When we were preparing for our oldest child to enter middle school, we had to choose which language he would take. The obvious choice in my opinion is Latin, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option, so it was either French or Spanish. I’ve held a suspicion for a while that Liam might have a future as a culinary school student (I also was certain that my daughter would be born a redhead (she’s blonde as a daisy) and my third child would be a girl (he is most definitely a boy from top to bottom), so it’s possible that I’m wrong about this, too). Harboring that speculation, however, did make the decision a bit more complex. I posited that French would be most helpful in pursuing a culinary education, but for working in an actual restaurant, at least in the US, Spanish is the obvious choice.

Assuming that I’m probably incorrect in thinking that he has a future in gastronomy, and because Spanish seems a practical language for young Americans to learn in general, that’s eventually what we chose, though I did feel wistful about the idea of Liam walking into his first day of an internship at Le Cordon Bleu with a brain full of fluent French. Not that he couldn’t learn it later on, of course, but there certainly is something romantic about a little boy speaking en français in a little boy voice. And though it’s quite possible that I’m just projecting about the idea of him as a future chef, the child sure does share my delight in Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook” collection from the eighties, and if I ever want someone to binge-watch every episode of “The Great British Baking Show” (again), he’d be my pick. He also has interesting sentiments about food, and his palate is remarkable.

For example, one morning he took his first bite of a bowl of cereal, and a look of disgust immediately colored his face as he declared that the milk had soured. I sipped my coffee, full of milk from that same half-gallon, and disagreed. His sister, who was also eating cereal, agreed with me; the milk was fine. Well, what do you know, but the next morning when I poured some in my coffee: curds. Damn, I thought, that boy was right (again). A few weeks later I used some cheese in his baked potato that was pushing its expiration date, but it tasted fine and was only beginning to smell a tad on the ripe side, but he pushed it away. “There’s something wrong with the cheese,” he diagnosed, having merely smelled the fork. Meanwhile, his siblings found no fault in the aging cheddar, but I started to think: this kid knows flavor. He frequently comments on aspects of balance and texture, and he’s always been especially sensitive to the temperature of food. He also likes to experiment with making combinations, like putting avocado on a hotdog or sautéed clover on pizza. This isn’t to say that he’s particularly adventuresome when it comes to eating; in fact, he’s pretty picky. But he often has interesting ideas for recipes, including adding bacon to a quesadilla or making what we call burgerritos.

He suggested that we make cheeseburgers and wrap them, with some guacamole, in flour tortillas, and I’m obviously a sucker for a portmanteau opportunity, so the “burgerrito” was born. I’d picked up some organic wagyu ground beef that was on sale and suggested that we mold the patties into an oblong shape with the cheese pocketed inside. That way, the baking time would be short because the layer of meat would be thin, and the cheese would melt at the end of the cooking process due to convection. Then we could wrap these in warmed tortillas and serve with guacamole for dipping (or ketchup as an alternative). It was a great success, and everyone raved about the beef. I said, “It’s wagyu, so it’s really rich. I’ll have to see if it’s still on sale.” Liam reacted to this with a fit of giggles, and we all looked at him quizzically. “Wagyu!” he said. “So it’s tail meat?! You know, ‘wag you’??” and commenced his hilarity.

Maybe I should have him take Japanese instead.

One of the most memorable class periods in school I’ve ever experienced was that “How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich” lesson in probably second or third grade (I remember the lesson but, strangely, neither the teacher nor the classroom). I think this “exact instructions” segment is pretty standard as far as elementary school programming, and for good reason. Here’s how it went in our class:

