Bury me with my crock pot please

Last night I made the most amazing dish, Stuffed Beef Chile Rellenos. I had just seen Julie and Julia the night before and in it Julia Childs ala Meryl Streep says in that godforsaken high pitched voice, "When presenting your food, never make excuses or apologies, just serve it with confidence."

So last night as I began to serve my food and launch into the usual litany of apologetic phrases, i.e. "It may need more salt" or "I've never done this before" or the most commonly used, "This will probably suck." Julia Child's voice popped in my head and I decided to serve the dish with confidence. I plated it up as though it were artwork that deserved the perfect spotlight. I had my best friend Bambi and my husband there to taste it and even though the evil voice in my head was apologizing profusely, protecting itself from the unforeseen harsh criticism of others, I ignored it and just let the tasting happen.

I was so happy that I did not make any apologies because immediately the table got very quiet and then I heard the sounds that every amateur chef wants to hear: "ooohhhh" "aahhhhh" "oh my..." "Yummmm." It made me so happy to see them happy from something I cooked. It is why I keep going back to try new things. I live for that moment. And I'm glad I didn't let the evil voice in my head ruin it with baseless judgments and meaningless apologies. I just gave into the vulnerability of the moment, when one has no clue how others with perceive her work, yet one risks all and lets people decide on their own. Too esoteric? I know.

Recipe soon to follow.

Thanks for reading.

Baby spoons

My baby is big. She is in the 97th percentile for height and weight. She just turned 7 months old and weighs about 22-23 pounds. At birth she weighed 9 lbs 5oz and yes, I did deliver her the old fashioned way, through my VAGINA (love how that word makes everyone uncomfortable).

Anyway, I digress. I am giving Gracie 2 jars of expensive little baby food at every meal. Please don't get me started on the cost because I've already hatched a plan to circumvent the costs of that, but I don't want to talk about that here because its a much more boring post than this boring one I'm currently writing.

Ok, so the real reason for this post: Mothers guilt. The spoon I had been feeding her with were those cute little shallow baby spoons that aren't even baby spoons at all. They are little pieces of nearly flat soft plastic that hold the tiniest amount of baby food on them. It would take me 20 minutes to feed her with those tiny baby spoons. Here is the part I feel guilty over. I found these lovely honking huge spoons that someone gave me for my baby shower. They shovel in 10 times the amount of food as the little baby spoons and I AM LOVING THIS. Because now, I can feed her in 3 minutes instead of 20. And we all know that time is more precious than anything else when parenting. An extra 17 minutes to do, lets see, well how about nothing at all? Sounds good to me.

So of course, after I discover this, the evil voice in my head shows up and says: "Good moms don't try to figure out how to short change their kid so they can have more time to surf the internet." and "Good moms feed their dainty kids with dainty baby spoons and take the time to do it" AND "Your baby is going to grow up to be a large Marge, shoveling in chocolate ice cream with the biggest spoon on earth" Cut to a visual of 100ft tall Large Marge stomping around Los Angeles in search of chocolate ice cream.

Once again, I'm going to ignore that voice in my head because if she had her way with me, I would have a baby attached to my breast 24 hours a day, I would never go outside and everything in my life would be about how I can make my baby happy. Life just isn't like that. Babies aren't always happy and sometimes, in fact most of the time my baby is happy when I get an extra 17 minutes to surf the internet, because when mama is happy, everyone is happy.