Tribeca Yummy Mummy

We revisited the garden, and where there is flora, there is also fauna, of the small and curious variety.  They run in small herds or packs and make the strangest noises.

Now, I could have taken pictures of the mentally deranged squirrels that abide in our park.  They will run up your arms and legs to get a piece of food, and frankly they scare me to death.  Who could be down with a rodent that is not only not scared of humans, but lords it over them that they can just go ahead and skitter up your body, not a care in the world, to steal your croissant?

We could have shown the pigeons that congregate around the park, but oddly enough they didn’t show their faces or their wings in the garden at sunset.  Perhaps they were off doing New York pigeon things- pigeon pilates class, cooing over a latte, working through issues with their therapist, the usual stuff.

Instead, here is my favorite local fauna, poking around in the community garden and gathering little bits of things to make ” sun soup”.  For a solid hour this band of kids ran around discussing each of the plants, tasting the edible ones, and running back and forth from the water fountain with buckets, cups, and sticks.  After several gentle warnings that it was getting late, we basically had to drag them away from their soup and home for dinner.

(For other Fauna Corner Views, go take a peek at Francesca’s blog.)

In New York City, unless you have a fabulous terrace to loll about on, the gardens are areas that everyone shares.  In Tribeca we have this sweet little garden that is part of our local park.  In late winter, you can sign up to have a plot in it and grow your own vegetables, flowers, or whatever you feel.  It’s fun to see this patchwork quilt of our neighbors’ gardening devotion.

A few weeks back, in late June, we visited the garden with my family who was in town for Mira’s birthday.  We blew bubbles, which kept Mira entertained for a good long while, but for Gigi it was the dirt and the plants that really called to her.  She sat on a bit of cement with small rocks and smidges of earth that held her attention for much longer than any toys would have.  She was even talking to these little things, babbling on about some important things to them.

That day, we had dressed her in this little smocked top (a riff on Heather Ross’s smocked sundress) and bubble bloomers (my own pattern) that I made for my niece three years ago and that my niece loaned to us for Genevieve to wear.  Running around with her hands happily in the dirt and her little fingers caressing the flowers, she looked to me like some sort of flower fairy, there to spread magic to whatever she touched.

(This is my Corner View, part of a collective weekly blog caravan.  Be sure and check out other takes on Flora, starting with Francesca’s.)

My Spring Semester Cooking Class this year was really one for the books.  It included mostly 6 and 7-year-old girls, among them the daughter of a former gourmet food magazine editor.  My student informed me that she liked five things: chocolate, bacon, pizza, plain pasta, and chocolate chip muffins.

Let’s pause for a moment and really let that sink in: chocolate chip muffins.  The food aversions(or perhaps I should say “neuroses”) were rampant in this group.

“I don’t eat fruit!” Apparently, my daughter is not alone in this.  Who knew?

“I ONLY eat  fruit.”

“I won’t eat hummus if it has touched a carrot.”

“I only like mozzarella cheese.”

“I will ONLY eat parmesan cheese.”

“I hate cheese.  It’s disgusting.”

“Cheese is the only food I will eat.  If it doesn’t have cheese, then I’m not trying it.”

Ay yi yi.  It is important to note that there were wonderful, life-affirming exceptions to those who would not eat or even try most of what we cooked over the semester.  I have to admit that I am deeply grateful for the few students who ate with gusto and, even when they did not end up liking something, did try it before they made that decision.

In addition to all of the food hoopla it had, our class had what might be called a behavior free-for-all in cooking.  Despite usually being one of the sweetest, most well-behaved and generally delightful group of children I have ever experienced when its individuals were over at our place for play dates or when its members were on school field trips, etc., they really caught me off guard with their antics.

Go in the bathroom, strip down, and start running a bath for yourself?  Check.  Decide it is a great idea to shriek at the top of your lungs and even have a contest to see who could shriek loudest, shrillest, and longest?  Check.  Go in Mama Cate and Mister Sean’s bedroom under the guise of needing to go to the bathroom, and go through a few of their things and hide under the bed till someone had to go look for you.  Deep breath.  Check.  Pout?  Check.  Cry?  Check.  Call a therapist because you are going to need several years of therapy?  Check.  Oh wait, that last one might not have been a mini-chef.

But, there we all were, and something had to be done, and something had to be cooked.  After all, they did like to cook.  Later posts will describe how it all turned out (so much better thanks to a little help from a friend).  For now I would like to share one of the recipes that our class made and actually ate, for the most part at least, and that I would never have made without their particular inspiration and/or without adding about thirty different vegetables or something like that.  Here is our humble and humbling straight up, delicious mac-and-cheese:

Mac and Cheese with a Crunchy Cornflake Crust

• one pound elbow macaroni, or penne, or any long tube pasta, cooked according to the directions on the box
• 1 c. corn flakes
• 4 cups mild cheddar cheese, shredded
• 3 cups gruyere cheese, shredded
• 1/2 c. parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 1 c. heavy cream
• 1 c. whole milk
• black pepper, to taste
• optional: cooked bacon bits, rosemary, the usual: cooked broccoli, peas, carrots, greens, anything you can stuff in there

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Set out a 9 x 11 baking dish or several individual ramekins (about 12).
3. Over medium-low heat, warm the milk and cream together.
4. Add the cheddar and the gruyere, whisking till it melts, and immediately take it off the heat.
5. Stir in the black pepper, and fold the pasta gently into the cheese mixture.
6. Fold in any other ingredients that suit your fancy.
7. Pour the mixture into the baking dish(es).  If you are using ramekins, place them on a rimmed baking sheet.
8. Pour the corn flakes into a plastic zipper bag and, using a rolling pin, smash them up very well.
9. Sprinkle the cornflakes and the parmesan cheese over the top.
10. Bake till the cheese and cornflakes make a golden brown crust, about 15-30 minutes depending on the baking dish you are using.
11. Enjoy!

Hope your weekend hits the spot, Yummies!  (For more Moments, check out Soule Mama.)

For another project, I needed to make a LOT of bias tape.  Making lots of bias tape can be a disheartening sort of process.  Making it the old fashioned way is nit picky work, boring and tedious, too. But, then it costs way too much money to buy it.  Thinking there must be some better way, I googled.  And, I found this post, by Prudent Baby, which explains how to make a whole bunch of bias tape relatively painlessly.  I say relatively because it still takes a good chunk of time if you don’t have that fancy bias tape machine.  Go, take a look though!  It is fantastic.  Prudent Baby, there is a sure spot for you in heaven.

During the shortened-but-still-lengthy making bias tape process, the Lazy Day Skirt kept popping into my mind.  It is trimmed in bias tape or ribbon.  You can whip it up super quick in as many combinations as you need to complete a little girl’s wardrobe.  It’s sort of go-to for creating a garment to match any orphan top you want to make into a full fledged outfit.  Mira has had Lazy Day Skirts that she started out wearing as a three-year-old and continues to wear as a very tall 7 year old.  That is a lot of wear for the simplest of skirts.

Since learning about Prudent Baby’s technique for bias tape making, the Lazy Days Skirt has gotten a whole lot lazier for me.  Here is Genevieve modeling her new LDS that I made up for her to match a cute tank top that my mother-in-law gave her for her birthday.  Doesn’t it make you want to try one for the cutie pie in your life?