Potent Emotional Experiences That Deserve Their Own Definitions

1. That thing where you're at work feeling soft and feminine, and suddenly a virtual stranger comes up behind you and begins brusquely slicking your hair back into a severe french twist that you'd never in a million years choose yourself. You have no say in the matter, no mirror, and you will regard it for the first time along with millions of television viewers. Ah, showbiz.

2. That thing where you remove your son's diaper, and in a mere .0000000007 seconds, he squats and poops on his rug. You're simultaneously horror-struck and also deeply proud of his vocal development as he announces "potty" perfectly while doing the deed.

3. That thing where you race race race across town to (let's just say) kick ass at a Very Big Audition. The producers seem smitten. They say, "See you soon!" with winky voices and knowing smiles, then three days later your agent tells you you're out of the running. (Note to producers: maybe don't say, "See you soon!" to an actor that you plan on not seeing soon.)

4. That thing where the Rite Aid shopping cart receptacle is empty, so you're forced to alternately carry/wrangle your wild-animal toddler in a pharmacy line long enough to rival Space Mountain's. You put him down for two seconds and he knocks 432 things off a nearby shelf. You try as gently as possible to restrain him with one hand while replacing the 432 things. Meanwhile, he begins some blood-curdling screaming. Suddenly, you have a time-warp-matrix moment where you flash to see your present-day self through the eyes of the childless person you once were, judging the exact thing that you now are living. You have instant forgiveness/compassion for both versions of you.

5. That thing where you look forward to an MRI so you can lie down.

6. That thing where you're in an audition waiting room and a fellow actress takes a wig out of her purse and begins combing it with her fingers while whispering lines under her breath. You wonder: What the frack is that lady doing? Is she running her scene with the wig? Is it a prop? Is it her good luck charm? Is it another hair option she may employ in her audition? Is she crazy? Is she genius? Should I get a wig? BRB going to get a wig.

7. That thing where you're at a play date in a park with a new mom friend, and while her toddler is serenely watching a Roly Poly saunter up the bark of a tree for THIRTY SOLID MINUTES, yours is running perimeter drills and occasionally lunging toward the street, inflicting 20 heart attacks upon you.

8. That thing where you find someone else's booger in your pocket and just leave it there.

9. That thing where you tell someone in the park that they look like their dog and they give you a dirty look which makes them look even more like their dog. You consider asking if you can take a picture of them together but chicken out. Yet you still fantasize about posting the (nonexistent) picture on Instagram, complete with caption and emojis. (Twin dancing bunny girls for the win.)

10. That thing where you offer to make a dessert for a neighborhood dinner party on the hottest day of the year. It goes into the oven with no time to spare, so you're forced to carry the heavy, bubbling-hot dish with two potholders while walking 3 long blocks. You sweat like a beast from the underworld. The sweat is everywhere. The sweat activates a shame spiral that includes thoughts like why am I always running so late? and the inside of these goddamned potholders should be much more absorbent, and what am I doing with my life? The dessert turns out to be the hit of the party and you wholeheartedly choose to believe you pulled it off without a hitch.

Mixed Berry Crisp

serves 8

adapted from Sheila Lukins

This gal is a humble showstopper. She's easy-peasy to make, and even thrown together in haste she's pretty stunning. She'll do just fine with gluten-free flour and/or coconut sugar if you choose.

Berry mixture:

6 cups fresh berries (blueberry/blackberry/strawberry is a standup combo but have at it)

2 T sugar

1/4 cup flour

1/4 t cinnamon

juice of 1/4 lemon

Topping:

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

fat pinch kosher salt

1/2 cup (one stick) very cold butter, cut into 1/2" cubes.

For serving:

vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350F and butter a 9" glass pie dish. In a bowl, gently toss the berries with the sugar, flour, cinnamon and lemon juice. Set aside. In a new bowl, make the topping: whisk together the oats, flour, brown sugar and salt. With a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Pour the berries into the prepared pie dish and cover with the topping, spreading it out evenly. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for about 55 minutes, or until the top is golden and the berries are bubbling. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

xoxo

love,

jolie

P.S. These days we need this ------------> A case for optimism

who wouldn't want to read a story about a rabbit on a leash?

Recently, David, Louis and I were lunching on a crowded outdoor patio and a man sauntered in with a rabbit on a leash. Before you start thinking that might sound darling, let me just say: this was no bunny. It was one of those behemoth, toddler-sized rabbits meant for wild, deep woods. Its keeper was smug (not unlike those ballsy people who walk around in public with birds perched on their heads), and talking way too loudly for the benefit of every living soul on the patio. It worked: every single one of us stared. A mousy woman trailed behind, his reluctant cohort. She looked somewhere between mortified and clueless. I tried to picture reasons why she might be accompanying him--sympathetic sister, perhaps? Blind date? Parole officer?

The Keeper and his Lady sat down under an umbrella. Then he unleashed his cottontail, hoisting the immense rodent onto his lap while it rigorously pumped its hind legs as if to say I belong on the ground, fool! The man then tried to act natural, combing his fingers repeatedly down its back, enjoying the attention while he talked to his friend(?).

As we wrapped our heads around this spectacle, I glanced around the patio. In the most perfect turn of events EVER, the young woman at the table next to us was doing some sort of portable craft that involved stab stab stabbing a needle into a little felted figurine shaped like (wait for it) a rabbit.

