LAPD Wife

Happy Halloween

Block parties, pumpkin carving, Halloween parades at school. So much fun. Today we're carving our pumpkins and I'll be roasting the seeds - a favorite of Officer Jake's and our son. My daughter and I worked on a sweeter treat for a Halloween party - pumpkin cheesecake. Oh so yummy and oh so decadent, but very festive, wouldn't you say?

I made a simple pumpkin cheesecake with a white topping, but then got all Halloween-y by decorating it to look like a spiderweb with spiders and all. Was quite simple. Just take a tube of black cake decorating gel and make a spiral pattern around the cake, starting at the center and working your way out. Then take a toothpick and draw it through the gel in lines to create the webby look. Here are photos of it still in the springform pan and a closeup. I meant to take a photo of it once I'd plated it for serving, but was running too late and Jake was giving me the stink-eye for holding things up. Plating was simple, though. Put it on a simple glass platter and surround the base of the cheesecake with more plastic spiders.

I witnessed one man at the party eat THREE pieces. That's the best compliment of all - when someone is willing to clog an artery because your food tastes so good. Hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween!

Party Countdown

I've been planning a "party" for Officer Jake the last few weeks, to use the term loosely. First of all, Jake drives me nuts because he hates parties, he doesn't want attention or any sort of fuss to be made about his birthday or any other milestone. I, on the other hand, love to plan events and am constantly dreaming about big dinner parties, cocktail events, picnics, backyard weddings, you name it, that I could throw at our home. Well, finally, he agreed to let me have a small dinner (can't say the word "party") for a few friends as a celebration of both his birthday (last month) and his 20-year anniversary with the LAPD.

Twenty years with the LAPD (or any other department) is a big deal. First, there is the accomplishment of surviving this long without any major injury or incident that adversely affects our lives. Don't get me wrong, he's been in his share of bang-ups, been in the hospital a few times and we've had our scares, but overall he's healthy and still on active duty.

Second, there is the mental aspect of knowing that he could now retire if he felt like it. Retiring at 20 years wouldn't be a good move financially, though, as the pension is still pretty low at this point, but just knowing that he could do it if he really had to is a sort of mental release. It's all downhill at this point, as we head toward his retirement. He's figuring on working around 30 years for the department, so we're over the hump and I think this next decade will pass very quickly.  

So here I am, with a guest list of about 20 people for dinner at our house. It's looks like a who's-who of Jake's career, with old partners, supervisors, Academy classmates and their husbands or wives from the past 20 years working for the LAPD. I think it's going to be a blast - I've known most of these people, or at least heard alot about them - and it'll be great to have everyone together.

Cooking for 20? I'm up to the challenge and thrive under pressure. First thing is to clean up the house,  put away all the guns, ammo and handcuffs lying around (just kidding! I think some of my readers assume our house is like a scene from Lethal Weapon - it's not!). Spruce up the backyard and get all the outdoor furniture ready. No way am I going to make it formal - casual dinner, sit inside or out (thank goodness the heat wave broke) and mix and mingle.

Here's the menu:

Appetizers for arrival will be: olives, cheese and cracker tray, eggplant dip, homemade guacamole and various interesting chips from Trader Joe's.

Meal: Grilled bbq chicken, grilled Tri-tip, grilled and roasted vegetables with an herb balsamic vinaigrette. A rockin' green salad with  baby greens and fresh spinach, dried cranberries, sliced apples, candied pecans and crumbled blue cheese.

Dessert: Old-fashioned Apple-peach crumble with french vanilla ice cream.

I'll report back how it went soon... wish me luck! And yes, everything is homemade. I don't do mixes. And I'll be sure to share the recipes of everything that goes over well here in the future. And pics if I remember to take them. Bon Appetit!

Crime Scene Cake

I saw this recipe for "Raspberry Crime Scene Cake" from the LA Times Food Section and just had to share. The name of the cake notwithstanding, I think it sounds pretty tasty and am planning on trying it out. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. Hopefully my kitchen won't turn into a crime scene. Here's the note from the food editor:

Note: Maybe I've seen one too many crime drama. The first time I garnished this cake with the lurid red of raspberry puree, all I could think about was demonic laughter, followed by a fade to a police detective saying, "This has to be the work of that same slasher, chief."

