5:00 Fridays

You know I like it hot.

And there's only one thing I like dirty.

My martinis.

I'm one stoked mama when I can have it hot and dirty.

You sweating yet? This is starting to get bit frisky.

I've proclaimed my love for Dirty Sue before. Dirty Sue has made a dirty martini snob out of me (like I needed more to be snobbish about). I don't dare order one at a bar anymore, what, with the barkeep's hands digging around the brine in the tray of olives that's set right out there for public consumption and all. No thanks.

I've decided to take a whirl at my own concoction to make my martinis the way my life's unfolding these days:


Hot and Dirty

3 ounces of Rain Organic Vodka
1/2 ounce Dirty Sue
splash of olive juice from Trader Joe's Jalapeno Stuffed Olives
2 Jalapeno stuffed olives (or 3, if you tend to be a bit piggish like me)


Fill your shaker with ice. Add liquid ingredients. Hum a little KC and the Sunshine Band and shake shake shake. Strain into a martini glass (I'm digging these.) and drop in a couple of those bad boy olives. Sip. And say ahhhhh.


Oh, and sadly, the only thing that's really hot are my flashes. As for the dirty, if you have two boys and a dog, you know what I'm talkin' about.

Sit mens sana in corpore sano

The Spartans believed in a healthy mind in a healthy body. Shouldn't we embrace that basic tenet as Americans?

Mushy brain in a mushy body is more like it.

Wordless Wednesday: Because All Superheroes Wear Their Underwear on the Outside

Michelle Obama's Let's Move Initiative and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack Have Me Fired Up

Tater tots, while funny in Napoleon Dynamite, are not the stuff of healthy lunches.

Green beans with no crunch and the slightly tinny taste of a can. I'll pass.

Cole slaw bathing in mayonnaise. Not the best way to dress the otherwise healthy cabbage.

Hot dogs full of nitrites, sodium, and um, meat parts perched in a bleached white bun. Gag.

Ketchup and french fries deemed vegetable servings. You've got to be kidding me.

Fruit cocktail in which the cherry is more the color of a mustang convertible than what grew on George Washington's tree. Gotta be FD&C Red #3 Erythrosine.

Chocolate milk. Strawberry milk. Soda vending machines. Looks like the Wiggles need to teach all youngsters to Gulp Gulp drink some water.

Such are the "healthy" options deemed appropriate for school lunches. The very institution that enriches our children's minds poisons their bellies. No matter how gifted the student, he'd be hard pressed to properly pronounce the ingredients and additives that comprise his lunch.

Propylene glycol.
Sodium nitrite.
High fructose corn syrup.
Monosodium glutamate.
Potassium bromate.
Butylated hydroxyanisole.
Butylated hydroxytoluene.

Sounds more like the chemistry lab than the school cafeteria. What a ghastly disservice to our kids. Some of those kids only get a "nutritious" meal at school. Some of those kids don't have produce drawers stocked with snap peas for munching and bowls of washed fruit within reach. While we're pumping our students' brains with reading, fractions, history, and the arts, shouldn't we add a healthy dollop of nutrition and activity? How many school districts do you know of that have reduced or all together axed their PE programs?

We as a nation of partisan bureaucratic greed mongers, choose to fail our children. This is not a byproduct of government snafus; this is a conscious choice. It's no cliche that children are indeed our future. Our future is starting to look bleak.

We see childhood obesity rise while test scores plummet. We sit back and nod our heads to news that for the first time a generation's life expectancy will be shorter than that before it. We cross our arms and ignore the rapidly rising rates of childhood diabetes. We are incredulous that children have high cholesterol. We wonder why health care costs soar to jaw dropping peaks.

Corn subsidies and continued policies that put the value of a buck over the value of a child are why we see such a drastic increase in childhood obesity. Look around, people. What you see ain't pretty. Chunky babies are cute; portly preteens not so much. While their bodies fail them their self-esteem gnaws away at their core. Eating disorders ensue. Yo yo dieting perpetuates health concerns. Broken self-esteem leads to grave insecurity and depression.

In the case of my childhood friend, poor eating literally lead her to the grave. Dead of anorexia at age 16. She battled weight her whole life, having been poked fun of as the chubby kid one too many times.

I was fortunate to participate in a conference call with Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. He shared his personal tale of childhood obesity and the indelible mark it left on his psyche. He shared his vision of keeping our children safe and well. We talked about Michelle Obama's initiative Let's Move and how she, as a shining paragon of health, can help shape our nation's food policies and school programs. Fingers crossed!

The goals of Let's Move are simple:

• Give parents the support they need.
• Provide healthier food in our schools.
• Help kids be more physically active.
• Make healthy food affordable.

Do I hear an AMEN?!

And while I find packing lunches the most tedious task in my nightly routine, it's the most important one. I might fail my sons in multiple ways, but through their bellies ain't one of 'em.


For more of my food rants and raves, check out:
Foodie Mama
GoAskMom

5:00 Fridays

Today's 5:00 Fridays is a guest post from one of my favorite bloggers. We haven't met (yet) in person, but I think I might squee and pee when I get to belly up to a bar with this fellow mama of boys. I imagine it will pan out a lot like when I met my lovely Caroline for the first time.

Meet Melissa, sweet Melissa. Green Girl in Wisconsin. Click over on that thar link and read some of her stuff. Then sign up for the RSS feed. She's a whole lot of awesomeness and smack talk.


