Life in Chicago

Recharging

One of my best friends is visiting from Los Angeles right now. We met over a decade ago when we were both waitresses at a trendy pan-Asian restaurant in Union Square. We've sustained our friendship through post-college break ups, moves to LA, parental deaths, more break ups, more moves, weddings, babies, more weddings, more babies, and every in between. 

The friendships I have with the women in my life nurture me like nothing else. For that, I'm so grateful.

Fire in the Hole! Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

Today's recipe comes to us courtesy of my friend Andrea Newberry who writes the excellent blog Forkable.

I thought it would be fun to partner with friends and fellow foodies now and then just to spice things up a bit. And man, does this recipe ever spice things up. Bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers that actually look relatively easy to accomplish.

Fire in the Hole! Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

I first met Andrea when I attended one of her fabulous Forkable dinner parties. Greg and I wrote about it here for She Wrote, He Wrote. In addition to throwing these underground dinner parties Andrea also writes the food blog Forkable which is always stocked with gorgeous recipes. Oh, and she's pregnant with her first baby -- something I now find very exciting to hear about a person, but would have once made me yawn.

Sharing this post got her thinking about the credibility of food bloggers, something we all should think about as we troll hungrily through the Internet for tasty recipes. Andrea writes:

One particular post I wrote got me into a bit of hot water with my sister. I was doing a post on a recipe she and her husband came up with. They knew I was doing it and we took pictures of the process but when I went to write it, I didn't give enough background information on the recipe, instead I just sort of talked about what it tasted like and posted the directions. 

My sister was mad about it, because I made it seem like it was my recipe. She wanted me to give credit where credit was due. Which of course is what I should have done in the first place. It was the mistake of a beginning blogger. I went back and rewrote it, giving her and my brother-in-law credit. I didn't do it intentionally, but my blog was still very young at the time, and I remember being extremely conscious of creating my credibility. I think I was hesitant in those days to mention where I got recipes, as if it would make the blog less mine.

It was a very stupid mistake because the exact opposite is true. We are all inspired and influenced by the people around us and we need to give credit to the people who help us out. 

So, here is that recipe for bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers. 

Fire in the Hole! Jalapeno Poppers

It was this very recipe that first got Andrea in trouble, but it's since been amended and has now become one of the most popular recipes on her site. Enjoy, and definitely take some time to browse through the Forkable site -- it's well worth it. 

--

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I Love My Friends (And Writing in Coffee Shops)

This is just a post to say that I love my friends.

The other day my friend Dina came over to check out the work we'd been doing on the nursery and before leaving we ended up standing by the stairwell, chatting idly. At one point she glanced down at our untidy pile of mail and the just-opened pair of Jean Straps sitting on top of it and said, "Oh, you got some jean straps? Those seem really cool."

"Oh, yeah, my friend Erin actually makes these and sent them to me," I replied.

"Wait," Dina said, "you KNOW the chick who created Jean Straps?"

"Yes, yes, I do," I replied, suddenly feeling cool.

Anyway, so Erin Healy, one of the creators of Jean Straps is a friend of mine from California and a couple of weeks ago she sent me a pair of said straps to check out and, oh how I love them.

Remember how this is the winter that's going to be different than all the other Chicago winters I've survived? How I got the perfect puffy coat and lots of travel plans, and did I mention that I found a pair of boots that I love? Well, I did, and I've been wearing them for like three months straight. And now, NOW, that I have the Jean Straps the picture is complete. Seriously, I feel like I can actually see the light lack of snow at the end of the tunnel. I think everyone should have a pair of these.

Anyway, back to my cool friends. I know Erin because her husband Rob and I volunteered through 826 in Houston with Hurricane Katrina survivors. It was an intense and amazing experience, the kind that makes someone you only spent 5 days with a friend for life, just because those five days were so harrowing and unforgettable and there are only a handful of people who shared them with you, thus ensuring that you have to know them for the rest of your life.

Rob was smart enough to convince Erin to marry him this past fall and I'm very happy for them. And for my snug jeans inside my boots.

The funny thing is that this is the second time in the last couple of months that Dina has said to me, "Wow, you know so-and-so?" Again, just writing that makes me feel cool. The first time she said this was when I mentioned that my new friend Ashley Alexander would be coming to our holiday party.

"Wait," Dina said, "you KNOW Ashley Alexander?"

