Oh, cry me a river. Better yet: DON'T.

Jessica Simpson farted during a business meeting.

Seriously. It was loud. You can read about it here on the Us Magazine website. It was one of their exclusive stories yesterday.

If I ever get famous, like the kind of famous where strangers would recognize me on the street . . . kill me. If I ever get famous enough that major entertainment rags care enough to pay attention to my gas passing habits, kill me quickly. I promise, you'd be putting me out of my misery because the idea of celebrity seems utterly painful.

I don't remember if I've ever blogged about this before but it bears repeating if I have: I can't think of anything I could do that would be bad enough to earn me instant fame. The whole idea makes me . . . I don't know: hive-ish. Is that the word for feeling like you're about to break out in hives? Even if you've never had hives? Because that's the word I'm looking for.

I've seen lots of celebrity up close and personal. They hang out around here. Cameron Diaz sat behind my RS pres at Avatar a couple of weeks ago. And our Sunbeams teacher finds herself next to Sandra Bullock on the treadmills at the gym on a regular basis. And I've bumped into a bunch of celebrities over the years. May I say that I have talked to only ONE out of the dozens? If they're just hanging out, I say leave them be.

Now, I'm not talking about the tabloid baiters like Paris and Lindsay or anyone from Jersey Shore. My sister-in-law has several celebrity clients (she's a children's photographer) and while they're pretty down-to-earth, they tell her stories of their not-so-grounded acquaintances who do things like call ahead to the paparazzi so they'll be snapped coming out of a restaurant, etc. Them? I don't feel bad for. That's a willing sacrifice of their privacy and if you open yourself up like that, you have to accept that you don't get to set the boundaries any more.

I'm talking about the famous faces you see and know well and yet never see in the magazines. You can live a low key life out of the spotlight.

When I started teaching 8th grade in 2002, most of my boys wanted to become famous in the NFL or NBA whether they had a lick of talent of not. That was the game plan. It's pretty typical for that age. The girls were all going to be singers or models. Not my choice for a secure career path, but at least they were planning to DO something to earn their fame. Then Paris Hilton exploded onto the scene a couple of years later and suddenly my students' long term career goals revolved around getting their fifteen minutes of fame, and they didn't bother figuring out how they were going to earn it. They just had to be drunk enough or scantily clad enough or engaged in something truly stupid enough with a camera rolling to make their dreams come true.

I preached the gospel of goal-setting and hard work; I taught them about things like "merit" and "acheivement." It was very Quixotic of me, I know. And yet, I had enough of a rapport with these kids that I think sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, I got through.

And then...

This happened:

Crying Girl from American Idol.

She happened to be a student in my third period class. Until this all went down, I'd say she was as sensible as a thirteen-year-old girl ever can be, I guess. But after she bawled during Sanjaya's performance on live TV one  night and then got flown to NYC every few days after that for some kind of talk show or photo op...

It was insane. Our front office fielded mind numbing numbers of phone calls from media outlets wanting access or information. Reporters followed our students as they walked home from school, trying to get the dirt on Crying Girl. She, formerly a quiet girl who spent her morning giggling with her small circle of friends before the morning bell, a group largely ignored by the "popular" kids, suddenly had more friends than she ever knew about. EVERYONE was claiming they were tight with her, eager to bask in reflected (and highly questionable) glory.

There's so much more to the story (nothing scandalous, just a little sad) that I would tell you about but I feel as obligated to protect her confidentiality now as I did when she was my student. She was a nice girl. I hope she's gone back to her fundamental nature. But I'm a little doubtful since I saw her on the Idol auditions the other night. (Um, no . . . she's never really been a singer.)

Anyway, you can imagine how much my Chris-Farley-Van-Down-By-the-River motivational speeches got through after all that . . . um . . . nonsense.

But I'm still convinced fame stinks. And I'm holding fast to my New Year's Resolution, so don't doubt I'm walking the talk, people. We will continue to be way too boring as a family to EVER be on reality TV, thank you very much. And if I ever get famous, do me a favor when you see me, will you? Slap me. Just slap me. I'm sure I'll deserve it.

