Recipe: Lobster Risotto

With how crazy our schedules have been lately, it felt like forever since I cooked dinner – I mean, really cooked. 

A week of vacation followed up by a week of traveling for work, topped off with a week of Mr. KK working late and boring, fast 'weekday' meals, this long weekend felt like the perfect time to pour a few cocktails, let the swanky sounds of Sinatra and Bublé fill the kitchen, and just cook.

And what better food to enjoy as the end of summer looms over our heads, than lobster!

I love risotto, and I love making risotto. It's not hard (I swear!), it just requires constant attention.

We watch a lot of food TV, and every season without fail, a contestant attempts risotto. And every time, it's the kiss of death. I swear, if I ever make it onto a cooking show, I'm making risotto. (You hear that, Tom Colicchio??)

(Little known kk fact: about 7 years ago I sent in a video submission for The Next Food Network Star. Guess what I made? Yup. Risotto with peas and lemon. And, no, nothing every came of it).

So here's my recipe* for lobster risotto.

Ingredients:

2 lobsters, steamed, delicious meat removed and cut into large pieces

(I leave the tails whole for presentation)

3 Tbsp of unsalted butter, divided

Olive oil

1 large shallot, diced

1 cup arborio rice

3/4 cup white wine (stuff you drink)

6 cups chicken stock, kept warm throughout cooking

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (cheese with fish? are you crazy? yes. yes I am)

A crisp white wine for drinking.

This recipe should probably feel 4 people. In our house, it feeds 2 people with a little leftover to be enjoyed by Mr. KK for lunch.

1. Do the lobsters first. Look at that gorgeous meat!

2. Melt 2 Tbsp of butter with a few swirls of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat (I sometimes do it over medium low, but my behemoth stove cooks hot)

3. Add the shallot, and sauté until translucent (but not brown)

4. Add the rice, and stir until you coat every piece with the butter/oil mixture. The rice should glisten. Continue to stir, allowing the rice to toast up a little bit.

5. Add the wine, and stir rice to pick up any bits that may have stuck to the pan. Stir until just about all of the wine evaporates.

6. Once the wine evaporates, add two ladlefuls of warm stock. Stir the rice to coat and work the broth around the pan. The rice will absorb the stock. When this happens, add another two ladlefuls of stock. Continue this until the rice is plump and creamy, anywhere from 22-26 minutes or so. I do it by taste. The rice should be creamy, but still have a little bit of bite left. I also season with salt and pepper along the way.

7. At the very end, stir in the cheese, lemon zest and lemon juice, then add the picked lobster meat and stir to warm through. Turn off the heat. Add 1 Tbsp of butter, stir to melt.

8. Serve with lobster tail on top.

As we were cooking our risotto, we grilled up some clams and just enjoyed them with lemon.

Happy end of summer!

Sh*t I've been doing.

I logged in to write this post tonight and saw that I haven't blogged in almost three months. Three months!

That's horrible. I'm a shitty blogger. I'm sorry.

But please – get out your violin so you can play a sad tune while I attempt to explain where the hell I've been.

Summer who?

If it weren't for my school teacher friends on Facebook, I probably would have never known it was summertime, or that summer has (unofficially) ended. I mean, I knew it was summer (it was a million effing degrees out and my hair was one big ball of frizz), but we didn't do anything that I would call 'super summery' this year. I think I went in my in-laws' pool a total of 2 times. I saw the beach once (once!), and it wasn't until we were on vacation in North Carolina two weeks ago. I don't feel like I had a summer yet, so I'm struggling with accepting the fact that it's over and letting it go. Summer in September, anyone?

House renovations.

Our house looks like a show on HGTV gone wrong. We are finally doing the big construction project we've been talking about forever, and turning our garage into a family room and building a new garage next to that. The main reason is that Max has too much crap, and all of his crap is really big. Why is baby stuff so freaking big? I remember playing with wooden spoons and Tupperware, and being happy.

Between piles of dirt, our broken up driveway, large equipment and the fact that we have to park on the front lawn Sanford-and-Son-style, our yard leaves much to be desired. Today, I came home to the sprinkler on, continuously wetting a mound of dirt. We are now watering dirt. This place is a wreck. (But it's going to be awesome!)

#maxmars

Somehow, this kid is going to be a year old in a month. How is that even humanly possible? 

