Trowback dinner

I’m feeling retro, and thus, craving the cuisine of my childhood, namely: Tuna Noodle Casserole.

Scoff if you must, but tonight, the hubster and I will be feasting on this mayonnaise-based classic.

Ingredients:

Egg noodles (half of a bag)

Broccoli (about one head or a small bag of florets)

Tuna-drained (one can in water, the best your wallet can spare.)

Cream of crap soup (one can)

Mayonnaise (about 1/3 cup)

Water (about 1/2-1 cup)

Celery Salt (a lot)

Cayenne Pepper (some)

Breadcrumbs

Method:

Butter the bottom of your casserole dish.

Cook the pasta according to directions.

Add broccoli to pasta water to blanch.

Put the cooked noodles in the casserole dish.

Layer on the broccoli.

Add the tuna all broken up across the top.

Pour on the sauce: (combine the COC soup, mayo, water, and spices)

Top with breadcrumbs.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Serve with a smile.

Oh my god!

Oh my god.

I just read this and I could throw up.   Is it ok for a flowergirl to get a “manicure” with all the other bridesmaids like a “big girl”? Sure.

But a bikini wax? On and 8 year old?

I’m shocked that the spas agree to perform these services.

(confession, my mother had my hair permed in like 3rd grade….I’m still traumatized by it.)

___________________________________________

Trend: Pretty Babies

Facials, bikini waxes, mani/pedis and blowouts have long been de rigueur Rittenhouse and Main Line beauty regimens — but nowadays, the “women” getting these luxe spa treatments have yet to reach puberty

By Carrie Denny

Page 1 of 6

T. Kruesselmann/zefa/Corbis

Melanie Engle was trying to just pluck the stray hairs here and there. She was trying to deliver an age-appropriate eyebrow wax to her client. It was hard, though, because there was a foot tapping next to her, and a voice shouting in her ear: “No! Not like that — like a supermodel’s. I want them arched.”

After years in the beauty biz, Engle had seen her share of crazy ladies demanding perfect, Glamour-cover-worthy brows. But this Crazy Lady wasn’t talking about her own brows. The brows in question belonged to Crazy Lady’s daughter. Who was eight.

After sweating through the kid’s eyebrow wax, Engle, today an aesthetician at the Adolf Biecker Salon/Spa outposts in the Rittenhouse Hotel and Strafford — and, it should be noted, one of the most sought-after eyebrow specialists in the region — was directed to give her pint-size client a … bikini wax.

Engle was, predictably, extremely uncomfortable with the idea. But she sent the girl next door to the spa to have it done anyway. “It was clear that this girl was getting a bikini wax no matter what,” she says. “Better for her that we did it, instead of her mother dragging her off somewhere else to get it done.”

Engle is sharing this tale with me one afternoon over my own eyebrow session, after I’ve remarked on another young girl — no more than 10 or 11 years old — ­sitting nearby, thumbing through a magazine and obviously waiting for some sort of spa service. As Engle talks, my head floods with images of breaking this poor young munchkin out of the clutches of her surely nipped-and-tucked mother, to let her grow old and hairy under my prudish wing. “But … there’s nothing there, right?” I ask Engle. “I mean, at eight? Am I forgetting something?”

“Nope,” she says. “There’s not. Doesn’t matter. That’s when the mothers are starting them these days.”

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a tidal wave of this rising luxury-class culture — you’ve seen it in these pages, manifested in reports of $80,000 “push presents,” lavish condo buildings sprouting up like beanstalks, and weekends spent stockpiling couture with on-call personal ­shoppers. But just when we thought this consumerist takeover couldn’t get any worse, here comes the trend’s newest tributary: The kids of the pampered are being taken along for the ride, without a backward glance at the childhood left behind.

“I’ve actually been joking that I’m going to write a book called Where Has All the Pubic Hair Gone?” Janice Hillman, a doctor in the Penn Health System at Radnor who specializes in adolescent medicine, tells me. “It’s such a rarity to find it these days in 10- and 12-year-old girls, and older girls. I need to check for it at that age — it’s an indicator of puberty and development, how much there is, where it’s growing. And now, I need to ask girls, if it’s not there, ‘Do you wax? Do you shave?’ Because so many of them do.”

