A Boy’s Life

Robin is such a big boy now, I can hardly believe it. Just look at him clambering up these monkey bars:

Here’s a close-up:

Yes, I did give him a rather unfortunate haircut. Don’t worry, it’ll grow out, and he doesn’t mind.

Another lovely, lovely vegetable box, even though there weren’t any tomatoes, which is sad. But we did get lots of fruit, and that’s always exciting: there was a bag each of peaches, nectarines, and apricots. I noticed as I was arranging them in our fruit bowl that the apricots were really very ripe: so I cut one up and gave it to Robin. He scarfed it down and instantly transformed into a demanding little monster who could only be satiated with apricots; he ate them all in one sitting and would have gone on to the nectarines if I hadn’t finally cut him off. I was afraid he might be ill but apparently his little tummy has no trouble processing great quantities of apricots.

We also got a bunch of purple basil, three red onions, about two pounds of potatoes, two bunches of carrots, a big head of broccoli, two cucumbers, a nice mix of summer squashes, and a lot of little green peppers. Last night we had burgers garnished with red onion slices; tonight we’ll have steak and pepper stir-fry, and I think Robin and I will eat the squashes for lunch. Tomorrow for dinner we’ll have a salad and chilled cream of carrot soup.

Saturday our friends Wendy and Zach are having a 4th of July BBQ: I can’t go, but I’m going to send the boys with a batch of potato salad made using the potatoes and red onions from our box. Sunday I think I’d like to make seafood paella; Monday, pasta of some description; and Tuesday, leftovers.

Also, inspired by Wendy’s beautiful bentos, I’ve started making Sam a lunch to take to work. I offered to do this a long time ago but he wasn’t very keen on the idea: he didn’t want to worry about food spilling in his backpack, and he liked going to restaurants with his coworkers for lunch.

A while ago, however, Sam got transferred into a different group where apparently people don’t have the same social lunch habits, and it got to the point where if I asked him what he had for lunch, the usual answer was “six cups of coffee and a Pop Tart from the vending machine.”

So I bought him a Mr. Bento lunch set, since for some reason he didn’t like the idea of taking his lunch in my awesome Batman lunch box that Nina gave me. You can tell Mr. Bento is serious and manly because it’s all grey and comes in a military-style canvas bag (although Sam’s came with a stainless steel spork instead of the chopsticks pictured).

It’s a little bit daunting filling the four bowls with four different things, but I bought stuff like cheese and crackers and cold cuts that I can use to fill up the bentos quickly, and then I round it out with leftovers or chopped up fruit. The first day Sam came home saying that he wasn’t going to be hungry for dinner because he had such a big lunch, which nearly nixed the whole enterprise, as I am absolutely not going to spend time fixing his lunch if it means he won’t eat my dinners! However Sam backed down from that position and so far the bento project is going pretty well. I might see about getting a smaller bento set, though.

Roughly in descending order of preference:

1. Fresh fruit
2. Butter (straight)
3. Pickles
4. Nutritious meals his mother has lovingly prepared, but only the portion of them residing on his daddy’s plate
5. Bread with butter / PB&J
6. Cereal with milk or yogurt
7. Whatever’s on mommy’s plate
8. Sand
9. Cat food
10. Soap
11. Nutritious meals his mother has lovingly prepared and served in his own plate or bowl

I am actually pleased with his developing palate: he’s fine with spicy food (very unlike me at his age!) and I’m charmed that he shares my love of pickles, olives, and other vinegary tastes. And even though I put a few things on the list above to be funny, the truth is that he doesn’t eat much sand or soap anymore. We still have to keep the cat food out of his reach though.

Here is a bonus picture of the tabouleh we are eating for lunch. Robin has his own but he has climbed into my lap to eat out of my bowl. I guess the parsley’s always greener on the other side of the table.

We’re feeling a little down today. Yesterday we learned that the latest house we made an offer on—a house we are both absolutely smitten with—had twenty five offers and ours came in second. We’re the backup. It’s a hard position to be in because we’re reluctant to move on so long as there’s any chance we might get this (fantastic) house…so we’re just left hanging. I encourage you all to help us out by sending your good karma and visualizing hopeful, positive things, such as an asteroid landing on the heads of the people who made the first-place offer.

This is our fifth offer. Interestingly, it’s only the second where we were actually outbid (assuming we were outbid; our agent suspects that the winning offer might be a lower price but an all-cash bid). We canceled our fourth offer when we discovered this house, we were outbid in Martinez, and the other two offers fell through on the sellers’ end. So it feels like we’ve been searching forever when in fact it’s mostly just that we’ve lost time dealing with short sale nonsense and incompetent listing agents. Still, we’re tired and dispirited.

At least it’s veggie day! We got a bag of white peaches, another bag full of nectarines, a big bunch of basil, two cucumbers, several pattypan squashes, about a pound (maybe more) of fingerling potatoes, a small bunch of carrots, two small stalks of broccoli, six heirloom tomatoes, and five little red onions. I love summer!

