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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Crunchy Oven Fries

Posted 1 week ago
They are totally addictive.

Ben is ten, and he asks many questions that begin this way: "If you had limitless wishes..." What would you wish for first? (Justice.) How many wishes do you think it would be before you wished that poop didn't smell bad? (Never. Poop smells bad so we'll stay away from it, which helps keep us healthy.) Which wish do you think would go the least like you'd meant it to? (No mosquitoes. Then all the bats would die and the world would fall apart and it would turn into one of those King-Midas stories where you feel like a greedy, foolish jerk.) There are many related questions of the if-you-could-have-anything sort, and they tend to be divided into "world-helping" and "selfish" categories. For instance, this is a popular selfish one: If you could change one unhealthy food to being healthy, what would you pick?

Beer? That just doesn't seem like the right thing to say to a child. But then… Read More
4 people found this post helpful 8 Comments

Homemade Fancy Crackers

Posted 2 weeks ago
Don't these look like those super-fancy ones you can refinance your house over?
I know I'm heading into crackpot territory here--what with the making of commonly available consumables and the listing of such comically earnest ingredients as "spelt flour." But there it is. Crackers. The thing is, we eat a lot of crackers. Which means that, until recently, we have purchased a lot of crackers. And I don't like it. I don't like how expensive they are, for one thing: a box that weighs, like, one nano-ounce, most of which is taken up… Read More
9 people found this post helpful 21 Comments

The Soup of 1000 Vegetables

Posted October 05, 2009
Okay, so maybe it was the soup of 15 vegetables. But still.
"When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement."

Those are lines from the Mary Oliver poem, "When Death Comes," which is a favorite of mine. I'm thinking of her because my children and mother and I went to hear her read last week, along with 2000 other amazed people, everyone with their souls flung open. Well, make that 1999. Birdy was too busy accidentally dropping her after-dinner mints on the… Read More
6 people found this post helpful 11 Comments

Granola Bars

Posted September 28, 2009
These are chewy, salty, tangy, sweet. Four of my favorite flavors. (What? Chewy isn't a flavor? Sure it is.)
Okay, so his self-marinating single-serving pouches of sardines flopped, but inventor Stanley Mason enjoyed a great deal of success with the squeezable ketchup bottle, the disposable diaper, the Playtex "Wow" bra, and the granola bar. Were you born yet when the first granola bars came out in the 70s? I was, and it felt a lot like getting away with something, those Nature Valley double-pouches of health-sanctioned sweetness. They were cookies, but they weren't cookies, and you could tuck them… Read More
14 people found this post helpful 17 Comments

Dad's Spaghetti Sauce

Posted September 21, 2009
This was a contrived shot at 7 this morning, just so I could take a picture of the sauce on some actual pasta, but then Ben said, "Can I just go ahead and eat this?" And he did.
Oh, fiction writers, you are so lucky. You can turn your dreadful old boyfriend, Dan--the one who hitchhiked to Taos every other minute to play frisbee--into your novel's egomaniacal hacky-sacking "Stan" who train hops to Santa Fe. And all you have to do is add one of those These are fictional characters dredged from the brilliant depths of my own imagination. Nobody is actually based on you, you narcissistic New Mexican hitchhiker. caveats.

But you can't really write a… Read More
5 people found this post helpful 13 Comments

Peachy Peach Jam

Posted September 14, 2009
If you actually can it, you'll have the pleasure of hearing the lids "ping" when they seal; if you freeze it you'll have the pleasure of not getting botulism. Both good.
It's funny--I started to title this post "Preserving Summer," and then it occurred to me that preserving, in this and that way, is turning out to be my life's work. I think all the time about what I would bottle if I could: the beloved-animal smell of Ben's hair; the way Birdy's silky limbs slide over me when she climbs into bed in the morning; the shadow of eyelashes like wings over their sleeping pink cheeks. These childhoods are ripe… Read More
6 people found this post helpful 15 Comments
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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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