A few days back, the New York Times ran an article about those moms' night out dinner assembly places, like Dream Dinners and its siblings.

Wow. I'm going to need a few days to process this one. There's so much tied up in discussing the family dinner table that it's impossible to talk only about the meals that might be served there. The economy, gender politics, raising children, our educational system(s) and so much more come along for the ride. And what a wild ride it can be.

Yeah, this one's going to take me a bit. In the meantime, I'm getting back to work on that canning tutorial - shouldn't be more than a day or two now. No, really!

Much of my free (ha!) time this week is being spent preparing for a dinner party scheduled for this Saturday. I'm making dinner for eight adults and seven children to settle up on a bet that I lost - a bet I had no business making but one in which winning or losing wasn't so much a big deal because it was merely a matter of making dinner for friends or eating dinner cooked by someone else with friends. "Losing" isn't so much a concern with stuff like that, is it?

I didn't trouble too much with the menu. Although this crowd doesn't make many demands in the way of dietary restrictions, religious, moral, health or otherwise, they have definite opinions about food. Some are more adventurous than others, some can't fathom a meal without meat, others don't want anything that might be defined as "fancy" and still others find that a week without a five-star meal is like a week without sunshine. So you can see where the planning might have become complicated.

I fiddled around for a while with ideas about flank steaks and risotto but cast that idea aside as being too fussy, too much last minute activity (all that stirring) that would prevent me from enjoying my friends. Next I considered pot roast, but there's not much celebratory about pot roast - as delicious as it most definitely is. Roasted chickens, while I adore them, seemed pedestrian and nothing about lasagna excited me, either.

I picked up, and set back down, cookbook after cookbook. Mediterranean? No. Indian? No. Tapas? No. Nothing hit quite the right note but, just as I was beginning to despair of settling on a really nice meal for my friends, one that didn't try too hard nor was slapdash, I lit upon The Williamsburg Cookbook, a book I had forgotten I owned. Perfect! And as soon as I read the short essay about country ham, I knew I had my answer.

Ham is one of the traditional meats of the Easter season. It is at once celebratory, hearty, elegant and simple, and a wonderful cornerstone to a spring feast. Once I settled on ham, the rest of the menu fell into place very quickly. So far (i.e., subject to change, depending upon my time and mood) come this Saturday night we will be eating:

Nibbles: spicy roasted nuts, olive balls, vodka marinated tomatoes

Firsts: Spinach tart

Soup: Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk, with shortbread crouton

Salad: Composed Salad of greens, red onion, capers, Mandarin oranges, tarragon vinaigrette

Sorbet: Rosemary butternut squash

Mains: Ham, scalloped potatoes, garlic kale

Dessert: Flourless chocolate cake with raspberry coulis* and crystalized ginger

Wines and drinkables will be provided by another bet-losing friend, and will likely consist of Prosecco and Gewurztraminer. I like the idea of a little liquor afterwards, but who knows? Coffee, certainly.

* Otherwise known in this house as "jam that didn't set up."

Let's tie up some loose ends tonight.

1) Julia has asked for a tutorial on how to begin canning, something I am delighted to provide and upon which I am working feverishly. When Julia made the request her week had been, shall we say, difficult but things are looking up and I, for one, cannot think of a better way to be one with the looking up than to discuss the finer points of jar lifters. Stay tuned, you little minx.

2) Recently I mentioned the unlikely possibility of getting my hands on black currents and the fact that I had never seen salsify, let along cooked one. Well, shut me up because the other night Brainiac and I went to dinner at a lovely BYO not far from us and found on the menu both black currents and salsify, the latter of which I enjoyed immensely in a pureed form. So there you go.

3) I remembered what it was I forgot when I made my canning list for the year - mushroom ketchup and pickled mushrooms (the recipe actually calls them "marinated mushrooms" but let's call a spade a spade, o.k.?). I am so psyched about the ketcup, just thinking about that dense mushroomy flavor makes me imagine eating a good amount with a thick rare steak, single malt scotch and maybe a little dense chocolate for dessert. All those strong, assertive things all at once - decadent!

O.K., that's all for now. It's only 10:30p but I am feeling very weary for some reason. Maybe it's the glass of red wine I've been nursing for the last hour, maybe it's Entropy Girl's newly rediscovered enthusiasm for not sleeping through the night. Whatever the reason, this girl's going to bed. Night all!

