it’s just part of what makes me…um…me.

Here are McPolish we love food.

Have you noticed?

We love everything about food: making it, looking at it, reading about it, taking pictures of it, eating it, giving it to other people to eat, shopping for it, smelling it, touching it, talking about it obsessively at inappropriate moments.

And by we I mean me.

I. Am. McPolish!

And I. Love. Macaroni and Cheese!

Even the kind from the box.

With hot dogs.

 

I tried to be classy once.

 

 

It didn’t take.

 

I can’t really explain why I love the stuff from the box so much. I’ve had better. Much better. I’ve had ooey, gooey, deliciously cheesarifically better mac’n’cheese. Exquisite dishes made with creamy goat cheese or sharp white cheddars. Rotund noodles with crevices dripping with muenster or Colby jack. And this boxed stuff? I should be sick of it, having eaten it just about every Monday night for years on end while my mom was in grad school, the dinner duties left up to my oldest sister. Endless Monday nights of the same thing: hot dogs, boxed macaroni and cheese, and fruit cocktail, making sure that everyone got one cherry in her fruit dish. Because the cherries were the best part of the fruit cocktail.

Logically, I’ve eaten so much of it over the course of my lifetime that it should make me want to yarf in my mouth a little.

But it doesn’t.

It makes me happy.

So does the good stuff.

I guess I’m just not all that particular, when it comes to mac’n’cheese.

But so you know that I do have some taste in me, now would probably be a good time to share with you my new favorite homemade mac’n’cheese recipe. What I like about this recipe is that it doesn’t have any of those stupid breadcrumbs on top. Breadcrumbs are the one thing about homemade mac’n’cheese that I don’t like. If you put breadcrumbs on top, you are ruining your mac’n’cheese, ruining it, I say.

This recipe comes to me from my friend Coco, who is one of The Allison Girls. The Allison Girls are friends of the family who we have known since forever. Which is a really, really, REALLY long time. In essence, they are simply extensions of my own sisters, which means when we all get together there are nine girls running around squawking and singing show tunes, 11 if you count moms, too, though they don’t really sing. My dad and Mr. Allison just sort of wander off into any other room that is empty and quiet to sit in silence and hope to God none of us finds them. Coco made this at our Christmas gathering a couple years ago, and I think it is simply delicious. She says it’s a Paula Deen recipe that she doctored up a smidge, and God Bless Coco for it. Her are her directions as emailed to me:

4 cups cooked elbow macaroni (1 box cooked is usually about right)

2 cups grated cheddar

1 cup grated Muenster (I usually buy a block and grate it myself – I don’t really measure since it’s cheese and you can never have too much in my eyes)

3 eggs, beaten

½ cup sour cream

4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Once you have the macaroni cooked and drained, place in a large bowl and while still hot add the cheddar. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients (except Muenster) and add to the macaroni mixture. Pour macaroni mixture into a casserole dish and top with Muenster. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

YUM!

Coco

And it really is so very YUM. Don’t believe me? Are you kidding? THIS doesn’t look YUM! ?

 

 

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

YUM!

 

 

 

 

lurv

I find my friend JMac very inspirational. Not only is does she inspire me to be more organized, but she also inspires me to get nifty gadgets that make my heart sing in the kitchen. I look up to her for this reason. Actually, that’s a lie. She’s shorter than me, so technically I look down on her. But inspirationally I look up to her.

Whatever.

You know what I mean.

Anyshoes, have I ever told you how much I love olive oil? I love olive oil. There is nothing I don’t love about olive oil. It smells good. It feels good. It tastes like heaven. It comes in both large and small quantities, and I usually buy the large quantities because I love olive oil. And I tend to blow through even the large quantities pretty quickly.

And yet.

Those large quantities: so unruly. Part of why I blow through olive oil so quickly is probably because I get all sorts of excited over olive oil that when I’m cooking with it (and not measuring how much I’m using. Who measures?) I tend to throw some in. And then maybe a little more. And then sometimes a smidge more. And it just flows with that lovely glug sound out of the unwieldy bottle. And then poof! It’s gone. And I have to make another trip to the Safeway for another bottle of olive oil and everyone in the store is staring at me like, “For serious? You’re out of olive oil AGAIN? You’re going too turn into an olive. I think your pit is already showing.”

So, inspired by my friend JMac’s recent purchase (see? Full! Circle!) of a handy dandy olive oil bottle with pour spout, I bought one too. (Yes, of course I bought it at World Market. This is not a question.)