Suck it, vampires.

Vampire fiction bites.


Not because it's bad. It's just crowding everything else out of the market.


Dear Edward Cullen and all wannabes: please, take it easy for a while. Can you pull a Luke Skywalker and disappear to the vampire equivalent of Dagobah just so I can walk through my local bookstore and library without tripping over another vampire book? Please?


(Why yes, I am a nerd. How could you tell?)

To be fair, the whole genre is called Paranormal Fiction, with subgenres like vampire, werewolf, fairy, and ghost subsets. Plus a bunch of others. I'm not going to offer an opinion on any of these (except to say Aprilynn Pike's book Wings is great) because my opinion of the content doesn't matter. What I'm offering is an opinion on the VOLUME of this stuff out there. I listened to an editor the other day say that there's no end in sight, either. They're looking to buy books now that won't be coming out for another couple of years.

I should probably just buckle my seat belt and deal with it, but it's getting near impossible to find anything else but vampires, vampires, vampires.

I like small stories, well-told. I keep getting fanged epics. Or I don't, actually, because I don't buy or check them out. (*Er, hold that thought.)

Still, there's hope out there. I loved Janette Rallison's releases last year. And I just got my hands on Becca Wilhite's newest (giveaway coming soon!).

But I'm developing a strange tic that worries me and I don't know if I'll survive until the eventual fizzle of this super-hot-genre. Any time I come across another vampire book, I feel the overwhelming urge to kick something. Or someone. Maybe Sookie Stackhouse. Maybe an innocent Barnes and Noble employee. Maybe the oblivious librarian in the YA section of the library.

Hey, I'm not saying it's right. I'm just being real, yo. That's why I said yo. It's such an accurate reflection of the way I speak every day.

Anyway, I have to go. I've got a book to read that's not about vampires in a pile that I worked long and hard to cull from the library last night. (*And I still ended up with a stupid vampire book somehow. But I'm putting it last before the due date and if I don't get to it, don't cry for me, Argentina!)

I'm the gingerbread man!

If you ever want to feel immediately better about yourself, find out you have anemia and then take iron supplements for a week.


Seriously.

It's like a miracle cure. For the whole month of December, I felt like a useless lump. Every day I had to make a choice between saving my energy to clean the house or to make dinner, but no way could I do both in one day.

Then I got the call. "Hi, you failed your glucose test. You must be of below-average intelligence. You'll need to do a three hour fasting test and get eight thousand blood draws. That's the bad news."

Me: Urmph.

"The good news is you have anemia! When you come into the office next, you get a toaster and we mock you marginally less during your weigh-in."

But they were right, it WAS good news. It turns out that even though I wasn't driven to eat Borax or dirt or whatever it is an iron deficiency can make you do, taking iron has stopped the exhaustion. After about a week of iron enriched cereal and an iron tablet washed down with orange juice, operating at a normal level feels like an entirely new lease on life.

Not only do I clean my house AND make dinner all in the same day (I KNOW!) but I've gone from thinking I'm easily as close to a slug as a human being can get to thinking I might actually be kind of a decent mom and wife. In fact, each day as this realization dawns anew, I reward myself with chocolate. My toddler is snapping his three day streak in pajamas. Chocolate! Hey, I cleaned the living room before 5 p.m. Chocolate! I played with my toddler for a twenty minute stretch. Chocolate! I put my dish in the dishwasher as soon as I was done with it. Chocolate!

So it's been good. Granted, I may have undone my passing grade on the three hour glucose test with all the chocolate but they'll never know unless they take my blood again and they'll have to catch me first. (Although all the chocolate is making it a little harder for me to run. Well, that and um, I'm measurably less aerodynamic than usual right now.) But now that I have stomped on anemia and beaten it into submission, I have the energy to exercise so maybe I'll lace up my cross trainers and condition to outrun even the fastest phlebotomist.