"Yes, yes I do," suddenly feeling cool.

Ashley is an artist and Dina and her husband Alex actually have several of her prints in their home. Anyway, I met Ashley through a friend last year and she recently gifted us a beautiful print that we're going to hang in the nursery (if we EVER figure out a frame for it). She says it's because she enjoys reading my blog so much, but I can't really believe that any of these words are worthy of such a lovely present.

Anyway, I feel like this is the longest, craziest post I've written in a long time. The whole time I've been writing this I've been sitting in a coffee shop next to my friends Sandy and Sarah (again, cool people that make me feel cool because I know them) and the three of us have been unable to get concentrate because a ridiculous scene has been playing out at the table next to us involving a very sweet seeming, but very nerdy guy trying desperately to pick up a pretty cute redhead. Sandy, Sarah and I have been going back and forth about it all on gchat for the better part of the last 45 minutes -- and it's made laugh and, in a strange way, feel slightly happier and more carefree than I have in a while. Probably because I feel like I'm in middle school and not in a coffe shop, drastically late for work and the towering to-do list I have to complete today.

Anyway, off to work. Happy Thursday! Enjoy my scattered-sure-to-be-typo-riddled post.

Travel: A Lesson in Remembering What's Right Here at Home

My favorite part of traveling is how your life back home looks from afar.

Last weekend I took Veronica to visit my friend Holly and her family in West Virginia. I've known Holly since we were 15 and in high school in Atlanta. We subsequently lived in Los Angeles at the same time and have both since relocated to this strange swath of the country.

Holly was one of my first friends to get pregnant -- something I had a hard time with back then, for multiple reasons -- and she now has two beautiful children, a boy who is almost three and a girl who is almost five. Holly's husband is from West Virginia and they moved there after their daughter was born so that they could be close to his family while they navigated the challenges of new parenthood. I haven't seen much of her since then and it was so good to reconnect this past weekend.

I had never met her son and she had never met my daughter so it was extra-intense to combine our worlds in that way. When you've known someone for as long as I've known Holly it can definitely be strange to see your children interact. When I look back on the 15 year old version of us it's hard to imagine that we ever would have sustained ourselves and our friendship for this long, but suddenly we're looking at our daughters interacting with each other across the table. 

 

It was marvelous to revel in someone else's life for a few days. Holly and Kevin live a picture-perfect existence, like something out of a movie. Their kids are gorgeous, funny characters and they all live in this wonderfully comfortable and fantastically decorated old home up on a hill in a nice neighborhood. Holly is a photographer and Kevin works at the local TV station. The kids have never been babysat by anyone who wasn't family.

Every night before bed they all sit on the floor in Holly and Kevin's bedroom and hold hands and take turns saying what they're grateful for. And then a flurry of bath time, pajamas and stories ensues, culminating in a finally-finished and exhausted couple of parents tiptoeing down the stairs together to pour a glass of wine and catch up on their days.

Being there made me think about what we're all struggling towards, the goals and life aspirations we're all working so hard to attain. Because the funny thing is that for as perfect-seeming as Holly's life is to me, it's not the one she would have chosen for herself. She and Kevin are working hard to change things, to move forward onto a different path.

It made me think about me and Greg and how hard we are working right now to break free from our current situation. Every single day we put ferocious amounts of energy into changing our jobs, our finances, our writing careers, our love for each other and the little home we all share. Most of the time it doesn't feel like enough. We end a lot of days feeling frustrated and disheartened.

We don't recognize the perfection of what already is, often enough. The irony is that I know that one day we'll look back on our lives right now, probably from the very place we're working so hard to attain, and we'll see it as sweet and perfect, a time not fully appreciated for its beauty.

If I have a new year's resolution this year, it's that. To remember to revel in my own life even as I'm pushing forward.

--

How do you remember to stay present to your life? Any tips or rituals that help you do so?

Going Over the Waterfall

I was standing in the baby aisle at Target yesterday when a good friend called to tell me that she had taken a pregnancy test the night before. "Should I be buying you a present right now?" I whispered excitedly into the phone.

Turns out yes. She had taken two pregnancy tests the night before and they had both been positive. I began gushing excitedly in a hushed tone, setting down some bizarre gloworm-for-the-crib toy I'd been contemplating, and began wandering the aisles aimlessly while I talked.

