The Red Spoon

italian wedding soup

Meg — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:25:33 +0000

Last Tuesday was our four year anniversary. I know. I’m twenty-three with four years of marriage under my belt and a still alive, somewhat small-ish two month old. We celebrated (the anniversary, not the still alive baby, though both deserve a party) by going on our second date after the whole baby thing happened. Thankfully your prayers worked. We did not once discuss our little valentine (unless you count the time when I realized there was dried spit up on my shirt, sigh). Our prix-fixe menu was superb with lobster risotto, tender short ribs (apparently I am a sucker for a good short rib since I’ve ordered it the last four times we’ve gone out) and a champagne caramelized mango tatin, if you’re me, or a hazelnut chocolate bread pudding and caramelized banana parfait if you’re him. Yes, our anniversary date was a success and the deep red roses are still perfuming the house (even though the florist was a day late, “too many orders”. Excuse my eye roll).

But before he knew the florist would fail him, my husband thought he would “have some fun”. After far too many hints (in my opinion) and a desperate plea to go to the store for a “few items” (read: at least bring home a picked over bouquet of daisies) he came home with the ugliest, half dead, burnt orange and brown Idontknowhwhaththeheckyouaresupposetobe flowers and a package of baby’s breath (which in four years of marriage he has made one thing clear: his hatred for the tiny white buds) and a card (sorry, honey. I thought you were actually serious about this…) making me think he tried his hardest to find the most decent, award winning flowers and a funny/cute card (copy this card I got him 2 years ago) to make me laugh. I will not lie. I was extremely disappointed*. I wanted to shove the flowers in the trash can behind him, but refrained and left them on the table to finish their long, slow, miserable wilting death. I channeled my anger into reading my CI magazine that appeared last week instead.

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hear ye, hear ye

Meg — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:11:52 +0000

Tomorrow is the big day! Men, I hope you’ve alerted the florist and scored a reservation at the romantic restaurant your gal loves, but in case you prefer to skip the crowded dinning establishments or like to get right to it directly after dinner (and by get to it I mean dessert) then here are some options you just might like to make for your sweetie.

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oven spareribs with vinegar barbecue sauce

Meg — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:30:25 +0000

I was probably the last person to find this out, but Sunday night was Superbowl night. Really, I should be more in-tune to these things as I am raising a little man, but the love of football was for my college years. A time in my life where everything was more exciting and nail-biting, a time where I would actually choose to devote three whole hours on a Sunday afternoon to watch an oddly shaped oblong ball being tossed around on a ridiculously long field by rather big, thickly men running in tight spandex — let’s just say, I’ve out grown this. Partly because men in tights no longer has an appeal and partly because I’d rather be ~~baking up~~ devouring a chocolate cake or taking a nap, or doing laundry (the latter is more of a I-have-no-more-clean-anything, must.do.laundry.)

But my husband, being a man’s man loves sports. I’ve given up precious Grey’s time (alright, I lie. I instead allow it to be recorded while I watch the holy grail of shows on Thursday nights) so he can watch his slew of basketball, football, soccer, hockey, golf, and tennis matches. But watching them is not the only part of his ritual. There is also a fantasy-team, fantasy-league parties, matcho-man talk with his other manly men friends as discussions and debates revolve around the latest upset or the coolest dunk or swish or ace. And me, as a good wife, I pretend to be interested by talking to the wives about cooking or vacations or babies or really anything, as long as it does not revolve around sports.

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homemade marshmallows + whipped hot cocoa

Meg — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:00:18 +0000

Marshmallows are a sticky, messy business people. Had I known this prior to setting off to tackle awesome mom-dom by way of making fun mallow shapes dyed the color of a rainbow (because what ~~adult~~ kid would turn this down) I became tangled in a rather large sticky mess of mallow strings and almost gave up the notion of being anything resembling a cool parent. I know, my kid is a mere seven weeks and not in the least able to get messy with me in mallow webs of yummy, currently preferring a good hoot with his forest friends over rainbow stickiness, but when the day comes, I will be prepared.

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orange currant muffins with pistachio crumb

Meg — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:43 +0000

Shhhhhh. The baby is sleeping. Finally. The husband had the audacity to leave our home office and get whisked away to the Big Apple on a business trip for three whole days taking my dutiful put-baby-down-for-nap and wake-baby-up-from-nap partner, leaving me the bad guy.

This guy also took my daily dose of grown up as it’s just me and baby in the house…alone. Albeit, I am glad to take a break from our most frequent conversation topic:

Josh: Hey, his diaper needs to be changed.

…

Josh: Then I want him back.

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shitake, radicchio and taleggio pizza

Meg — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:11:27 +0000

This week has been brutally cold and windy. Which makes me sad, very sad. Winter has been great — it brought the biggest cheese ever — yet I’m ready for it to be over. I reach this point every January, after the holidays have gone, and there is no lingering celebrations with family or friends trying to drag out the merriment for as long as possible, and the point has been reached today. I’m done. There is nothing left to look forward to in the remaining winter weeks, except my four year anniversary — and really the husband and I have discussed picking a totally random day, like May 19th or October 8th or another day where it is not hard to come by a dinner reservation, or enjoy one anothers company in the middle of a crowd as we just had to pick, ahem, I had to pick the day of hearts and roses to get hitched.