They'll never catch me. Mwah hah hah hah!

Out to Lunch

I will turn very few sugar-based foodstuffs away. If it's made with sugar, dipped in sugar, and then sprinkled with sugar, bring it on. If there's also some sort of cream involved, serve me a double portion. But sometimes...


Sometimes something is so rich and so amazing that a very small portion of it is all I need.


I know some blogs like that. And I've been thinking about them lately. They are beautifully written by wonderful ladies, but when I visit, in general I have to skim or I'm overwhelmed by the richness. Then I'm off to drink my fill of other frothier confections.


I see this as a failing on my part. I've tried to figure out why some of the most honest blogs out there are a hard place for me to be. I'm not talking about the ones that are trying to wring your tear ducts out on a daily basis. That's not real. Those are the same folks who assume anyone crying in testimony meeting when they talk  is feeling the Spirit. Not so. That sniffling is just me, begging for you to STOP. TALKING. NOW.


No, the rich blogs I'm talking about often take on hard or difficult things. Just as often, though, they take on sweet and tender things. But it's still hard for me to go there regularly or stay there long. I'm in the minority. I know because they've got boxes overflowing with comments and followers fist fighting in the sidebar widget to be top dog. 


I've thought about why those blogs are hard for me. I love fantastic writing, which is a hallmark for these bloggers. I love honesty. They are all honest. 


And it took a while but I figured it out. These ladies are very PRESENT in their lives.


I am not. In my life, I mean.


Sometimes I am. But it's not the default setting for my personality. Unless I'm absorbed in a book, I'm either doing two things at once or doing one thing but thinking about the other that I should be doing and I'm not, or thinking about what I'm going to do next. Playing with my kid, making dinner, watching TV. Doesn't matter. It's how my brain works.


I've always been that way. It's made me incredibly effective in certain situations. Trust me, whatever job you're trying to fill, you'll want me doing it. But in doing the mom job...it's not actually an asset. 


I think I like a little distance from my life. I filter everything through an intellectual lens. Sometimes things slip through to my emotional filter, but rarely. I like to examine everything with a buffer between me and it, no matter what the experience is it. If it's at all emotional, I need a safety zone that may not ever be breached. My buffer is usually either logic or humor. They work well for me.


Mostly.


But as I examine this phenomenon of keeping this safe distance from me and things in my life, I wonder. . .


Maybe this is one of those times when a strength has become a weakness because it drives me to limit my exposure to anything that might push me out of my emotional comfort zone.


I'm going to have to think about this. You know . . .pick it apart, analyze it. Logically. 


Of course.

Blame it on the rain

1. I should never have mocked the rain. It struck back with large drops and total chaos in my life for three hours this afternoon. All is well now, but it really almost got me.


2. One night in my dorm, I heard the strains of Milli Vanilli's "Blame it on the Rain" wafting up through the vents of the girls downstairs. This was long after the song was fashionable. It turns out, it was the girls' background music to the evening's adventure of piercing their belly buttons with the curtain hooks from the kitchen. That still strikes me as a very odd thing to do. Especially since they weren't drunk.


3. Warm rain while the sun shines is one of my most favorite things.


4. I love how concrete smells when it dries after the rain.


5. My older son will try to return every worm washed onto the sidewalk when the rain stops. I think he's a pretty cool kid.


6. I made a made a mad dash to my car through a downpour today and my sweater got soaked. It took a long time to dry. It wasn't quite wet enough to change by the time I got home . . . but I spent most of the afternoon feeling damp. It occurred to me that it's a good analogy for the way I feel after a long crying bout. Not purged. Damp.


7. I still think that rain pounding on the roof is one of the greatest sounds ever.


8. I'm forcibly reminded of how many palm trees surround me once the rain knocks all the loose fronds down.    For a minute, it makes me feel eerily outnumbered.


9. I need to learn more songs about rain to sing to Grant.


10. I like rain for a few days. But not so much after that.

The old man is snoring . . .