The recipe can be found HERE.

Roll With It

Officer Jake is pretty good about packing his lunch for work. After 20 years on the job, his stomach can't handle quite as many In-N-Out burgers and he's learned the value of maintaining a healthier diet. I've been working with him over the past several years to develop tasty and nutritious ideas that leave boring old turkey sandwiches and carrot sticks a thing of the past. Here is one of his recent favorites, a chicken-salad rollup, that incorporates protein, veggies, fruit and whole grain all in one. Sound "too-healthy-to-be-tasty?" Not so! Once I got him to try this (it took a little convincing - he thought it looked a little too "girly") he loved it and requests it often.    

Chicken Salad Rollups

> Whole wheat lavash bread (I get mine at Trader Joe's. If you can't get lavash, go for whole grain tortillas or any sort of flat bread.)
> Fresh spinach leaves (or lettuce if you can't get spinach)
> Golden raisins
> Chicken Salad (my recipe follows. Or buy prepared chicken salad at your local deli. The only problem with ready-made is you can't control how much mayo or other fats they put in the salad.)

Homemade Chicken Salad

Four cups finely chopped cooked chicken (I like to use either grilled or roasted, more flavor)
2 Tbsp low-fat mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 stalks of celery - finely diced
salt and pepper to taste

Assembly

Lay out the lavash bread on a cutting board. Spread the chicken salad in a thin, even layer over the entire lavash, all the way to the sides. Sprinkle golden raisins over the chicken salad. Arrange spinach (or lettuce) leaves over top. Tightly roll up the lavash and fillings into a tight roll. Cut roll into sections about 2 inches wide. Store in an airtight container or wrapped tightly in plastic wrap. It's best to make this right before packing the lunch - store too long and it gets soggy or the rolls come unrolled and you've got a grumpy police officer trying to figure out what-in-the-heck you put in his lunchbox.

Remember - real men DO eat rollups.

Cookie Patrol

How cute is this cookie? Jake brought it home from work awhile ago. This cookie shall never be eaten...

Farmers Market Report

We love farmers markets. I try to go at least once a week from late spring until late Fall - luckily where we live there are farmers markets everywhere, every day of the week, so it's pretty easy to make it to one when you're in the mood. I grew up on a farm and miss that farm-fresh taste, so this is fun for me and a great way to get my kids interested in fresh fruits and vegetables, where they come from and that they can actually be (gasp!) good to eat.

This weekend we brought home: white peaches, doughnut peaches, strawberry tomatoes, Campari tomatoes on the vine, Blue Lake green beans, butter lettuce, green lettuce, Oxnard strawberries, golden beets, a 5-lb bag of oranges, tzatziki and hummus, sweet corn tamales (for Jake) and kettle corn (for the kids). I have GOT to get me one of those wheeled carts I see the serious farmers market customers pulling around. By the time we are done, my arms feel like they are going to fall off from all the bags of food I'm carrying around. But the kids love it and what's extra nice is that since I let them help me pick out and sample the veggies and fruits, they will often try things that they wouldn't otherwise. The latest example is the green beans. They have never liked them before when I put them on their plates at dinner, but since they were able to pick them out and bag them at the farmers market, they have discovered that they like them. This is worth the little extra I end up paying - seeing them eat fresh veggies and liking them is very satisfying.

I even eat healthier when we buy at the farmers market. For snacks this week I've been having small bowls of strawberry tomatoes - small, reddest of red, and very sweet - they totally hit the spot and satisfy both sweet and savory cravings. The Campari tomatoes on the vine have become our "salad" for meals. I layer them with fresh basil from my garden and fresh mozzarella cheese I pick up at Trader Joe's. I then drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sea salt to make one of the ultimate salads of summer - the Caprese salad.

Isn't summer awesome!?