A small beagle represented us all by having a frantic barking fit, adding to the kerfuffle and The man turned to it (but really all of us) and half-yelled, "Bet you've never seen that before, huh?! A rabbit in a cafe!?"

Just then, Louis Rocket, a toddler-sized toddler and lover of all doggies, started wildly pointing his chubby fingers and yelling, "Dah! Dah! Dah!" ("Dog! Dog! Dog!") The entire patio, even the needle stabber and the Rabbit guy's Lady, swiveled their heads to enjoy him.

I glanced at the Keeper. His eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped. The rabbit, however, looked oddly satisfied.



And now, something delicious both a toddler and a rabbit would love*:

*Did you think rabbits only ate carrots?

Toddler Banana Pancake
serves one toddler (or one rabbit, probably)

1/2 mashed banana
1 egg, beaten
couple shakes cinnamon
tiny splash vanilla
minuscule pinch sea salt
1 T gluten-free flour (or flour of your choice)
1 t coconut oil, for cooking

Mix together all ingredients except coconut oil. Heat nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium heat, adding oil when hot. Pour in batter, cook for 3-4 minutes and then flip. Break into 1000 pieces before serving. For either toddler or rabbit.


BTW:
I've missed you!
Sorry I've been gone so long!
This mom/life juggle has got me so busy, y'all.
Working it out, working it out.

Love
Love
Love,
Jolie

pumpkin muffins with fresh cranberries

Happiest Holidays, friends!

Please don't tell me if I missed the pumpkin/cranberry boat. My heart can't take it. These days I have way too much on my plate and if you tell me these muffins are currently irrelevant, I will cry real and giant tears. I finally whipped them up after getting inspired weeks (and weeks) ago and haven't gotten them posted here until now. Sigh. I keep making lists upon lists and for every one thing that gets crossed off, 637 more things get added. How the FRACK do you moms/parents do it? And at Christmastime no less?! I recently read an article called How To Cross Everything Off Your To-Do List! (#mydream), and it basically involved a lot of perspective-changing trickery like: "Add some things to the list you've already done and cross them off!" and my favorite gem: "Let your house remain a complete shithole!". 

My December included lots of extra (and sometimes surprising) things to do like:

1. Wash 75,385 loads of laundry.
PRAY GOD, FROM WHENCE DOES IT COME??? It doesn't help that our thirteen-year-old dryer sounds like a dying pachyderm riding on a big, rusty freight train.

2. Read Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? 238,590,823 times.
Spoiler alert: RED BIRD.

3. Chase a scooting monkey around in circles interminably.
'Tis a full time job keeping him from eating ripped magazine covers and finding hidden TV remotes and iPhones as I steal head sniffs and cheek smooches.

4. Clean the floor around the highchair 97 times daily.
I have nothing pithy to say about this. It sucks rocks.

5. Try to remember the Zen quote involving chopping wood and carrying water.
Realize, ironically, that all this trying to remember takes me out of the present moment which probably means I am not yet enlightened. Shit.

6. (Barely) survive getting your eye (almost) poked out.
I was reading Louis a book (bet you can't guess which one) when a rogue baby fingernail wildly flailed into my cornea. MY LORD did it hurt. I literally screamed, "My eye!" and couldn't open it for 36 hours. All the while freaking out since I had a television job beginning in a couple days. And also of course because vision.

7. Have you ever been dropped off at the ER?
It's super hard not to feel sorry for yourself going in there solo. Even though my loving husband lovingly let me out at the front door (we didn't want to expose baby to ER germs), I couldn't help thinking how in the movies, some guilt-ridden criminal barely slows the car enough to kick out some poor sap who needs dire emergency care. Then they just lie alone on the ground bleeding, in a big, wide shot until some paramedic on a smoke break runs over to help.

8. Act like your eye is normal at the table-read for your television job even despite unaccounted-for chunk of cornea.
I couldn't wear makeup on the bum eye (Doctor's orders) but went whole hog on the good one. In hindsight (boo), this was a terrible mistake. Only donning mascara on one eye is extremely disconcerting to the viewer (see: A Clockwork Orange). And draws way more attention to your problem than you want drawn to it. At your television job. Where everyone is looking at you. Because you're going to be on television.

9. Take to your bed around 8pm for a few nights and listen to podcasts in the dark.
It takes a LOT of freaking eye energy to act normal when you're not. Your husband will realize the gravity of the situation when you cannot watch TV. Try and get a back rub out of it.

10. Finally start to feel better. 
When eye doctor extraordinaire Staci Sumner (818-789-3311) found out the hospital didn't insert a protective contact, she came in after hours to hook me up special. I could immediately blink without pain and it was all I could do to not kiss that magical woman on the mouth.

11. Enjoy adult conversations at work. 
"Can you believe a few days ago I was nearly blind and in the ER!? And now here I am on TV! Hahaha!"

12. Look at iPhone without sneaking it. 

13. Drink a hot beverage from top to bottom with zero microwaving. 

14. Clean the floor under a highchair zero times for two days straight.

15. Praise the Lord Almighty when, on first day of filming, you are blessed with the makeup artist to beat all makeup artists.
Admire beauty in mirror. Feel excited that co-workers will not believe you to be a Clockwork-Orange-freak after all. Profusely compliment makeup artist. Ask (half-teasing) how in the hell he made you so beautiful and try not to flinch when he explains (not at all teasing) that he's an expert in "corrective beauty".

