Simplicity, Lettuce

June 23
Colby Rose has been in a seizure cluster for nearly two weeks. Today she went into the bathroom, got Craig's attention, and had her third seizure of the morning. Craig caught her as she fell. Coral put her black dog under Colby's head as she laid on the cool tile floor.
Coral asked, again, "What happen?"
"She had a seizure."
"Why she has them?"
Craig ventured into more detail, "She has epilepsy."
"Epepsy? What's that?"
"It is just the way she is made, honey."
"She has a boo boo, maybe we can go back to New York City and the doctors can take it off, again."
I hear the room go quiet. Craig, like me, absorbing the knowledge and care in Coral's words and suggestions. She completely understands, in her own way, that Colby had brain surgery, and that the doctors were trying to help the seizures. I think again about how to do this, to parent these two girls, together. Coral has been asked to understand, to accept situations beyond her years. Another mom wrote about balancing the needs of a family when one child has "legitimately higher needs." That phrase has brought a feeling of freedom, it is straightforward, and true.
Given the reality of our family, two parents, one high need child, one rapidly developing two and half year old, there are many demands, and simplifying is not so much a choice as a necessity.
Eating dinner, Craig has made a simple green salad. Lettuce, radish, scallion, vinegar, oil, salt, pepper. The summer lettuce has been crisp and nuanced in flavor, growing well in the warm, bright days and cool evenings.
Paring down to the essentials while still achieving the fullest expression of each ingredient; that is the beauty of this salad.
Given that Colby has "legitimately higher needs" I often worry about each of us reaching our potential. Craig and I defer our work to Colby's needs, Coral is asked over and over again to wait. But maybe it is possible to pare down the extraneous activities and expectations in a family and still reach our individual and collective potential, reach our fullest expression.

Simplest of Green Salads

In a bowl place sliced scallions and radishes. Cover lightly with vinegar. Let sit while prepping lettuce. Sprinkle olive oil over lettuce in bowl. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Toss when ready to serve. Coating the radish and scallion with vinegar both softens their texture and infuses the vinegar with their flavor. Olive oil over the lettuce leaves coats it lightly and makes it shinier, and gives a silkier "mouthfeel."

Fretting and Fritters

Colby had twenty seizures between Sunday night and Monday evening. Coral’s hacking cough had kept her up that night, and woken her from her nap, so I took her to the doctor. She and I returned from the doctor and the pharmacy at 6:30 p.m., late for us to be starting dinner. Craig was chopping shrimp in the kitchen with Colby leaning into the corner between the wall and sink, her safe spot, near dad, when she knows more seizures are coming. He looked at me and said, “Fritters.” When Craig gets tired he goes for rich. When he knows sleep is not going to happen there is something in rich, fried foods that sends his body a survival message. We might not be sleeping, but we have oil: we are definitely going to survive. When he filled the giant cast iron pan with oil though, I told him I thought he was crazy. Tall seizing child plus vat of boiling oil seemed like a very dangerous idea. Plus, I hate the smell of hot oil, of frying foods. Especially in the winter, when it is ten degrees outside and the house is shut up tight and breeze-less, I really hate it. Ever trying to be less bitchy and more accommodating, I turned up the heat and opened some doors and windows.

Colby loves the kitchen. She will stand right beside you at the sink, at the cutting board, at the stove. All of it is OK except that her curiosity is not balanced by a memory of pain. She has suffered two serious burns from reaching right up for a pan or the kettle. So we feel the delight of her company commingled with acute anxiety and anticipation of danger, always thinking three steps, three moves ahead in an effort to keep her safe. Keeping her out of the kitchen means to listen to her cry the entire time, until everyone is at the table. And even then, sometimes when she is let back in to the kitchen she will go lay on the floor for a while as if to make up for lost time.

Craig mixed white wine and flour and dredged the chopped shrimp through in fritter sized bunches, sprinkling chopped Nori here and there. I set the table and wrangled the girls and worried and tried not to dwell on the smell. When Craig brought the platter of fritters to the table my thinking this was all a bad idea disappeared. Golden and glowing, they looked like a platter of little sunshine pools. Yes indeed, we were definitely going to make it through another sleepless winter night. Coral bit into one and before even finishing her first mouthful said, “I need more Shrimpy.”

All at the table, danger averted, golden orbs of shrimp, flour, wine and oil before us I let my mood shift. This is one of the things I love about Craig, that he bothers. He bothers to be ambitious and go through the effort even in the least ideal of circumstances. If it were up to me we would have had black bean and rice quesadillas, again. And we would have been fine. But we would not have been brought in to the moment, into our senses the way his effort delivered us. We would not have smiled at each other, the four of us, around the table, our greasy lips gleaming in the candlelight.

Recipe from "Canal House Cooking" volume 1, for Fritto Misto. Buy this book: it is gorgeous, it is self published, and you will see a lot of it here on this blog, we love it!