Sleepy Pete/ Baby Jamz

Today was such a gray day outside. Just cloudy, damp, and chilly; one of those days that you just want to stay in and watch movies, or binge a tv show, or read a book.. so thats what we did. Today was a nice easy day of reading cookbooks, watching cartoons, some easy baking (see: Lazy Tortilla Pizzas), and looking for music for Little Pete. It was such a nice day. Every day has ended up being wonderful with him, but theres some kind of warm magic that happens when you just get to spend a day at home, with no real errands or chores to do, and just relax and putz around with the family.

I had thought a lot about the first music I wanted to expose Pete to, and so far my hero Glenn Gould has taken the lead for our most-listened-to artist. He was a monster in the classical piano world; he was a walking encyclopedia of all the works of all great composers. I can't say enough about him, and at the same time I have a hard time finding words to express how ridiculous his accomplishments were. His body of work is insane, and he is a flawless performer.

As an employee of Starbucks, one of the nice benefits we have is a Spotify Premium account. I had taken this for granted, not really knowing much about all these music streaming services that were popping up, and let my premium account just sit there without me activating or using it for a while. One day I decided to see what the fuss was all about, and the first thing I did after activating it was to search out and see what they had to offer as far as Glenn Gould was concerned. I am not disappointed: they have an astounding amount of his music, and holy moley, it exactly what I want my small child to be hearing as he is developing. I've thrown together a huge playlist of Gould's recordings that we've been listening to as background music for everything. Now, the big question is: what should I show Pete next? Theres just so much... luckily, theres days worth of Glenn to play him, so I've got lots of time to figure it out.

                                Bea is the silliest, sweetest dog of all time. Really.

Lazy Tortilla Pizzas, Two Ways

I was looking through my sweet new cookbook, the classic The Way to Cook by Julia Child, and came upon a nice idea for a quick pizza without all the elbow grease that goes into preparing pizza dough without owning a standing mixer. I do love to make dough by hand, but the process needs to be started early in the day so that the dough has time to prove and rise. The book had the idea of using flour tortillas in place of the dough. I had exactly two tortillas left, so it was an experimentation day in Edens Kitchen (we live on Eden Street in a nice little town in Massachusetts).

I decided to do my two standby pizza recipes for this experimental crust; a nice plain cheese pizza for my wife Jess, and a sauceless spinach pizza for myself. The tortilla "crust" comes out so thin that these are perfect for personal pizzas. Cheese pizzas are pretty simple; besides the dough, all you need is any kind of tomato sauce and cheese. Mozzarella is the obvious must-have cheese for pizzas, and I like to add some shredded cheddar for extra flavor. We had some leftover garlic pasta sauce in the fridge so that worked great for the base; I've also got a few different varieties of spices mixes, and McCormick Italian works really great with pizza. Sprinkle a teaspoon or two on the sauce before you add the cheese. 

Next up, heres the recipe for one of my favorite pizzas. Its got no sauce, a bunch of great veggies, and so much tasty flavor:

Ta Da!

There he is! The golden boy himself. Everyone, meet Peter Alec, the tiny boy wonder who just turned a week old. He's a silly, small man who is content with just figuring out the basics right now: sleeping, letting his parents know that he has filled up his diaper, having people feed him.. he's already mastered half of whats on my resume, and he's doing a great job at it, too.

When we were still waiting to meet little Pete, I had a general sense of what I should expect from this whole "being a father" experience. I received a lot of advice, I checked out a bunch of books, I searched for answers to countless questions here on the internet, all in the hopes of piecing together some feeling I was chasing, some internal confidence and knowledge that I would be prepared to deal with raising a little person correctly.

Its been a great relief to find that once he arrived, the worries that accompanied the mystery of good parenthood took a back seat to realizing that living moment by moment with this brand new little boy and just being there with him would reveal most of the answers to my questions. Its been a joy to be with him and see what kind of funny things he will do next. He's really great at farting, which I was surprised he picked up so quickly; he has been smiling sporadically; and best of all, he's been making eye contact, and every day he seems to be able to focus and hold it a bit longer than he did the day before.

Well, I started writing this on Friday, and now it is Sunday evening (great win, Celtics!), and I feel like I'm taking too much time on how to word things and thinking too much, where I really just wanted this to be a place to share things, journal-style, that are happening day to day with a small boy in my life. I'll share stuff here so that I'm not constantly posting on my facebook page, because jeez louise is it hard restraining myself with the amount of great pictures I have of Pete and the rest of the family.

Thanks for checking this out, and I'll hopefully be posting often!

Chicken Teriyaki Wrap

I had some leftover teriyaki chicken in my fridge, and had the hankerin' for a tasty teriyaki wrap, so I threw this together and it hit the spot. Besides the homemade teriyaki sauce itself, this wrap is pretty simple and can be whipped up relatively fast; you can saute a chicken cutlet and use the sauce for flavor if you're tight on time, or if you are in a real pinch you can use some deli sliced chicken and it'll come out fine.

For the Sauce: you will need equal parts soy sauce and mirin (I used just 1/4 cup of each because I didn't need much), as well as a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger. Put all three ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until its reduced by half, and let cool.                  

Curiosity and Courage

After a week of cautiously sniffing at Petes feet, and getting more and more brave about the new little person that has suddenly been living with her, Bea finally gathered up her courage and said a proper hello to Pete. Man was it super sweet, her tail was wagging like crazy and she was jumping around the couch to sniff him from every angle she could. She's become a guard dog for him now; where ever he goes, she's nearby and in a position where she can keep an eye on him. Its really sweet, although she's getting a bit too bold and getting her paws and claws a little too close to our squishy little boy for my comfort.