When Ilina (and many, many other East Coast bloggers) wrote about their Snowmeggedon, I totally sympathized. After all, I live in Wisconsin, land of the Nanook, the Frozen Tundra, the legendary Ice Bowl. Ten inches of fluffy stuff to us is commonplace where everyone owns a parka, snow boots and tire chains. Between snowmobiles, skis, sleds and snow shoes, we make the most of winter here.

The time of year we hate here is early spring, when the temperatures warm up to 36 degrees--enough to turn pure white bountiful flakes into a slushy, dirty, sloppy mess. It coats our cars, it tracks into our houses and leaves charcoal-colored puddles on the floors. Children are resigned to playing around the puddles in their driveways. Snowmobile trails close, ski hills shut down, and while the rest of the country enjoys mild weather, we curse the ice floes clogging up our rivers and the mountains of gritty slush stubbornly blocking the storm sewers along the roads. We wait impatiently--staring out the windows at the gray landscape. Whether farmer, baseball player, teacher or fisherman, early spring is a cruel time.

Regardless of the calendar, whether it's a hot summer night, a blizzard or the slow thaw of spring, one cocktail brings a smile to the faces of people living in Northeast Wisconsin. The Dirty Snowball. A recipe developed and perfected at Cleo's Brown Beam Tavern, Dirty Snowballs are as potent as Long Island Iced Tea and more delicious than fudge brownies.

I told Theresa she needs this legendary recipe because soon all that snow will start to melt, leaving behind snowdrifts pockmarked by auto exhaust and gravel. When her two boys are outside chucking dirty snowballs at each other, she can stand at the window and watch--while tossing back her own Dirty Snowballs.

Dirty Snowball (the real recipe from Cleo's Brown Beam Tavern*)

1 shot vodka
1 shot dark creme de cacao
1 shot coffee liqueur
1 shot cream
ice

Blend to the consistency of slush.

*I searched the internet to find this recipe to no avail. Many other "Dirty Snowball" drinks exist, but they call for Bailey's and Mint Schnapps--NOT the same drink we toast and get toasted on in Northeast Wisconsin! I knew that Cleo's used vodka in this cocktail, so I went straight to the source and asked one of their bartenders. This, Ilina, is the real deal!

And further cause for celebration...

This year Cleo's Brown Beam Tavern turns 40 years old. Named both for the original owner and for the beams that stretch across the ceiling, Cleo's is known also for its crazy decor. The first Christmas after it opened, Cleo never took down the decorations. Since then, decorations from EVERY holiday have been added by patrons, making the interior truly unique and memorable. Name the holiday and tacky decor and you will find it somewhere inside Cleo's!

Wordless Wednesday: Melt

What's for Dinner

While I make a hearty home cooked meal (almost) every night, I'm often flying by the seat of my too tight pants. I find myself subbing walnuts for pine nuts or simply doing without ingredients because I didn't have my shopping shit together. My paltry pantry pinches my panties in a pickle. And there goes my culinary mojo. Down the drain with the grease (Kidding! Don't ever ever put grease down the drain, people!!!).

I've decided to try a new MO this week. I'm not committing to a WHOLE. YEAR. like a resolution or anything. I'm talking a lousy week here, folks. Not even all seven days; I'm just thinking about the six days that I'm usually flying solo and wondering who the hell granted me my motherhood license in the first place.

This week I'm planning my menu. For the whole week. I perused cookbooks, websites, my recipe box (yes, I have a splattered old recipe box), and the clipped magazine cutouts stuck to the only magnetic side of my smudged stainless steel fridge that is practically tucked behind the cabinetry and hard to access. Note to self: Must add those recipes to aforementioned box.

So here's how our menu is stacking up at Chez Dirt & Noise:

Sunday:
Proscuitto wrapped salmon with herbed lentils and spinach, roasted endive, balsamic marinated strawberries, bananas foster (Thank you, Jamie Oliver!)

Monday:
Baked chicken drumsticks with carrots, black olives, lemon, roasted parsnips, baked maple apples, cheesy garlic bread, ice cream (The boys chose Neopolitan.)

Tuesday:
Proscuitto and goat cheese risotto, spinach salad with craisins, walnuts, homemade dijon/orange vinaigrette (We don't do bottled dressing here. Why bother when the homemade stuff is oh so easy and exponentially more tasty?)

Wednesday:
Fish tacos with avocado and cabbage/cilantro slaw, chili/cumin corn, black beans

Thursday:
Tofu stir fry with broccoli and snow peas, brown rice, sliced pears

Friday:
Homemade pizza with whole wheat crust, raw sugar snap peas and apple slices (Finger food fun!)


I actually went to the grocery store on Sunday to stock up for the week. I normally go to the store or farmer's market 3-5 times a week, depending on what kitchen fantasy strikes me. My goal is not to cut down my shopping trips, but it would be a nice byproduct (particularly for Deal, who gets dragged from Trader Joe's to Costco to Kroger to Harris Teeter umpteen times a week). I simply want less frenzy in the witching hours when Bird is cranking out homework and Deal goes from Mr. Congeniality to Commander Crankypants. And, it seems, the dog rings the dang bell to pee 600 times whilst I make dinner. Lark's small bladder makes the risotto a risky proposition considering the constant attention and stirring that dish needs. Alas, I shall persevere.