What really happens at dinner time

Well, if you try and feed the baby she'll bite your hand off.
If you leave Enzo to feed himself he won't eat.

Fine, in all fairness if Enzo is thrilled about dinner he'll quickly eat it on his own. 90% of the time he's not thrilled. That's the problem. So Christian, because I seriously refuse to, is ever so patient and spoon feeds him bite, by bite, by bite.

Christian's Spring Quarter started on Monday, we have 10 weeks ahead of us where Christian will be gone during dinner time. I think Enzo is going to starve himself.

Recently I had the opportunity (and I don't use the word lightly in this situation) to tell Dr. Michele Borba my situation and ask for her advice. The lady who's on national T.V and has written over 20 parenting books gave me a couple minutes of her time to answer my questions. I was sure she was going to tell me to be firm, to make Enzo feed himself. He's 5 for goodness sakes.



But mostly as you can see in the interview, she just told me to relax.
Relaxing is good.

p.s. If you want to hear more dinner time challenges and share your own stories visit Ragu's Facebook page Mom's the Word on Dinner. If you want more of Dr. Borba's advice follow her on twitter, she's a twitter queen.

Wordless Wednesday: waking up to warm grapefruit is my new fave

(broiled grapefruit recipe here)

Online Bake Sale for Japan

Yesterday this conversation took place via web:

me: I think the world of you for doing this, for organizing it all. thank you so much for all your hard work.
Sabrina: Thanks so much for saying so- it just felt like the thing to do at the moment. It has been hard work, for sure, but this experience has been so rewarding. I have met some amazing people. My blog is less than six months old, so this is my first taste of how supportive and just plain good blogging community can be. Let's hope the financial reward is equally impressive. When I hear about what the food rations are for the poor people of Japan, I'm so glad I chose a food bank for the charity.

Yes, the food blogging community is amazing. Sabrina is amazing. And you can be amazing too. Here is the scoop and how you can help.

The night of March 11th I found myself tweeting about the devastating tsunami and earthquake, and reading updates about Japan. I was heart broken, as I'm sure you were too. Sabrina, from the blog The Tomato Tart was also heart broken but proactive at the same time. She started tweeting like crazy, throwing out ideas. She really wanted to help. She tweeted me and a handful of other food bloggers, "want to do an online bake sale?" she asked.

"Sure, but how?"

Well with a whole lot of work from Sabrina she figured it out and now there are over 90 food bloggers in on the action. Tomorrow food bloggers are donating their time, ingredients, and resources, to make a special baked good for the online bake sale auction. After you bid and buy a treat the blogger will make, package, and send you your goodies. All the money goes to Second Harvest Japan, the nation's first food bank. So not only do you get a special delivery of goodies at your house you also get to help out Japan a little bit, and every little bit helps I believe that to the core.

 

Remember the heart shaped gluten-free alfajore pops I made for Valentine's day? I'll make you some too. It can be a heart, or it can be round, or it can even be shaped like an egg for Easter. I will be happy to make it whatever way you want. Heck I'll even make you 10! I'll warp it in gold foil and put all my tender love and care into them. From me to you.

Please take the time to look at this list. It has the name, location, blog url, and a picture of the item that each blogger is donating. It's so neat to see the diversity of baked good and the diversity of bloggers from around the world who is participating in this bake sale. Please take the time to share this bake sale on your own blog, or your twitter, or your Facebook, or to your next door neighbor who doesn't even know how to open an e-mail because even he probably likes to eat, right?

Let's do this thing.

Birthday Boy

I have always wanted to be a mother. I'm not sure why. No one really glorified the task for me, so really I have no one to blame for immersing myself into motherhood at the ripe age of 23 (I guess I can also blame a certain Christian Palmer for having something to do with it).

When I was 13 I had my first ultrasound because of an ovarian cist. It wasn't a big deal but I was terrified that the ultrasound would revel some terrible truth -- a horrible medical condition that made me infertile. My 13 year old fears were unfounded because 10 years later I became a mother. And it only took me 45 hours of labor and 4 hours of pushing to make it happen. But it happened. I gave birth to a 9 lbs baby boy. Before I had Enzo I had set schedules and color coded calendars, I was seriously the perfect mother. My imaginary kids were always clean and nicely groomed, and never misbehaved.