The teacher placed a bag of sliced bread, a jar each of peanut butter and jelly, a knife, a plate, and a napkin on the desk in front of her. She then asked for a volunteer to tell her how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the volunteer (we’ll call him Matthew because there was definitely a kid with that name in the class) began by saying, “Put the peanut butter on one side of the bread and the jelly on the other.” The teacher put the jar of peanut butter to the left of the bag of bread and the jelly to the right.
“There!” she said.
“No, you have to take the bread out of the bag first!” said Matthew. The teacher began tearing the bag open from the bottom.
“No,” said Matthew, “Take off the plastic thingy on the other side to open the bag!” The teacher did that, opened the bag, took all of the bread out, and put it on the desk.
“You only need two pieces,” said Matthew, so the teacher put all but two slices of bread back in the bag and looked at Matthew expectantly.
“Ok, now spread peanut butter on one piece of bread,” said Matthew, trying a more explicit approach. The teacher picked up the jar of peanut butter and wiped the bottom of it across the surface of a piece of bread a few times.
“No, you have to open the jar first!” said Matthew. “Then spread it on the bread!” The teacher, who must have been having a really great time at this point, took the knife and started sawing at the side of the peanut butter jar.
“Unscrew the lid!” called a kid who was probably named Jennings and had been having trouble containing himself throughout this process. The teacher followed this direction and opened the peanut butter jar, then put her full hand in and began scooping up a generous handful before Jennings again interjected, “NO! Use the knife, not your hand!” The teacher nodded as if NOW she understood how this was done, cleaned her hand, picked up the knife by its blade, dipped the handle into the jar and began wiping one side of a piece of bread with peanut butter.
“Wrong way!” called Matthew, “Hold the knife on the other end and use the sharper part for the peanut butter!” The teacher complied, successfully applied the spread to the bread, and asked Matthew what to do next.
“Now open the jelly jar by taking off the lid and then use the sharp end of the knife to spread jelly on the other side to make a sandwich,” he said. So the teacher picked up the knife, dipped it into the jelly, flipped over the piece of peanut-buttered bread, and began spreading the jelly onto the other side of it. “No,” said Matthew, “The other piece of bread!” Things progressed from there until a fully composed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sliced crosswise, sat on the plate next to the napkin. Matthew, having earned the distinction, was given the honor of delivering the sandwich to the head of our lower school, an exceptionally tall woman named Brenda Lloyd whose height was further augmented by her beehive of black hair shot with silver, an updo uncannily reminiscent of Marge Simpson’s, that famously caught fire one Friday when she bowed her head too close to the student acolyte bearing the candlelighter at chapel.

School didn’t prepare us very well when it comes to life skills like filing tax returns, scheduling duct cleanings, managing investments, cleaning refrigerator coils and dryer vents, or how to do things like install an automatic washing machine shut-off valve, but we certainly learned a valuable lesson that day, one that I’m reminded of frequently as we navigate this crash course of life. One child of mine, in particular, requires absolutely explicated, exhaustively specific, pointedly precise instruction when it comes to even things that feel like they should be intuitive, like how to use a knife and fork (at the same time and with separate hands). Recently I taught her how to make nachos, and we thought it would be a good idea to take notes, so here you have it:

The end. Except don’t forget to turn off the oven.

Remember that 48-pack of string cheese I bought at Costco back when Arlo liked it, only to have him declare it unpalatable about a day later? Well, I successfully used it on pizza, as I’ve mentioned, and continued to do so (pin this idea for Halloween: it makes great spiderweb pizzas! String it to make the web, then cut it into circles for spiders, add shorter strings for legs and black sesame seeds for eyes!). I thought we were down to fewer than a dozen of those cylindrical mozzarellas when Arlo said he’d try one again and, lo and behold, he liked it once more! So the next time I went to Costco, I bought another 48-pack, inwardly rejoicing that my campaign for getting Arlo to eat protein had just made a huge stride. When I went home, I put it away only to discover that there were still 24 left in the other bag. How had I missed that? I decided I’d just have to feed him string cheese at every possible opportunity. Now, you probably saw this coming, but guess what Arlo said he no longer liked later that afternoon?

