Labor Day is around the corner. That means last minute Back to School shopping, arguing with my 7th grader that he has more than enough clothes and shoes to start the school year, and buying soccer paraphernalia now that he has FINALLY decided he wants to do team sports. And of course the dreaded morning chore: packing lunch for school.

Since Billi started complaining a couple of years ago that school lunches were a cross between nuclear waste and roadkill — yes, he has a flair for the dramatic — I’ve started making lunch for him. My husband, of course, thinks Billi is old enough to make his own lunch, but I’ve managed to guilt-trip myself enough to feel I should do it.

I don’t really enjoy it, mainly because I can’t come up with interesting ideas for lunch. I make cold meat sandwiches two days in a row and then I worry about all the nitrites. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then think I wouldn’t want to be eat that more than once a week. When I give him bagel and cream cheese, I think of dough and fat. Then I wish he was back in elementary school when he was happy enough to eat school lunches and didn’t complain.

So all you moms out there who fix your kids’ lunches, what do you do?  What is good for the kids, quick to fix and tasty?  I know that’s a tall order, but hey ….

The whole-wheat spice bread I made over the weekend in my Bake-a-Round didn’t last more than an extra day. The Bake-a-Round itself got a second look from my youngest child’s friends, who were over yesterday for a last gasp of summer bakeoff.

They made brownies, the five of them. I was sorry not to be there to see it. They thought the Bake-a-Round was the oddest thing they had ever seen, apparently. Ah, youth!

For those interested in the bread recipe, here it is. It’s from “A World of Breads” by Dolores Casella:

Whole-wheat spiced bread

2 cups scalded milk

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup soft butter

1/3 cup orange juice

2 cakes yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 large egg

2-1/2 cups white flour

4 cups whole-wheat flour

1/2 tsp cumin seed

Directions: Pour the scalded milk over the brown sugar, salt, honey and butter. Dissolve the yeast in the water and let set until bubbly, about 5 minutes. Add to the milk mixture along with the egg and blend well. Sift in the white flour and beat until smooth. Add the whole-wheat flour and cumin seed and blend in. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a buttered bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down and knead for 1 minute. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Turn out onto floured board again and shape into 2 loaves. Place in buttered 9-inch loaf pans, cover, and let rise again until doubled. Then bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes longer. Brush the tops of the hot loaves with softened or melted butter.

A couple of thoughts. I used white flour on the board when I was kneading the dough, although I ought to have used whole wheat flour to keep with the idea of a whole-wheat bread. I just didn’t think of that until it was too late.

Also, although this recipe doesn’t specify how long it takes for dough to double, the first doubling takes between 1-1/2 and 2 hours; it takes less time to double after that, so the second time you need to double it, it probably will take between 45 minutes and an hour (although it could take longer). You can tell that the dough has doubled because you can punch it down almost like a deflating balloon when you drive 2 fingers into it.

It’d been a while since I purchased a cake of compressed yeast, too, because it doesn’t keep as long as dry yeast. I used some of my bread machine yeast instead. There was a conversion notation on the bottle lid. In general, 1 tbs of loose yeast equals 1 cake of compressed yeast or 1 package of dry yeast. If you want to use dry yeast in a recipe calling for a yeast cake, remove 1/4 cup of liquid from the ingredients to dissolve the dry yeast in, Casella advised.

She did say if you wanted your bread to rise more quickly to use a cake of yeast or a package of yeast for each cup of liquid in the recipe, or the same ratio for each 3 cups of flour. According to her, that combination can shorten the entire process, so bread can be made, start to finish, in less than 2-1/2 hours.

It’s been a while since I posted. Vacation and getting caught up can do that.

Speaking of vacation—for all those who may be getting away this final summer weekend— I noticed that when we were away, it was hard to keep a feeding schedule, not to mention a proper diet, going for the baby.

My daughter has grown accustomed to warm milk in the morning but since we didn’t have anywhere to heat it up, there were many times when said milk would end up dumped on the floor, or, in one case, my flip-flops. I was also with my sisters, who often find it cute to give my daughter, who is a little on the hearty side, molasses cookies for breakfast or Cheetos for a snack. That whole first-time “wow, this is yummy” effect is what I guess can be endearing.

So our five day vacation was filled with lots of food on the go, like cheese and crackers and granola bars. I mean  she did manage to eat some veggies but the meals just never seemed complete and I found it easier just to give her foods that she doesn’t normally indulge in.

