pregnancy

In case you missed my last post about Chicken Piccata, it’s my new favorite dish. Sort of. I really like the sauce, particularly on potatoes or rice. My family really likes the chicken. I guess that works.

It’s an easy recipe if you buy your chicken already sliced or pounded thin. If you decide to butterfly and pound it yourself, it’s a bit messier and more time consuming. Serve it with simple potatoes or rice, the sauce is so good you can pour it over them as well.

We had ours with boiled potatoes and a salad of yellow CSA tomatoes, avocado & cilantro. Rose was incredibly excited for the chicken. Below is a photo of her just barely holding it together as she waits for dinner.

My good friend Rachel has been calling and emailing me with ideas for quick and easy recipes. One of her suggestions was Chicken Piccata, which with my seemingly endless appetite for lemony-salty things, sounded like pregnant lady heaven. And it was.

Rachel gave me her recipe verbally, over the phone. I hung up and promptly forgot what she told me. This recipe (also below) from Giada De Laurentiis seemed simple enough, and most closely resembled what I think Rachel may have said to do.

It was a huge hit. I loved it because it didn’t taste like chicken (just incredibly delicious sauce), but satisfied my newfound craving for animal protein. Rose loved it because it was lemony and capery and chicken, and Shane just loved it.

To keep the lemony thing going, I made a salad of tomatoes, cukes, roasted corn, chick peas and parsley. It was dressed with (you guessed it) lots of lemon, a smashed garlic clove, salt and olive oil. CSA members, take note.

• Chicken Piccata •
from Giada De Laurentiis via the Food Network

2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, butterflied and then cut in half*
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
All-purpose flour, for dredging
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup brined capers, rinsed
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add 2 pieces of chicken and cook for 3 minutes. When chicken is browned, flip and cook other side for 3 minutes. You can do all of the chicken at once if you have a large skillet, just be sure not to crowd the pieces. Remove and transfer to plate. Melt 2 more tablespoons butter and add another 2 tablespoons olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add the other 2 pieces of chicken and brown both sides in same manner. Remove pan from heat and add chicken to the plate.

Into the pan add the lemon juice, stock and capers. Return to stove and bring to boil, scraping up brown bits from the pan for extra flavor. Check for seasoning. Return all the chicken to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove chicken to platter. Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter to sauce and whisk vigorously. Pour sauce over chicken and garnish with parsley.

* To make this a lot easier, buy your chicken breasts already cut really thin, to avoid having to butterfly and cut.

Earlier this week I received an email from my friend Gail, the subject line read: Whole Roasted Chicken? Gail—who writes the blog Molehills Matter and is currently documenting her 90 day hiatus from facebook—was offering to bring us dinner.

There’s a few things I’ve learned over the past few weeks, while managing a less than fully functional family. The first and most important, is to accept help. I told Gail that yes, we would accept a whole roasted chicken and that Thursday would be perfect.

Tonight, Gail’s husband Russell, delivered to our door not only a gorgeous, perfectly roasted, organic, herb-encrusted chicken, but also fingerling potatoes and broccoli rabe with cranberries. Not just a whole roasted chicken, but a whole delicious meal! Thank you Russell and Gail.

It’s possible that you already know how to survive when your family is not up to par, but in case you don’t, please read on.

Having to care for an out of commission husband for an extended period of time, while not feeling 100% myself, has been a challenge. Here are some the things that I’ve learned:

1. Accept help. When someone offers to do something for me, my first response is almost always: No, that’s okay, I’ll manage. After all, their life is not any easier than mine, they might have 4 children, their own full-time job and family, friends visiting from out of town, or their hands full in some other way.

Thing is, when someone offers to help, they generally mean it. They want to help, and it makes them feel good to do it. So go ahead and say yes, and don’t feel guilty about it.

2. Throw money at the problem  (and figure out how to pay for it later). This is not the time for frugality. I’ve thrown thriftiness out the window, and things are still tough! Hire a babysitter, a cleaning service, have groceries delivered, pay for a parking spot. Your bank account will suffer, your credit card bill will be sky-high, but life will be easier. To me, that’s worth a little debt.

3. Take advice with a grain of salt and then give some back. Over the past few weeks, it seemed like everyone and their grandmother had advice on what do do about Shane. In my heightened emotional state (due to pregnancy hormones and stress) I wasn’t always the most gracious listener. I was irritable, and I wasn’t able to hide it.