16. Squat on dressing room floor so breast pump can reach boobs and electrical outlet simultaneously.
Wonder how long you'll continue to nurse. Cry about stopping. Cry about continuing. Cry about missing kid something awful. Realize crying is probably good for your healing cornea but bad for your corrective makeup.

17. Long for the long days of brown bears and loud laundry and head sniffs.
Text babysitter 836 times demanding mundane updates and bi-hourly photos.

18. Finish TV show. Go home. Smooch child profusely until he scoots away, most likely terrified. Enjoy him for 12 hours solid and then begin missing adult conversations and hot beverages and corrective makeup.

19. Wonder how any mother works. Wonder how any mother doesn't work.
Still figuring this one out. Stay tuned forever.

20-26. Somehow cram in Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, Holiday cards, meal preparation, blog writing, muffin making and personal hygiene.

27. Trim baby's nails.

I wish you a belated yet heartfelt Happy Holidays, dear friends. We have so many blessings to celebrate over here with our dude turning ONE on New Year's Eve! It's been quite a year. More on that later.

In the meantime, I wish you deep peace and love from the bottom of my heart. We have to cultivate all that goodness so we can spread it around this crazy world we're living in.

xxxxxooooo
jolie

P.S. These muffins are really good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Low-Sugar Pumpkin Muffins With Fresh Cranberries
makes 12
adapted slightly from The New York Times

These are nice and pumpkin-spice-y without being too sweet. And the fresh cranberries prove the perfect tart foil. Bonus: babies love the squishy inside part and you could probably use even less sugar and they'd taste amazing to a clueless baby.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 t ground cinnamon
3/8 t ground allspice
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1-1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup fresh cranberries, rinsed and halved

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine all the dry ingredients: flours, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, baking powder, salt. Whisk together well and set aside. In another bowl, mix the butter, pumpkin puree and egg. Add the wet to the dry and stir until just combined. Mix in the cranberries. Divide the batter amongst the 12 muffin cups and bake about 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.

the corner of Wonderful and Grateful

The other day I encountered a jolly, older-man parking attendant and I commented on his good mood.

"Do you want to know where I live?" He asked, and I could tell he wanted me to play along.

"Sure," I said. "Where do you live?"

"On the corner of Wonderful Street....and Grateful Lane." He smiled big.

"Aw, how nice," I said.

"Isn't it?"

"I want to live there too!" I said.

His face dropped. "Well. There's not a lot of room here."

Alrighty then.

Unlike this dude, I'm all about spreading the joy. If I happen to find myself anywhere in the vicinity of Wonderful/Grateful, I say: come one, come all. Everyone's invited. Especially considering all of the tragic headlines lately. My tender, new-mom heart can barely take it. Instead, I've been trying to lean into the good with all my might, hoping and searching for some inkling of a silver lining. That we might be a little bit kinder to others? Even kinder to ourselves? That we might slow down and soften? That we might add to the Greater Good by looking even harder for things to appreciate? If so, Thanksgiving cannot come soon enough.

Some thankful things peppered in amongst some Joeycake greatest-hits for fall:

1. This Apple Music Friendsgiving playlist is happy and awesome.

2. This apple pie baked in a cast-iron skillet (?!) is my Dad's new signature dish and it is remarkable. I'm stepping up my campaign to convince him to make it for Thanksgiving. (Hint: it has caramelized brown sugar underneath the crust):

3. Pumpkin pie 4 life.

4. I know I mentioned Liz Gilbert's book Big Magic in my last post but it just gets better and better. Lots of great gems here about letting go of perfectionism ("just fear dressed up in fancy haute couture") and about finding your own (creative) way to live a creative life. I highly recommend.

5. Things I Want To Ask My Dog by the amazing Marsh McCall.

6. Blurry moments with a super busy almost-toddler:

7. Thanksgiving with 100 of your closest Vegans (plus a sweet potato dessert that is working undercover as a casserole.)

8. Orange you glad it's time for brightly colored, festive fall food?

9. Rare non-blurry moments with a super busy almost-toddler:

10. You. I'm so grateful for you. I hope you find as much Wonderful and Grateful as possible amongst your blurry and non-blurry moments this Thanksgiving. Thank you for choosing to visit me here and for being patient with my sparse blogging this year as I've been finding my mom-bearings.

Love to you,
Jolie

joy-sparking chocolate-chip cookies

I'm on day two of living with this lightheaded, tingly feeling, like I downed a few glasses of champagne without the fun of actually drinking any. Yesterday I was pushing the stroller and I felt like the weight of it was holding me down on planet Earth. Like if I let go, I'd just float away. I suspect I'm either approaching enlightenment or have some leftover flu symptoms from last week. (For the record, taking care of an infant while you have the flu SUCKS THE MOST.)

It just might be the enlightenment. I’ve been steeped in Marie Kondo's “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and it’s causing me to look at my life through such a different filter. The book is essentially about de-cluttering and organizing. If you haven't heard about it already, Kondo (a Japanese organizing expert) recommends going through your entire house to get rid of anything that doesn’t "spark joy".  While I love this de-cluttering process, I love even more her belief about how to approach the discarded items. You thank them for what they meant to you and release them onward on their journey. This was a revelation for me. I've always enjoyed culling through my closets and paring down, but upon discarding, I've always leaned more toward the good-riddance school of thought. Once you get over feeling like a weirdo for talking to your old stuff, this part of the process makes the whole thing extra meaningful. Like you’re happily and deliberately letting go to make room for more blessings and abundance in your life, whatever that looks like to you. I feel lighter and freer already, which may be why I feel the top of my head levitating.