Did I tell you that last week when I went to Target to buy the rest of Enzo's party decorations Baby Maria managed to pee on the floor and then proceeded to try and splash in the pee puddle? Enzo was encouraging his little sister like crazy -- to act crazy. And I, in full parent mode, almost peed my pants laughing at her.

Yeah, that perfect mother of my dreams died the minute this little dude was born.

This weekend we celebrated Enzo in full pirate party extravaganza. Remember how I told you I wasn't going to blog last week because I would be busy preparing for Enzo's party? Well... the preparation really took full steam the day before the party. Sometimes I pretend that I have more time than I actually do and before I know it I'm disoriented trying to figure out where the time went because I swear I was just giving birth to Enzo yesterday and today he's giving opinions on how to decorate his birthday cake.

Dear Da, where do you find inspiration?

I loved answering your questions this week. Sorry I didn't get to answer everyone's questions. I mainly just answered some old questions huh? I probably didn't even get to your question. We'll do this again soon, don't worry.

There were so many technical questions about building readership, choosing a platform for your blog, choosing to advertise or not, among other practical blogging questions.

But today I choose this question,
maybe not very practical but so fun to answer ...

Dear Da, where do you find inspiration for your blog? 
- Sarah M.


Dear Sarah, I fluctuate from wanting to be hyper organized by drafting an editorial calendar for the month, to not knowing where the blessed piece of paper with the calendar went and deciding instead to throw baby Maria a party for her half birthday. 

Baby Maria inspires me. Calendars do not. Christian inspires me, he's the loveliest person I know.
Enzo inspires me, he's the most forgiving person I know. Clean kitchens inspires me, they inspire me to get in there and create some more.

Dear Da, what camera do you use and how do you edit your pictures?

I love love love getting e-mails like this one...

Hi Da

You probably get asked this a lot, but I can't seem to find a post on your blog in regards to what camera and photo editing software you use!

Thanks in advance,

Kim

Every time an e-mail comes in where a reader asks me about photography I am immediatly transported back in time, early 2007 to be exact. Christian and I were living in Hawaii and I had my friend Natalie over for dinner with her husband and three kids. My brother-in-law Adam,  a professional photographer, dropped by and had dinner with us. Natalie picked his brain. She asked and asked and asked, and I don't know if she did but she very well could have been taking notes. I think Natalie had just purchased a camera, I don't think it was anything too fancy, yet she was in love with photography and she knew she wanted to pursue it as a career. Today she is one of the most talented professional photographers out there, I kid you not. 

I'm no Adam and I'm no Natalie, and I have no ambitions of being a professional photographer. I just enjoy taking pictures of things I love. So if my pictures create even the slightest curiosity and maybe even the slightest incentive in someone to take pictures of things they love then I'll continue to shoot and post. The world needs more pictures, even bad pictures because eventually if you do it long enough the bad pictures turn out better  and then they improve some more  and then finally you get a picture that you like. 

Kim, to answer your question this blog is full of pictures shot with a Canon point and shoot and then a Nikon DSLR and now with a Canon Rebel T1i. I have three lenses. I have the kit lens which I never use, a Canon 50mm macro lens that is great for food photography, and a Canon fixed 50mm 1:1.8 that is great for portraits. I mainly use the fixed 50mm because I love taking pictures of the kids with that lens, and I take pictures of the kids everyday.

Yesterday when she woke up from her nap. Notice the crusty crusts around her left eye.

Wordless Wednesday: Thinking Ahead

(Saint Patrick's Day Pesto Pasta)

Dear Da, how do I become a food writer?

Throughout the week I will be answering questions about blogging.

If you have a question you'd like me to answer send me an e-mail.

I'm always surprised when I get e-mails like this one...

Hello.

My name is Courtney Ochab and I follow your blog and love your posts! I was just wondering if you had any advice or even a story as to how you got into food writing. Thanks so much!

To be honest I kind of blush when I get e-mails like the one above. I'm not sure I can consider myself to be a food writer. For me food writers are people like Molly Wizenberg, who are able to write beautiful prose about toast. It's David Lebovitz, capable of turning the food at Charles De Gaulle airport into a big joke with his brilliant sarcasm. Food writers ooze talent, they suck you in even if you never ever ever make any of their food because you hate tofu. For me food writers are people who can lure you in with descriptions of smells and textures, so much so that you can taste the food they're describing even if you've never even seen the dish in your life.