 

 

And I am lurving it. Much less excess olive oil in my cooking. No awesome deep glug sound, but it does have a lilting, feminine ploop stream sound. (What?) I didn’t think it was possible, but using this olive oil bottle has increased my love of olive oil. I feel like olive oil possibilities are endless. Even endlesser than before.

And don’t even get me started on flavored olive oils.

Too late.

 

Back in August, we threw a baby shower for Sister #1, and as a thank you gift to me she gave me a bottle of blood orange olive oil and a bottle of white peach balsamic vinegar.

 

It’s like she knows the true joys of my heart.

 

I’ve paced myself using these delicate, flavorful oils, savoring them in each dish. I like the olive oil best – so far – when a little is used to sauté some veggies and toss them with pasta. And when you add in some chicken that’s been marinated in a bit of the white peach balsamic.

Just a suggestion.

Sigh.

Aren’t they all just so pretty to look at?

 

Flavored oil and vinegar from Olive &Well in Oak Park, IL. www.oliveandwell.com

 

neat

Inspired by my friend JMac’s recent cleaning and organizational frenzy, I took it upon myself to neaten up my own apartment. Cleaning products were sprayed and swiped, magazines were corralled, shelves were even dusted.

I know.

I can hardly believe it myself.

I hate dusting.

Truth be told, I only really dusted two things – one set of shelves and my wine bar. The other set of shelves still bears my full name written in curlicue script in the filmy gray layer. Because I am so fancy.

The one area I can truly be proud of, however, is underneath my bathroom sink. Have you ever taken a look under there? Yeesh. You are probably much more organized and together than I will ever hope to be, so don’t be afraid when I show you the mess that lurked beneath:

It was amazing what I found in that cabinet: pens, random plastic bags, coin purses, an inordinate amount of feminine products. For serious? I think I’m set until menopause.

Thankfully, tackling all this meant a trip to World Market.

Ew! Gross! No! Okay.

I just love that store. I could spend hours and hours there and oodles and oodles of money. And lo! They have baskets. Fun baskets, in a host of shapes and sizes and patterns and wouldn’t you know? They are perfect for corralling the clutter and feminine products that threaten to overtake my bathroom.

I love you, World Market. And I love you, too, seemingly abnormal amounts of soap. (Why do I have so much soap? I am only one person.)

 

belated

Sister #1 is a new mama, and when I called her on Saturday to ask her how she felt about being another year older, she replied, “Tired.”

To be expected.

You’d think she’d have gotten over the tiredness of being a mom, really; she’s been taking care of me for quite some time now, helping me navigate through life, teaching me the important details of staying organized and working hard. She is the one who told me, as I neared my college graduation, “You work for what you want. You are not entitled to anything.”

Sister #1 has beautiful hair and is a terrific cook, and though I may not be entitled to dinner at her house when I stay there, if I ask very, very nicely she will usually make me something delicious. She is demanding only in that she demands sister time, taking charge as the oldest, leading us out to the back porch and pouring wine and keeping us talking until just after 4 am. Without exceptions, you don’t even need to look at the clock, trust me, if you’re asking what time it is, it is 4 am.

She is a talented writer, she taught me necessary lessons in life, like staying cultured, so she took me to a Harry Belafonte concert. And being well-socialized, so she took me to my first keg party. All before the age of 12.

She is the one of the three sisters that people say I look like the most, which I guess kind of makes us sort of like bookends of the four of us, the oldest and the youngest.

She is funny and friendly and opinionated and strong, and if I was with her right now, I would hand her a glass of wine and some mushy brownies on a silver platter and say, “Happy Birthday, I love you very much.”

 

Sisters…sisters….there were never such devoted sisters…..

 

no sex in the champagne glass

Have I ever told you I know from weddings?

I know from weddings.

I happen to have been in many several of them (eight, to be exact, if you’re counting bridesmaid positions; 11, if you also count the three I did readings for), and have been to many several more. In fact, I went to two while on vacation recently—bookended weekends of weddings, one in Chicago, one in Traverse City, Michigan.

Beautiful, both of them, the weddings. The brides looked gorgeous, and I am not just saying that because they are two of my closest girls in the whole wide world. Them girls looked real Hawt. In a classy, bride-like way. Lucky guys, Doug and Pete, to be hitched along for life with these gals.

And after both lovely ceremonies, the real mess of weddings happened. The receptions. The party-on-Wayne, party-on-Garth receptions. Both had unique venues – Mare’s in a converted warehouse, Anne’s in a heritage center overlooking a river. Or so I’m told. Seeing as how my table was perfectly situated between the bar and the dance floor, and the windows that showed the lovely greenery/river/landscape outside were on the other side of the room, and seeing as how, as my friend Smell put it so eloquently the next morning, “Yeah, when I get around you guys and I get drunk I think that I’m a really good dancer,” I did not make it far enough across the room to see said lovely landscape. I saw that there were windows, at least. I saw them from a distance.