I've stopped reading my weekly updates from baby websites, because they practically have Max driving a car at 47 weeks old. Max is a superior crawler, when he wants to be. And he loves laughing at the word 'no', which we believe he inherited from his paternal grandfather. I also think he's going to be left-handed, though he REFUSES to pick up any morsels of food and put them in his mouth. Inanimate objects? They go right into his pie hole. Actual food? He prefers to be hand fed like a Roman King by mommy and daddy.

But he's super cute, so we forgive him.

My novel.

I actually started it!

I was going to publish a post with the Prologue, but then got cold feet. What if you hate the prologue? Does that mean you'll hate the whole book? 

I even started one of the chapters, though Mr. KK isn't a fan of it, because the whole chapter revolves around this thing he does that drives me NUTS, and I totally call him out on it.

Wieners.

Vito the Wonder Dog is starting to show his age. He's been gray for a while, but now he's practically deaf. It's so heartbreaking, because he was always on alert. I swear that dog would bark at a deer in the woods two streets over.

Now, he has to be looking at you when you talk to him in order to hear you. He IS 13 years old, which is really old in dog years. Oftentimes we find ourselves screaming things to him like, "VITO.COME.HERE!" and "DO.YOU.HAVE.TO.POOP?"

In other wiener news, Max found HIS wiener in the tub the other night. He was fascinated. To quote Elaine Benes, 'I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.'

Oh, Duggars, Just STOP.

I called it a year ago with this post, summarizing the Duggars' ridiculous 'courting' rules for their daughters.

In the light of all that's come up in the news lately, seems there was more than side hugs going on around the Duggar compound.

Apparently, "mild inappropriate touching on fully-clothed girls" is TOTALLY acceptable in their home. The poor boyfriends of the Duggar girls were barely allowed to sneak a glance at the fully-clothed girlfriends, however, if you're a blood relative, it's okay to play nighttime touchy-touchy.

And don't even GET me started on Mama Duggar who – claiming she has 19 kids because it's been "God's will" and she doesn't believe in birth control – visited IVF doctors last year to see about rounding out her brood to an even 20.  

There's no "God's will" with IVF. It's science. And it's a choice. One I fully support, because I am pro family and pro happiness. 

Ladies, I will leave you with this marital tidbit from Michelle Duggar:

"Your hubby comes home after a hard day's work, you get the baby to bed, and he is going to be looking forward to that time with you…Anyone can fix him lunch, but only one person can meet that physical need of love that he has, and you always need to be available when he calls."

Go home, Duggars.

A year ago this weekend: bumps, boy parts and beers

While Mr. Max just reached the 8-month mark on Friday, a year ago he was just a 20-week old fetus. And Mr. KK and I headed down to Augusta for the monumental event: ultrasound and measurements and finding out he was, well, a he.

Since no one besides our parents and a few close friends even knew Baby M existed, our trip was somewhat clandestine, done in as few hours as possible to minimize time out of work (gotta save those days for my non-existent future maternity leave!) and lies to innocent bystanders.

Oblivious to how stressful this one-day trip will turn out to be.

It was surreal to see our surrogate in person, baby bump and all. When she greeted us at the airport I just about lost it. Sure, she had been sending up bump pics all along, but to see it live – and touch it! – was pretty amazing. Her bump was small and round and perfect, and as I looked down, my stomach appeared equally as large from my airport dinner. 

At our ultrasound appointment the next morning, we watched, eyes glued to the monitor, as the tech pointed and clicked and called out body parts and measurements. We had never made it this far in the process before, so we were cautiously optimistic.

"Yo, Mom and Dad!"

Just to be clear: we're having a boy.

We met with the doctor afterwards and that's when everything sort of went downhill. 

To summarize: he unprofessionally scared the shit out of us saying horrible things like "not viable at 20 weeks" and "specialist" and "amniotic fluid levels", then referred us to a high-risk specialist, whom I disliked the minute I met (I have good instincts) and whose laissez faire beside manner earned her the name Dr. Earthy Crunchy Kookpot. 

Dr. ECK talked about the kidney issue, signed us up for monthly monitoring, and said, "I wouldn't worry about it until after birth."

The we found ourselves rushing to the airport to make our flight home, thunderstorms threatening all around us (gotta love the south!).

A nice layover in Charlotte provided us an opportunity to enjoy one of our favorite IPAs (stress drinking).

Hey NoDa brewing, you got us through some tough times.

Care to send us a case of this goodness???

