"taste and have a think about it"

you've got to love a recipe that instructs you to pause and stick a spoon in whatever you're making. tonight owen and i baked these scrumptous butternut squash muffins we saw jamie whipping up on his new down-home-getting-dirty -in-the-garden -then-plonking-it-all-together -for-some-really-pukka -grub foodtv show. the show's a return to his pared down philosophy from nakedchef and so far so good-- we made the cupcakes for our picnic tomorrow at the irvine railroad and i confess to sneaking a taste after owen went to bed (just to be sure, of course, that it wasn't a horrid concotion of raw squash) and it was delish! the "frosty top" is a surprising must as the zest of fresh citrus (from n&p's little orchard out in riverside) and savory sweetness of the vanilla bean paired with sourcream really brings out the nutty, earthy flavors in the muffin. we'll see what the boys think tomorrow!

i took some fun video that i'm convinced will serve as future "bonus features" on the "in the kitchen with owen" dvd--the only real postitive outcome to dropping the camera in the ocean. i'm not quite sure how to upload clips yet--but imagine owen in the kitchen weighing chunks of "butter and squash" and going "zzzzt zzzzt" on the food proccessor and using measuring spoons to scoop batter into muffin cups all the time singing "we're making muffins! oh oh muffins! we're making muffins!" ( a respite from singing "row row row your boat" all day).

so today was a good day all around--the muffins were a reward for me and owen after a good work day (don't worry n&p i've saved some batter so we'll bake some fresh for thursday!). nana's been so awesome about keeping our tuesday/thursday dates and the consistent momentum has really helped with progress on the big D--i kind of made m. the deal that if he went off to work for a few weeks then i would work for a few weeks and we'd both be rewarded with family time. so i set my deadlines around his schedule and this next trip home i'm sending off what i have to my chair and moving on to the next chapter. anyway, not only does having a couple of days to plan around uninterrupted writing really help me actually write but it makes the time fly by. so when i'm not officially working i feel like my "job" then is to nurture owen and follow his lead in finding a little J-O-Y every day. i know, as m. used to say--it doesn't suck.

but the payoffs are good all around. this morning o. was looking for lego spencer lost in the garage and needed nana's help finding him--so he brought the lego box cutout with a picture of spencer and pointed to him. i guess he's discovered the inherent rewards in the "show me what you need" so after lunch he went and pulled an entire quart of pomegrante juice out of the fridge and brought it to nana in the living room. but the best part is that he's making a connection between sign language and communicating with those he loves--last night we watched signing time together and he was literally dancing on the couch doing the signs along with rachel and then said to me: "mama, i know ALL the signs!"