Read the rest of the article here.

I do more than just drink

Sometimes, especially times when I’m sick, I can’t remember what to do.

Right now, for example, I’m basically lost in a haze of TheraFlu (strips, MINTY).

We had big plans to paint the house today.  We even went to Lowes and bought drop cloths and rollers.

But then we got sidetracked at Grace’s Tavern.

Grace’s recently was listed as the best bar in the city by Philadelphia Weekly.

This is both an honor and a scary thing for an honestly great neighborhood bar.

I’m a little too old and a little too tired to be a hipster, so I rarely (read never) take advantage of the whole cool nighttime scene there.  The hubster and I enjoy Grace’s most on a quiet Saturday afternoon, especially one we had previously promised to painting or some other equally worthy project.

Saturday afternoons at Grace’s also mean we can comfortably enjoy one of the best daytime drinks in the city, Jamie’s Bloody Mary.

Recipe as observed

Ice

Black Pepper (freshly ground on top of ice)

Horseradish (1 teaspoon)

Worcestershire (2 teaspoons)

Hot sauce (2 teaspoon)

Mustard (little squirt)

Salt-mix (celery etc.)

Vodka (rail)

Tomato Juice (small can)

Shake it like a cocktail and pour over olives on a stick.

(note the addition of mustard and the lack or lemon juice.)

Rum Bamboozle

Sometimes, when you’re really really sick, with a terribly sore, sticky throat, you don’t even hope to feel better.

Nothing helps.  Not TheraFlu, not your husband’s prescription-strength ibuprofen.

Sometimes your only hope is that you can drink a little and simply care about the pain less.

This was my strategy last night when we dragged ourselves to the lovely L2.

Imagine my surprise when I saw not my usual Liz or David, but some interloper.

You see, when death has seized you by the throat, the one person you really REALLY want to recognize is your bartender.  This new face left me feeling dubious – at best.

But what was that????

Newbie is actually an old-school barkeep from the eighties…okay….

Oooo Newbie has a mane, Derek, and not only that, Derek is offering up his award-winning Rum Bamboozle!

Could this be my panacea? Four rums, four juices and a little sprite…in a PINT GLASS!

Derek, you didn’t cure my ailments, but after being bamboozled, I couldn’t care less.

I hope you enjoyed my rendition of “Gonna Soak up the Sun”  or whatever it’s called.

I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s loved my homeward-bound serenade, but if not, they have you to blame.

Powerful punch, that rum bamboozle.

Big Boobs

May I just say thank you brother in law?

Thanks for making it really REALLY obvious that I have a good set.

Yep, you’re right, I wore a v-neck dress to your house for Easter.  True it wasn’t a turtleneck.

You got me.

But was it really REALLY necessary to:

1. Compare me to the Eliot Spitzer scandal

2. Tell me that you thought I wanted you to take my picture because I was “pushing out my chest”?

You trouble me.

I’m blessed with two big girls.

You are a father of three.

Here’s a word of advice: overcome your bosom fixation before it embarrasses your progeny.  I bet my life that their blog entries will be way worse than this one.

Beefy

Yesterday was one of those highly productive days. I was up early. Took the pupitia to the dogpark. Cleaned the house. I had a meeting with my editor in the morning. Wrote all afternoon. Went grocery shopping and…

Made beef stew.

Ingredients:

Garlic (like, half a bulb)

Onion

Celery

Carrots (oops, I forgot them this time)

Lean stewing beef already cut-up (Trader Joe’s)

Package of cherry, or grape tomatoes

Can of tomato sauce

Molasses (about a 1/4 cup)

Worcestershire sauce (a good squeeze, like a tablespoon)

Tapioca (maybe a 1/4 cup)

Salt

Black Pepper

Water or broth (2 cans)

Method:

Chop the veggies pretty finely and toss into the bottom of your crockpot. (not the tomatoes, dummy.)

Add remaining ingredients.

Stir

Cook for about 4-5 hours on high.

Serve with polenta (follow package instructions, but cook it a little longer and use a little more water than they say…it should be crusty.)

The hubster is a very happy man when he is served beef stew. I have him right where I want him

Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!!

