Oh, where to start.
It’s not a surprise that I would buy and appreciate this book, as I have been a follower of Matt’s blog for quite some time now. In fact, I blogged about him way back when.
It’s likely that many of you know the basis of his story. After a complicated pregnancy, his wife, Liz, gave birth to their daughter, Madeline. Although she was premature, she was healthy, and their ordeal appeared to be over. But then, just 27 hours after Madeline’s birth, Liz suddenly died of a pulmonary embolism. She never even held the daughter that her body had worked so hard for. Obviously devastated, Matt was left to pick up the pieces and care for newborn Madeline as a single dad. A tragic tale, to say the least… and this is real life.
In Two Kisses for Maddy, Matt tells his story–beginning with how he met Liz, and a brief account of their relationship, marriage, and pregnancy. After the unthinkable happens, the remainder of the book focuses on the aftermath, and how Maddy is the life preserver that keeps Matt’s head above water. In short, you’re reading how they survived their first year without Liz.
The book itself is a nice departure from Matt’s fragmented style of writing on his blog. Although most of the story was not new to me, it was nice to be able to read it in a beginning-to-end format. For me, the best part about reading it was feeling like I got to know a little more about Liz. Through all of Matt’s blog posts, there have been bits and pieces describing who Liz was, but never before have all of those pieces come together like they did in this book. I got a kick out of learning that she regularly cursed like a sailor (I’ve been known to drop a few f-bombs in everyday life). It was nice to read more details about Matt and Liz’s beginning–how they met at a gas station, and how they spent most of their dating years doing the long-distance thing.
Of course, being able to imagine who Liz was as a person also makes losing her that much more difficult on the reader. It’s easier to imagine the devastation of that loss for Matt, Maddy, and all of their family. Just because I knew the story didn’t make her death any easier to read about, although I kept it together fairly well… until the chapter about her funeral, that is. Holy moly.
Now that I have a baby girl of my own, I feel like the story affects me in an entirely different way. It’s not to say that I couldn’t sympathize before, and it’s not that I couldn’t feel sad for Matt, and for Maddy. But now that I have Nora, I found myself thinking even more about the things that Liz never got to do or see.
This story, like many others, makes you realize how fragile life is. It’s cliche, but the lesson is to not take life for granted. I never even imagined that I could go into the hospital to have my baby and not come back out. Neither did Liz. Are we supposed to live in fear of the worst possible things happening to us? I don’t think so. But should we be tremendously grateful and be sure to appreciate it when we’re blessed with good outcomes? Yes, we should probably try.
A happy book? No. But many of the good ones never are. In the end, it’s exactly what the book claims to be–“A memoir of loss and love.”
Well…
We went out and bought ourselves a house.
So, I guess you can say that 50% of my stress about this whole situation is alleviated. Only now the stress about the second part–you know, what to do with our current place–seems to increase tenfold. We’re still hoping to be able to sell it, and thankfully, it seems that we still have some time to do so. But we’re ramping up the efforts, that’s for sure. Our current back-up plan is to find a tenant.
That’s right–we might become landlords. Not by choice, but the market is shitty right now and it is what it is. We’ll do what we have to do to avoid having to pay two mortgages.
Over Memorial Day weekend, three new listings popped up that met our parameters, and looked interesting to us. We made appointments for Wednesday to see them, so we did a little marathon house-hunting last night, and it turns out we found “the one.” We’ve seen some seriously messed up properties during this process, and it was refreshing to finally find one that we felt was WORTH the asking price.
Thank you to all of you who have been sending good thoughts our way for a while now. Things appear to be coming together, but we just need this other piece of the puzzle to fall into place, too. We are choosing to have faith that it will all work out, but this Type-A lady is not one to fly by the seat of her pants. To say that I am slightly uncomfortable with the situation is probably a bit of an understatement.
Assuming our inspection goes well and we can figure out a date that’s good for all involved (we’re having a little trouble working around vacations), we will likely be moving into our new house in late July/early August. Yippee!
I’ve been terrible about reading books since Nora was born. Well, I do read them, but they are of the board book variety. :) But a few weeks ago, we got an iPad (yay!), and now I have access to Kindle, eBooks, and Nook apps. Somehow, being able to read on this device has renewed my excitement for reading. I’ve already sped through my first book (more on that soon), and now I’m ready for more.
In March of last year, I asked all of you for book recommendations, and came away with many titles to add to the “to read” list. Admittedly, I still have many more of those original titles to read, but since it’s been a year, I wanted to put this request out there again and ask what y’all have read recently that you’ve loved.
Last time, someone recommended Firefly Lane, which I absolutely LOVED, so I’m hoping to uncover more gems like that. If you want to see some of the things I’ve read and enjoyed to get an idea of my taste, see my books label.
I know all of you bookworms really enjoyed the discussion and recommendations that the last post garnered, so I’m hoping the same for this year. Oh, and you get bonus points if your recommendations are cheap in Kindle/eBook/Nook format. ;)
I have heard so much about kale, but prior to making this dish for dinner tonight, I had never had kale before. I don’t know much about how to prepare it, and I’m not too familiar with the different varieties of kale.
But as I was sifting through my Google Reader during my menu planning on Saturday morning, I decided that Memorial Day was going to be the day to try it. You know, the day when most people are gorging themselves on hot dogs and hamburgers at the thousands of barbecues planned for this day. Go figure.
And what do you know? I cannot say enough good things about this recipe. I went into it with hope and an open mind, but I was still very pleasantly surprised when I took my first bite.