Something else I realized is that mostly I've lived with things around me that have made me happy but there were a LOT of things that were just kinda good enough. They worked. My feelings about them ranged from fine to meh. Clothes-wise, I had a lot of audition shirts that I wouldn't be caught dead wearing in the real world and it dawned on me: what would it feel like to actually have joy about the clothes I wear when I'm putting my best self forward to book jobs? That was a huge shift in my thinking. And after you look at your belongings this way, and ask this joy-sparking question of yourself over and over, this filter starts trickling into the rest of your life—your beliefs, your habits, how you spend your time, who you spend it with. What started out as a make-more-space closet endeavor, turned into something pretty profound for me. I'm holding my life and belongings to a higher standard now. Holding out for joyful. I gotta say, it feels really good. 

In related news, I started reading this book and came across a beautiful quote by poet Jack Gilbert:

"We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world."

Stubborn gladness! I love it so much.

I'm sitting now writing this in a cafe and incidentally, there is a guy sitting next to me eating a giant, lonely pile of tuna salad. He's chipping away at it like it's homework. I don't sense that it is sparking joy nor gladness. So it is to him (and frankly, to us all) that I dedicate these, the most deliciously joyful and glad chocolate chip cookies.

xoxo
Jolie

---------------------------------------------------------

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 30 cookies

2 sticks butter (at room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 1/4 t kosher salt
12 oz bittersweet chocolate (straight-up chocolate chips or chopped into chunks. Or both.)
3/4 cup toasted, chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk together well and set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars for several minutes until very light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides and add the eggs, one at a time, mixing them well as you go. Mix in the vanilla. Now add the flour mixture bit-by-bit, mixing until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate and nuts. Drop 3T mounds of dough onto baking sheets (a small ice cream scoop works great for uniform cookies) and make sure they're 3" apart, six cookies to a sheet. Bake 15-18 minutes until golden brown. Cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a rack. 

Happy Friday:)

P.S. My latest comedic Huffington Post piece (that in my busy mom life I forgot to tell you about) can be found here:
6 Pieces of Game-Changing Advice For New Moms

blueberry corn muffins

There's a street light just outside our kitchen window and it's one of the romantic, old-fashioned kind we have here in the Hollywood Hills. It doesn't jerk on in an erratic fit like a florescent. It turns up slow and thoughtfully like it's on a dimmer and has the warm glow of an incandescent. Pre-baby, I considered it good luck when I happened to be awake early enough catch the magic moment when it faded off. Now I just call it morning. In the last five months, I've watched the sky turn light more times than the rest of my life combined. And while I adore my cozy bed (oh man, I could write a serious love letter), I do appreciate the special stillness of our quiet early mornings now. I have a mini sidekick. We hang out and have breast milk and coffee (respectively) while we chat. We watch the street lights turn off and the trash trucks rumble by and the birds flitting about the trees. I narrate the scene while he watches intently and babbles along and tries to put every single thing in his mouth.

This gloomy morning as Louis sat in his highchair, I stood in the kitchen eating a warmed up muffin that I had brought back from the deep freeze and I literally thought: this is a game changer. When a reheated muffin is a game changer, your life is either super depressing or it's gotten smaller, simpler, slower, and hopefully sweeter. Let's go with the latter.

But seriously: HAVE YOU EVER FROZEN A MUFFIN AND THEN REHEATED IT? It feels like the same kind of magic as the street light, an everyday, mundane miracle. Not unlike spending your days hanging out with an infant.

Blueberry Corn Muffins
recipe from Giada DeLaurentiis
makes 12

1-1/3 cups buttermilk*
2 large eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1-1/3 cup all-purpose flour, plus 1T
1-1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
3/4 t fine salt
1-1/2 sticks chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
1-1/2 cups frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

*If you find yourself with no buttermilk (like I often do), just use regular milk plus the juice of one whole lemon. These muffins are great both ways.

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Whisk well and set aside.

In a food processor, combine the 1-1/3 cups flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pulse a few times until mixed. Add the cold butter cubes and pulse 5-10 times until the butter is cut in finely and the mixture looks like coarse meal.

Pour the dry ingredients into the buttermilk/egg mixture and fold them in until just combined. Do not over mix.

In a medium bowl, toss the frozen blueberries with the 1T flour. Add them to the batter and gently mix them in.

Divide the batter amongst the 12 liners, mounding it up in the middle. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove to cool further on a rack.

If you wanna freeze these (or any muffins, for that matter), cool completely, wrap them individually in plastic wrap and then seal in a freezer bag. To reheat, stick them back in the muffin tin and pop them in a 350F oven until heated through, about 12 minutes. Try this and then tell me it's not magic.

xoxo
jolie

gluten-free olive oil cake with almonds

I've never thought more about sleep in my entire life. I've got a running tab in my head of how many hours everyone in our house has slept in the past 24 hours, how much time between all of our naps. I even dream about sleeping when I'm finally sleeping. And then ohmygod I hear myself talking about it to other people and I bore myself to sleep. Even my loving husband, who is personally involved in our household's sleep plight, told me my conversation was getting a little tiresome. Somebody please stop me. (I hope you're still awake right now.)