I'm not sure I'm a food writer. I think I mainly just lure you in because I have cute kids with cute attitude problems. But since you asked I do indeed have a story about how I started food blogging and I also have some advice on how to get involved with food writing. As usual my stories are much longer than the practical stuff, in this case the advice. For easier browsing I've divided up the post. Feel free to skip the story and jump straight to the advice.

Without further ado...

The story:

When I turned 11 years old my best friend Maritza Morales gave me a present, it was a tiny blue journal. From that day on until I started college I wrote in a journal every single night. I might have missed a handful of days but I guarantee it was no more than 5. If I didn't write I could not sleep. So every single night before I went to bed I wrote about how I would marry either Jonathan Taylor Thomas or Jonathan Jackson. If I had my pick it would be Jonathan Jackson because he had a role in General Hospital, which consumed the better part of my middle school days. Please don't judge. We lived in Chicago, my parents worked crazy hours, and I watched a lot of TV.

Dear Da, can I ask you about giveaways?

Throughout the week I will be answering questions about blogging.

If you have a question you'd like me to answer send me an e-mail.

The question I get asked the most is about giveaways. At least once a week someone sends me an e-mail asking me something specific about giveaways. "How do you find sponsors for your giveaways?" "How do you choose a winner?" "How long should a giveaway be?" So today I will try and explain the nitty gritty of giveaways; the good and the ugly.

Why should I do a giveaway?

The short answer is that if done right giveaways drive traffic to your blog. It also allows you to build relationships with sponsors and is a way for you to do something nice for your readers, even though only one reader really benefits -- the one who wins the product you are giving away.

What should I give away?

Unless you don't mind spending money I would suggest not buying things to giveaway. Find a sponsor. But most importantly only giveaway something you would like receiving yourself. I would also suggest sticking to the theme of your blog. Because my blog is about food all of my giveaways have been food/kitchen related. My first giveaway was in June of 2008. I was browsing different Etsy shops for fun and found reusable snack bags and thought they were genius (back in 2008 they were). I contacted the shop owner and asked her if she would please please please do a giveaway on my blog. I could not believe she said yes. I had 14 comments and was so excited because I felt really great about the product I was giving away. It was something I WANTED to promote on my blog Hell-O, reusable snack bags are awesome. Since then I have done over 50 giveaways and they have all been food/kitchen related. 

In the beginning most of my giveaways came from Etsy shops. I adore Etsy and I feel really good about promoting handmade products. Plus, I figured it would be much easier getting a small shop to sponsor a giveaway then a big shop. At least this was the case in 2008 when I had few readers and most big companies had never heard about blogs or giveaways. No matter the size of the shop or the size of the prize (reusable snack bags vs. a $400 food processor) make sure it's something you would have in your home. Endorsing a product you don't believe in is the worst.

How do I contact a sponsor?

In the beginning I would browse Etsy shops and contact the shops' owners. Then I drafted a letter that I could copy and past, changing only the product's name, and would contact multiple Etsy shops in mass e-mail form. Then I started contacting bigger cooperations like Emile Henry and Williams-Sonoma. I would say that out of 5 shops I contacted at least 1 was willing to sponsor a giveaway. Don't be shy. Be polite. Be professional and always always be nice. Oh, and most importantly always always ALWAYS be honest. If a sponsor asks about your traffic be honest, don't inflate your numbers. Smaller shops normally don't ask about traffic but the bigger folks will. When I was working with Williams-Sonoma to do the Christmas giveaway of the $400 food processor  they wanted a PDF of my google analytics for the month of November and the number of subscribers I had at the time. I can check my subscriber number using Feedburner. It's good to have those numbers ready so that when sponsors ask you about traffic you can quickly and accuretly tell them what your stats are. 

In light of everything last week seems like forever ago

After returning from Yosemite I received a lot of questions about our trip. CNN called me up on Monday to ask about gas prices. You can read the article here.  My readers asked me about food. Since I already talked about gas I'll talk about how our family does food when we camp, and a couple other things that's on my mind.

Normally we would have done this. We would have taken our tent, a camping stove, and a bunch of food in the cooler. But it's the middle of winter so the camp grounds are closed. We stayed in a heated tent cabin in Curry Village . No camping stoves allowed there and even though bears hibernate during the winter (right?!) we still had to lock up all our food in bear boxes outside of the cabin. It did make for an adventure when Baby Maria woke up requesting her middle-of-the-night-bottle. She doesn't like her milk cold. 

