You can swim all you wish, but don't eat the fish...

In order to get the feeling of this birthday you must play this LOUD!
Then imagine me, a lady who could be described in some circles as a "cracker", driving a prius, wearing a white anthropologie sundress, playing this song so loud the windows were shaking, shaking my head back and forth like I'm having a seizure. That's how I roll on my birthday.

Today is my birthday. I'm older than I was when I was 17 and that's all we're going to say about that. My sweet sweet Nipper Knapp did a series of consumer backflips and was able to get me my dream chair from Anthropologie for 75% off. Never mind that he waited until the day before my birthday to buy it, and never mind that it was sold out. Never mind that he wanted to barf when he heard this bit of news. Never mind he has to drive to Nevada tomorrow to pick it up. He got it (with the help of Uncle David doing a recon mission, the anthropologie girls here in LA, and Henderson Nevada, and Sadie lending her SUV for pickup). He's a good hub.

knotted melati chair

He and Jack went to Bottega Louie and got me a stack of boxes of sweets that would make Marie Antoinette blush. They sang happy birthday to me, when I got home from my TWO HOUR massage at Ole Henriksen, and tonight we're going to dinner at Café Beaujolais where Nipper Knapp will allow me to flirt with the wait staff who all look like Johnny Depp and Viggo Mortensen's love child. Fo Shiz, he's a really good hub.

Brenda (Jack's nanny) painted and "dressed" this robot for me with Jack. She said it's a helper robot to help me when she's not around after he starts school. *sob* I told her she has to wear this outfit (including the headdress) for the rest of the month when she's here watching Jack. 

I've gotten sweet sweet birthday wishes throughout the day, and have been really counting my blessings. When I moved to LA 12 years ago, all wide-eyed and dewy, (I should have enjoyed that dew more) I never imagined this life I dreamed of having would actually happen, and be better every day than my 20 something ding dong brain could imagine. Knock wood and chuck some salt (I'm an actor so you know, super superstitious), this is already a very good year. 

death to foodies!

I had the movie Julie and Julia on in the background when I was sewing the other day, and I was so hungry by the time it was over. But I didn't want just anything. I wanted pan sauteed bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, basil, and garlic. I wanted roast chicken with mixed vegetables. I wanted steak au poivre and frites. I wanted a big glass or meritage and some kale with garlic and lemon. I'm pretty sure I went inside and settled for a mixed green salad and yogurt. I love to eat. I love to cook, but I never have the time or the energy or the will to do it. I don't know why? So many of the things I love to eat are very simple.

I read an article once about a mom who had been a food writer, and food lover. By the time her kids were 8 and 10, she realized there were only 4 or 5 meals that she could make that got no complaints from anyone. She was dying from food boredom. It's so easy to get into a recipe rut. To make the same things over and over that
A. your kids will eat
B. you can also stomach
C don't take more than 15 minutes.

I hate most of this food. Nipper and I have found ourselves deep in the territory of making separate meals for Jack and for ourselves. We are doomed. I don't remember my mother making separate kid meals for us. I'm pretty sure we were expected to eat what they ate? Maybe my memory is fuzzy on this. I do seem to remember a good 10 year period where I ate a peanut butter (NO jelly) sandwich every day, so...

I seem to be surrounded by people who love food. They love to talk about food. They love to look at pictures of food. They love to talk about people who write about food. Most of all they love to cook and eat great food. Me, I love to watch food movies. I miss good food. That's not to say we don't go out and eat well from time to time. I just wish we did more of it at home. I wish I was that mom who had the ability to get everyone to the table all at once, happily eating the same thing.

Here's to that. Keri of My Year Started Tuesday, sent me this link to David Liebovitz's website. The link was sent to her by Shaboom of French Skinny. I have no words for the wealth of incredible recipes all in one place. I love and hate this man. He was a chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley for forever, and then he moved to Paris in 2002. He also wrote this book, The Sweet Life in Paris, which I think might be next on my bedside table. Because he's California meets Paris he has 10 billion recipes that are right up my alley.  Mesquite chocolate chip cookies? Yes please. Candied bacon ice cream!? I love you! Polenta ice cream (which reminds me of the corn ice cream, I had at Grace one.) YUM! Carnitas? Yes ma'am! Homemade kosher dill pickles? I can die now. He has everything else from sauces and sides to whole meals, and drinks. I don't know if this is someone that Shaboom knows over there and has the good fortune to dine with. But if that's who's food she's eating and losing pound after pound month after month... I'm in. 

Book worm

Jack has handled the transition from his crib to his new bed in his new room like a champ. He's also been surprisingly obedient about staying in his room until Boo, his monkey alarm clock "wakes up" at 7, even though we suspect he's in there at 6am playing. Until yesterday that is. I made the mistake of telling another mom that he doesn't seem to know that he can get out of his room or hasn't tried anyway. Why did I do that? I said it all self deprecatingly, like "oh he's too dumb to realize he's free" so it wouldn't come off as braggy. But the universe knows. 

That night, Nipper and I went to dinner at a place downtown called Bottega Louie. It was amazing! We had portobello mushroom fries, and corn with bacon and swiss chard, and a rocket salad, and chicken with lemon and capers, and pasta with rib-eye and swiss chard, and a chocolate souffle, and WHOLE bottle of Magnificat meritage. Whoops. Oh, and they have french style macaroons, and their boxes look very laduree-ish. 

We came home, and I immediately passed out on the couch watching American Idol. I'm really romantic like that.  First time we've been out since the infamous Christmas date, and I'm like Gary Busey on a Tuesday. Jack's nanny Brenda had put him to bed, which has only ever happened one other time in his life. SO around 1:30 in the morning, Jack wakes up, thinks, "Are mommy and daddy still gone?" get's up, walks into the hallway, then, stunned, he says, standing in our bedroom, "Hey! I just opened that door". Sigh... I cursed myself, took two advil, and lay awake the next two hours, as Jack went back to sleep ON Nippers head, and the two of them battled for mattress real estate and who can snore the loudest. Jack won. 

Before he made his big break I was finding stuff like this when I went into his room in the morning:

Yes, the iphone, and the helicopters are in there, but also BOOKS! And a flashlight! Could it be I already have a little reader? Is he too young to be reading under the covers with a flashlight? Do kids even do that anymore? More likely he was using the flashlight to "shoot" something, but a mom can dream.  When I was very small we lived in a small town, right next door to the public library, which was also very small. The librarian had to make a rule that I was not allowed take out books and return them on the same day. I would walk over, get a stack, take them back to my room, where I would curl up in my closet and read them. She also had to make a rule that I wasn't allowed to eat red pistachios and read her books. Somewhere out there, are a whole slew of public library books with tiny pink fingerprints all over them.