My cleaning lady is being replaced by a robot.

Oh Roomba, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

We just got a Roomba last week. I already love it like a new pet. It’s so freaking adorable, the way it hustles across the room. I’ve imagined a whole personality for it. He (it’s a boy) is afraid of heights and jealous of Scarlett’s toys. Sometimes he can get really distracted by cords, but a firm correction, and then everything is rosy again.

Seriously, It was a great buy. The little guy had some trouble at first with the rugs, but after I trimmed back the carpet padding, he can finally climb up onto them. Otherwise, it’s the most brilliant invention! I set the scheduler and when I think of it, put the chairs up on the dining room table and when I get home, the floors are nearly spotless.

I wonder if the hubster would let Mr. Roomba sleep in the bed with us and Scarlett? HA!

satiated

Last night was one of those perfect evenings.  I’ve been a bit of a cranky bitch lately and decided to show hubster that I did, really, truly, deeply, love and appreciate him.  SO, I dragged my but to DiBruno Brothers and purchased all of the accoutrement necessary to reproduce the gourmet picnics we enjoyed back when we were just dating.

I even warmed up the old debit card on a couple of bottles of Rioja.  (I do deserve a medal, don’t I?)

Husband was suitably surprised and delighted.  The dog was reasonably well behaved (for her anyway.)

The meal was followed by what just might be the greatest documentary ever produced: The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

Oh my freakin god. I don’t remember who recommended it, nor can I explain why it languished first in my Netflix cue, then in the drawer for so long.  Maybe everyone elsein the world already knows about Mr. Johnston.  This movie came out in 2005, so I’m relatively late to the game, but if you too are of the uniatiated, go rent it right now.

Daniel Johnston’s story is like that of many great troubled artists.  He was a gifted outsider, a raw genius in music and art.  He suffered/s from manic depression…severe manice depression.  He developed the most purely cult following of which I’ve ever heard.  His music is beautiful.  It’s pointless for me to try to deliver any more than the most diaphanous view of the man in such a cold medium.  Simply rent the movie, then buy every scrap of music with his name on it that you can find.

The film itself was a remarkable piece of art.  It captures Johnston’s early (from high school) movies along with contemporary footage.

Read more about him here: http://www.hihowareyou.com/ 

To wrap up this evening of perfection, we went to to L2 (our local) for a little something sweet. The bodda-bing cherry pie rocks my world and their manhattans are nothing to shake a stick at.

Beef Tendon Soup

Ugh, I’m sick. SICK, I tell you!

I think I’m getting a flu or something. Anyway…because I am the greatest wife EVER, in spite of my debilitating illness, I faithfully accompanied my dear husband on the endless drive to Pottstown to deliver dear old son to his mother.

The traffic was terrible even by Schuylkill standards. To make matters worse, my gastric distress was suffering alarming surges the entire way.

To repay me for my bravery and self-sacrifice, hubster agreed to take me to David’s Mai Lai Wah for my favorite soup.

He fondly refers to it as knuckle soup, but it is really a beef tendon, won-ton, noodle soup, an it is divine. (And coincidently the only known cure for said flu as I see it.)

The tendon soup is not for the faint of heart as is illustrated by the warning issued by the waiters EVERY TIME I ORDER IT: “You ever eat this before? You sure?”

It is exactly what it sounds like: a deep, rich, brown broth, studded by big, snapping chunks of beef tendon, floating shrimp and pork Hong Kong style won-tons, over a base of egg noodles, garnished with greens.

Heaven in a bowl.

I don’t have a recipe for it, I don’t want one. I just need David’s to keep asking me if I’m really really sure I want it.

can…not…wake…up

Oh dear god! I need a nap.

I haven’t been sleeping well AT ALL lately.  I don’t know why.  Well, I suspect that it has to do with hubster being an abnormally loud breather.  But I can’t be that wife, you know…the one who complains about the volume of her spouse’s sleep breathing.

We’re not talking snoring here…just “hehhh hehhhh hehhhhh” BREATHING.

Maybe I will surreptitiously start wearing earplugs…more on this later.

So here I sit, dying to go to bed with the puppy.

Instead, I’ll drag dear old son to the coffee shop. YES!