I wish the weather would make up it’s mind sometimes. It’s hot, then cool, then hot again. It was quite cool in the morning yesterday because of cloud cover from some rain during the night. We decided to go to the pool anyway because it would be our last time this summer and when we got there, discovered that we had it all to ourselves. Not that we’ve ever been there when it’s been very crowded, but there was no one, except for the lifeguards. Pretty cool. We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the summer when C pretty much cried most of our time at the pool. Yesterday she just walked right in the water like it was nothing.

We’re getting ready for a little 4-day trip this week and we’re leaving Wednesday night - a meeting with friends in DC and a family wedding/reunion in Virginia on the weekend. I hear it’s going to be pretty damn hot further south this week. Oh, and we’re driving. Any tips for surviving in a car that long with kids? We’ve only done 1 long-ish drive once upstate, but that was when Claudine was a baby. Now we have the two of them yammering away in the back seat (by the way, Mia is the worst back seat driver, ever!!). The girls do really well in the car, but…6-7 hours? (shudder).

Is it the end of summer already? Did it fly by for you too? Labor Day came very early this year, so it feels like we’re jumping into Fall a little prematurely. Tomorrow we will have one last hurrah at my mom’s town pool, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to hit the beach again this summer. Instead we have already marked the weekend on our calenders to go apple and raspberry picking next month. Crazy. As a push for Fall, Mark made a bunch of cold calls to stores for possible wholesale yesterday and we are delivering products to three new locations next week: Grab in the South Slope, Stinky Brooklyn in Cobble Hill, and Everyman Espresso on East 13th Street, which will be the first location in Manhattan to carry our cookies (some loose, not in packaging too). We have a few more stores in the works as well.

I have to say, owning a business where you have to wear multiple hats forces you to do things outside of your comfort zone. Like cold calling. Can’t say that either of us find it particularly enjoyable, but Mark’s doing a good job, with positive results too. He’s been setting up and handling the wholesale accounts, while I deal with etsy customer service and corporate gift orders (I wonder what it will be like if we ever got an employee). Mark’s very close to starting work in the new kitchen which we’ll share details about shortly, and last but not least, we have very exciting plans for a few new products for the Flea when the weather gets a wee bit cooler.

Happy weekend.

(and no, Lara, you can’t guess because I think you know what this is).

…are in my head. Usually I can avoid getting sick if the family is passing it around, but today I awoke with a terrible pain in my head and ears. I think I need to sleep and drink more water too. But still, I am getting a lot of work done today to make up for a day taken off yesterday and my little pre-Labor Day shopping spree. Also in the works is a new Whimsy & Spice website. Our current website was designed and coded in less than a day because of a tight deadline to launch, which is lightening fast and atypical for me. The process this time around has been much slower and more painful. Having yourself as a client is probably the worst. The site isn’t going to be a drastic change as it’s only been up for 5 months and have served us well, but we need to add the capabilities for customers to buy online without directing them to etsy, which I think we will still keep, but it’s getting quite competitive over there with more bakers on the scene…

I found myself in Flushing, Queens the other day, to make the long subway trek back to Brooklyn after dropping off the car at a body shop. Not exactly a relaxing day out, but a quick trip to the Chinese grocery at 41st and Main Street made it a little more enjoyable. I picked up some thin egg noodles, fried tofu, and some water spinach - my favorite Chinese green vegetable. It’s a bit like regular spinach (hence the name), but when cooked it has none of the gritty spinach aftertaste. I blanched it and mixed it with ponzu sauce to go with the rest of dinner. As for the noodles, the package said they did not need any extra cooking and only needed to be mixed with about one cup of liquid, so I added a cup of water while stir-frying, and they still seem dry. I added another cup, and another, and the noodles just keep soaking it up. Next time I think I will blanch them in boiling water, no matter what the package says. They ended up being deliciously saucy and the addition of deep-fried japanese eggplant (from our favorite garden!) made it just about perfect.

Egg Noodles with Fried Tofu and Eggplant (serves 4)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 slices fresh ginger
1 package thin Chinese egg noodles
2 cups water, or more if necessary
4 japanese eggplants, cut into 4″ x 1″ strips
Oil for deep-frying
1 package ready-fried tofu, cut into 1-inch squares
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
2 Tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the vegetable oil on high heat in a wok until very hot. Add the garlic and ginger, stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the egg noodles, stir fry for a few minutes. Add water while continuing to stir, one cup at a time, until the noodles are tender enough. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil for deep-frying in a heavy pot. Add the eggplant strips and fry until golden, about 6-8 minutes. Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.

To finish the dish, add the remaining ingredients to the wok and heat through. Return the noodles to the wok, and stir to coat with the sauce. Top the noodles with the fried eggplant and serve immediately.

A tip: if you like your noodles extra saucy, add a bit of hoisin sauce, or whatever other sauces you have on hand.