Tonight I bought a chicken and I plan to roast it with the potatoes. Tomorrow we’ll have a huge garden salad with ham and hardboiled eggs, and a nectarine and blackberry crisp for dessert. Friday I’ll make a fritatta incorporating the squash and whatever veggies survive the salad, and Saturday we can have spaghetti with pesto. Sunday, pan-fried salmon cakes; Monday, cheesy garlic soup and homemade bread. We’ll eat the peaches straight!

Whenever I spend an hour tidying up the house, it always has the added benefit of providing twenty minutes’ amusement for the boy, as that’s about how long it takes him to pull everything out again and strew it across the floor.

There was a perplexing note tucked inside our veggie box this week, apologizing for the quality of the produce in the last few boxes. It had me scratching my head because I’ve been crowing over the boxes this last few weeks, and today’s haul was no exception: I clapped my hands when I saw the bright yellow pattypan squashes nestled among the vegetables. In addition to those little squashes we got a gorgeous bunch of basil, six more of those wonderful heirloom tomatoes (I devoutly hope they keep coming all summer long), a bag of lettuce, a bunch of beets, two red bell peppers, six baby zucchinis, nine white peaches, and a bunch of red spring onions. A very delightful box to open!

I realized when I put the beets in the crisper that we never ate last week’s broccoli. It is looking a bit scraggy at this point so I think Robin and I had better have the best bits as a snack this afternoon, raw with some salad dressing. And tonight I’ll make ratatouille out of the tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, onions and squashes (is it still ratatouille if it doesn’t have eggplant, or is it just vegetable stew?) and serve it over quinoa.

Tomorrow we can have a salad with roasted beets, blue cheese, walnuts, and what’s left of the red onions in a balsamic vinaigrette. I bought two big artichokes at the store that we can have on the side.

I noticed that there’s local lamb at the meat counter now; Friday I’ll buy some and we’ll have it all’araba. Saturday something simple—maybe that bulgur salad with kale and salami. Sunday is Father’s Day and Sam and I are planning an outing to a train museum, so I expect we’ll eat at a restaurant nearby.

Monday I’d better do something with fish if I want to keep to my resolution about eating more seafood. Maybe I’ll do that salmon-and-quinoa stew again. And then Leftovers Appreciation Night on Tuesday.

Last week I didn’t make everything I had planned—I didn’t get around to making the tuna casserole until Wednesday night, and I didn’t make the baba ghanoush and tabouleh at all. Instead we ordered pizza. Last night we had leftover tuna noodle casserole and a fresh heirloom tomato salad:

The tomatoes were in our box, of course. It was a heavy box this week, stuffed full of goodies: bok choy, lettuce, five red onions and two white, a bag of little white peaches, broccoli, baby carrots, and many small green peppers, in addition to those lovely tomatoes. Tonight we’ll do a big salad with the lettuce, red onions, and carrots, as well as hard-cooked eggs and some bacon; tomorrow I’ll make the pepper steak that Sam likes with the green peppers and the white onions, and some brown rice. Sunday we can have pork chops with the bok choy on the side. And then, assuming I don’t get sidetracked during one of those days, I’ll make the baba ghanoush and tabouleh on Monday.

I finally goaded Sam into transferring the eight hundred and twenty-nine photos he had stored on his camera over to the computer. Here’s some of my favorites.

This is from a Memorial Day picnic we had in a little park by the bay. I think Robin has a fried chicken crumb on his chin.

This is from Mother’s Day, when Robin was wearing his sailor suit. I promise you that .003 seconds from the time this picture was taken, he’d pulled off the hat and dropped it on the floor.

Here are three from the park:

And these are from when we went to see the steam trains at Tilden park:

We weren’t going nearly as fast as Robin’s expression in that last picture would seem to indicate.

And we were back in Tilden park last weekend for the wedding, but we both forgot our cameras. It was a really nice time though, and extra fun for me because it happened to be my birthday—and here was all this food, music, and friends already gathered together!

I wish I’d gotten a picture of my peach pie. It looked pretty, and it was very well received. I guess I’ll just have to make another one!

Today’s veggie box was another delight to open. We got strawberries (which Robin immediately set in on), a bag full of peaches, a bunch of oranges, a head of lettuce, a head of broccoli, some bok choy, several spring onions, a few carrots, and five huge beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

Tonight we’re having hot and sour soup with the bok choy; tomorrow, pasta with fresh tomato sauce. Friday we’ll have grilled sausages and a salad.

Saturday two of our dear friends are getting married, and holding a potluck reception afterwards. I’m going to make a spinach-mushroom lasagna and a peach pie to take with us.

Sunday I’m thinking tuna casserole; Monday, baba ghanoush with pita bread and tabouleh. And Tuesday will be devoted to leftovers.

We were outbid on the home in Martinez. So Sam took today off work and spent all day looking at houses. We found two that look really good, so hopefully we’ll have another offer in by the end of the weekend.