Archives › Kitchen and Food
A Moment of Domesticity: Lemon Meringue Pie
One of the little joys of visiting Helen’s family in San Francisco, besides visiting them and going to Pride, was coming back with a bagful of Meyer lemons from the tree in her brother’s backyard. Meyer lemons, for those of you unfamiliar with them, are less acidic and slightly sweeter than regular lemons. They are [...]
Massachusetts Governor’s Daughter Comes Out
In a move to remind all the same-sex couples flocking west to marry that Massachusetts is the original Gay State, Katherine Patrick, daughter of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, has just come out as a lesbian. I jest about the motivation, but the fact of the matter is true. In an interview with Bay Window’s Laura [...]
Rate Your Foods
I’ve always been a foodie, but food seems to impinge even more upon my consciousness now that I’m a mother. I suspect it’s the same for many of you. The new food-review site Zeer intrigued me, therefore, when I read about it at TechCrunch. Zeer is “a grocery product community that helps you ‘believe in [...]
Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s
Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29, is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s. Yep, that’s right. Free cones at any B & J’s participating Scoop Shops. No purchase necessary. (Though if you come home with an extra pint or two, don’t blame me.) What’s your favorite B & J flavor? I have a perverse love for [...]
Oatmeal Hack
Here’s a little mealtime trick I thought I’d pass along. (If you use Irish oats, you can consider this a St. Patrick’s Day post.) My son loves oatmeal, but doesn’t like waiting for it to cool down after I make it. If I add cold milk when it’s done, it ends up too soupy. My [...]
Some/thing Borrowed
For my third contribution to Robin Reagler’s blog carnival, here’s Some/thing Borrowed: a recipe for Valentine’s Day. What better for Valentine’s Day than something chocolate? What better for parents on Valentine’s Day than an easy chocolate project to whip up with the kids? When I saw these Chocolate Pretzel Buttons, I knew they were winners. [...]
Hack Your Hearts
The good thing about Valentine’s Day, which can at times seem like nothing more than a chocolate-fueled celebration of heterosexuality, is that the ubiquitous Sweethearts Conversation Hearts are at least pretty inclusive. Oh, you have to throw out some gender-specific ones that don’t apply, but you can always give the “Lover Boy” ones to your [...]
Cat Cooks for Kids
Iron Chef Cat Cora appears in this month’s Parents magazine (and on their Web site), talking about cooking for her two young sons. Her youngest, at eight months, gets jarred organic food, and her four-year-old gets whatever everyone else is having. “I attribute his good eating habits, at least in part, to the fact that [...]
New England Hanukkah
I’m technically Jewish, since my parents are, but we were never a very observant family and my own beliefs today tend toward the agnostic. I am, however, what I’ve heard called a “culinary Jew,” which means I have a fondness (and occasional mad cravings) for certain foods of my heritage. I whipped up a bunch [...]
Queering the Kitchen
There’s a bit of a food obsession going around the world of LGBT women at the moment. Since parenting and food seem to go together like peanut (or soy) butter and jelly, I thought I’d do a quick roundup. After Ellen has a lengthy feature piece on Iron Chef and lesbian mom Cat Cora. Author, [...]
Mixing It Up
I just bought myself the mixer of my dreams: the Kitchenaid 600, a 6-quart, 575-watt beauty. I’d been eying it for some time, since I’ve gotten into bread making in a big way since staying home with my son. I thought about the smaller and cheaper 5-quart model, but decided to hold out. Yesterday, however, [...]
Cat Cora’s Thanksgiving Recipes
Reader Debbie let me know that Iron Chef Cat Cora and her partner and kids “were featured in this week’s People Magazine talking about their Thanksgiving traditions, and giving tips.” The full article isn’t online, but her grandmother’s mustard recipe is, along with Cat’s recipe for a Pomegranate Balsamic Reduction you can blend in to [...]