Photos were taken, dancing was to be had, conversations with Native American statues took place.

Booze may have been consumed. Sexy booze was consumed!

Do you even have to ask if I stopped one of the servers at Anne’s reception and asked, “For serious?” as I pointed to the bottle? “Pink champagne called ‘SEX’?”

“Um, yeah,” the young man replied. “I’ve never seen it in pink, usually it’s just white SEX.”

Do you even have to ask if I then scuttled over to the head table and hissed delightedly at the Bride and her Matron of Honor (and other simply terrific college friend of mine), Nora, “You guys! Do you realize that we are drinking SEX? Why is yours white? Mine is pink!”?

And I’m sure you assumed—correctly—that I didn’t bother waiting for an answer before scuttling off to another table to gleefully tell those guests the same thing.

In case you were wondering, one of the reasons I am not yet married is because I am 12.

Later on in the night, I was sipping pink SEX, talking with a friend of mine (who it should be noted asked me over the weekend if he could have a code name on this here blog should he ever be mentioned, to which I said yes, of course, and now, since he is being mentioned, we shall not use his real name but his code name which, since I am feeling incredibly creative today, will heretofore be That Guy) and by that I mean I was yammering on about God Knows What at That Guy who probably wasn’t still standing there for conversation’s sake so much as he was there because he couldn’t figure out how to slip away without me noticing. (Hint: Just go. I talk so much half the time I don’t even notice if someone is there to listen. Barring a human in my range, I’ll talk to a wall. And if there are no walls, I’ll talk to myself.) So we’re standing there, and I’m gabbing away and then—and I think this is how it happened, but I really can’t be sure, as I’d had a glass or two of adult beverages by that point—for whatever reason, I decided to set my glass down.

Which is when I discovered that when drinking pink SEX champagne, I turn into The Incredible Hulk.

I finished my glass of champagne and turned away from That Guy to the table next to us and set my glass down in what I thought was a normal manner. And it would have been, for a normal girl. But like I said. Pink SEX. Lots of babbling. Knowing me, there may have been a gregarious hand gesture or three in there.

And bam.

 

The glass shattered when I set it down. It took me a minute to realize what had happened. That Guy and I both just sort of stood there, perplexed, looking at the glass for a moment. And I continued looking at it, perplexed, for another long moment while That Guy helpfully and carefully cleaned up the jagged stem and glass, dusting up the small slivers and throwing the lot away.

“I’m like The Incredible Hulk!” I believe I yelled at That Guy when he returned. “I don’t know my own strength!”

And then a really good song came on and I bounced off to the dance floor and then I think I switched to red wine so there wouldn’t be anymore Incredible Hulk moments the rest of the night. Though I did inelegantly hurdle over some chairs later, but that’s because I’d just found out my sister was in labor, and that’s the only proper reaction to such news. And at one point I tried to climb in a canoe.

Don’t ask.

I just know from weddings. And my incredible, incredible Hulk-like strength. We can just leave it at that.

 

cake slice bakers – cinnamon pecan coffee cake

As you may or may not know, I am now officially a member of a secret interwebs baking club.

I first heard about this club from Monica’s blog (Hi, Monica! *waves*), and basically, it’s a group of peeps who bake their way through a cookbook. I find this an ideal group for two reasons: A) I like baking things and then taking photos of it, and 2) I, in general, like reading blogs of other people who also like to bake and take photos of it.

My needs and wants are simple, really.

So when I realized that the Cake Slice Bakers were getting ready to dig in (heh) to a new book, I quickly and politely elbowed my way into their group. Actually, no elbowing was involved. Email was, which can’t really be considered elbowing. And since they were starting a new cookbook, it wasn’t like I was being pushy, as they are a very accepting group, so really it was just me emailing Monica and asking how I could join this band of merry bakers, and ta-da! Here I am.

Which is really a longer explanation than needed.

Back to baking!

This year the Cake Slice Bakers will be baking our way through Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations by Nancie McDermott. So every month on the 20^th here at McPolish, you’ll find my version/results of the recipe of the month. This month’s recipe, as voted on by the CSBers, was a cinnamon pecan coffee cake. Voila!

I’m not going to lie, I was only semi-happy with how this cake turned out. It tasted terrific, but it just…. I don’t know….it just wasn’t ideal. I made it during Baby Watch! 2009!, because I had run out of other things to do and I was sitting around watching entirely too much HGTV and The Bonnie Hunt Show to be healthy.