We had one incredible morning last week where we woke up before Louis. We sang and danced our way downstairs, made celebratory coffee and Instagrammed the whole thing before he stirred. Then the next night SUCKED. Even in the middle of it DP and I said out loud to each other: we jinxed it. Damn, we were cocky. So while we've had our successes, sleep still eludes us. That mysterious, fickle lady. I hate that I love her so much.

Aside from all things sleep, I'm starting to finally cook again for real and it feels grounding and good. Even if it's something simple like a roast chicken or a tomato salad or an easy cake. It makes it feel more like a home around here and less like a baby way station. Turns out the kitchen is good for more than plating take-out or washing breast pump parts.

This olive oil cake is fantastic and a real crowd-pleaser. It tastes like a seven-hour stretch of sleep after you've only dabbled in three-hour stretches for the last five months. Or like your four-month-old going down for a nap in his big-boy crib and simply rolling over and going to sleep WITH ZERO CRYING. It tastes like a drive on LA's most traffic-y freeway where your kid peacefully passes out in his car seat for your entire trip. Basically? This cake tastes like sleep. Delicious, tasty sleep.

God willing, you can well-restedly eat a slice with your celebratory coffee.

Gluten-Free Olive Oil Cake with Almonds
makes one cake
serves however many you're willing to share it with
adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

You can make this with regular flour if you like. Just omit the xanthan gum.

1-1/2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour
3/4 t xanthan gum
2 t baking powder
1/2 t kosher salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
zest and juice of one medium lemon
1/4 cup half-and-half
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for coating  the pan
3/4 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted and coarsely crumbled
powdered sugar, for sifting on top

Preheat oven to 350F and grease the bottom and sides of a 8" round (or 9" square) cake pan with a slick of olive oil. Whisk the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt together and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, lemon zest and juice until pale. Mix in the half-and-half, and then gradually mix in the olive oil. Add the flour mixture bit by bit until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Stir in the almonds. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a tester comes out with moist crumbs, about 35 minutes. Allow to cool 15 minutes on a rack and then dust with copious powdered sugar. Serve warm or at room temperature.

love and zzzzzs,
jolie

getting it DONE and also: pasta/salad

Well. In good news, I can finally get this kid napping! Unfortunately, this has to take place on my person with a bare boob pressed against his chubby face OR in the stroller while being kept in constant motion, preferably on bumpy asphalt while a light, westerly breeze wafts through his gauzy blanket. Seeing how these efforts account for several hours of our day, you can imagine this really cuts down on Mommy's free time.

Lately life has been great at doling out these types of lessons to me: get it done however you can and don't wait for the perfect conditions (read: BABY NAPS IN CRIB WHILE MOMMY TENDS TO BASIC LIFE NECESSITIES LIKE SHOWERING). Kinda like the photo above, taken in crappy lighting while DP was upstairs taking his turn tending to a screaming child as I nervously gulped a beer and made dinner, quick-and-dirty-like. Or like this blog post, hastily typed with one hand as I lightly jostle Louis into his next sleep cycle (God willing).

I still fight my obstinate old habits where, before doing anything creative (or hell, to feel like a successful human), I require zero dishes in the sink, a made bed and a completely crossed off to do list. That's not happening these days ever, creative endeavor or no. So here I am, working on letting it go, getting it done despite ideal/perfect conditions. In all areas of my life. Crap, this is HARD for me. All I do is bump up against my control issues. However, I know it's good practice for me because control issues. Have I mentioned I have control issues?

Four months in, DP and I are getting into an easier groove over here with our awesome little dude. We are still in the weeds, but instead of requiring a machete to hack our way through, they're lower now. We can actually see up ahead but those pesky weeds are still knee-high and the fuckers sometimes tangle around our shins something fierce. At this point I've been in the thick of the hard stuff a lot and often in my desperate, exhausted overwhelm I've thought: I can't do this and then I realize: I am doing it. It's happening. I'm getting up in the middle of the night for the fifth time because he needs me. I'm bouncing this kid on an exercise ball even though my back is killing me because this is what it takes. I'm "showering" with baby wipes, pumping breast milk and driving to an audition all at the same time because otherwise it won't happen. You get all kinds of resourceful when a small, helpless human is depending on you for love and food and survival, no matter the conditions. You dig deep. And thank God there's immense beauty and laughs and fun peppered in there so you don't lose your shit. The hard stuff is hard but the good stuff is better. And that cliche is true: It does get easier. There's tremendous momentum in making it through those rough patches. You start to remember you can. You are insanely capable. You will figure it out, despite conditions presenting themselves in ways that hardly feel ideal*.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pasta/Salad
serves 4 as a main dish or 6 as a side dish
adapted from Jamie Oliver's Funky Spaghetti


I forgot how much I like this one-pot meal--I'm bringing it back into heavy rotation, especially now that summer's around the corner, when tomatoes, basil and arugula are on their best behavior. Throw enough greens in there to make it healthy.

3/4 pound dry fusilli (I used TJ's quinoa/brown rice pasta)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 dry pint cherry/grape/baby heirloom tomatoes, halved and gently squeezed to remove most of the seeds
2 handfuls chopped basil
4 handfuls baby arugula
1/3 cup evoo plus more to taste
1/4 cup red wine vinegar plus more to taste
good sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup good grated Parmesan plus more for serving
1 package (4 big links) cooked chicken sausage of your choice (optional)

Bring a big pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta according to its directions on the package. While the water boils and the pasta cooks, prep all your vegetables. Add these to a big bowl along with the garlic, basil, arugula, evoo, a good dozen shakes of the vinegar, salt and pepper. Stir together and let marinate. Meanwhile, slice the sausage into coins and brown in a skillet. Set aside. Drain the cooked pasta and while hot, toss it with the tomato mixture. Add the cheese and browned sausage. Taste for seasoning. (I usually wind up adding a bit more olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.) Serve warm or at room temperature topped with more cheese.


