Month: October 2014

My birthday is looming and yesterday morning I had a little  pity party for passing youth.  At first it felt like bereavement for my younger prettier and thinner self, then it turned into wistful wishing for a smarter or richer life. I wished I still had a mother to cry to,  and then I thought about  Oldself.

Oldself isn’t in the dictionary but I’m using it anyway.  It’s just the younger version of our true selves but it’s not the truth.  It’s the one we choose to remember.   Not the one who suffered the  agonies and anxieties and mistakes of growing up, but the one who was happy and colorful and carefree and glorious. Oldself had no bad days, except maybe the darkest ones but even those are edited.  Oldself is pretty and young and is running in slow motion through a field of daisies, rushing in for a  hug that will last a good long time.  She doesn’t have acne, or arguments, she’s so happy she doesn’t even have a Christmas Wish List.  Oldself is completely content.

My kids have bad days sometimes and I remember that it was a thing once, to have a bad day.   I guess with age and experience in relativity,  you realize that  bad days are seldom if ever entirely bad, and that bad moments happen, and soon pass.   When my kids are having those down days I’m sometimes at a loss to help them because I surely can’t fix everything.   I can hug them and listen to them and hope the rest fades away.  I can talk about how they’ll forget all this one day but they don’t understand.  They can’t.   They don’t have an oldself yet.

Today when I look in the mirror I don’t see a young pretty energetic girl.  I see someone  who is certain that wealth isn’t measured in dollars and happiness surely doesn’t come from a store.   That’s where oldself and myself align, as I expect it will for my kids one day. But oh, for now in this in between time it’s true that for my young daughters,  sometimes life will be a real bitch.

So I am saying thank you to Oldself for a birthday present called perspective.  Try putting that on a wish list and you’ll see what I mean about aging,  I hate getting older but I don’t mind being wiser.

Let’s talk about grapes for a minute, okay? They are tasty, fun, versatile, but not free.   Even so I do admit to having my own free sample grape taste now and again and yes I have allowed my kids to try a green AND a red grape before deciding on which grape would make the cut for that week. But now after 16 plus years in the supermarket with kids, I wonder just how many grapes I’ve sampled with, and without my children ? Should I run out and give the supermarket a check for one pound, maybe two? And do I offer that money on a day when they’re on sale or do I price gouge myself?

I googled this earlier and as I expected, opinions on the grape sample run the gamut from “of course it’s okay” to “you deserve jail time.” It’s a safe bet the grape police aren’t parents, and that the liberals are mostly exhausted parents of young children who think there should be a free grape buffet at the store’s entrance.

I’m somewhere in the middle of the great grape debate but in my perfect world there’s a store with goody bags of juice boxes and grapes for all  the hard working and tired moms who could do with a little less guilt.

But wherever you stand on the great grape debate, I encourage you to enjoy this recipe from Real Simple that requires grapes, but just a few…

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/couscous-salad-grapes-feta

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This dish was given six thumbs ups by my three daughters.  I’m not a food photographer so you have to trust me.

Before we start here are two tips I learned by failing twice.

First: heat the baking pan before you put the fish on it.  Just put the plain pan in the hot oven for about five minutes before you cook the fish because whether you use oil or a non-stick spray, the fish will crisp much better if the pan is already hot.

Second: use crinkle cut kettle chips for the best crunch.

You will need two or three shallow dishes for breading, one large Ziploc bag for crushing the potato chips, and one cookie sheet for baking.

Ingredients for 6 servings

1 1/2 pounds of tilapia (if you buy the frozen kind, make sure it’s defrosted)
3/4 cup flour in a shallow dish
1 egg & two egg whites – beaten and placed in a shallow dish
3 (or so) ounces of potato chips – put in a zip top bag and crush them

Step one – preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Step two – rinse and pat dry the fish.  Fish should be in reasonable sized pieces. I like cutting them into wide(ish) strips. 

You, or your kids can crush the potato chips by putting them in a zip lock bag and either bulldozing them with a rolling pin or a can, but my favorite method is to take turns hitting the chips (while in the bag) with the bottom of a frying pan.  Moms – you know your kids – they may need  a watchful eye here.

Step three – lay out the process by setting up your dips.

– dip fish in flour, coat both sides
– dip fish in egg, coat both sides
– dip in crushed chips, coat both sides (use a dish or just use the bag)
– place fish on foil covered serving platter  (Use the serving platter to hold fish before cooking, then remove the foil and you have a clean platter for the serving)

Spray the baking sheet with non-stick spray or brush lightly with oil and stick the pan in the hot oven for five minutes.  While the pan is heating up, clean up the mess from the prep.  Remove the heated pan, quickly arrange the fish leaving space in between the fillets for even cooking.  Put it back in the oven for ten minutes, turn the fish and put it in for 5 more. As an option, you can turn the oven to broil for a few minutes at the end to ensure crispiness.  Serve with a salad, a slaw, or steamed vegetables from your freezer.

enjoy!  (6 points plus per serving for the weight watcher fans!)