Anyone else find it hard to keep that home(cooked meals) away from home vibe going?  Below is a picture of Zyla with her cousin, Ryan.  If you look closely, I  believe she’s  holding a frosted star cookie and Ryan’s probably surprised he got caught giving her one.

I love late summer because it means fresh corn. I grew up in the Philly suburbs & we’d spend vacations at the Jersey shore. I can remember driving across the Garden State, stopping at farm stands along the way to pick up fat red tomatoes; plump blueberries; juicy peaches and, of course, sweet corn on the cob. There’s nothing like taking that first bite of the season and having all those little kernels explode in your mouth. Really good fresh corn doesn’t need butter or salt, but I like to use them sometimes.

We’re fortunate to live close to Stuart’s Fruit Farm in Somers. I stopped by the other day to pick up some corn & it was delicious. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. JD loved it! I’ve given him corn before, and he liked it. But this time was different. He became very focused while eating it; it was as if he didn’t want anything intruding on this treat. No stray kernels were dropped (much to the dogs’ dismay), none were tossed over the side. When he was finished what was on the tray, he looked at me expectantly for more. I was happy to oblige.

It will be many more years before he understands what went into making that corn so special, but it’s times like this that prove the benefits of locally grown is in the taste for anyone to enjoy.

Photo by Stephen Schmitt/The Journal News

One of the gifts I got shortly after I graduated from college and set up single housekeeping was a Bake-a-Round. It’s a fairly straight-forward device, a round tube of glass on a metal carrier designed to allow the baker to make a torpedo-shaped loaf that baked perfectly all around.

I used it a few times after I was married, and my young children always enjoyed the round loaves at dinner when I had the time and inclination to make fresh bread. But that was long ago.

This weekend, I dragged out my old Bake-a-Round and consulted with my daughters about fresh bread. They didn’t remember the device and found it a fairly peculiar piece of kitchen equipment.

We decided on a loaf of whole wheat spice, which used orange juice and cumin seed, honey and brown sugar and both white and whole wheat flours.

I’d forgotten how long it takes to make bread from scratch (we use a machine for holiday bread). My daughters found the whole process amazing, from soaking the yeast until it bubbles to kneading the dough and letting it rise three times.

I don’t know if my girls will ever make bread from scratch, but I’m delighted to show them how it’s done in case they ever need to know.

Especially with the price of flour increasing the way it’s been done, watching the process this weekend may at least give them an appreciation of what they now take for granted.

Having been on “vacation” this week, I’ve been around my children far more than usual and, therefore, have observed their eating habits in far more situations than I generally do.

What I’ve realized is probably incredibly obvious to most people, but sometimes you need to hit me over the head with an obvious stick for me to get the point.

Eating habits evolve incredibly over time.

When Rafael first moved to solid foods, he ate just about anything. He had to have a book to look through while we were feeding him, but other than that he wasn’t picky at all.

He ate black beans, steak, chicken, rice, spelt, eggs, yogurt, cheese, hot dogs, pasta, olives, asparagus. Really, we didn’t consider him at all when we were making meals, because we knew he’d eat whatever we were eating.

Then came the (cue the music: dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn!) Terrible Twos.

Rafael began to exert his independence something fierce. Very much like his mommy, he has a stubborn streak a mile wide. Add to that the fact that his tiny baby brother was born and the green monster reared its ugly head, and Rafael became almost impossible to feed.

There was a time where he basically only ate grains. Bread, crackers, pasta. With butter, sometimes cheese, but that was it. He wouldn’t even eat macaroni and cheese.

Markus, meanwhile, moved to solid foods with relish. He ate anything and everything and all of it. And then some.

When Rafael wouldn’t finish his oatmeal in the morning, Markus would gobble it up.

It became almost a chore to feed Rafael; Markus was a human garbage disposal.

Fast-forward another couple years and now Rafael’s 4 and Markus is 2.

Our happy-go-lucky, laid-back, nonpicky baby has turned into a defiant toddler.

He’s still less defiant than Rafael ever was, and less picky than Rafael ever was. But Markus often rejects food a couple times before eating it. And some foods he won’t even try anymore — olives, chicken.

Meanwhile, Rafael has become somewhat adventurous and will even try new things. He starts pre-school in a week and a half, and we don’t worry at all that he’ll get enough to eat while he’s out of our grasp for the first time ever.