Love you guys,
Jolie

*Once you clean up your fifteenth poopy blowout in a public bathroom you freak out about it less and laugh about it more. Especially if you've had a glass of wine first.

the new normal/oatmeal chocolate "breakfast" cookies

My friend Shannon told us that his mom sooooo adores completing things on her To Do list that she will literally write wake up as the first entry, just so she can have the satisfaction of crossing it off. David and I laughed and laughed. And then we started living with a newborn. Dear Shannon's Mom: I GET IT NOW. In my new baby-land of adjusted productivity, waking up is a huge accomplishment worth celebrating. You have a newborn and you managed to make coffee and drink two hot sips before said newborn stirred? Mad props. You took a nap? Miracle of miracles. You wrote a thank you note, dug up the correct postage and walked it to the mail box? Nobel Prize territory. In the middle of the night last night, I started a To Do list and actually wrote shower on it. With zero irony. God, help me surrender to this new normal. (And also sneak in a shower.)

In certain ways it's not so hard. This little peach of a dude is so cool and delicious. I am in awe of his littleness and his chirps and his emerging personality. AND: he started smiling this week. Bliss! Heartbreak! Wow.

In other ways, ALL of my buttons are pushed as I attempt to make peace with this new world of Never Getting Shit Done. As I nurse Louis (for a total of five hours a day, people), I look around me and take stock of things I'd like to do. These aren't even the fancy, enriching ones in my fantasies, just the dumb things that I can see. And they drive me nuts. Water that saggy plant, recycle those ancient magazines, get to that stack of taxes, fold that dusty pile of laundry. The neat-freak in me needs to take a long vacation. Most likely for the next 18 years.

No wonder moms are so good at multi-tasking. For reals: I am hooked up to the breast pump as I write this. I want to take a picture of it so bad but am afraid that instead of making you laugh, I would scar most of your eyeballs. (Poor David has seen too much.)

In good news, despite my growing list of To Dos, here are ten ways in which I've managed to adjust to this new normal so far. If I do say so myself, I have acquired some mad new baby skillz, yo:

1. I can type and text with one hand like a boss.

2. Picking up pacifiers with my feet? In the dark? No biggie.

3. Time me: I fall asleep in 9 seconds flat.

4. I can compile a stack of tax paperwork without getting poop on even one 1099.

5. I can disappear stains like a Vegas magician.

6. I've learned to scale back my beauty routine to the austerity level of a monastic.

7. I have swiftly stopped spit-up in a single bound before it's spewed onto the couch, a computer, and down my ample cleavage.

8. I have contained and harnessed said cleavage. (<------------ giant feat)

9. I not only welcome but find supreme delight in being farted on.

10. I discovered there are cookies (COOKIES!) for the express* purpose of producing heaps of breast milk.

*see what I did there?

Listen up. Let's just call these Breakfast Cookies because trust me on this: a.) you will definitely want to eat them for breakfast, and b.) you will FREAK PEOPLE OUT if you offer them a Lactation Cookie. Your normally sweet-toothed, cookie-loving husband will whiten and flinch like you are offering him sardines on a turd. The truth is they are really delicious morsels that just happen to make you squirt milk. If you are male and/or not lactating in the first place, they are just oatmeal cookies with chocolate. Nobody needs to know. Deal?

"Breakfast" Cookies (that also happen to help with lactation)
recipe adapted from bellybelly.com
makes 14-16 cookies

2 T flax meal
2 T water
1 stick butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 t vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
2 T brewers yeast
1/2  t fine sea salt
1-1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup good dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the flax meal with the water. Stir well and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar together for five minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well, scraping down the sides occasionally. Add the flax/water mixture and mix again. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, brewers yeast and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the wet little-by-little, stirring until just incorporated. Add the oats and chocolate and stir to combine. Drop on parchment-lined baking sheets by the tablespoonful and bake for 12-14 minutes, until lightly golden on top. Cool on racks.

Extra credit: if you make these cookies from start to finish with one hand while holding an infant in the other, they are guaranteed to quadruple your breast milk output.

With love from the four of us,
Jolie, Louis and Jolie's boobs

P.S. It only took me 3 weeks to write this post. Good times!

classic peanut butter cookies

The other night I dreamed I was with my friend Jenn as she was giving birth to her daughter. I was on the hospital bed with her, just up there hanging out ON THE BED WITH HER while she was in labor. (Boundaries much?) It was getting toward the end. She was in a sweaty, altered state pushing that baby down, and when the doctor said, "One more!", she pushed HARD and the baby girl came shooting out like a torpedo. All at once she was here and wiggling on the bed between us. The nurse swooped in just then, to wipe off the baby and wrap her in a soft blanket. Smiling, she held out the newborn to Jenn. The new mom barely looked up. Instead she held up a tired finger and said, "Hold on a minute," and then reached over to a side table where, in a pristine spotlight, there sat the most perfect donut you've ever seen: glazed with shiny chocolate frosting. And big. She tenderly picked up the pastry and proceeded to savor it deliberately, bite by bite, with her eyes closed in rapture. When she (finally) finished, she licked her fingers and her lips, opened her eyes with a giant smile, reached her arms out wide to the dumbstruck nurse and said, "Okay, give me my baby!"