Because I am always more ambitious than than my time, money or ability really allows for I've decided to start on my lists of things I want to grow and/or can this year. I never grow enough to supply my canning needs and this year I've missed seed started (although I've never been that good at it) because of the move and will be back to containers, a gardening medium with which I've had mixed results in the past. So, as with all of my ambitions, the bottom line is "we shall see". With that in mind:

Stuff to Grow:

1) Tomatoes - roma, amish paste, sungold or some other pear/cherry variety

2) Radishes

3) Mesclun

4) Zucchini and summer squash

5) Some kind of pole bean

6) Herbs: basil, cilantro, dill, chives, rosemary (can I overwinter successfully this year?), lavender (ditto), scented geraniums (ditto ditto)

7) Cukes - for eating, not pickling

8) What else? I feel like I'm forgetting something

Stuff to Can:

1) Pineapple jam

2) Mango jam

3) Cherry sauce/syrup

4) Diced tomatoes

5) Tomato sauce

6) Tomatilla salsa

7) Pickled veggies: beans and cukes

8) Chocolate sauce

9) Blueberry marmalade

10) Peach dice

11) Applesauce

12) Spiced apples or apple pie filling

13) Again, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Hmmmm.....

Suddenly, I feel very tired.

I've been reading again.

This evening I paged through Amanda Hesser's The Cook and the Gardner (I supposed I ought to do a proper citation but I'm not going to - it is late, I am tired and anyway Amazon has already done it). Amanda Hesser has a lot of snark thrown her way, which I'm not sure she deserves. I think she accomplished a lot in a competitive field at a young age and also comes across as rather unnecessarily pedantic and rigid in her writing (I hope to God that you can't really tell what someone is like through their writing, else my personality is not only run-on but also full of typos), a deadly combination for those who love nothing more than to tear down a tall poppy, as it were. But I like her and I think she's clever and creative and, unlike some well-known food industry people, I wouldn't be at all shy about having her to dinner. If she didn't like something I was doing I would just say, "Well then, Amanda, the kitchen's right there. Have at it!" She'd probably have a good time and either way I win.

I was unsure of The Cook and the Gardner because it is very, very thick and full of all kinds of things that I will never cook. I cannot, ever, make rabbit anything - as much as I might enjoy it - for my family because Brainiac had a pet rabbit in his youth and remains unrepentently sentimental about them. I will never cook a goose (although I could be talked into a duck), and I've never actually seen salsify or any of maybe a score of other vegetable featured in the book. But I was surprised by the preserving recipes, for jellies and jams, pickles and spirits. There are a couple recipes I will be noting before the book has to go back to the library, among them one for cassis (where I'm going to get black currents I couldn't tell you, but I want to be ready just in case) and another for a garlic green bean pickle that's sufficiently different from my own that I'm very intrigued. I need to make a list on the sidebar of this season's canning plans, but for now you can add Amanda Hesser's pickled green beans to the plum jam I've already mentioned.

In more book news, the same library visit that awarded me with The Cook and the Gardner also resulted in me bringing home two kids' books, From Fruit to Jam and From Fruit to Jelly. Despite the remarkably similar titles these books are not, in fact, from the same series - although each series has books with titles like From Metal to Airplane and From Idea to Book.

The first of the books, the Jam one, has lovely little 70s-era drawings showing a man and a woman visiting a farm to pick fruit and making jam in their own little kitchen. Part of the text is outdated - you just don't see preserving skin all that much anymore - but as a whole the book is charming and quite accurate. I can imagine a child reading the book might be inspired to ask a nearby grown-up to make jam right away.

The Jelly book, published in 2004, is an entirely different affair. In the illustrating photos, a large machine drives between rows of plum trees and the jelly is made in a small factory. The procedural steps are accurate as described - fruit is crushed and the resulting juice is heated with sugar and pectin to make jelly. Fair enough. I'm sad, though, that the heating step is described as necessary to kill the germs lurking in the pot (which could "make people sick") and that the final product is packed into boxes so trucks can take it to stores. No where is there even a hint that one might be able to cut out the packing and truck business altogether. Then again, who would want to make their own jelly when doing so requires braving contact yucky germs and avoiding large farm machinery and those huge vats of boiling liquid. Much safer just to hit the store and buy an already prepared jar thoughtfully delivered by the nice people in the truck. The glossary in the back of the book contains five terms, two of them are "germs" and "factory".

I'll give you two guesses which book I've read to the kids this week and which book went right back into the library tote for a speedy return.

Things Brainiac gave me today:

1) A cord for our new (to us, from Craigslist) dryer

2) Reimbursement checks for our moving expenses

3) A dozen red roses

Things I gave Brainiac today:

1) A paid trash hauling bill

2) Uh...

Hm.

Onward. A friend of mine recently made some mention of my "mommy blog" in an e-mail he sent to mutual acquaintances. I know I'm late to the party on the whole controversy here, but I have to say that the phrase felt like an insult, a smackdown designed to make me feel as small and insignificant as possible. And it pissed me off.