Longest.Day.Ever.

Saturday night we had 4 anxious and excited parents over for the big gender reveal.

They thought they were getting the necklace reveal, but instead it was hidden in what they thought was my dad's birthday cake.

And here we are, one year later, with a happy and healthy baby (with one perfect and one not-so-perfect kidney), four infatuated grandparents, and two parents who couldn't be happier, or luckier.

I'm going to write a book.

#truth

2007

I started to write a novel. It was pure chick lit, loosely based on the time I spent living in Boston (and by 'loosely based' I mean landmarks and activities, not actual people, save for the parts about the homeless guy who begged for money every day on the Boston Common – he was real).

Then, in what could only be called a true tragedy, my laptop died and I lost everything.

I.lost.everything.

Including, the 150 pages that I had written.

'But surely you had backed up your novel?' any normal person with common sense would ask, incredulously.

Well, I didn't.

I know.

Plus, it was on my work computer, so I didn't want to draw too much attention to the matter. As it was, the IT team was a little suspicious that I was that upset over a few lost headlines about sandwiches.

NOTE TO MY CURRENT EMPLOYER: I have received your multitude of email threats gentle reminders and have taken the mandated video training course (see how fun my job is!) about the "Code of Ethics, Computer Use for Personal Projects, and Harassment", passed the test, and fully comply. Thank you.

Present Day

So what was that proverbial straw, that "aha!" moment, that wake-up call where the clouds disappeared and there were rainbows and unicorns?

Reese Witherspoon.

Actually, it was Reese Witherspoon's character in the endearing rom-com Sweet Home Alabama (don't judge me).

After Wedding Crashers, Father of the Bride and Horrible Bosses, Sweet Home Alabama is one of my most-quotable movies.

The scene:

Reese Witherspoon's character, Melanie, is out at a honky tonk bar back in her hometown in Alabama, when she runs into her high school best friend LurLynn, who is hanging out at said bar, holding her baby.

Reese, startled, looks at her and says with horror, "You have a baby…at a bar."

It's a classic line, and one I repeat when I find myself and Mr. KK at a bar with OUR bar baby in tow. Which is often.

My eureka went down like this:

I was at the gym this morning (yay, me!), Kindle propped up, reading Una LaMarche's memoir, Unabrow: Misadventures of a Late Bloomer (which is hilarious, btw), when SHE quoted that very same line – MY line! – from Sweet Home Alabama.

What Una didn't know – and neither did anyone else, for that matter – was that I was going to quote that line as part of an upcoming post on this very blog.

So naturally my thought process went something like this:

          "Hey! I use that quote all the time!"

          "A very talented, published author used the same quote – 
          in a very similar way!"

          "I could be a published author!"


So at a stage in my life when I have the least amount of free time ever, and am pretty much destined to fail (I'm sure there are statistics somewhere that document how hard it is to get published), I'm going to commit to doing it. 

I will write a book.

THERE. 

I said it on the internet, so it must be true.

POST SCRIPT: At any point, audience, feel free to let me know if you know of any literary agents who might want to take a chance on a semi-humorous, pear-shaped girl who can cook but not bake, believes babies belong in bars, shames people who aren't good at multi-tasking, and who blames her shrinking pants on the dry clean delivery guy (who, it should be known, is her father). 

Thanks, in advance!

Confession: I Never Watched Mad Men

It's very possible that I'm the only person on the planet who didn't tune into the phenomenon on Sunday nights known as Mad Men.

A few weeks ago, when the series ended and the finale was the social media story of the day, someone asked me: "So, do you think Don did or didn't write it?"

My response: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Then, I admitted, my voice taking on more of apologetic tone than I would have liked: "I've never watched Mad Men." 

Cue audible gasp.

"But you WORK at an agency!"

Exactly.

When the show started all those years ago, a friend said to me, "I started watching Mad Men. It's SO good! It's like I have a sneak peek into your job and what you do all day!"

Oh?
Really?

If that's the case, I hope they captured some of these poignant agency moments:

• The one where the characters were booked in back-to-back meetings all day without any sort of break, resulting in them actually starting their day at 6pm. Also? They didn't even have time to pour a scotch (or 3).

• The special holiday 2-hour episode when HR handed out drink tickets – only 2 each, people! – to Don, Peggy and the gang for the office Christmas party. (The first half of this episode explained why the holiday party was in mid-January, after a 5-hour Powerpoint meeting.)