Spring is now in the forefront of my mind, a time that will bring actually ripe fruits and vegetables instead of the hot house and imported varieties from other countries. But with spring comes color, flower buds that eventually turn vibrant yellow, or tiny green sprouts of grass that shoot up into a thick carpet. And the sun, it melts the gray filled days of a dead and unappealing winter away.

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new york times chocolate chip cookies

Meg — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:14:43 +0000

This is a celebration people. We have survived the first month, err, I should say our baby has survived. And frankly in honor of our success, the baby’s well being and my current chocolate chip cookie obsession what better way to say thank gawd than these. It was something I was content keeping to myself, I know you all don’t need another recipe for something that is pretty much the same thing over and over — butter, brown sugar, flour, some eggs and chocolate chips. To be honest, to say one recipe is superior to another is something I have scoffed at for years, until now. It wasn’t until I made these, err, someone made these for me that the marathon of *cough* a dozen cookies for breakfast *cough* *cough* came about.

Not only was I blown away by the ratio of chocolate chip to cookie — I’m pretty sure David Leite was trying to find a way to shovel in chocolate chips without having to eat them directly from the bag while maintaining some level of sophistication — but the fact that the chips were still gooey and soft and melty four days later. Seriously. Then my friend gave me the recipe and accompanying dissertation and I, ashamedly, put it aside to pull out the back up of pillsbury I’ve kept on hand since my third trimester cravings.

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penne à la vodka

Meg — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:57:09 +0000

Yesterday was a sad, devastatingly upsetting day in our house, well, at least for me it was. This kid, who let us take a peek at some blue eyes he likes to hoard under his eyelids, has grown out of his newborn-sized clothing. (I will give you a moment to grab a tissue box and think of something encouragingly sweet to comfort me with. Also, chocolate chip cookies would be nice). After folding tiny onesies and stretchy pants my foot couldn’t even fit into if it wanted, I have now had to graduate my quickly growing kid into the next size up (and really, this should have been done a week ago, but I slightly enjoyed — to my kid’s dismay every time I had to dress him — the struggle to snap a cute fox onesie on him, and the elephant, oh and the monkey one and the I am handsome one while I still could squeeze him into it).

And thus dinner was comfort food. Something mama could drown her sorrows in as my kid has already thrown my back out just from feeding him — yes, he is that heavy already. Plus my husband finally joined in on the twitter front, and I was not his first follow…more like his seventeenth. 17! Marrying each other, living together, having a baby together, yes, it has all been good. But following me on twitter — it’s like I asked you to chop off a finger*.

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leek and pancetta risotto

Meg — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:53:49 +0000

Well folks, it’s officially 2012 and my ubber gracious and fantastic friends have deemed me capable enough to get back into the kitchen without the aid of their promised meals. (Yes, I brought it on myself, really.) But for the past two and a half weeks I have been amazed at all the delicious meals Josh and I have chowed down on, most notably a creamy parmesan shrimp risotto brought to us last week and something I have not stopped thinking about since.

Now, I don’t believe in giving up anything one enjoys, especially if it involves cheese, but because I have been thrown to the sharks of the nightly ritual of dinner, I decided to start the New Year and its night-time meal with risotto. I know, I know three days after Resolution Day is not the best time to bring up creamy, cheesy, bacon-sprinkled rice dishes, but be thankful that I decided the chocolate chip cookie kick — more like marathon — I have been on has not yet shown up on these pages (as I’m sure any day now I will crack and bake up a batch and thus cause you to stumble over warm, gooey, slightly melted chocolate chip studded cookies).

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homemade ferrero rocher

Meg — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:32:16 +0000

First of all I want to thank you for the warm welcome you have given little Henry. He is quite smitten with us as we are with him, and it seems as if everyone else is too. I must be a mom because reading comments, and being stopped by a friend or random stranger and getting compliments on baking up something so sweet, precious and insanely cute never gets old.

And he is cute and adorable and every other cliche (but not really) adjective you want to use. Did I mention he is trying to suck his thumb (mama called that one), he snorts like a pig when he’s hungry, or that he has so much hair not a single person can walk past him without giving him a loving pet — which means we have bought stock in baby shampoo and have taken home a teeny tiny comb and brush set to make sure his locks stay in place (which have yet to obey us). Tsk, tsk, so unruly baby Henry!

Not that we will ever blame him for his adorable cow licks and nap-static hair. He is just too cute. But while we are catching up, I almost hate to mention the fact that in addition to the world’s easiest pregnancy (did I mention, other than the insane lack of energy, I otherwise felt, err, not pregnant?) I also had a labor that would make most first time moms a wee bit jealous. Besides coming a whole day prior to his due date (he and I had a talk about this and we both agreed a prior eviction would be easier and more pleasant for us both) and the almost embarrassing moment of my water breaking at a friend’s birthday party, my labor lasted for a mere six hours and left me feeling like I could do it again real soon. (Though, I must shoot down rumors of us baking up a brother or sister for Henry any time soon. As good as he is, I think we will enjoy him a little bit before we start thinking about adding more awesomeness to the mix).

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