It's going to rain in Southern California this week. You know what that means...


People are going to lose their minds.


In fact, it's going to rain a lot. 


People are going to REALLY lose their minds.


I grew up in Louisiana where rain is about as interesting as navel lint. Or maybe something else you experience daily that isn't gross. The first time it rained in SoCal after we moved here, I thought I was living a Twilight Zone episode.


It was bizarre. The panic, the mayhem, the overwrought (and over glossed) on-scene news reporters...you'd think it was blood running in the gutters instead of polluted rain water.


Remember the lead up to Y2K when people bought survival supplies and cans of Sterno and industrial strength toilet paper? That's what prepping for a week of rain down here should look like EVERY TIME because it is that level of chaos.


It's like living in a horror movie, watching it all unfold slowly, seemingly innocuously. A rain drop strikes an unsuspecting citizen, and by strikes, I mean lands on gently. There is a moment of bemusement as said citizen reaches up to touch his face in wonder, and then as he rubs the mysterious moisture between his fingers, the wonder slowly slides toward horror as the terrible, terrible possibilities unfold. 


His hair is gelled. GELLED. DO YOU KNOW WHAT RAIN DOES TO GEL? Do you? He races for his car, suddenly sure that the only place to ride out this storm and protect his hair is on the nearest congested freeway with hundreds of thousands of other panic stricken drivers who have lost all sense of direction and depth perception.


That's one of my pet theories, actually. That the rain screws with people's depth perception and that's why they suddenly forget to do things like apply their brakes. Or why they randomly steer into concrete medians or drive in the middle of the road.


But we're going to get (brace for it): EIGHT INCHES. In a week. (I know, right? They think that's a lot here. And it is a lot for here. Just not a lot for anywhere else.)


The End is near!


Or, more appropriately, The sky is falling! (Another pet theory of mine. I think they think that's what's happening.)


Rain, rain, go away.

Stick it to me

You guys are always asking questions, you know that?

And I loves it, so I'll answer three more.

First, Debbie at Suburb Sanity wants to know why she's late to everything. Uh....

Well, Deb, I don't know how to break this to you but: you have kids. It's a universal truth that each child you have means that you should automatically deduct five minutes from any scheduled on-time arrival. By my calculations, that means you're probably twenty minutes late on average to everything. Take heart, though. Now that two of them are off to college, you may see that average dip back down toward ten minutes.

Susan and I go way back to college but we reconnected on Facebook and then through blogging. She says she remembers that in college, I was really smart and really nice (the smart part is true) but she doesn't remember me wanting to be a writer and she wonders if that was always the plan.

In a word, kind of. My main dream was to be a teacher, which I was. Yes, I was that nerdy that I wanted to grow up to be an English teacher. I told close friends that I wanted to write a book someday but it wasn't something I was actively trying to do. But then, sevvvverrrrralllll years later, I met Prince Charming and Someday happened. I had the time to write and I did and then I got published.

Lastly, several of you wondered after Monday's post if we're moving.

Uh huh. But not until the summer. Right now we're scouting. We've metaphorically been all over the map. We considered Austin, Texas for a while, then took a long hard look at Northern California and as much as we'd rather not go with our third choice, the signs seems to be pointing to south Orange County. I'll do a post on it in more detail, but no, gentle readers (and DeNae). No one missed an announcement.

We're just about to be five people living in a cute two bedroom beachside condo and at some point, it's time to consider a living situation that does not consign one of our children to living in the closet. And yes, one of them currently does. Even though it's roomy. We need to move before he figures it out and starts holding it against us.

I hope you all enjoy your morning. I'll be spending mine doing an oh, so entertaining three hour fasting glucose blood test which I'll probably pass because this is third kid in a row that's put me through this. However, I have a minivan with a DVD player and electric outlets and a plan to use them. Between my three (four?) separate needle sticks at one hour intervals, instead of sitting in the lab waiting room watch the parade of human misery file through for their own blood tests, I'll hang out in the van watching Veronica Mars season two on DVD, writing, and reading. Suh-weet. Don't cry for me, Argentina!

