here's what i made for dinner tonight.
it was from Gwyneth Paltrow's weekly email newsletter, Goop, (here's Gwyneth's recipe) that i signed up for for some reason. every week she sends out a newsletter with the themes 'Make,' 'Do,' 'Get,' 'See,' etc. most all of her suggestions are totally unrealistic for me, but i guess i like the rubber-necking aspect of it (the same reason i thumb through US Weekly at the grocery store) I've never made anything from her emails before, but this was pretty good. I did add a bit of garlicky-anchovy dressing and serve it on a bed of steamed kale.
a few months ago, a columnist in the Globe and Mail (a Canadian national newspaper- our New York Times), Elizabeth Renzetti, wrote a hilarious column that sends up not only Goop, but us 'domestic-bliss-mama-crafty' bloggers as well. SOOOOO funny. i'll put it here in its entirety because i can't find a free link to it. enjoy.
In the old days, ladies would turn on the television set and
find Donna Reed singing the praises of soup, with the idea that
purchasing this soup would make your house tidy and your hair glossy
and your children upstanding heterosexuals. Who wouldn’t want that life?
But then “style” had to come along and create that most dreaded
compound noun, lifestyle, and its patron saint was Oprah. Until this
week, that is, with the introduction of Gwyneth Paltrow’s new website,
Goop.com. Why is it called Goop? Perhaps “Any Old Load of Rubbish” and
“Learn From Me, Ungrateful Peasant” were both taken.
“My life is good because I am not passive about it,” writes the
woman last seen serving coffee in Iron Man. “I want to nourish what is
real, and I want to do it without wasting time.” The website is in its
infancy, but you can sign up for the e-mail newsletter, which soon will
tell you what cool restaurants to visit in London or where to stay in
Austin. “Learn something new,” it urges. “Don’t be lazy. Work out and
stick with it.” It’s as if John Calvin and Princess Grace got together
and wrote a game plan on a cocktail napkin.
In essence, Gwyneth would like to reach down from her aerie in
north London and show you how to live, and shop, meaningfully. Except
that the point is completely moot: You and I will never be six-foot
tall blonde goddesses constructed entirely of lentils and
self-righteousness.
These people are different than us, not because they’re better
or more interesting, but because they are held aloft, much like Marie
Antoinette’s hair, by a team of dedicated professionals. They never
have to swallow a dirty aspirin found at the bottom of their purse, nor
do they look in the fridge on a school morning and realize all that’s
left for the kids’ lunch is a can of cat food and a red cabbage.
They have staff. They have staff to find their shoes and write
the content of the websites we are meant to emulate. Should we really
take beauty advice from Gwyneth Paltrow, who is the face of Estée
Lauder and as such probably has a team of technicians delivering vials
of age-retarding whales’ tears to her door every night?
Briefly, after spending time with Goop, I thought I might
respond with my own lifestyle website - low-budget, practical advice
for you and your kids and your misaligned chakras. I think I’ll call it
Poop (Gwyneth must be kicking herself for not thinking of it first!) On
Poop, for example, you might pick up these nifty hints:
Scavenge last night’s cake crumbs from the folds of your bra or
stomach, put them on a pretty plate, and treat yourself to a picnic in
the park.
Get your children excited about “cocktails” - I like to give
mine soda water and a splash of lime cordial, sometimes with a grape if
they’ve been particularly good. Watch them run around the house
screaming, ‘Where’s my cocktail? I need another cocktail!’ Fun for
hours, particularly if you invite the neighbours over.
Take the kids to the local pool and let them play Treasure Hunt
with whatever they find in the drain. Band-Aids are good, organic
matter even better, and whoever gets the pool cleared is the winner.
Alas, the field is already too crowded with other women all too
willing to dole out advice to their overburdened sisters, who clearly
are not overburdened enough: Have you worked through your issues today?
How about the kids’ glove drawer? The dog’s fur knots? If you don’t, no
one else will, you know, and the world will dissolve into a fiery ball
of magma.
You don’t see men falling for this, do you? They’re not rushing
out to buy Jeremy Clarkson’s Fine Art of Gonad Scratching, or Vin
Diesel Tidies Your Toolbox. Let us take a page from their book of
sanity.
Because, ladies, your guilt box is full. There is not room in it
for another recipe featuring ancho chiles, which you must spend five
hours sourcing and another three soaking. There is no room in it for a
course in woodworking, or Kabbalah, or thermonuclear yoga. Your guilt
box is already full of calls you haven’t made to your mother, birthday
presents long forgotten, and the six bags of clothes in the closet that
- one day - you will take to Goodwill. Take your guilt box to the back
yard and burn it, and then have a glass of wine.
Fetch. Burn. Drink. Now there’s a manifesto we can get behind
**************Not that this has anything to do with anything, but i have been importing our entire CD collection onto a dedicated hard drive, and today i am up to the P's. Remember Liz Phair? i may be showing my age here, but man, is she great! i am listening to Exile in Guyville right now, and it's so good.
we have and marked some recipes that looked appealing. 
- my dad gave me last year. 