• How about the one when Don Draper ate a can of soup from his desk drawer with a questionable expiration date out of desperation. I imagine the episode started with the email: "I scheduled our meeting from 12-1pm…it was the only time you were free today. Hope you don't mind."

• Or, the one when it took them seven meetings - yes, SEVEN; not one magical "carousel meeting" – to get it right with the client. 

• Remember when the AC was broken, oh, EVERY SUMMER? That episode when Don or Pete or Roger were perspiring through their suits? And the ladies were doing a little more than glistening? Because it was 90 degrees inside? And people were passing out? Talk about a cliff hanger!

• And – perhaps what would have been my favorite episode – the one where the creative team makes it out of the Sterling Cooper building on time to company outings, is able to take advantage of time off at the holidays, and doesn't find themselves presenting to the client while huddled in the corner of a casino on vacation (what? a little too much detail on that one?). I think the name of that episode was "Utopia".

So, if Mad Men showcased agency life similarly to the scenarios above, then, NO. I never watched the show.

Because I live it.

Obituary to my former life

When you have a baby, it changes your life. 

Cliché, I know. 

But true.

I love Max more than I thought humanly possible. I love him so much that when I'm holding him, I just want to squeeze him, and eat him up (not literally, weirdos, though I have been known to munch on his ridiculously cute toes and cheeks).

A common question people ask you after you've had a baby is: "I bet you can't even remember life before Max!" then they tip their heads back and let out some co-conspirator 'Am I right?' parent laugh.

"Actually, I remember my life before Max pretty well," I say, and they stop laughing, as if I just told them I practice voodoo in the backyard.

I'm not saying I want to go back to life before Max – to be clear – but I'd be lying if I said I didn't remember it.

So it's today, Saturday morning at 6:16am, that I finally and formally bid adieu to the "used to's" and "remember when's" of my pre-Max life.

Exercising. 
Pre Max, I was going to the gym 5 days a week, running 5Ks and wearing smaller pants.

I'm probably the only person who gained weight on maternity leave (when you don't have baby weight to lose, and you sit around entertaining people who come visit the baby, and have happy hour every night and cook gourmet meals and can't bring to tear yourself away from the baby to exercise, you tend to gain a few pounds).

And exercising now that I'm back at work? Um, right. When exactly should I do that? Should I give up one of the two hours I have with Max each day? Or should I get up at 4am instead of 5am? Maybe I should skip dinner (actually, that would probably help my case, but I like food too much).

Thursday Night Date Night
Up until 7 months ago, Thursday nights were usually our night to go sit at our local bar, have a few beers, eat a late dinner and catch up.

It was perfect, I was always working late, Mr. KK had time to come home and do some work around the house and yard, we usually had zero food left in the fridge for dinner by this point in the week (or stuff that I wasn't 'in the mood for'). We'd head out around 8pm, saddle up to the bar, and start our night.

Now? The only thing I'm starting at 8pm is my walk down the hall to put my pajamas on.

Last-minute anything
Lunch in Mystic.
Overnight trip to the casino.
Day drinking then coming home and taking a nap.
Taking a nap, period.
Running to Homegoods for a 3-hour quick trip.
Squeezing in a manicure.

There is nothing "last minute" about my life anymore.
Nothing.

(Except the last-minute cancellation of things I don't have time for)

Getting Ahead (and other mythical feelings)
Once you have kids you will never get ahead. You will never feel like you've caught up on life. Feeling accomplished is a thing of the past. You will forever and always be behind.

The only way to accept this is to lower your expectations of yourself. Plan to do only ONE thing (grocery shopping, planting flowers, taking a shower) and you won't be disappointed in yourself.

(Today my thing was "write a blog post" and look at that! It's 7am and I've already accomplished everything on my list for today! Yay, me!)

Remembering sh*t
Who said, 'Of all the things I've lost, I'll miss my mind the most?' Well, that's how I feel.

I used to be someone who was on top of every detail, remembered every birthday/holiday/event. It was rather impressing.

These days, it's not uncommon for me to walk into a room and not remember why I went in there in the first place. Birthdays sneak up on me (NOTE: if you mail a card to someone ON their actual birthday, they will not get said card before their birthday.)

So farewell, former life. It was a good run.

There's a new sheriff in town, and he's small, but mighty. 

And even if I had more hours in my days to do any of the stuff in the list above, I'd still choose to spend the time with him.