Dating again

I started dating again. I forgot how unnerving it is.

I remember the days of standing in front of my closet and staring blankly because I had to find one outfit that met all of these requirements:

     *Attractive without being trashy
     *projects confidence without cockiness
     *is easy to coordinate with my makeup

And of course, doesn't make me look TOO pregnant. I wasn't dealing with all of that the last time I was out playing the field.

And the make up thing is a whole different ball game. Do I go for bold glossy lips or play up the eyes instead? Or does playing up the eyes look like I'm ready for a night at a club instead of time spent in good conversation of the getting-to-know-you variety?

It's not that I forgot that dating is hard. I dated for WAY longer than most of you before getting married (at 32, natch). It's more that I just didn't think I'd be in this position ever again which was naive, I guess.

There are some differences, of course. I have a very supportive husband this time around and it helps to approach this as a tag team. It makes a difference on a first date with someone new.

Finding a new ward is hard, you know.

We went on our first blind date yesterday. It's tricky. We had to check people out without looking like we were checking them out. Not only did I have to be perfectly groomed, but I had to get the kids looking their best. That turned out to be the hardest part because James couldn't find his church pants and ended up in gray cargos that were two inches too short and looked odd with his shiny black church shoes.

Grant did okay for a while until the nursery came to get Kenny for a diaper emergency that was so bad, Grant ended up naked in the church parking lot (which I think is the wrong first date impression) and then returned in a back up outfit of surfer chic jeans and a t-shirt (which is still the wrong message on a first date).

Ultimately, I think we sparkled. The former RS president even hopped in our van after church and took us on a tour of her neighborhood and the houses for sale. And she's not even a real estate agent. She just liked us.

I guess we're lucky that our first date was so good, but we've got a few more to go on before we're ready to commit.

To a house, that is.

Wish us luck!

Hellllllllo, Mr. Blackwell.

I have fashion issues. I'm not referring to the ones created by my trendy bowling ball silhouette. Nay, my baby bump puts me in the company of the many Hollywood starlets who, when given a choice between  purse-sized rat dog and a human baby as an accessory, chose to have a baby. I bet you didn't think there was any circumstance that would actually make Paris Hilton look like she had a grain of sense, but there you go. She, at least, picked the dog.

So anyway, it's not the trendy protuberance of my tummy that's an issue. Especially not since I discovered last week that H&M carries maternity clothes. My issue is that regardless of whether I am heavy with child or merely extra servings of ice cream, I am overly matchy. Mixing and matching escapes me.

I'm definitely one of those shoes-match-the-handbag-match-the-belt kind of girls, even though it CLEARLY indicates in the opening credits of "What Not to Wear" that this rule is outdated. I can't help it. I was brought up to match and I can't de-condition myself. I live in fear that one day I'll be browsing through a photo album and realize that I spent my thirties in a subconscious attempt to emulate Hilary Clinton's style.

I saw an article online the other day about how one of the spring trends this year is to mix prints. It made my eyeball twitch and I felt vaguely ill. Will I have to sit out this trend like I did that two years during the regrettable rebirth of culottes that were repackaged and sold to unsuspecting women as "gauchos"? I never owned a pair of gauchos and I feel good about that, but I think this is one of those times where I'm on the wrong side philosophically from the trend.

I think I'm going to have to accept that my OCD matching tendencies are going to bench me from this season's MVP fashion list. Save my spot in Frumps Anonymous, please.

Crazy 8's

Look, I don't want to say anything ill of DeNae, but...she's kind of a bad influence. I bet you all thought when you saw my New Year's resolution on Monday that I picked something easy. Even though I TOLD you it wouldn't be. Even though I gave you MULTIPLE examples of how hard it would be.