Here’s hoping that another two years brings us full circle and Markus becomes the eater he once was. It’ll be nice to go to any restaurant we want and to skip the diners.

Yesterday when I picked my 2-year-old from day care, I decided to swing by my local ShopRite. It’s not that it’s the first time that mom and son have gone food shopping, but it was certainly was one of my best shopping experiences.

In the past when Aristu would ride on the shopping cart my focus would be on stopping him from sucking on the handlebar. Yesterday he seemed so excited by all the colorful offering in the produce section that the handlebar got neither his attention nor his drool.

Instead he stretched longingly toward the tomatoes and plaintively cried, “mom, apple.” Later when we passed through the fruit section he asked for the golden “anana.” The brie and the goat cheese really got him really excited—cheese, yummy—and he even acknowleged the broccoli by saying “boccoli” when we passed my (almost) favorite vegetable. The dairy section perked him up after the dull meat and chicken aisle, and he rocked himself in the seat intoning “mulk, egg.”

I ended up buying many of the items he called out, so impressed I was by his ability to identify the foods. Now all I need is for him to eat them and I’ll be a happy mom.

“I wanna try the dal Obama makes,” said my 7-year-old daughter yesterday, when she heard about the presidential candidate’s dal making prowess and “desi” bona fides.

The San Fransciso Chronicle reported Sunday that while addressing a group of largely Indian and Pakistani supporters at a Frisco fundraiser, Obama declared, “Not only do I think I’m a desi, but I am a desi.”

The desi (one from our country, in Hindi) then went on to talk about his expertise in cooking dal (lentils), while admitting to not being an expert at making naan, the Indian bread.

“Somebody else made the naan.” he said, during the fundraiser that netted a record $7.8 million.

In India, where many families have been vegetarian for generations, dal- a good source of iron, folate and protein- figures prominently in most meals.

So when Obama talked about his affinity for dal, it obviously struck a chord with desis of all generations.

I am truly impressed that not only is The One down with our lingo and cuisine, but also has enough sense on where to draw the line. If he had said he was an expert naan maker, he would have been booed out of the auditorium. No desi worth his salt makes naan at home. It would be like making bagels at home.

Excuse me while I serve my family some arugula with my dal fry.

When my children were very little, we used to keep their bottles filled with water. On the rare occasions any of the babes went to bed with a bottle, it was filled with water.

These days, all three of them — who range in age from 16 to 23 — still turn to water before anything else. Especially in the summer, water is the beverage of choice.

That’s a good thing. Water is essential to health, and people generally don’t drink enough of it.

According to Freedrinkingwater.com, water makes up 95 percent of the human brain, 82 percent of blood, 90 percent of lungs and a drop of 2 percent in the body’s water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, fatigue and difficulty focusing on smaller print. An estimated 75 percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration, the site avows.

I recall a long time ago (before children at any event), I went on a canoeing trip out West and was told that, if I started finding myself getting cranky and my vacation wasn’t fun any more, that I was probably dehydrated and needed to drink some water.

So this is a little reminder that kids — and adults — should reach for water before any other beverage, especially in summer. Enjoy!

OK, I feel a little bad posting this after those inspirational posts by Swapna and Hema, but I’m not going to wallow in mommy guilt!

We recently celebrated JD’s first birthday & what celebration is complete without cake! We were having a small family & friends BBQ so when the local bakery said it wanted $50 for a cake, I thought, no way—i can do it myself. So I pulled a couple boxes of cake mix from the pantry & got to work. I made a sheet layer of chocolate & one of vanilla. After I stacked them, I cut the cake down the center longwise, took 3/4 of one of the sides for the bottom of the “1” and the rest I “glued” to the top with frosting. Then I covered the whole thing in vanilla frosting (I used 6 tubs of frosting total!) added some decorative piping & a candle with JD’s name & voila! (disclaimer: my sister-in-law helped my finish & decorate the cake since I ran out of time.)

Here’s the finished product.

It’s not going to win any awards, but everyone said they liked it. Watching JD’s reaction was great. I put some vanilla cake with frosting on his tray & he loved squishing the frosting first. When he finally put some in his mouth, his eyes lit up. He couldn’t get it in fast enough. And, of course, cake & frosting was everywhere—clothes, hair, face. After he was finished indulging, we headed straight for the tub & a quick bath!

Do you make your child’s birthday cake? Why or why not? What’s the most creative cake you’ve made?