The dough was a little thick to spread evenly, and it didn’t cut as cleanly as I would have liked, but overall, it wasn’t bad. I’d give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake

(Recipe from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)

Makes a 13×9 inch sheet cake

For the Cake

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

For the Cinnamon Raisin Filling

1½ cups light brown sugar

3 tbsp all purpose flour

3 tbsp cinnamon

1½ cups raisins

1½ cups coarsely chopped pecans

¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, melted

Mmmm…raisins

Part of the fun was using my sister’s Kitchen Aid mixer. I do not own one of these, unfortunately, though if I did, I would have to mix things on my living room floor. As it is I slice and dice and mix at my own peril in my shoebox of a kitchen, in my shoebox of an abode. Ah, studio apartment life.

In case anybody is wondering, the cake batter is delicious when fresh off the paddle. I do my research for you,  people. FOR YOU.

Method

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 13 by 9 inch pan.

To make the filling, combine the light brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl and stir with a fork to mix everything well. Combine the raisins and pecans in another bowl and toss to mix them. Place the cinnamon mixture, nut mixture and melted butter by the baking pan to use later.

To make the cake batter, combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir the vanilla into the milk. In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer on high speed until pale yellow and evenly mixed, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl to ensure a good mix. Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl now and then, until the mixture is smooth and light.

Use a large spoon or spatula to add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir only until the flour disappears. Add a third of the milk and mix in. Repeat twice more until all the flour and milk mixtures have been incorporated. Stir just enough to keep the batter smooth.

Spread half the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture over the batter followed by half the melted butter. Scatter half the raisins and nuts over the top. Spread the remaining batter carefully over the filling, using a spatula to smooth the batter all the way to the edges of the pan. Top with the leftover cinnamon, butter and nut mixture, covering the cake evenly.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the cake is golden brown, fragrant and beginning to pull away from the edges of the pan. Place the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes before serving in squares right from the pan. The cake is delicious hot, warm or at room temperature.

The finished product. Meh. It tasted pretty good, but I could have done better. On to next month!

Sorry, Toby, you won’t be able to help me next month, since I’ll be baking from my home kitchen here in DC. Not that you were much help anyway. Unless by “help” you mean “sitting on my feet until I dropped something so you could snarfle it up like a hoover.” Because in that sense you are incredibly helpful.

 

lip gloss: evil beauty product or innocent bystander that got caught in the crossfire of me vs. the weather?

I’ve been fighting a random onset of Very Chapped Upper Lip for the past two weeks. I have no idea how this happened. I just woke up one morning and part of my upper lip was chapped. The next day the chapping spread, and the day after that and the day after that it was just chapped and cracked and unpleasant and dry and I was starting to look like I’d been snowboarding in the Antarctica for weeks on end, but trust me, I’ve never done anything as cool as that. It seemed to be aggravated by wearing lip gloss, so after Mare’s wedding a couple weeks ago, I went lip gloss-free for the rest of Baby Watch! 2009! week. Which isn’t very hard to do when your daily activities consist of going to Target, then coming home and taking a nap. Or going to get your nails done, and then coming home to take a nap. Or having lunch with your sister, then coming home and taking a nap. I’m sensing a theme here.

ANYWAY, just as my upper lip was on the brink of starting to return to normal, I went to Michigan. So what I’m about to tell you is ALL THE STATE OF MICHIGAN’S FAULT.

Actually, that’s not true. Michigan had nothing to do with this, except not really helping matters by being pretty cold, yet very lovely and bright and tempting on Saturday morning, so much so that Smell and I laced up our gym shoes and went for a run along the sparkling Bay. Coldness and chapped lips: It Ain’t So Good.

This was, of course, the Saturday morning that followed the Friday night of the rehearsal dinner where I *gasp* made the mistake of wearing lip gloss.

OH NO NOT LIPGLOSS.

So when I woke up Saturday morning after my lip gloss-wearing Friday Night Frenzy, WOW. Hello. Good morning. OW. Apparently, applying the lip gloss to the upper lip really pissed off the upper lip and it was swollen and red and hurty and the horror, the horror.

As any 30-year-old woman who is sharing a hotel room with three of her college gal pals would do, I whined about my predicament to the one mom among us, mewling at her that it hurt. OW! I mean, it hurts! Mwwreehhh! Help! She simply said to put ice on it and we’d get something topical at the Walgreen’s later and I should take an ibuprofen for now and I should also seriously consider the quitting of whining because no, I was not dying, and no, I was not going to need a lipectomy, and for God’s sake, Molly, it does not look that bad. My friend Smell is in pharm school right now and while she was not the one to suggest taking an ibuprofen to relieve any pain, she was the one who doled out the ibuprofen, so I have to give her some credit for her help in this tragical situation.