I think this might be the most quintessential pregnancy dream ever. Labor is there, and also a newborn, even a hospital with doctors and nurses. But most importantly: The Donut.

If you swap out the donut for a peanut butter cookie, I would appreciate this dream even more than I do already. The baby boy I'm growing inside me is demanding peanut butter these days (and he's been really bossy about it). I've had funny waves of cravings along my pregnancy journey. The first trimester was very cream-cheese-centric, trimester #2 was all about chicken-salad sandwiches and Arnold Palmers, and now? In the home stretch? Peanut butter. On apples, on toast, by the spoonful and via the best delivery system ever: cookies.

(Bonus: Peanut butter cookies can be Christmas Cookies if you make them at Christmastime!)

----------------------------------------------------

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies
makes about 3 dozen cookies (depending upon how big you roll them)


1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter (not the natural kind--Skippy is great for cookies)
1 egg
2 t vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
granulated sugar for rolling before baking

Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter and mix well. Add the egg and vanilla, scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again. Bit by bit, add the flour mixture until just combined. Roll dough into 1" balls, coat in granulated sugar and place on baking sheet 2" apart. Flatten with a fork in a criss-cross fashion and bake for 10-13 minutes or until edges are golden.

P.S. You aren't required to chill the dough before rolling but you can refrigerate for a day or two or freeze it for a week or two.


Happy Holiday time, lovelies!
xoxo
jolie

pumpkin cranberry bread

It's almost Thanksgiving! (My very most favorite:)) Don't you just love Thanksgiving for all that it is (food, family, gratitude) and all that it's not (shopping, wrapping, hustling about)? I have so much to appreciate this year. So many blessings.

I can't believe I'm already in the home stretch of this pregnancy. At 35 weeks along, I'm seriously slowing down. And for someone who is usually on the go (and who kind of loves to be on the go), it's been strange and also surprisingly nice. It's not the kind of slowing down where you try and talk yourself into taking it easy. Physically my body is requiring it. I'll be standing there talking to someone and this one-track-mind urge hits me and I can't even focus on what they're saying because my whole body is screaming for a place to sit down. Take a load off, it says, put your feet up.

I imagine, too, it's awesome to surrender to this deceleration. Because once the baby arrives (I hear) you enter this dreamy, hazy, sleepy, sweet, intimate time where you just slow slow slow down to the baby's rhythms and take it all moment by moment. I can feel myself being lulled there. Mind if we finish this conversation lying down? My eyes are closed but I'm totally listening.

I had to run waddle to the grocery store early this morning to get a couple last items for my Thanksgiving dinner contribution and as I was enjoying slowly moving about and gathering this and that in the quiet store, I came upon one of my least favorite of the store's employees: a super swarthy and oily fellow who looks like he actually might tie someone to a railroad track while twisting his pointy mustache. This guy always seeks me out, too, despite my best efforts to avoid him. He's always switching checkout lines to bag my groceries and make awkward conversation. Let me put it this way: there is another employee there who has a hook for a hand and he's not nearly as scary as this dude. Here's how it went down today:


SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "Hi."

Crap.

ME: "Hi."

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "I can't wait to see your baby."

I smile uncomfortably.

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "Can I see him?"

ME: "Um. Well, not now. He's still cooking. But I imagine someday you might see him."

Much to my chagrin.

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "What's wrong with your eyes?"

ME: "Uh…sorry?"

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "They look very sad today."

ME: "Oh."

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "Why?"

ME: "Um. I don't know. Maybe because I don't have any makeup on."

He looks closer.

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "Yep, you're right."

Awkward beat.

SWARTHY VILLAINOUS GROCERY FELLOW: "Are you happy?"

ME: "Well, I was. Before this conversation."

He laughs maniacally. And for the first time in a long time I wished I could make a quick getaway.

________________________________________________


Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
yields one loaf
adapted from Bobby Flay's Pumpkin Bread

Promise me you'll make this before you put all the pumpkin away this season. It's super moist and crazy delicious with those sweet-tart cranberries cutting through all the spicy spices.

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (you can sub up to half of this for whole wheat flour if you like)
1/2 t kosher salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 t ground allspice
1/4 t ground cloves
4 T butter, softened, plus more for buttering the pan
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (unflavored)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup water
1-1/2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed, sorted and roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9" loaf pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. Whisk well to combine. Set aside.

In an electric mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar and oil together on high speed until creamy and fluffy, scraping down the sides when necessary. Add the pumpkin puree and mix well. Add the eggs one-at-a-time, mixing in between. Mixing on low, add the flour mixture a bit at a time, alternating with the water, until everything is just mixed in. Stir in the chopped cranberries. Pour into your prepared pan, bake for 75 minutes or until a toothpick/skewer tester comes out clean and let cool completely.



I'm thankful for YOU!
Hope you have the most Happy Thanksgiving:)
xoxo
jolie

P.S. Still need recipes for your TG feast? Joeycake has a "Thanksgiving" section in the recipe index!

pineapple coconut protein shake with greens

34 weeks pregnant over here and counting. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you people have now begun to literally point at me and shout, "You're HUGE!"

So there's that.