Most folks didn’t seem able to grasp the severity of Shane’s back problem. They suggested I take him here, bring him there, do this, try that (yoga?? hah!). All of which involved Shane actually getting out of bed and going somewhere. But he could barely walk farther than the bathroom! My emotional temperature was rising.

It’s all well and good to suggest he see a back specialist, but it took me hours and hours on the phone just to find one lousy doctor. Everyone I called was either booked up until October (despite my telling them it was an emergency) or didn’t accept our insurance. Not to mention the monumental task of actually getting him to a doctor.

I had to give him an elephant’s dose of Valium and Codeine just to get him out of the apartment. He nearly passed out several times on the way down from our 5th floor walk-up (and what the hell would pregnant little me have done with a 6′-5″, 250lb passed out guy?). By the time we were back from the doctor, his pain was worse than ever, he was back to square 1. Getting a second opinion was out of the question.

I understood that people wanted to help, I really did, and I was (and still am) grateful that so many people care. I also understood the feeling of helplessness, I was feeling pretty helpless too, but the impractical advice was doing me in.

Finally, I figured out how to handle all of the very well intentioned but unhelpful suggestions. One approach was to just thank you, and leave it at that. For the more persistent wanter-to-helpers, I said: Shane and I need to figure out how to handle this on our own, but if you really want to help, this is what you can do…

It’s hard to tell people to do things for you, but it works. You get what you need, they get what they need, everyone’s more or less happy. Problem solved!

Now to get Shane back on his feet.

That’s right folks, somehow I managed to get myself knocked up, by accident, at the ripe old age of 41. This is baffling to me on so many levels. The first of which is, that we were not trying, at all.

We are a historically under-fertile couple. Back when I was 34, “experts” told us we had a .05% chance of getting pregnant naturally. With the help of my amazing acupuncturist, we eventually did, but it took a while.

I am in the midst of peri-menopause. My hormones have been in decline for a few years, getting ready for that old pause in the meno. On my way out, expiring, heading towards old-ladydom, that’s me.

The single-kid thing has always been fine by us. I am not one of those people who looks over at the parent with two kids and thinks How lovely! or Maybe someday… No, I look at that mom with one in the Bjorn and another in the stroller, and think: That poor woman or What a pain in the ass.

We were done, diapers and baby-proofing are distant memories. Quit while you’re ahead we’ve always said. We already have one great kid, why spoil a good thing? Plus, it’s cheaper.

At restaurants, our adorable, well behaved child sits quietly between us, and politely engages in our adult conversation. I watch as the parents of multiple children struggle to maintain order and enjoy their meal. Smiling at my husband, I think to myself: Well, aren’t we just the smartest couple here. Just not smart enough to use a condom.

So how did this happen and what does it mean? Well, I know how it happened, technically, I just can’t fathom how it actually came to fruition.

What does it mean? It means we have to completely re-arrange our world view, our life plans, our furniture. Fortunately, Shane and I have not been great about making life plans, so that’s one issue taken care of already.

It means I might eat chicken. Once, during my last pregnancy I found myself standing outside the Gourmet Garage on 7th Avenue devouring a whole (cooked) chicken breast with my bare hands. All bets are off.

It also means that The Steady Table might be on hiatus for a little while. During those dark days, those awful newborn weeks, which people who have more than one kid on purpose seem to forget about between pregnancies.

What if it’s a boy? I don’t like super heroes, video games, guns, aggressive stuff, banging, yelling, screaming or any other loud noises. I don’t know anything about little penises. And man-oh-man, I really don’t like screaming.

I’m sure I sound cold and ungrateful, but I don’t mean to. I struggled with infertility once, I know how it feels. Who am I to scoff at an unexpected baby surprise? It’s just that it’s not what I had in mind. Feeling like shit 24/7 for the past 8 weeks didn’t help either.

I will eventually embrace this pregnancy. It’s pretty much impossible to deny that it was meant to be, the way it happened against all odds. Some little soul, out there in the ether, decided it would be nice to be a part of our family. We’re a pretty fun family, after all.

If everything goes according to plan, this baby’s going to pop out—quickly and painlessly, please!—in early to mid-December. And in spite of everything, I’m going to love it like crazy. We all will. Even if it’s a boy.

Also, this is what we had for dinner: