Soup Du Jour: Chicken Noodle

While I consider myself a compassionate, sensitive person, I am also a slight cynic at times and I have a silly, twisted sense of humor. I would never read sappy love novels and I am usually not a huge fan of most Hollywood chick flicks. I can only take really sappy stuff in small doses.

During my pregnancy, one gift we received was a Chicken Soup for the Expectant Parent's Soul - or something like that. There are so many of those books. It's unreal. Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul, Nascar Fan's Soul, Teenager's Soul. I would not be surprised to see one for the Emo Kid's Soul.

On first glance, I winced inside. But I read the damn thing. Cover to cover.

OK, maybe pregnant women can relate here. When pregnant and even a couple of weeks post-partum, I would cry over the simplest things. I had a hard time getting socks and shoes on those last few weeks - I cried about that once. A commercial about spaghetti sauce would make me cry. It was so annoying to the normally giggly, sick and twisted me.

Chicken Soup left me a blubbering mess.

Here's my own version of Chicken Soup. Babies soften you on the insides.

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My mom died of cancer in 2002. Not a day goes by that I don't think of her and wish that she were still here. It was bittersweet to go through the pregnancy and the birth of Molly without her. I wish I could have shared that with her.

The two things that I miss the most about her: her laugh and her hugs. She had such a great sense of humor and above all, she gave great hugs. We were always very affectionate with each other. I lamented countless times after her passing that I would never feel that particular, special warmth and connection that I felt when we hugged. It was always like our hearts plugged in to each other.

Molly was born in June of 2007 and she is truly amazing. I never get tired of just looking at her. I take in every little sound and smile like it was the first one. I love snuggling her close and having her hold on to my shirt or hair (ouch) and sometimes she buries her face against me for a second, as if she enjoys the closeness.

It occurred to me one day that the way that I feel when I hold her close to me is exactly the way I felt when my mother would hug me.

Molly has given me back my mother's hug.

Wolf in Potato Clothing

I make and freeze all of my daughter Molly's baby food. Depending on the veggie or fruit, I steam it and puree it, then fill ice cube trays and freeze. It is a lot of work, but it is definitely a labor of love for me and I don't mind doing it.

One of the first foods that I fed her was pureed sweet potatoes. She loved them and it's a regular in her diet. One of the first times that I defrosted a cube of sweet potatoes, just before I fed it to her, I noticed that the cube had taken an eerie form. You be the judge, but I felt it was a werewolf face, or maybe even Vincent from Beauty and the Beast. My mom was a huge fan of that show. Chewbacca is also a possibility.

I considered e-bay for a second - maybe there's a cult like following of Vincent or a Church of the Werewolf or even a crazed Star Wars fan that would dish out cash for a sweet potato likeness of Chewy... that was until a demanding Ms. Molly screamed at me and I ladled the potato monster into her open mouth. She approved.

I just noticed she's starting to cut her first tooth - luckily, it's coming out slowly and it isn't taking a canine form. :-)

Bitch, I own puff pastry!

The first time that I stayed over at Kris' house he made me the most incredible omelet the next morning. Cheesy egg goodness with perfectly sauteed veggies - I was in love - with the omelet... the verdict was still out on him (the sage-proscuitto-red potato soup he made me when I was sick sealed that deal - but that's for another blog entry). From that day on though, I knew that omelets were his thing. His shtick. And he made a mean omelet, so I was OK surrendering my whisk to him. It was an unspoken thing. We never discussed that I would never make another omelet. Just like chili is my thing. I've won two chili cook-offs now. It's just something I do well and Kris has never made chili since we've been together.

Then Alton Brown and puff pastry come along. Alton Brown, of course, is the host of the Food Network show "Good Eats." I love him and I introduced him to Kris when I purchased the entire collection of Good Eats on DVD. And now Kris loves him. It's a huge man crush. Geeky goodness served up with, well, good eats.

So after watching many episodes, Kris tried a few of his recipes - one being a chicken pot pie that was topped with puff pastry. Which was just OK to me. The base of the pot pie wasn't rich enough for me. So, this leaves some extra puff pastry and fast forward to a Good Eats episode all about puff pastry, and it's on. My honey, to my amazement and delight, is slicing up apples and strawberries paper thin and is rolling out puff pastry... and he bakes the most incredible little round pastries. I was so impressed. He did a fantastic job. But, there was more leftover puff pastry and I was having dreams of chocolaty, cream cheesy stuffed little danishes and I so wanted to experience the puff. We often joke about me being the executive chef and him being my sous-bitch chef, and being the control freak in the kitchen - I felt the pastries should cook a little longer to give more flakiness. But, I could tell that Kris felt some ownership over puff pastry. I just knew it. I envisioned running to the freezer as soon as he left for work and quickly rolling out and filling the pastry and baking to a golden brown, only to then gobble it all up - destroying the evidence before he gets home.

So, I decided to throw it out there. I asked him if he felt ownership over puff pastry. Would he be upset if I played around with the puff? And he was shocked - Ownership??? What? I would never try to keep you from making something! I was like, oh come on - admit it - you think you own puff pastry, just like you own omelets. You do it well and don't want me stepping on your culinary toes. He is adamant that this is silly talk.

Well, this talk reminds him of something and he leaves the room, only to return with an already organized stack of the Good Eats DVDs, in the order in which he wants to watch and cook with them. WHAT?!?! You felt the need to pick what you want to cook ahead of time - in some attempt to keep me from also cooking these things??

He finally gave in and admitted that YES, he owns Puff Pastry. And, I gave in and decided that I don't need to make cute little round apple covered pastries. I'll just distract him while they are baking, so that they come out a little flakier :-)