) and have dinner on the table in no time flat.
Ground beef featured prominently in many of the kid-friendly recipes in my mom’s repertoire: chili, goulash, tater tot hot dish, spaghetti sauce, taco filling and, perhaps best of all, sloppy joes. I suppose, then, it’s no surprise that one of the things that I remember learning in the kitchen was how to brown ground beef, seasoning it with salt and pepper and letting it sizzle away in a skillet.
time’s a-wastin’
March, true to form, charged in last weekend like a lion—a big angry cat, with an unruly mane and a snarling roar. On Sunday—the very first day of March—we had snow, blustery wind and all-around dreariness. I’m happy to report, that as the first week of March has inched on, the month is taking on a much more lamb-like demeanor: blue skies, temperatures cracking 60 (!) degrees, and even a few buds bravely sprouting up in the garden plots that line the Loop.
I’ve never run a marathon, nor do I care to, but I imagine that March is quite similar to “hitting the wall” near the end of the race. It’s that mile—or, in our case, month—that plays tricks on your mind. You’re so close to the end, but so, so far away.
call off the dogs
I know you know about bundt cakes. You were schooled on Betty Crocker, same as me. You know that they’re round and undulating, that they look a little bit like a caterpillar chasing his tale. You know the creviced mold can be filled with anything from cake (perhaps a cinnamon-streuseled breakfast version or a booze-soaked after-hours concoction) to jello, marshmallows and mandarin oranges suspended therein, as if by magic. (Hello, church potluck of my childhood!)
You can open up your Betty Crocker cookbook (or, for most of you, I’m betting, a more up-to-date baking handbook), letting its weathered red spine fall open to your most-oft used page. Flip to the recipe index and slide your fingertip down the “B” section until you see the word “bundt.” Indented under that word (which, by the way, is a joy to let roll off your tongue—insisting, as it does, that you emphasize both its first letter (buh) and its last (tuh), which is no small feat for a monosyllabic word and gives the word a bit of a primitive, grunting caveman sound), in any American baking book worth its salt, you know you’ll find a goodly list of options.
she’d be mortified
Sometimes I wonder what my adolescent self would make of me now. She’d probably raise her eyebrows at the cut of my skinny jeans—a bit too close for comfort, she’d think, to the tapered, stone washed trend that I left behind in elementary school. But I don’t think she’d be at all surprised that I am a lawyer. After all, during a third grade art project, when presented with a wallet size school portrait, scissors and instructions to decorate my photo with the trappings of my future profession, I promptly cut out a miniature business suit and briefcase. I was a big fan of Claire Huxtable and I was that nine-year-old who wanted to be an attorney.
She’d be surprised, though, to learn that I’m an omnivore, willing to taste anything at least once. For a girl who once refused to allow the different foods on her plate to touch, I’ve come a long way.