I went shopping. It was a rare day spent looking at pretty things with a friend on a gorgeous, late summer day. We hit the Barneys Warehouse sale where I managed to escape with only $52 from my wallet (additional 40% off now), and as hard as I tried to find something really special, I came away with 2 basic shirts, one black and one brown. It’s both a relief and a disappointment since it’s almost like a missed opportunity to buy something you normally wouldn’t at a decent price (I’m looking at you Shii Ann and your tinman dress you bought today), but anything remotely interesting either didn’t come in my size or fit right (there’s some downright fugly designer clothes out there). My friend, however, did really well at the sale. I haven’t had such a good find since I found a Mayle dress there a few years ago, but on the other hand, I’ll probably wear these 2 shirts a lot more often than a fancy dress.

We next hit up the Intermix sample sale which started today and was a complete zoo. It felt like you were shopping at a club and the dressing area was just a mess of disorganized piles and piles discarded from previous try-ons. There is a tactic, when going to sample sales, where one can stand in the dressing area and pick up clothes that others have tried on and rejected. You find good stuff that way and we did do that for a while, but about half an hour in we got really hungry and I was getting tired of being in a dressing room full of other half naked woman so we left to go have lunch. On the way home, I made one more stop and bought a couple of shirts and sweaters for Mia (these are hers in the photo - got sucked into the whole “back to school” thing I guess). All in all, a nice way to spend the day. I hadn’t gone shopping with a girlfriend in ages and for a few hours, I almost remembered what life was like, pre-kids, when you had money to burn and all the time in the world to care about fashion.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted this recipe yet! It has long been a favorite standby of mine. Pork shoulder is simply cut into large chunks and simmered for 90 minutes, cooled in the same liquid, then easily shredded by hand and ready to be seasoned with your favorite sauce and eaten. It goes well with mexican rice, or tortillas, or even rolled in lettuce with various accompaniments. Any fat should be trimmed before cooking, and on this particular cut of meat the fat was particularly thick. I think I’ve mentioned my love of crispy pork skin before, and I couldn’t resist giving it another try. This time I kept it simple and just deep-fried the sliced skin for a long time until it stopped bubbling, indicating that it had totally dried out. They were so good I could have eaten them like potato chips (and they seem to have upstaged the pulled pork in the picture above), but I instead chopped them up to use as a garnish for the rest of the dinner. It makes for a satisfying meal all rolled up with lettuce, rice, avocado and salsa.

Pulled Pork Shoulder (serves 4-6)

1 pork shoulder half, about 2-3 pounds
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
several sprigs of cilantro
Salt

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, remove any fat or skin from the pork - use as explained above if you wish. Cut the pork into large chunks, about 4-inch cubes would be ideal. When the water boils add the pork, onion, garlic and cilantro, plus plenty of salt. Return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 90 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool for several hours in the liquid. I have refrigerated it over night at this point, still int the liquid.

When ready to proceed, simply pull the pork apart, taking care not to crush it - it should flake apart almost like a piece of fish. Reheat it with your favorite sauce - any kind of mexican sauce works well, like salsa verde, mole, and especially any roasted chile-based sauces. This time I just mixed in some tamarind paste, smoked paprika, lime juice and brown sugar, plus salt and pepper. Serve with rice, lettuce and tortillas. Avocado, beans and salsa make nice accompaniments.

Remind me never to think that bringing the girls to the Flea will be a fine idea (”yes, we’ll sit around the booth, sell cookies and have fun!”). This time, however, the main perpetrator of misbehavior was not Mia, but sweet little Claudine, who was neither sweet nor little when it came time to haul her onto the bus. Maybe my first mistake was thinking that we could all walk the 3.5 long city avenue blocks up to the bus stop - she was a champion walker, after all, while we were in Seattle so I didn’t think anything of it. But after a block and a half she just stopped and wouldn’t budge. Like at all. Since we had a bus to catch I picked her up and carried her in my arms, all the while thinking that this was a really really bad idea. I have a weak back due to scoliosis and I probably have close to a pinched nerve down there. I’ve seen first hand how horrible a herniated disk can be since my mom has had 2 major back surgeries, countless steroid shots and acupuncture sessions, so I’m not too keen on experiencing it firsthand, but I swear I could feel that nerve become more irritated the longer I carried this oversized baby down the street (C is big for her age) .

Once there, the girls immediately started asking for treats and Mia charmed her way into getting freebies from 4 different booths (this is the same reason she loves Costco, for the free food samples). Surprisingly, Mia stayed by the booth most of the time trying to get customers to buy cookies (4 year olds are so transparent in their sales tactics. “Hey, come over here. You wanna buy some cookies? They’re really good!). It was Claudine who endlessly ran around the Flea, putting her hands on things and kissing (?!?) tables and mirrors. She ended up back in my arms more than a few times when I couldn’t tear her away from posing in front of this one mirror when it was time to go (how lame are we to think that the easiest baby in the world would transition to an easy toddler?).

So tonight I’m resting my very sore and stiff back, legs and feet elevated on the couch and leaving the Flea to Mark from now on.