Butter...among other things

Is there anything better than butter? 

Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining 

and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. 

The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, 

I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, 

you can never have too much butter.

Julie Powell, Julie & Julia

As much as I LOVE my new "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," I think it's going to be the source of some major weight gain for this pregnancy. And the sole reason is this: BUTTER. I've fallen in love with butter and anything that is baked, sauteed, sauced, or poached in it. Sigh. We're going to have to do some major walking outside come spring, or we're going to have a 12-pound baby.

I've also discovered that cooking can bring me out of any funk that I may be in. There was a general lack of motivation this morning. Claire was up extremely early, and her nose was a river of green snot. Lovely. Sophia woke up pretty early too. After getting everyone ready for the day, I decided that, yes, I WILL make that orange sponge cake. Yum. Sophia helped me juice the oranges and whip up all the ingredients while Claire watched. And for the first time, something that I made with whipped egg whites actually had some volume when it baked. Score! Sophia had so much fun that I decided to use the leftover tomato paste in the fridge and make some homemade pizza sauce along with dough. Sophia had fun kneading and rolling out her dough, and both the girls made a mess of the cheese while they topped their pizzas. And after all of that excitement, BOTH girls laid down for naps, so I had a little time to myself. It was wonderful.

And then this evening, I decided to finally boil the artichokes that I had in the fridge, and I made some homemade hollandaise to dip them in. FYI - hollandaise turns out SO MUCH BETTER when you make it on the stove rather than in an electric mixer. Eureka. Hey, I burned calories while whisking the stick and a half of butter in to the egg yolks. So dinner for me consisted of a whole artichoke, hollandaise sauce, and then orange sponge cake with fresh berries. Probably not the healthiest, but it was good. And Claire was dipping her green beans in hollandaise by the end of dinner. Yup, that's my daughter.

So after lots of time in the kitchen and two loads of dishes run through the dishwasher, we are all happy with full stomachs. And best of all, Brett is coming home late tonight, which is a day earlier than expected. He started the last bit of his training, so it's back to a normal work schedule for all of us. But there is a pizza waiting for him in the fridge, so all is well with the world.