During the day we ate some sanck-y foods and sandwiches we brought from home and at night we ate out. Not much is open during the winter in Yosemite, but of course there was pizza. 

We had pizza at the Curry Village Pizza Parlor.

It was way overpriced but it totally hit the spot. If I don't have one warm meal a day I'm cranky forever after. I also like to feed my kids something besides pretzels and cheese sticks so pizza was the food of choice for the fam.

Wordless Wednesday: Popcorn Popping on the Tree -- on the way back from Yosemite.

Lemon bars are not hiking treats

Hiking treats are little snacks you can stuff in your pocket to bribe your kids to walk faster. A little something or other to energize you to finish the hike. Pretzels dipped in white chocolate, for example, would make perfect hiking treats. On Friday I was going to make pretzels dipped in white chocolate, pack them in the cooler and take them to Yosemite with us.  Instead I made lemon bars.

Hiking on its own is not a treat. If at the end of the hike you feel like it was a treat then you didn't go on a hike, you went on a nature walk. It's different. Hiking is wonderful and beautiful and a lot of work. 

On Saturday we hiked in the snow to see the Giant Sequoias.

It was the first time my cousin Gabriel (our temporary adoptee) saw snow. It was the first time Enzo and Baby Maria played in the snow. Christian and I have played and seen snow plenty, all when we were dating and the first two years of our marriage. It brought back wonderful memories.

I know most are past ready to see all the snow melt and Spring to come. I don't blame you. I remember the craziness it was to live in a place where it snowed from October to March, sometimes even April. However, visiting snow is a whole other experience and seeing it for the first time is magical, especially if you're in a place like Yosemite. 

We kept asking Gabriel if he was having fun. "I feel like this is all fake, it can't be real," was his quick reply. I know the feeling. As someone who grew up in Sao Paulo, a massive concrete jungle, seeing snow for the first time can be overwhelming. Top that with majestic concrete slabs and waterfalls everywhere, you're sure to feel like it's unreal. 

Twenty-Eight

True story: Two days after this festive birthday party my mother turned 28 and for a couple of seconds, maybe even long minutes, my world fell apart. Two days after I turned 5 we were at my grandmother's house celebrating my mother's birthday. There were 28 candles on top of her cake. I tried to count all the candles but realized there were too many to count. This meant my mother was old. I panicked and cried. Old means death and I was convinced my mother would soon die from her 28 years of old age. Maybe I was comforted by my grandma or maybe I was called stupid by my older cousins, probably a combination of both. The good news is that today my mom is alive and well. Today I'm alive and well. Today I turn twenty-eight.

I don't feel old. In fact I barely feel old enough to have a 5 year old of my own (Enzo's birthday is so coming up!) or even a 1 year old, or a husband for that matter. Today I will not be in Brazil having a cake decorated with my favorite childhood doll, Monica. I will not share it with my favorite cousin, Cauê, the geeky dude with the glasses who's next to me on the picture, who now sports mean dreadlocks and a chaotic combinations of piercings and tattoos all over his body. I will be here with another sweet cousin and another type of cake with love number 1, 2, and 3. And friends. Always friends.

I couldn't count up to 28 when I was 5 yrs old which means that I couldn't posibly have imagined all the different experiences I would have that would guide me to where I am today. I'm excited for where life will continue to take me. I can't possibly imagine all the adventures I'm sure will come my way.

Christian asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  I honestly can't think of a single physical thing I want or need at this time. I've had some readers e-mail me and ask if they could send me a gift. Thanks for being thoughtful. More importantly thanks for letting me share bits and bites of my life with you. 

When The Food Librarian turned 40 she asked her readers to leave a comment on her blog telling her where they were from and leaving a birthday message to boot. I thought that was a fun way to carry her over to the next year so I'm going to do the same because if there is one thing I've learned in my 28 years of life is to not be afraid to ask for what I want (my math skills, on the other hand, are still rudimentary).

And today I want you to leave a comment. I really do. Mainly I just want to know where you're from (specially you lurkers, here is your chance to show yourself). Knowing I have friends far and wide is exactly what I want for my birthday.

Hooray for Birthdays!