Obsessions

My 3 year-old is obsessed with bandaids. She calls them ban-day-jes. As in, she knows the word bandaid, and has heard the word bandage, so she combines them, turning that second "a" into a long-vowell sound. It's cute. She's cute. But what is not cute is that we NEVER have bandaids, bandages or ban-day-jes around when we need them. Thankfully, we don't need them very often. (Which is surprising given at least one of my children's love of being not just barefoot but entirely naked in the outdoors.) Why am I telling you this? Because tonight while I was trying to make dinner, she was trying to find where I'd last stashed the most recently purchased box, screaming at me, "But mom, daddy needs one for his owie!" For the record, Arthur did not have an owie. But I did. Why, you ask? Because a yellow crayon-shaped bandaid was pinching and pulling at my arm hairs. Still not sure when she managed to plant that one on me, that little bandaid bandit. So here I am (or there I was), trying to make this fairly easy (but certainly requiring of at least some amount of concentration) meal that featured one of my own obsessions, mushrooms, and also appease the little bandit. "Why don't you color?" "Do you want to read books to your babies?" "Has anyone seen Piper?" (Ok, I didn't actually ask the 3-year old that one.) Perhaps I'm too tired to make my point creatively. So here it is: we all have obsessions. Some come and go. Some "stick" around for awhile. (Har har.) We do need to indulge in what makes us feel well, indulgent, every so often, but in doing so, we need to make sure we don't lose our grip (assuming we have one in the first place) on reality. And in my house reality reads like this: dinner needs to be cooked, people need to eat. Sometimes, cooking dinner gets a lot of my focus. Other times, being a willing patient and ending up covered in bandaids by my 3 year-old gets my undivided attention. If you share my obsessions with cooking and/or with mushrooms, you'll love the recipe below. If you share Mazie's obsession with bandaids - my only advice would be to guide your kids to place them on your least-hairy spots. You'll thank me for that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/health/nutrition/mushroom-and-grain-cheeseburgers-recipes-for-health.html

P.S. - for those of you who may be wondering about the green stuff that often tops the various patties pictured on my blog - it's coriander chutney, purchased at a local Indian market. Talk about obsessions. Have you tried the stuff?