Entertaining Appetizers

Remember the dinner party I had with the ER docs a few weeks ago? Just found these pics of the fantastic appetizers I made for that party. Sliced english cucumbers for the base. Cream cheese mixed with finely chopped fresh herbs from my garden (parsley, shallot, dill), smoked salmon and a sprinkling of finely chopped dill on top. How pretty are these?! These were not that hard to make, I put them together earlier in the day and just kept them covered in the fridge until serving - and both the men and women loved them. In this season when everyone is looking at having way too many cukes in their garden, this is a good way to use them up. And a fantastic, light and cool food to eat during hot months. Bon Appetit!

In Honor of Trader Joe's

This is one of those times I love Twitter. I follow a "Cooking with Trader  Joe's" twitterer who pointed out a hilarious unofficial video for Trader Joe's that's on YouTube. For the locals who read my blog, you'll totally crack up cause you've lived and breathed this stuff when shopping at TJ's. For others, well... it's a peek into the store that's a way of life out here and without which we'd all pine away.  (p.s. the only thing they didn't mention is the gimmick where they hide a stuffed animal in the store and kids who find it get a prize. Officer Jake always helps the kids find it so he can get a prize too!)

From Cop to CookNow That's a Fun Retirement

Speaking of cool retirement gigs.... a girlfriend of mine recently told me about retired LAPD SWAT Officer Rick Massa's new life after retirement. After leaving the force, he attended culinary school and found a new passion - cooking. He's given what I've heard was a really cool cooking class to the LAPD Wives Association, and runs a catering business called "1st Cut Cuisine", but the coolest I've heard was of his win earlier this year on the Food Network TV show "Ultimate Recipe Challenge." (yes, I'm a little late on this bit of news, but I think it's still cool enough to mention.)

The LATimes food blog "Daily Dish" mentioned it when it happened back in January. And the LAPD Blog has a good article about it, too. I know, I know, I'm really behind on this scoop. But it was so fun I just had to mention it.

* Found the link to Rick's catering biz: 1st Cut Cuisine

Dinner Party Conversations

I sent out a couple of Tweets via Twitter earlier this week about a dinner we had with friends. I had several requests for more details (Twitter limits you to very short bursts of information) so here goes:

We had several couples over for dinner one night. On the guest list were two ER doctors (husband/wife team), a small business owner and his wife (a SAHM) and a retired police officer and his wife. I knew that dinner conversation definitely had the potential of getting ... "interesting" ... with 2 cops and 2 ER docs but didn't think too much about it. Of the women, two of us were married to officers and had pretty much heard most of the stories or had developed the survival instinct of tuning them out at will.

I forgot about Lauren.

Poor, poor Lauren.

Lauren is the wife of the small biz owner who is also one of our neighbors and very good friends of ours. But she really hasn't been exposed to the down and dirty war stories that tend to come out after veteran officers gather together over a few hours of drinks and good food. ER doctors and nurses fall easily into that category, also, with many similar experiences in their line of work - and aren't easy to gross out.  (Me? I fall somewhere in the middle. Some stories I've heard so much that I've become desensitized. The rest of the time I've developed a sixth sense of knowing when to "check on the kids" or something like that.)

So there we were, enjoying our after-dinner granita in our backyard(for my foodie readers, see the full menu below) and I was deep in conversation with the other officer's wife about the kids' Little League schedule, having lost interest in the emergency room case the others were discussing. Suddenly I hear Lauren gagging, her husband patting her on the back and then she's up like a shot and running into the kitchen to "help with clearing up."

The story had turned to a case where someone had a seizure while driving and his car went into a place of business, hitting several people, children included. The driver, who should not have been driving, was so distraught when he regained consciousness, had taken a large shard of glass and in his suicidal despondency over what he had done, had attempted to slit his own throat. The doctor, who had been on ER duty that night, was describing the wound, complete with sound effects.

Poor Lauren, she was green when I checked on her and she even ended up doing all my dishes, she was too afraid to head back out for awhile. Worked out fine for me : )

Menu

• Roasted eggplant dip
• chips and salsa
• Cucumber/smoked salmon/fresh dill appetizers
• Teriyaki chicken kabobs
• BBQ Tri-tip
• Green salad
• Roasted vegetables
• Pina Colada Granita (an Italian ice dessert - like a slushy but fancied up)
• platter of chocolate-dipped strawberries, dried apricots, pretzels