Come to find out, I didn’t even use the right kind of kale. The recipe calls for black kale, which is also known as dino, Tuscan, or Lacinato kale. As far as I could tell, my grocery store only carries one variety of kale, and I couldn’t even find any kind of label on it that said anything but “kale.” So, I took a chance and figured I wouldn’t know the difference anyway. After doing a little Googling this afternoon to find out how to trim kale (I told you, I didn’t even know how to prepare it), I found that what I bought was actually curly kale.
Well, I’m here to tell you that it did not matter one bit. Supposedly, curly kale is more bitter than black kale, but I really didn’t notice. The dressing has so much flavor, and the lemon, garlic, and olive oil did a great job of masking any bitterness. Don’t get me wrong, there is still what I would call a “bite” to it–but I generally hate bitter greens and I did not mind this at all. Top it all off with a little bit of spice from the crushed red pepper and black pepper, and well, you’ve got a winner.
And psssst… it’s really good for you, too! I’m excited to try kale in other dishes, too.
I clearly wasn’t paying much attention when I initially looked at the recipe, because up until I was re-reading it today, I assumed that the kale was cooked. Well, it isn’t–and at first I thought that was going to be weird–but trust me and give it a chance. As is, this dish is wonderfully easy to pull together since the only cooking involved is boiling the pasta. This is especially great this time of year when it’s hot outside and the last thing you want to do is stand over a stove to cook dinner. However, if you wanted to make it a little more substantial, you could easily add some grilled or sauteed chicken breast pieces to the dish for some protein.
Kale Pasta with Lemon and Garlic
(Source: Spoon With Me, as seen on Annie’s Eats)
Ingredients:
– 1 large bunch dino kale (aka black, Tuscan, or Lacinato), rinsed and dried
– 2 medium garlic cloves, peeled
– 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
– 1/2 cup finely grated parmigiano reggiano, plus additional for garnish
– 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus additional for garnish
– freshly squeezed juice from 2 lemons (plus extra, for garnish)
– 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
– freshly ground black pepper to taste
– 1 (16 ounce) package whole wheat penne
Directions:
1. In a large saucepan, bring 5 quarts of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta al dente according to the package directions.
2. In the meantime, chop the kale into 1/2 inch ribbons and put in a large bowl.
3. On a cutting board, mince the garlic cloves. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt and smash into a paste using a fork or the side of a chefs knife. transfer the garlic paste to a small bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, grated parmigiano, red pepper flakes, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper to taste. Whisk together until combined.
4. Pour the dressing into the large bowl with the kale and toss well until the kale is thoroughly coated.
5. When the pasta is finished cooking, drain, and set aside for a minute or so to cool slightly.
6. Then, add the pasta to the large bowl with the kale salad, tossing well to combine.
7. Garnish individual servings of pasta with an extra squeeze of lemon juice, a light sprinkling of kosher salt, and a few gratings of parmigiano reggiano. Serve warm or at room temperature.
I’m going to make a confession that will likely make me sound crazy. Or just stupid. But, it’s true, so whatever. Here we go…
I found this recipe because I was looking for a reason to use my springform pan. It had been a while and I saw it sitting in my cupboard and thought, I really need to use that thing. Of course, there were a million and one recipes for cheesecake that use springform pans, but um… I don’t like cheesecake. There were obviously other cakes as well, but when I saw this, I was intrigued.
I think this dish should actually be called “tortilla and black bean lasagna,” but I guess it’s called a pie because it’s made in a round dish and cut into wedges to serve. Whatever you call it, though, it’s good. This came together really easily, too, so if you’re looking for a fairly quick weeknight meal, this is your solution. It could be made even more quickly if you make the bean mixture in advance, and simply assemble and bake it on the night you want to eat it.
Melissa adapted the recipe to include ground beef, and only one can of black beans, but we decided to forgo the beef and make the original, vegetarian version. The only other change we made was to omit the two serrano peppers.
I have to say: Don’t be deterred by the use of a beer in the recipe. Growing up, I had an uncle (he’s an ex-uncle now) who put beer in everything he cooked. And we’re not talking about good beer, either. My cousin and I always used to beg him to make “normal” spaghetti sauce, but we rarely won. If we were lucky, he’s put aside a little bit of sauce for us before adding his “secret ingredient.” Blech. So, although I like beer, I’m still a bit scarred and hesitant to use it in my cooking unless it makes sense to me. It seemed weird to use it in this instance, but I threw caution to the wind and just went with it, and in the end, I’m glad I did.
Although this isn’t a good picture, I wanted to share what it looks like as a whole (well, except for a piece cut out of it):
Tortilla and Black Bean Pie
(Source: Adapted from Delicious Meliscious)
Ingredients:
– 4 (10-inch) flour (or wheat) tortillas
– 1 tbsp. canola oil
– 1 large onion, diced
– 2 mild jalapenos
– 2 cloves garlic, minced
– 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
– 2 cans (15 oz.) black beans, drained and rinsed
– 12 ounces beer, or 1 1/2 cups water
– 1 can corn, drained OR 1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn
– 1 small jar of enchilada sauce
– 4 scallions, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish
– 2 1/2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
– sour cream and salsa, for serving (optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. If your springform pan is smaller than your tortillas, use a paring knife to trim tortillas to fit the pan, using the bottom of the pan as a guide. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add onion, jalapeno, garlic, and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Add beans and beer to skillet, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until liquid has almost evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in corn and scallions, and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Fit a tortilla in bottom of springform pan; layer with 1/4 of the beans, drizzle with some enchilada sauce, and top with 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat three times, using 1 cup cheese on top layer. Bake until hot and cheese is melted, 20 to 25 minutes. Unmold pie; sprinkle with scallions. To serve, slice into wedges and serve with sour cream and salsa.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