When a blogging man writes about his fantasy football league is he a "would-be jock blogger", I want to know. Is his blog transformed into a eroto-blog when he shares his dreams of cavorting with whoever is on this month's lingerie catalog? Or maybe he's just another MBAlogger when details of his latest business plan hit the screen? Or why, if he hasn't declared his blog about any of these exclusively would we impose such a designation upon him? We wouldn't, because men are allowed to have multi-faceted lives and I'm pretty sure even Laid-Off Dad was never accused of having a "daddy blog". He's just called funny.

It's true that I write about my kids. And my husband. And my house. And canning and crafts and cooking and shopping and work and school and clients and friends and travel and politics and media and religion and reading and movies and business plans and recipes and health and...I don't know, have I left anything out? Oh, sewing. I forgot about sewing.

I love being a mom and I love being called a mom, or mommy, or mama - even by people I don't parent. I find it charming when someone holds the door for me and the kids saying with a smile, "How you doing today, mom?" But when such an emotionally loaded word becomes dismissive and serves as cause for removing my words from the realm of serious consideration for no other reason than I share my life with two young lives well, that just plain sucks.

Brainiac and I have a long-standing agreement to not spend a great deal of money without first discussing the expenditure together. We've never really defined the amount above which "a great deal of money" kicks in, preferring to let the context of the purchases inform the designation. And, even allowing for the time when he bought a new car, telling me after financially committed, this arrangement was worked out beautifully.

Seeing as the Boy Wonder is half-way to turning six, I (rather unilaterally) decided that it would be time for him this summer to enjoy a bit of day camp. I have fond memories of Camp Fire from back in the day when there were Camp Fire Girls instead of the more current Camp Fire Kids and, well, I figured that camp is just one of those things that kids do and that it was time to step up and get with the parenting program. So I located a respected local camp-provider (truthfully, Philly is a summer-camping kind of place and there are literally hundreds of options, not to mention several periodicals and at least two tradeshow-type expos to help parents choose the "right summer camp match") and was delighted to see that they offered both golf and science programs. Golf and science are two of the Boy's current obsessions and after affirming his interest in attending and establishing fees nearing $500 for three weeks of camp I took the matter to Brainiac, in observance of the "great deal of money" clause.

In theory, Brainiac thought camp was a delightful idea. Although he had a couple forays into Boy Scout camp in his youth, camps devoted to specialized interests (as opposed to general cavorting in the woods) are a little beyond his ken and I give him full points for being open to the idea. When I laid the sticker price on him, well, let's just say his enthusiasm dimmed. And although he didn't immediately verbalize it, I am sure that he really, really, wanted to say, "no". But he didn't, and instead listened to my well-reasoned arguments about a lifetime of memories, increasing skill sets, independence and differentiation from parents and on and on. "Fine," he said through gritted teeth, "fine. At least we won't have fees for art class or swim lessons in the summer."

Ahem. Well, then. Do you think now is a good time to tell him or should I wait until the camp check clears?

All I can say is, "yikes!" Off to buy a shredder now.

Chase does a silly, silly thing, IMO.

Sometimes when I'm falling asleep I compose extremely articulate, well-reasoned and impassioned blog entries in my head. In these midnight compositions, I am extraordinarily logical, precise, and able to express myself with astonishing wit. Then I fall asleep, forget whatever it was that I was thinking that impressed me so much. That's one reason why my entries here can sometimes seem a little scattered. Because they are. And also because I type and delete, type and delete, type and delete until I end up with a hodgepodge of connected yet oddly disparate thoughts for which I may not have made sure that all the tenses and verb endings match.

This is another of those times. There have been many topics lately about which I'd like to say a word or two but lately sitting down in front of the computer drains me of virtually half of my IQ. So instead of a full entry expressing any one thought, I will share a whole bunch of random thoughts with you. Listing them out will mean less tense matching and that can only be a good thing as far as my composition skills are concerned.

1) What is up with Terry Gross? I know I've written about this before, but is there anyone out there but me who has trouble following her sometimes? Tonight I listened to a replay of an interview with an actor I've never heard of (fair enough, I'm quite open about the fact that I never know any of the people over whom everyone else is gaga, actor-wise) and she was asking these questions that just kept going round and round and round with all kinds of non-sequitors and tangents and blah blah blah. Sometimes they finished with a "where are you from" which made me wonder why she just couldn't ask that in the first place and other times she finished talking and there was an awkward pause as if the guy was really had absolutely no idea what on earth he was supposed to say. Lately I've been tuning in just to see if she'll let me down in the meandering-to-the-point department and she never does.

