The Grass Is Greener – Everywhere But Here.

Another super simple recipe for my friend Megan -- one pot and seven ingredients -- if you include lemon juice and red pepper flakes.

Lionel, our now 14-pound indoor cat, got out again yesterday.

I retrieved him fairly quickly  this time – not because I’m particularly fleet of foot, but because I’m patient and he, well, he was distracted.  He started out well enough, zipping past the catnip flourishing by the door, but then, couldn't make it another five feet before being waylaid – by a leaf, a twig, a bug, the “outsideness” of it all. 

Poor kitty.  His furry fanny was tossed back inside before he set paw off the driveway.

I can’t help but laugh.  That cat spends most of his waking hours, which admittedly aren’t many, lurking by the back door, plotting his getaway.  But why?  Inside, he’s kitty king – with his choice of canned or dry food, a cat condo, and two litter boxes.  Not to mention access to every bed and sofa when we’re home, and every countertop and table when we’re not.

All that, and yet, he yearns to be outside.

Josie, the rescue dog, is of like mind – although she only has access to the beds and sofas when we’re not at home, and the counters and tables when she masters the art of canine levitation.

The grass is always greener, I suppose, somewhere else.

My eyes are blue.  If I believe what folks have told me, they are blue, blue, bluer than blue.   So why, when I was a kid, did I want brown eyes?  As well as braces?  And glasses?

Along these same lines, Son and Darling Daughter would always rather be at someone else’s house.  Sure, there are plenty of extenuating circumstances, what with the divorce and our lack of a hot tub, but I don’t take this personally.  There’s even a Facebook fan page titled, “I’d rather do nothing at your house than at mine.”  Already, 1.6 million fans have signed up.  And counting.

Lucky for me, the exception – for my kids and kids of all ages  – is Mom’s home-cooking.  Sure, there have been incidents where my kids have begged me to get recipes from other friends’ moms.  (Let it be noted, though that on two occasions, the recipe was “boxed Alfredo sauce” and “pre-made mac n’n cheese.")  Still, when it comes to certain dishes, no one does it like your own Mom.  Son and DD love my Sausage Pasta.  My Waffles of Insane Greatness are -- for my kids -- beyond compare.   And they wouldn’t know what do with Pork Fried Rice served in a restaurant.

My former mother-in-law, who was an enthusiastic and accomplished cook, used to tell her son, “You can't talk about my cooking with other women in your life.  Don’t talk about my macaroni and cheese.  Don’t talk about my cheesecake.  It’s just not fair or right.”

I agree.  No one does it like Mom.  Even now, I won’t put a fork to any egg that wasn’t fried by my Mom.  Green tomatoes fried anywhere other than "home" may as well have been left on the vine.  And although it may not be authentic, my Mom’s version of Veal Parmesan prevents me from ordering it in any restaurant.  Ever.

In a way, I suppose, we moms ruin our kids for anyone else.

Take this “Not Clams Linguini.”  Couldn’t be tastier.  Couldn’t be simpler.  And I’m guessing my kids believe it couldn’t be made any better than than it is at home.

The grass may be greener elsewhere, but home is home and dinner is dinner.  And no one wants lawn clippings for dinner.

Not Clams Linguini

Sadly, if you’re wearing braces, linguini – as well as spaghetti, angel hair pasta and vermicelli – can be a challenge to eat, so for now we’re using lots of other pasta shapes, including piccolini.  Wide egg noodles would also work well.

8 oz. piccolini (or slightly more)

4 slices of bacon, diced

2 cans, chopped clams

1 cup chicken broth

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

fresh ground pepper

salt

½ cup (or more) chopped parsley

Cook pasta according to package directions in large pot of boiling, well-salted water.  Drain.  In same pot, cook diced bacon over medium high heat until very crispy.  Remove bacon bits and set aside.  In remaining bacon fat, stir in clams (including juice), broth and seasonings (except parsley).  Bring to a boil.  Stir in cooked pasta and parsley.  Sprinkle bacon bits on top.  Serve hot, making sure to include ample broth in each serving.

Five Words To Thrill Any Mom's Heart.

Returning home from school yesterday, Darling Daughter uttered the five words sure to warm any mom’s heart:  It smells good in here.

I’ve heard the words before, but they never fail to give me a little thrill (or as my family used to say, “a pat on the popo.”)  To be honest, I’d be equally delighted to hear, “Hey Mom.  You know that advice you gave me?  Well, I talked to my friend today, and we worked it all out.  You were right.” 

“You were right,” however, isn’t part of the 13-year-old vernacular.  Come to think of it, “you were right” isn’t part of most adults’ vernacular.

“It smells good in here” is close enough.  (And for the record, any kid who walks in my kitchen and says those five words is absolutely entitled to use, without repercussion, the three words I detest, “What’s for dinner?”)

I’ve been cooking nearly all my life, including a culinary fiasco at age eight, which thanks to Mom’s intervention and Dad’s patience, did not result in a single trip to the ER.  It’s safe to say that a family-wide case of trichinosis could’ve turned me away from the kitchen for life.

Nowadays, cooking is just what I do – for comfort, for fun, for healing, for nourishment.  It always surprises me, then, when someone says they don’t cook.  How can that be?  You’ve got to eat, right?

Besides, cooking isn’t hard. 

That aroma that DD embraced yesterday afternoon?   It wafted from a dish with only three ingredients.  Heck, I’ll even spot you the salt and pepper.  That’s still only five ingredients, for crying out loud – boneless pork ribs, barbecue sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper.