Well, the challenge was obvious. I steeled my apron strings for the weeks ahead, a crusader on a mission to incorporate string cheese into every dinner until it was gone. Even though zero of my children would eat it cold out of the fridge (WHY NOT?! String cheese is so fun! It’s like cat’s cradle but with dairy), I thought they wouldn’t protest if it were heated, melted, and incorporated with other ingredients, as evidenced by the pizza experiments. So I strung it and mixed it with cheddar for quesadilla night, lined the inside of taco shells with it before baking and filling them, layered it on the refried beans spread on dough for Mexican pizza before topping with shredded chicken. I tucked it inside grilled cheese sandwiches and burritos, crisscrossed it into lasagna, stirred it into filling for twice-baked potatoes, folded it into omelets, and decorated the pastry bottom of a quiche with the now very familiar cream-colored strands. It slowly began to disappear from the refrigerator.

My favorite repurposed string cheese-centric meal is a take on mozzarella sticks (this preparation was better-received than when I tried making actual breadcrumb-coated mozzarella sticks in the air fryer). Here’s the recipe (if you can even call it that):

Ipzza Sticks (a.k.a. Inside-Out Pizza)

Ingredients:

String cheese (duh), frozen
Pizza dough (however you like it: store-bought, homemade, from a mix, etc.)
Marinara or pizza sauce (again, however you like it: open a jar or start from scratch)
Pepperoni, fresh basil, garlic powder or other toppings/seasonings (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees with rack in center. Roll out the pizza dough and cut it into rectangles big enough to wrap around a piece of string cheese with an extra half an inch or so to allow for sealing. Remove cheese from freezer and, working quickly, wrap each in a piece of dough, sealing the edges of the dough very tightly to minimize the ooze factor and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until dough begins to brown, but watch carefully and remove from oven as soon as any cheese begins to bubble out of a seam. Serve with marinara or pizza dipping sauce. Note: you can add pepperoni or basil leaves and any seasonings you like before rolling and sealing up these little logs.

Even the child who likes string cheese least of all, who normally wouldn’t so much as touch a shrink-wrapped tube of mozzarella if she could help it, made quick work of three Ipzza Sticks while rewatching a recording of the 2021 presidential inauguration speech. As Joe Biden said to the nation that day, “Don’t tell me things can’t change.” Right on, Mr. President.

As a student of Latin, a former English teacher, and a lifelong language enthusiast in general, I’ve always cared a lot about two topics I find compelling and important: grammar and punctuation. As a young learner, I delighted in books by Richard Lederer, grand master of wordplay, and diagramming sentences brought me great satisfaction in seventh grade. I offered a grammar elective at the school where I used to teach (we had so much fun!), and I’ve made a collection of drawings using only punctuation and diacritical marks. (What amazing names these graphological characters possess! I’ve always wanted to write a story featuring characters named Umlaut, Cedilla, Tilde, Circumflex, Macron…the list can obviously continue.) One year, I dressed up as a compound sentence for Halloween by wearing a banner with the words “independent clause” on each arm and a sign saying “coordinating conjunction” around my neck, instrumentally decorated with a big fat comma in black Sharpie. Some mornings I wake up and scroll through posts and comments in my Facebook grammar group, which is frequently fun, sometimes distressing, but always elucidating. Let me tell you, these people have OPINIONS.

Recently there was yet another debate about the Oxford comma, and some of those arguing in favor cited humorous examples of what happens when it isn’t used, such as “Among those interviewed were Merle Haggard’s two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall” and “This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God” (that one had me rolling). I agree that punctuation matters because using it, and using it correctly, favors specificity within language, which then favors clear communication, and who doesn’t love that? Conversely, punctuation can also be used intentionally with the purpose of ambiguation, often with fascinating outcomes.