2) I would be among the happiest women in the universe if I could impress upon all and sundry that, sometimes (just sometimes), Mapquest, Rand McNally or msn or yahoo or whatever mapping system you're carrying around in your phone/car/GPS/whatnot, is not always correct. In Charlottesville, our house was not mapped and no driving directions were available from any of these sources, although our driveway did appear in the satellite shots. Our current house likewise is not mapped correctly - entering our street address will result in the offer of an "alternative" location that is actually almost two miles away, on the other side of two major arteries. Knowing this as I do, last week I e-mailed five families thorough and very clear directions to our place so that they could find their way to a Friday morning gathering. I even included the warning "please do not rely on mapquest, msn or other directions system - directions to our house are incorrect and will put you in another town several miles away". What do you think happened? I spent a great deal of time on the phone Friday morning coaching people to put down their printouts from whatever service and listen to what I was telling them.

"Yes, yes, I understand that you were directed to take a right. However, you must take a left. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I know that's what the Internet said. Yes, exactly, that is strange. Still, would you mind terribly taking a left from where you are right at this moment? Yes, I'm sure that the remainder of the directions are incorrect as well. Yes, I have experienced this. Yes, I know how frustrated you must be."

And so on. Most of us know that we cannot always believe what we read in periodicals and know to exercise all kinds of restraint of endorsement in the area of broadcast media, so why is it so hard to convince people that every now and again the Internet is wrong?

3) I would swear that Catherine Zeta-Jones used to be older than me. Then we were the same age. Now she's younger than me. I find this odd. You?

4) I am having a terrible time finding unscented dark red pillar candles. They're always Cinnamon or Exotica or Cherry Berry but never just regular old red candles. I asked the Pier 1 lady where she recommended I might look and she said, "Nowhere, if it's not Christmas." Charming, don't you think. I'm going to have to make a point of spending lots more money there. Not.

5) I'm reading MaryJane Butter's, ahem, Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook and don't think much of it, but I will say this: I am so making plum butter this summer.

6) I am a little embarrassed about how much time I spend worring about women whose blogs I read but whom I have never actually met in person. If someone lets, say, five days pass between posts I get a little panicky on her behalf (for some reason, I don't read any blogs written by men, at least not on a regular basis). I know from my own experience that sometimes blogging just gets away from you and goodness knows I'm not all that great about connecting the threads from one post to the next but when I'm all anxious to hear if someone got into grad school, has become pregnant, sold her house, kicked out her partner or whatever I just get a little jumpy, you know?

Today was a lovely day which we celebrated by taking the kids to the park and then shopping for new cell phones. What did you do?

Now that my canning kettle has been found I'm becoming anxious to get to work on something. The pineapple jam is a possibility and I continue to work on the recipe. This time of year is tricky, though. Not much of anything is in season and although I've never thought of such a comparison before, I wonder if what I'm feeling isn't akin to what avid gardners feel when everything is cold and gray and those first seed catalogs arrive in the mail. I've got a kettle, I've got jars (Lord, have I got jars), I've got pectin and vinegar and everything else I need but what I don't really have is something with which to actually use it all. I'd better work out that pineapple recipe quickly because the last time I felt this antsy I got pregnant and I don't even want to flirt with such a thing again. No, much better to work on the hobbies I think.

I observed the other day that moms about and around where I am now living are fancy. Much fancier than in, say, Charlottesville. There, most of the moms were of the jeans and sweater variety and my usual workaday wardrobe blended just fine. Here (and "here" is more or less the Main Line of suburbs west of Philadelphia), dropping off at art class or playing with the train table at the local bookstore requires high-heeled boots or pointy toed shoes, lots of jewelry, a blow-out, full make-up, and goodness knows what labels lurking beneath the cashmere. The moms I've met have been friendly enough and no one seems to have looked twice at my usuals but I swear I haven't felt this much peer pressure since middle school. Today I dressed to deliver the Boy Wonder to his art lesson, changing out of my jeans and into a pair of black crepe pants, pumps and a boiled wool jacket. The other day before leaving the house on an errand with the whole family, I changed into a long black skirt, periwinkle stretch tee and a new black knit jacket with rounded collar. Brainiac watched me walk down the stairs and said, "Wow, honey, you look really nice." Since I can count on one hand the number of times he's paid me this particular compliment (he's not an ogre, he just usually says other nice things) I realized that maybe I had let things go just a bit far in the casualness department. And, I felt really, really good in these outfits - comfortable and decidedly unslovenly.

So, fancy. Or, rather, fancier than I've been for the last, oh, forever. I may not have much in the way of jewelry and blow-outs, but I guess it won't kill me to spiffy up a bit.