I could hear the nervous excitement in her voice, the slight trepidation, and I was instantly transported back to that same time in my life. Just like my friend yesterday, Greg and I conceived the very first month we ever tried, or rather I should say the first month we stopped trying NOT to get pregnant. (There's a fine line there, but it's there.)

I remember approaching the date of my period with such a mix of emotions. I felt as though I would be crushed if I weren't pregnant and terrified if I was. On the way home from dinner with some of Greg's siblings one night I insisted we stop at the drugstore for a pregnancy test. My period was 3 or 4 days late, which wasn't too unusual, but I just felt strange.

Greg laughed at me, "You are so NOT pregnant," he scoffed. "We'll see," I replied, insisting that we stop. It was late when we got home, past ten and I went into the bathroom to take the test. "You're taking it right now?" Greg asked. I just nodded my head with a laugh, and closed the door behind me.

Before I'd even set the stick on the counter a little plus sign was bleeding into view in the plastic window. I remember this moment, this one moment alone in the bathroom, with the realization of what had happened, what was happening. And then I opened the door to look at the man I would raise a child with.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

"You are not," he said. "No, I am" I said, laughing, a mix of excitement and nervousness running through me.

It took a few days for it to sink in for Greg. Or maybe it took months, I don't know. It's always different for the woman since she actually feels it, because even though I was only a few days in my whole body felt differently.

And that was the beginning. That was 16 months ago, almost a year and a half. A lifetime. A baby. A gush, a birth, a girl named Veronica. That was the day we went over the waterfall.

As I stood there in Target yesterday, the phone pressed to my ear, I remembered all of this in one big rush. The tiny cracks in my friend's voice as she answered my questions, described the details, the excitement I felt for her, the knowing I had for where she is going. It was all so sweet and so real, and I was able to see the last year and a half in a perfect encapsulated bubble -- all that has changed, all that I have become, everything that we all go through as we tumble over the waterfall into parenthood, as we tumble into life as it moves so swiftly forward.

Congratulations, dear. I'm here. There are lots of us here.

Do you remember this moment too? Or the moment someone told you they were expecting? Do you have a waterfall moment in your life?

The Best Kind of Party

 

When I first started throwing parties in Los Angeles I was a bit of a control freak about it. I insisted on making everything myself, not letting my friends bring a drop of alcohol or a stitch of food. I delighted in planning out an entire party menu, perfectly tuned to my tastes and direction.

I carefully constructed the order of crudite and cheese platters, followed by passed hot hors d'oeurves and sparkling pitchers of Champagne punch designed to accentuate the palate I was working so hard to create. I whipped up homemade peppermint marshmallows to float atop cups of hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps. I had taco parties, lining up little bowls of everything you could ever want on a taco across the counter top, pitchers of homemade margaritas glistening on the end.

There were cupcake trees and deviled eggs platters, spinach puffs and deep-fried ravioli with dipping red sauce. I used to joke that I bought a new cooking accessory for every party. In 2004 I had 15 parties. Think about that. That's more than one a month. There were Easter parties, birthday parties, 4th of July parties, TV show parties, Halloween parties and on and on.

The Christmas Blahs

I'm feeling a little blah about the holidays this year.

Now, before you get all preachy with me and berate me for feeling blah when I'm healthy and employed and have a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby girl who will celebrate her first Christmas, let me just say I KNOW. And I already feel bad for feeling bad.

There's no real reason for my holiday blahs. I just don't feel very sparkly about it all.

It's a combination of a few things, I think. Mostly, I'm really missing my family this year, and I don't just mean my parents. This will be the third holiday season I've spent with the Boose family and while I'm very grateful for this and do enjoy going to Ohio (for any Booses reading this, please don't take it personally), I just miss feeling connected to my roots and my past during the holidays.

Giving Thanks

The holidays make me a little...a little...hmm, I'm not sure what the right adjective is. Edgy? Anxious? Sad? I'm not sure how to describe it. It's a less of a feeling of anxiety and more of a general tightness. I feel a swelling in my chest, a bracing against something, a fierce need to build up some strength in order to push through.

Years ago this bracing and building up was necessary to literally just make it through the holiday season without completely falling apart. Now it's more about building up strength in an effort to be able to enjoy it all. In years past enjoying the holidays wasn't even an option. It was more about making a grave effort not to spend them in a complete puddle of self-pity, despair and red wine.