At the hardware store several weeks ago, an employee bustled past me and as he did, he pointed at my belly and shouted his guess at my due date. Like I was a walking how-many-jellybeans-are-in-the-jar contest. It would've (maybe?) been funny had his guess not been TWO MONTHS EARLY.

You know how you're not supposed to EVER ask a woman if she's pregnant? How that is like an Unwritten Rule of Being a Good Person? Well, once one has confirmed she is pregnant, that shouldn't give one carte blanche to say/ask her anything without using one's noodle. These juicy items come to mind:

"YOU'RE HUGE!!"
"You must be ready to POP!"
"Any day now, huh?"
"What are you, nine months?"
"You sure there's only one in there?!"
"You still have six more weeks to go? WOW!"
"How much weight have you gained so far?"**

(**My father poses this question whenever we talk now (which is often). It's like he's my Overeaters Anonymous sponsor. It never fails to make me flinch. And every time, I consider trying to make a joke and dodge the topic. But he's my dad and I know he means well, so inevitably I just tell him my weight. Which I'm realizing now is why he probably keeps asking me.)

Can we add these types of things to the Unwritten Person Rules? None of these things help us Preggos. Here are some handy replacements:

"Can I get you a chair?"
"You're glowing!"
"You don't even look pregnant from the back!"
"I have an extra half-sandwich here with your name on it."
"Another Arnold Palmer?"
"Want me to tie your shoes for you?"
"You have never looked so sexy!"

Consider this a public service announcement on behalf of Preggos everywhere. Bonus: I will be genuinely excited if you say any of the above to me especially if you also forget to ask me how much weight I've gained.

---------------------------------------------------------

Pineapple Coconut Protein Shake with Greens
yields 1 large or 2 smaller shakes

Some of my baby websites are telling me that this week, the child inside me is the size of a large pineapple, so let's toast to that with some pineapple protein shakes! These are so good, pregnant or no.

6 oz. unsweetened coconut milk
4 oz. water
1 cup frozen pineapple chunks
1/2 frozen banana
2 heaping cups fresh spinach
1 T flax meal (ground flax seeds)
1 T coconut oil
1 scoop vanilla protein powder

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend! Add ice if your fruit is not frozen.

xoxoxo
jolie

pumpkin spiced rice krispie treats with brown butter

Happy Halloween, Joeycakers!! What fun and spooky things are you up to? One of my acting students asked me what I was gonna be for Halloween and I told them: A Pregnant Lady Laying on Her Couch Eating. So it's gonna be a pretty amazing night over here at our house. And I say that with zero irony.

Speaking of Halloween-amazing, I heard the scariest thing on NPR this week: There is a sub-genre of erotic romance novels that involves heroines traveling back to prehistoric times and having good times* with dinosaurs.

(*super raunchy sexy sex)

I'll just let that sit a second while your brain implodes.

Ok, ready? Here is a synopsis of "Taken by the T-Rex", written by Christie Sims (who seems to have cornered the Dinosaur Erotica market):

Drin is her tribe's chief huntress; she lives for the thill of the hunt. Men and sex hold no allure for her, as Drin has never found a partner to satisfy her. When a T-Rex descends upon her village, Drin taunts the beast, giving her tribe mates time to flee. As she runs, leading it through a gauntlet of traps, the thrill of the hunt soars through her blood, leaving her wet with desire. When the angry T-Rex corners the huntress in a box canyon, it seems more interested in her wet womanhood than in her flesh.

Other titillating titles by Sims include "Ravished by the Raptor", "Taken by the Pterodactyl", "In The Velociraptor's Nest", and maybe my favorite, "Dino Park After Dark". Here's the cover of "Ravished By The Triceratops" (somebody's learning photoshop!):

I suppose all ladies should feel free to explore their deep, dark fantasies, whether they include extinct predators or couch-laying. So more power to Christie Sims and her loyal readers. (And to me.)

For a different kind of titillating fantasy, check out these autumnal Rice Krispie Treats. They are so good they'll make you forget you can't be caressed by a sexy Brontosaurus in real life.

Pumpkin Spiced Rice Krispie Treats with Brown Butter
recipe adapted from The Kitchn
makes one batch (about 12)

There are two methods here. One uses actual pumpkin and is a bit more high-maintenance, one just uses the spices and is easy-peasy. Read the whole deal and follow your heart.

4T unsalted butter
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree**
1-10oz bag mini marshmallows
1/4 t vanilla extract
1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
pinch kosher salt
6 cups rice krispies

Butter a 9x13 (or 8x11 or 9x9) baking pan and set aside. Over medium-low heat in a heavy saucepan or dutch oven, melt the butter until it begins to brown, shaking the pan every so often. Add the pumpkin puree and warm it through (it will sputter at first from all the water content). Fold in the marshmallows and stir until melted. Add the vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and salt, then remove from heat. Allow this mixture to cool to room temperature, about 25 minutes (otherwise, you'll have sad, soggy treats). Add the cereal and stir until combined. Silicone spatulas work really well for this. Press the mixture into your buttered pan and then pop it into the refrigerator until set. This helps to further avoid sogginess. Cut and enjoy.

**Note: if you're not into the whole waiting-until-room-temperature thing (I get it), omit the pumpkin puree all together and just use the vanilla/pumpkin pie spice/salt. You can stir the cereal into the melty marshmallow mixture immediately and not bother with the fridge.

xoxo
jolie

{book title photo from Buzzfeed}