Maybe now you'll believe me when I tell you that DeNae is already forcing me perilously close to breaking my resolution of not being interesting enough for reality TV by forcing me to reveal my extreme psychic powers.

I'm only doing this because you're my friend, DeNae, but if TLC starts calling and waving a contract around, then I'm holding you responsible to send your husband down to shoo them off with his gun.

All right, here's the situation. Before Christmas, I told all my bloggy friends they could ask me a question and I'd answer it. I got lots of questions. And I've answered all but a few of them. I WILL get to all of them, but DeNae has asked me her question an additional 43 times so I'm jumping her to the head of the remaining line.

DeNae's burning question is: Where is her remote?

Sigh. SIGH. SIGH.

I've never revealed this before, but I have an amazing bond with what some of you might think of as a cheap toy store novelty or a parlor trick at best. But that's because either

1) you don't like the truth yours tells you

2) you don't know how to use it right

I'm not going to reveal all my secrets here, but let this suffice: The Magic 8 Ball IS all-knowing, and in the words of the Cristina Aguilera, YOU just have to know how to rub it the right way. And I'm not giving that piece of information up.

Anyway, I asked the 8-ball for you, DeNae. And I know where your remote is. I suggest you fortify yourself with whatever you go to when a bracing glass of cold water won't do the trick. I wish I could be there with you to hold your hand as I tell you this, but I'm sending out a psychic handhold to you right now. Can you feel it? I know, I'm powerful, right?

Your remote...well. It slipped into the fourth dimension. There's a much more complicated explanation the 8-ball gave me involving small creatures that hijack these things because the infrared chip that makes your remote work wirelessly is a power source for their miniature vehicles. But frankly, it sounded like nonsense. I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of that. I CAN tell you that it's definitely in the fourth dimension. I'd say it's time to keep one of your children home at all times in case you may be in need of channel changing.

I'm so very, very sorry. I can happily report that the answers to the remaining questions I've been asked are  not nearly so grim. Happy Wednesday, all. DeNae, just do your best to soldier on.

My Word

I can't help it; I've given in.

I gave up resolutions a few years ago because I'm pretty good about setting goals as needed. A new year always feel more like it starts to me when school does, not right after Christmas.

But between my Facebook status update feed and blogland, I was feeling left out of all the resolution making. And THEN when you add in choosing a word for the year? Really, how am I supposed to resist that? I've even made my word coordinate with my one resolution. How forward-thinking is THAT?

So my word for the year is: Kardashian.

And my resolution is: We will not do anything interesting enough as a family to merit our own reality show.

I feel pretty good about that. I mean, it'll be hard for sure. There's a lot of stuff you have to stay on top of to avoid your own reality show. For example, I'll have to not to become nor associate with any little people chocolatiers. And I'll have to make sure just one baby comes out in March and not six or more.

It actually gets HARDER than that, if you can believe it. I'll have to not tart either of my little boys up in hooker shellac and put them in little girl beauty pageants. Or have a meltdown in the fitting room of a bridal shop. I can't move into a houseful of strangers for any reason: no trying to chase the same self-involved bachelor or fighting with a bunch of twenty-year-olds about the house rules for nekkid hot tub hijinks. I'll have to keep the volume down in my hair so I don't accidentally get recruited to the Jersey shore.

There's more. I can't manufacture any crazy home science experiments and then hide my kid in the attic while people freak out. I definitely can't spend any time with Paris, LiLo, or Britney. (They'll be super bummed.) I'll have to avoid desert islands and resist the urge to eat bugs even if it wins me a cool immunity necklace. I'll have to remember that I'm pregnant so I don't suddenly get a day-long stomach ache and shock myself by pooping out a baby I forgot I was pregnant with. I'll have to leave my ridiculous costumes at home and not show up to screech a Lady Gaga song acapella for Simon and Randy.

I can't even attempt to become crazy good at cake decorating and if I do get really good at it, I must avoid being adopted by an Italian family OR getting any tattoos. Also, although I'm a housewife, I can't become desperate in any way, shape or form, ESPECIALLY because I live in Orange County.