After my mother died, the holidays just felt wrong. The first couple of years they were depressing things, me and my father sitting around in a haze of cigarette smoke, numbing glasses of cognac in our hands, the remains of my sad attempts to cook dinner cooling on the table. My mother had loved holidays, making each event as festive as possible, bringing excitement and warmth to everything she did. One year she stuck 4th of July sparklers in the turkey as she brought it out to the table, bright sparks cascading down around her as she made her entrance. She was like that. And when she was gone her absence was profound.

Slowly, I got better at cooking the meals and my Dad and I learned to invite over as many people as possible to join us. Things brightened. My favorite Thanksgivings took place in California, where a mish-mash of friends and family would come together to cook. Each year the meals got better but in the beginning they were pretty bad. There was the year that Holly and I decided to put a turkey breast and a ham in the same pan to conserve oven space. We laughed all evening because none of us could tell which tasted more like the other.

The last Thanksgiving that my father was alive was great. He'd been doing radiation treatments for a cancer that had grown in his mouth and his taste buds weren't quite what they used to be, but he enjoyed it all the same. Liz's chef husband Kyle made the turkey, Holly's sister Laura made a lovely spinach soup, Holly's husband Kevin made his yummy roasted garlic, buttermilk mashed potatoes, Holly made her grandmother's rolls, Liz made a sweet-potato casserole and I made macaroni and cheese. 

The year after that my father was gone, but Holly and I took on Thanksgiving ourselves. We got a big, hormone free bird from Whole Foods and spent the evening before drinking cocktails and prepping for the creamed corn, homemade cranberry sauce and chocolate pecan pies. That Thanksgiving we feasted with our friends on a meal that we were seriously proud of (even if I did spend a portion of that evening crying in the hallway of Holly's apartment building). We cooked Thanksgiving every year together after that, our friend Liz from Georgia joining into the mix and bringing her heavenly grits florentine recipe. I miss those cobbled-together, makeshift urban family holidays, even though, at the time, I missed my real family.

This year I'll be with the Booses for the third year in a row. I guess I should say that this year I'll be one of the Booses for the third year in a row. An evolution of Thanksgivings and holidays, each one different than the last. I have this perpetual (and tiresome) habit of always reminiscing on the past, something that forever hinders my present. I know that however I feel about this current sphere of holidays, I'll look back on them wistfully someday soon.

For now I wish everyone a warm and present holiday week, wherever you are.

The New Me, The Mom Me

 
It's a cold, rainy morning in Chicago and, as I write this, LA couldn't seem farther away. The wind is whistling around the house right now and the tree trunks are black from the wet. Rain drops are beaded up on the windows and wet leaves have plastered themselves against the glass.

I'm finally feeling recovered from my trip but it took a day or two. Traveling alone with a 5-month old was one of the more ambitious things I've ever set out to do, and it wasn't until I was actually there doing it, that I fully realized what I had gotten myself into.

The anxiety set in the moment I saw Greg pull away in the Honda. There I was standing in the middle of O'Hare, a suitcase in one hand, the stroller in another, completely alone with my daughter, on my way to spend three days in Los Angeles, catching up with a dozen friends, none of whom had yet to meet Veronica.

I've traveled alone countless times. I've trekked through the Philippines by myself, gone off to Taiwan, the Grenadines, Sicily and Switzerland, with no one alongside of me. And I'd certainly been to LA enough times. But this trip was different and the moment I found myself alone at the airport my heart began to pound.

Being responsible for another person, when that person is completely helpless, is a big job. I kept thinking about that exercise where they used to ask teenagers to carry around an egg for two weeks, making sure not to break it, in the hopes of giving them a taste of what it might be like to have a baby. And it's true. Imagine trying to navigate the mess that is the airport, while trying carefully not to drop an egg.

Or upset the egg. Because if you do then it's just you standing there in middle of the busy airport with a screaming egg, er baby. And your husband isn't with you so when everyone turns to give you the death stare, it's just you that they give it to. And then you skulk away into the family bathroom, trying desperately to calm your little egg who just doesn't want to be in her stroller, all the while trying not to touch anything so that neither of you contract any kind of fatal airport illness.

I digress. Everything went swimmingly until I got on the plane. And even then, it wasn't so bad. It was just that out of a four and a half hour flight she only slept for 30 minutes. I spent the majority those four hours doing my best to keep her happy, which mostly involved standing in the back of the plane by the bathrooms so that she could make faces at the stewardesses who popped back and forth. This activity coupled really well with my general fear of flying.