Five ingredients, plus some steamed rice and a box of frozen peas -- voilà, a complete meal.  Not to mention a “Hey, it smells good in here.”

If I just keep working at it, "you were right" could be just around the corner.

Super Simple Boneless Pork Ribs

2-3 lbs. boneless (often called “countrystyle”) pork ribs

½ cup cider or white vinegar (don’t use the expensive stuff)

½ cup prepared barbecue sauce (any brand will do, I usually use “Bone Suckin’ Sauce,” because I like the label)

½ cup water

salt and pepper

Spray a lidded, nonstick skillet or saucepan with nonstick spray.  Generously season the ribs with salt and pepper.  Over medium high heat, lightly brown ribs (in batches, if necessary) on all sides.  Combine vinegar, barbecue sauce and water and pour over ribs in pan.  Reduce heat to low, put lid in place, and cook until done.  Check occasionally.  Should be fork-tender in about 1 ½ hours.  Serve with hot steamed rice or grits.

Season's Almost Over. Back to Laundry and Housekeeping and Cooking.

It still surprises me to say this, but baseball season is almost over -- and I'm sad.

I know.  For most fans, the season just began.  It’s so early in the Major League Baseball season that even the most hopeful fan can’t seriously ask, “How ‘bout those Cubbies?”

But I don’t follow MLB.  I follow HSB – high school baseball -- and only one week remains in the regular season.  One week.  Two games.  Fourteen innings.  Eighty-four outs.  To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it's over when it’s over.

When Son was little, he tried several sports.  Up in our attic is a box stuffed with little soccer and basketball “participant” trophies – the sort handed over to any eight-year-old whose parents are willing to stroke a check to the league and buy a pair of diminutive shinguards.

For Son, baseball’s the sport that stuck.  Seven years later, the trophies for those big-inflatable-balled sports share space with our Christmas decorations and a noisy family of bats (the winged kind).  The baseball trophies, on the other hand, including a pair of gargantuan Dilworth Little League championship trophies that nearly justified the construction of a trophy room Chez Wiles, still occupy the place of honor on Son’s bedroom shelves.

Those first few seasons nearly did me in.  Baseball devours a family evening or a weekend.  A game can last for-fricking-ever.  And with extra innings, for-fricking-ever and ever.  Amen.  Soccer and basketball, with their stopwatches and gameclocks and precisely-timed halves, snug right into a family calendar.  The Great American Pasttime contrarily laughs at the notion of “schedule.”  No time limit.  No neat little 10-minute periods.  No predictable Thursday practices.

Little League practices and games might be scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday one week and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday the next.  Where little Mia Hamms and LeBron Jameses might have to show up 15-30 minutes before gametime, little Derek Jeters are expected 60 minutes prior.  In baseball parlance, by the way, 60 minutes early translates into 75 minutes early.  If you’re on time, you’re late.

It took me an entire season – maybe two – to learn to relax and enjoy the games.  One reason, of course, was flat-out fanny-clenching fear for my kid.  Fear that he would be “that kid” – the one out in left field picking daisies and turning cartwheels.  The one who swats at the ball and twirls into a 360.  Or, worse, the one who hits the ball, but runs to third base instead of first.  I'd worry that he was never going to hit the ball.  And then, worry that he'd never hit it again.

If for one second on those back-crippling bleachers, I stopped worrying for Son, I’d then have to chase away my own demons: I could be doing laundry right now.  I could be catching up on bills right now.  I could be changing the sheets right now.  I could be cooking dinner right now. Instead, I’m being held hostage by an imposing man named "Blue" who wears a mask and makes lots of angry hand gestures, and a team of elementary-school-aged, bat-wielding terrorists with tight-fitting pants.

What a long way I’ve come.  I now bask in baseball.  I’m there early, I stay late.  I’ve got hand-warmers for games in freezing temperatures and freezer packs for games in sweltering heat.  I know what it means to “turn two,” “strike out the side” and “protect the plate.”  I know that the laundry will get done, the bills will get paid and, sometime during the week, a dinner will get cooked.  I also know that, in the course of the season, Son and Darling Daughter will eat their weight in Chick Fil A nuggets.

Turns out there's a limit to how many Chick FIl A Original sandwiches (no butter, extra pickles) I can eat, however.  Instead, I try to keep some easy-to-prepare, easy-to-eat food in the fridge, like Bacon and Egg Salad, Lentil and Feta Salad, and Black Bean Corn Salad.  This week, I had  a hankering for Pimento Cheese.  Given my distrust for sandwiches in general and mayonnaise in specific, I have to make my own.  This version uses lemon juice and cayenne to cut the cloying tendency of mayonnaise.  It’s great on wheat bread, celery sticks, crackers, or my favorite – a spoon.

One week, two games, 14 innings, 84 outs, and one fresh bowl of homemade pimento cheese.  I think I’m going to be OK.


Best Ever Pimento Cheese Spread
Growing up in Charleston, pimento cheese (or, as some folks pronounced it, "minner" cheese) sandwiches were served at receptions of every sort -- all fancy, on white bread with the crusts cut off.  Most people, though, would use the store-bought variety, which is probably what turned me away from pimento cheese for so many years.  This version, though, is flavorful and zesty and fresh-tasting -- worthy of any reception table, crusts and all.


6 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoons grated onion (optional)
10 oz. extra sharp Cheddar cheese, freshly grated (do not use pre-grated)
4 oz. canned pimentos, chopped


In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except cheese and pimentos.  Gradually stir in cheese and pimentos until well combined and moistened.  Chill for an hour or two, and use as a dip for celery sticks or a spread on sandwiches or crackers.