Lesbian Mom Holiday Recipe Exchange
Thanksgiving is nearly upon us here in the U.S., so I thought it might be fun for us to share some recipes for that or other upcoming holidays. Leave a comment here or post on your own blog and leave the link. Recipes from non-lesbians and non-moms welcome, too. For my own contribution, I’ll offer [...]
It’s National School Lunch Week: What Are Your Kids Eating?
It’s National School Lunch Week, and I’m glad President Bush has proclaimed it—part of his ongoing commitment to our children’s health. (Yeah, right.) How to celebrate such an occasion? Whip up a batch of “American Chop Suey,” a meat, tomatoes, and macaroni mixture I remember from my own tray-carrying days? Throw some canned fruit into [...]
Book Recommendation: Kids Cook 1-2-3
At our local library the other day, I flipped through Kids Cook 1-2-3: Recipes for Young Chefs Using Only 3 Ingredients, but didn’t expect much. I assumed it told how to mix chocolate chips and raisins into a pre-made cake mix and the like. Instead, I was surprised to find recipes from fresh ingredients and [...]
Cooks Connect Like Peanut Butter and Jelly
Looking for new recipes to perk up mealtimes? Love to cook and want to connect with others who do, too? Try either or both of these recipe sites/social networks, which promise not only good eating but cameraderie with fellow cooks: Open Source Food, launched this spring, features beautiful photographs and a plethora of recipes from [...]
Why Every Parent Should Have a Vegan Cake Recipe
There’s been some debate lately over whether a vegan diet is good for children. I’ll leave the answer to that in the hands of those with better nutritional expertise than I have. Still, I believe every parent, even those of us who aren’t vegan, should have at least one vegan cake recipe in her or [...]
Integrated Dichotomies
I was feeling a little butch and a little femme yesterday: Morning: Built forklift for son using wardrobe box, duct tape, and box cutter. I had promised to make him cool things out of boxes after we moved, thinking of houses and castles. He of course decided to test my skills with something more challenging. [...]
Gadget Love: Safety Can Opener
I may be the last person in the country to discover the wonders of a safety can opener, which takes off the top of cans without leaving a sharp rim. It was always a point of pride with me that I used a simple Swing-A-Way opener. The Swing-A-Way was classic. It did the job it [...]
Book Recommendation: Carrot Soup
I enjoy finding seasonal books for my son, and was pleased to stumble upon John Segal’s Carrot Soup. In it, Rabbit spends many hours planning and cultivating his carrot garden, only to find that the carrots have vanished right before the harvest. He asks his friends Mole, Dog, Cat, and others if they have seen [...]
Want Kids to Eat Vegetables? Plant a Garden
Preschoolers are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables when the produce comes from their own garden rather than a supermarket, concludes a study by researchers at Saint Louis University. More specifically, preschool children from rural southeast Missouri were more than twice as likely to eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per [...]
A few miscellaneous health items of interest this weekend: In vitro fertilization, or IVF, has a high risk of leading to multiple births, as many of us who have gone through the procedure know. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and McGill University have developed a new procedure to estimate the “reproductive potential” of individual [...]
Broccoli, Ketchup, and Same-Sex Marriage
Fewer than a third of American adults eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The government’s goal is for 75 percent of Americans to have two servings of fruits and 50 percent to have three servings of vegetables each day by 2010. [...]
Lifehacker on Kids and Home
The always-useful Lifehacker has had a number of posts about kids and home lately. Here’s a roundup: How to set a homework schedule. Also useful for us bloggers and writers. Kids Freeware Bonanza. From games to education. Copy TV shows to your iPod. Perhaps good for car trips, waiting at the doctor’s office, and other [...]
Keep the Ice-Cream Scoop Next to the Turkey Baster
“Tubs of ice cream help women make babies” proclaims an article about new fertility research. I can hear the cries of joy from those of you trying to conceive. Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health found that a low-fat dairy diet can cause infertility by preventing ovulation. Women trying to conceive should consider [...]
