because i like to share

i'm almost done reading a great book, "A Homemade Life" by Mollly Wizenberg. the title is a little misleading. it reads like a weird haircut -  memoir on top, cookbook in the back... and i absolutely do recommend!  her style is comfortable and humorous.  it keeps you coming back for more.  i have but a few little chapters left and i'm trying hard to savor them a sip at a time. 

i'm not sure why, but the following is one of my favorite sections:
Where food was concerned, my father was equal-opportunity guy.  There was little that he wouldn't try and even less that he didn't like.  He loved chicken livers and scrapple, fat and gristle and escargots, and sardines straight from the can, all manner of things questionable and daunting.  He even loved prunes.  No one loves prunes.  In the English language, there are just a handful of words that come with their own built-in laugh track, and prune is one of them. He didn't care.  I am most definitely his daughter because I don't either.
In recent years, marketers have tried to spiff up the public image of the prune, calling it a dried plum and fitting it with cheery new packaging.  I like plums...but in all honesty, I like prunes better,  I think of them as plums that have been improved by hardship, made finer by old age and wizening.  They're the dark horse of dried fruits.  Their concentrated flavor has more depth than a dried apricot, but without the shrill tang of raisins or the sticky sweetness of dates.  And unlike their precursor, the fresh plum, the're available year-round always at the ready.  They may not be pretty, but they make up for them in other ways. p 47.


i also loved this:
...No one ever got laid because they wrote it into their day planner.
Which, I guess, brings me to a larger, more serious point: that it's hard to love someone, I found, when you're preoccupied with holding your entire world firmly in place. p 254.


dear molly wizenberg,
have you any clue how poignant this is?  as a mother of three young children, i sometimes lie in bed at night and realize i have spent my entire day just trying to keep my world (house, sanity, toilet paper) in place and not loving my kids or "being pulled along" as you put it.   why do i do this?  i don't know?  i'm gonna keep working on it though.  
so, thanks for your gems, mo, and thanks  for your recipes.  we especially enjoyed your fennel, asian pair and parmesan salad this evening. 

oh... and my kids are eating kiwi now.

praise the lord!