Needless to say the only thing that went on my lips as we headed out the door for the wedding was a lip salve and some Benadryl topical cream (in case it wasn’t just severely chapped lips but rather some sort of allergic reaction) that burned like a motherfucker when applied.

I threw out the lip gloss. I was just so angry at it.

Now, a week-ish later, things seem to be finally getting back to normal. I did some reconnaissance on the Interwebs about chapped lips and one site suggested that if the lip was so cracked and bleeding or raw, to put Neosporin on it, and Burt’s Bees balm was also highly suggested. Thankfully, I have both, and have since engaged in controlled and systematic routine of applying one or both at various points of the day. I have high hopes that my upper lip will be completely back to normal within the next few days.

Once it’s completely healed, I might give a new lip gloss a try.

Maybe.

Or maybe it’s time to switch to lipstick.

 

brrrr! on you

I was definitely not prepared for how chilly and fall-like it was going to be while I was in Chicago last week.

I loved it.

And when I go home next, at Christmastime, it will be even colder, and there may even be snow.

!!!

Most people, when they hear “Chicago” and they are not from there and most often have never even been there except to occasionally fly through O’Hare, immediately react with an “it’s so cold! there,” and a mimed shiver. And 9 times out of 10 it is followed up with an “I could never live there.”

To which I say, well then, you’ve never truly lived.

 

changing the channel

Dear Duncan,

Glad to see that you’ve finally arrived, moseying into life one week past your due date. If this is the start of how it’s going to be—you showing up when you feel you’re ready, disregarding the fact that we have been WAITING for quite some time now—we’re going to have to fix that right quick. As the kids these days no longer say, homie don’t play that. Don’t make chronic lateness a habit; this is the first lesson you must learn.

And you should know that you have some big shoes to fill, coming into this world, usurping the position of Baby of the Family that I have proudly held for the past 30 years. Size 8 ½, sometimes a size 9, to be exact. 9 ½ if they’re running shoes. I will always be my own mother’s Princess Baby, but you, you are the Little Prince of the whole family. It’s a large title for such a little boy, barely two days old, but I have faith that you will do well. Focus on winning over the grandparents, and you’re golden. Grandma will be easy to win over. In fact, she’s already won. You haven’t even had to do anything except get born and she’s already pouncing on any opportunity to fling herself at your baby feet. Grandpa, on the other hand, may seem a little tougher, may seem like a gruff grizzly bear, but don’t be fooled, he’s really quite like a big teddy bear. Just don’t run around in his house, and don’t block the television when he’s watching football or basketball, and don’t yell, “JESUS CHRIST!” in front of him, because those are things he doesn’t like. Other than that, you’re on easy street, because he’s pretty enamored with you already as well.

Really, all you have to do is lay there all swaddled and looking brilliant and the entire family, myself included, swoons over you. Well, maybe not your dog, who probably will not take the usurpation of his baby position quite so well. So watch out for Toby, but don’t worry, he’ll come around. Especially when you start eating solid foods and he realizes there is a point to you, and that point is Human Food Flinger.

There’s a lot more to being Baby of the Family, but we won’t get into it right now. I’ll let you rest since moving day appears to have exhausted you.

Welcome to the world, Duncan, we are so, so glad you are here. We love you more than you know.

Love,

Aunt Molly

 

the most boring channel ever. and cake!

Baby Watch! 2009! is still the most boring channel ever. Nothing is happening. This kid is never coming out. So I’ve decided to go to lunch with one of my other sisters while the pregnant one goes to the doctor so the doctor can confirm why yes, yes indeed, your child is not going to be born until, oh, 2012, because he’s just that comfortable in your womb.

But in the meantime, have some cake!

My best gal, happens to be a funeral director, and is in love with another funeral director, which is good since they got married this weekend. And as funeral directors are wont to be, they are incredibly fun, party-type people who like the whimsy. Hence, the cake at their rehearsal dinner:

Yeah, it was pretty awesome. And freakin’ tasty, too. Who knew death could be so delicious?

This top urn cake was almond with apricot filling.

This bottom casket cake was chocolate banana cake with peanut butter mousse filling. Would you just LOOK at the DETAIL on this thing? Clever, I tell you. There is nothing better than clever cake.

Casket and urn cake courtesy of The Cake Girls right here in Chicago.