As we finally touched down in Los Angeles I was filled, not with relief, but a new anxiety, one that I had not anticipated at all. I suddenly found myself worried that all my old friends in LA, particularly those without children, wouldn't like the new me, the mom me. 

This realization came out of nowhere. Ever since I'd bought these tickets to California I'd been nothing but looking forward to catching up with my friends and showing off my funny little girl. But it suddenly struck me, as I made my way through LAX with my suitcase and stroller and baby and diaper bag that this was not the Claire my friends were used to. Would they like the new me?

Of course they would, I reassured myself. My friends are my friends for good reason. They're wonderful, caring, and thoughtful people and they genuinely didn't seem to mind at all when we had to spend 20 minutes in the parking garage trying to figure out how to fit the stroller, car seat, luggage and baby into a Mini Cooper with three passengers.

But man, I minded! I felt so self-conscious. I couldn't help apologizing over and over, soothing Veronica in between sorrys, and all the while trying to act calm and helpful when all I wanted was to chuck the stroller into nearby traffic.

And so the trip went. I caught up with at least a dozen dear friends in two days, all the while trying to act cool and collected as I strapped V to my chest in the Bjorn or collapsed the stroller  into the trunk of a friend's convertible. Oh no, I'm fine! I do this all the time! Just give me one sec...

By the third and final night of the trip I was utterly exhausted and broke down crying in the parking lot of a restaurant as I tried to walk Veronica around in an attempt to calm her down while my friends sat inside eating dinner.

Being a mom is hard. It's hard because it requires absolutely ALL of you to do it properly. There's no slacking. There's no extra glass of wine or impromptu nap. There's no chance to blow-dry your hair, not when it means you might wake up the baby whom you desperately want to get some sleep because you've dragged her all the way across the country for three short days.

After three days of devoting all of my time to making sure that my daughter was getting absolutely every thing she needed (sleep, sustenance, sun protection, diaper changes, safety, smiles and love), what I had left in me was devoted to being present to my friends, to wanting to genuinely catch up on their lives. But nodding and asking about their writing projects and marriages and jobs while bouncy a fussy baby on my hip just left me feeling breathless and overwhelmed and insecure.

So far, motherhood has been one big lesson in finding balance and being present. On the flight back, as V finally slept blissfully in my arms for a solid two hours, I rested my cheek against her soft little head and knew that even though my life has changed painfully, dramatically, irrevocably, I wouldn't give up a second of what I've had with her to have any of the old life back.

Ebb and Flow

Last night our friends Kate and Tarek came over to babysit while Greg and I went to the movies. It was lovely to walk to the square with Greg, holding hands, and not thinking about V for a couple of hours. We saw 500 Days of Summer, which we both loved.

One of the main characters works as a writer for a greeting card company and at one point in the film he makes a sarcastic joke about a "new baby" card he could write. "Congrats on the new baby! Guess that's it for hanging out," he quips. I sighed with the truth of that statement.

I continue to be amazed at how much having a baby has changed our relationship to everyone in our lives. While it's certainly made us closer to friends who already have babies -- they've welcomed us into this giant club with smirks and advice and slaps on the back -- it's really drawn us farther apart from our friends who don't have kids yet.

It's inevitable, I suppose. For as much as none of us want it to be so, we simply can't hang out the way we used to. Everything we do has to be baby-friendly, ruling out bars and movies and concerts. Not to mention that we're going to bed pretty early these days in an effort not to overextend ourselves and keep a calm household.

It was interesting to come home to V last night after the movie. Kate and Tarek were a little frazzled and had just gotten a good three-hour taste of what our last 2 months have been like. I believe Kate ascribed the phrase "Chinese water torture" to the way Veronica will fuss endlessly unless you are standing up and walking around with her. No sitting down for any of us. We explained how we often watch TV standing up, how Greg listens to podcasts on his ipod as he walks V around the house trying to get her to fall asleep, and how we almost never get to eat a meal at the same time. All of which are things that made me cry a lot in those first few weeks, but that I've now gotten quite used to.

"I'm not ready," Tarek said, shaking his head and looking a little harried. "Neither are we!" I replied.

We were both glad that our friends on the other side got to see first-hand how much our lives had changed. And we really appreciated their time babysitting. Hopefully, they aren't too scared to do it again!