However, there is something to be said for what can happen when mistakes are made. For example, how many accidents in the kitchen have produced something new and entirely wonderful? This is supposedly how we ended up with things like potato chips and Worcestershire sauce and ice cream cones, after all, and our world is decidedly a better place for those inventions. Similarly, when punctuation is overlooked or omitted, new turns of phrase can be born that deserve to exist if only for their novelty, similar to how autocorrect has provided so many inside jokes for so many people in the age of text messaging. One of my favorite examples of punctuation falling through the cracks was told to me by my platinum friend, Becca, one day when I arrived at her house. We had both baked that day, unbeknownst to the other, and greeted each other with gifts from our ovens. Hers for me was a packet of foil containing a most sublime confection: Hallelujah Cookies. This is their name now, given to them by Becca, who found the recipe below in a magazine and didn’t notice the colon in the first line.

Rules: we need them. They keep us safe and help us make sense of the world around us. They facilitate our ability to interact constructively with each other and exchange ideas in productive ways. They give us a language of regularity and structure. They often account for predictability, stability, and cooperation. But also! Rules: when we break them, sometimes, just look what beauty is engendered there! Bear witness; therein can exist a kind of revelation. Hallelujah.

P.S. Becca’s kids recommend adding chocolate chips to these. I have to say, as kids brought up on the kind of incredible food their parents produce, they know what’s good.

I’ve mentioned the volunteer tomatillos in the garden, the ones that grew from last year’s volunteers, sprung from the prior year’s intentional planting. That year I planned the garden based on what I was hoping the deer wouldn’t eat, as we didn’t have a fence around the backyard yet, and deer in our neighborhood are known for going to great lengths to lay waste to vegetable plots, even eating pumpkins off people’s porches and scaling our precipitous front steps to feast on my pots of pansies late one fall. So I planted tomatillos and garlic chives and all sorts of things I neither really wanted nor knew what do with if they grew, but the need to cultivate was so compelling that I went so far as to put mint in my raised beds (I laboriously learned the hard way how foolhardy that was).

What I haven’t mentioned is just how proprietary these tomatillos are. They’ve done their best to elbow out everything else by creating a sprawling, yellow-flowering web of entanglement, and they’re fruiting like mad. Last year I made a nice autumnal chicken stew with a bunch and begged my brother to take away the rest, but this year I just kept collecting them with no earthly idea of what I would do until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I also had a bowl of cherry tomatoes I’d picked almost too many days earlier sitting expectantly on the counter, so here’s how this ended:

Salsa Sorta Verde

1.5 lbs tomatillos, papery hulls removed
3/4 lb cherry tomatoes
1/2 a medium yellow onion
2-3 jalapeños (or serranos, etc.), seeds and ribs removed
4 large cloves garlic
1 large or 2 small limes’ worth of juice
salt

Halve tomatillos and toss with tomatoes and a little olive oil and place cut side down on baking sheets. Broil on high until skins begin to blister and char, 7-10 minutes. Roughly chop onion, peppers, and garlic. Once they’re cool enough, add tomatillos and tomatoes along with any juice they’ve released to a blender with all other ingredients and pulse until roughly smooth (or smoothly rough…whichever you prefer!). Season to taste.

We stirred about a cup of this into two cups of cooked couscous (3/4 c. dry Moroccan couscous added to one cup of boiling water with a chicken bouillon cube dissolved in it) and served it with shrimp, and my husband and I thought it was pretty great. It was also different, which was also pretty great. I’d suggest garnishing with avocado, a scoop of crème fraîche (or plain yogurt), and wedges of lime.

NB: This was too spicy for the children in my house. Well, it was too spicy for the one child who tried it, though he said he liked the flavor and requested that next time I cut the heat, so maybe I’ll add a bell pepper to that broiling pan as a substitute for the raw jalapeño next time the tomatillos overbear. Either way, I think I’ll serve it with a side of pizza because, well, kids. Also. Please wear gloves while working with hot peppers. I always forget, and each time I’m unpleasantly reminded of my mistake because we humans touch our faces WAY more than we’re even aware of. Just not in public anymore.

and my child is still alive.Taalkjx