I know, right? It's a much harder goal than it seemed like at first. But I'm committed. And I'm not just giving up after a week, either. I'm going to stay off of reality TV for at least a WHOLE YEAR.

But I believe in me. Wish me luck. . .

Rating Rachel Ray's Recipes

I use letter grades because I'm a former teacher and I can't shake the impulse. All of these recipes are taken from Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meals (the original) and I include page numbers so that you can easily find it if you choose. I also include notes about what worked and what didn't. I do NOT include the recipe itself because I'm not a filthy dirty idea stealer. Just so you know.

Coming Soon:
Chicken Parmigiana

2/11/10 Dilly of a Quesadilla
Grade: A-
Cook time: 45 minutes (you can do it faster if you're a fast chopper, which I'm not)

This recipe actually had two parts. The fresh salsa was only about a "C" but the quesadillas were super yummy. Just find a salsa recipe you like (or even fresh salsa from the store) and you'll be fine. The recipe depends on finding good chorizo, which is easy where I live. It needs to have rich flavor without the fat and gristle. The smoky barbecue sauce on the chicken was a nice touch and with the right salsa, this would be muy delicioso.

2/9/10 Macho Mix and Match Enchiladas
Grade: C-
Cook time: 40-ish minutes

I chose the combination of chicken filling and red sauce. The whole thing was easy to make but the method of poaching the chicken didn't allow for it to soak up much flavor and then broiling it to melt the cheese meant that the tortillas still weren't soft when I served them. I just found the whole thing kind of bland. It didn't help that I was aggravated because I forgot to make the sauce at the same time that the chicken was cooking. (Duh.) I think the lesson here is that you can't really short cut with enchiladas. They really need to be cooked casserole style for all the cheesy, gooey goodness.

2/3/10 Pasta Abruzzese (Penne with Sausage, Fennel and Tomato Sauce) p. 39
Grade: B+
Cook Time: 35 minutes

My husband really liked this but he found the sausage a bit gristly (I used a pound of sweet Italian sausage from the meat case). I think the Italian seasoned ground turkey would be a good substitute. Anyway, although I liked the fresh fennel taste and using the Muir Glen tomatoes was a big improvement over the Hunt's, it was a little too mellow for me. I spiced mine up with red pepper flakes. My husband and ten-year-old son liked it just as it was.

2/1/10: Carbonara Pizza: Bacon, Egg, and Cheese (p. 80)
Grade: B+
Cook time: Prep is 30 minutes. Cooking is closer to 40 total.

I was skeptical of a pizza without sauce but this was really lovely. I only had curly parsley instead of flat leaf, but that worked out and although I wish I had fresh mozzarella, I used the pre-shredded cheese from a bag and it still came out great so I'm sure the fresh stuff would rock this. It's not hearty enough to stand alone as a meal but it would be fantastic with a robust dinner salad. The recipe notes that it can be cut into smaller pieces for a great appetizer which I would totally agree with. I actually think this would make a great breakfast if you want to keep things interesting. The baking directions are confusing but just go with it and it will come out fine (meaning don't preheat and set the timer to start when you turn the heat on).

1/10: Penne with Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce (p. 36)
Grade: B-
Cook time: It really is 30 minutes.

I used the extra lean ground beef option to keep it healthy. The all spice added an interesting flavor I really liked but I used the cheap Hunt's crushed tomatoes and I should definitely have sprung for the more expensive brand. Muir Glen, maybe? Or Cento? Be generous with the red pepper flakes and I used a whole wheat penne which tasted fine in the recipe.

1/10: Spicy Chicken Tacos (p. 101)
Grade: B
Cook time: My husband made it and I forgot to ask him

Definitely get a good quality tomato puree. Not the Hunt's (it'll taste ketchup-y otherwise). Be generous with the golden raisins because they add a nice taste. A solid meal I'd make again. The toppings give the whole thing a fresh light taste.