Day 3: That'll Learn Ya

There is only one thing that I have learned in my 8 year tenure as a parent (well probably more than one thing, but for the purposes of this blog entry, and my artistic literary license...) and that is, that when you let your children stay up past their bedtimes they are very, very, very surly the following day. They will make you PAY for any fun you have had the night before. I try to teach the girls "natural consequences," as in if you drop your choners (our word for underwear) in the gutter while you are throwing them in the air as we are walking into swimming lessons, you will not have clean choners to put on after you finish swimming. If you leave your Barbie shoes on the floor, the dogs will use them as dental floss. If you use your dress as a napkin, well... you will look like you used your dress as a napkin. If you leave your scooter outside for a month, it may not go as fast the next time you race your sister. If you roll in the sand, and make "sand angels" at the beach, you may or may not get sand in places you would prefer not to have sand (I could go on...) I guess I may have deserved to have a little "natural consequences" education myself...

That'll learn me.

So I did something today that I haven't done since January. I bought a loaf of bread. This may seem like an innocuous act, however I have been challenging myself to make all of our bread from scratch, and this is my first moment of weakness. In my defense, the bread was purchased so that I could make french toast...so...there you go. And, I'm not sorry at all.

On to the Ina Experiment! My recipes for today are Lemon Capellini with Caviar (pg.129) and Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame (pg. 105.) This pasta is one of my favorites. The recipe calls for 2, count 'em: 2 sticks of butter. In the words of my beloved, esteemed Ina "What could be so bad about that?" Well, I guess a heart attack could be so bad about that, but who cares when you are eating Lemon Capellini with Caviar! For those of you who are new to cooking, try this one out. It is very easy, and yet very company-friendly. (It frightens me when I channel my mother.) The girls were not such fans of the Lemon Capellini, however. My oldest daughter Tyler stated that she "preferred her lemons in a pie," so judge your audience. The Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame were very light, crisp and fresh, and loved by all. I wasn't able to find black sesame seeds, but honestly I really didn't look very hard, so that part is still an unknown. I added some salt and pepper, and that seemed to really round out the dish. Leftovers can be eaten as is, or chopped up into a summer salad. Again in the words of Ina: "Isn't that fabulous?"