Today, Jules shares a crowd pleasing barley salad recipe:
I first cooked this barley salad for a New Year’s gathering of six friends, including three very large, very hungry meat-eating men. It was not the main dish, but it really could have been. This dish was a huge hit; a hearty meal that is simple to prepare and loaded with whole grain goodness. Enjoy!Today, Jules shares a crowd pleasing barley salad recipe:
I first cooked this barley salad for a New Year’s gathering of six friends, including three very large, very hungry meat-eating men. It was not the main dish, but it really could have been. This dish was a huge hit; a hearty meal that is simple to prepare and loaded with whole grain goodness. Enjoy!
This time last week I was headed back from the Mom 2.0 Summit, a truly remarkable conference that brought together moms and marketers for professional discussions, and also explored the personal track. Over at Pop Discourse I wrote a couple of posts that I thought might be of interest to you. The first post covers my thoughts about why this conference was so meaningful and impacting, and the second includes a round up of blogs I recommend reading. If you’re looking for fresh reading, definitely check out the latter post. Enjoy!
I truly was overwhelmed by the generous response when I sent out queries regarding the Boston Mamas Have a Heart for Haiti campaign, and was doubly overwhelmed when the donations started coming in last week. To close the campaign I wanted to feature the top fundraiser, Jessica McDaniel of Boston Baby Photos -- Jessica contributed nearly $350 to the $1,850 total! Read on to learn more about Jessica’s work, as well as how she wants to continue to contribute to the Haiti effort this week.
Among the many things I love about running Boston Mamas independently is: a) how nimble I can be when inspired by a plan, and b) having created community based resources such as the Boston Mamas mamapreneur network. Last month, I brought these two elements together to launch the Boston Mamas Have a Heart for Haiti campaign, and I'm thrilled to report that we rocked it for Haiti and raised $1,850! This donation has been directed to UNICEF, which is absorbing administrative costs so that 100% of every dollar donated goes directly to relief efforts for children in Haiti. I am so grateful to all who shopped and helped spread the word, as well as to the amazing vendors who were so generous in their participation (I’ll be sharing the top fundraiser in a separate post). I hope you’ll keep all of these women business owners in mind for future shopping.
I love that every culture embraces some variation of food wrapped around food (e.g., dumplings, empanadas, etc.) and I recently was inspired to translate the idea to baked treats. While at Blissdom a few weeks ago, I received a bag of Hershey's Bliss milk chocolates. I was going to pass them on to a friend (admittedly, normally I only go for organic chocolate), but after reading the ingredient list (minimal), decided to keep them. My preference for organics was overshadowed by an overwhelming desire to wrap peanut butter cookie dough around these chocolates with Laurel.
When I travel, I try valiantly to stay hydrated and consume lots of fruits and vegetables, but despite my best efforts, invariably I crave a huge salad on return. And on Sunday after Jon and Laurel picked me up at the airport, we decided to celebrate the conclusion of a rather insane month of travel by going out to lunch. And you guessed it, I wanted a huge salad.
One thing I adore about my in-laws is that they dream up all sorts of interesting activities -- both crafty and every day -- to engage Laurel in during visits. Recently, in addition to introducing Laurel to a variety of awesome every day experiences, such as holding baby chicks, collecting eggs, and feeding horses (my heart breaks a little that I wasn't there to witness all of this), my father-in-law taught Laurel some classic magic.
I adore hors d’oeuvres -- the variety they offer (I love sampling a little bit of everything at a meal), the artfulness, the utter cuteness of food in miniature. And to make any occasion feel special without a huge amount of work, try these elegant little mini crab cakes from Bon Appétit. They are super easy to knock together, delicious, and feel oh so fancy. I made them for a dinner party last week and they were a big hit.
Image credit: Lisa Hubbard for Bon Appétit
This time last week I was at Blissdom, where I had the honor of moderating a panel on work/life balance. Panelists Deb Rox, Megan Jordan, Carmen Stacier, and I wanted to foster a candid conversation, free of “achieve balance by getting up earlier and getting more organized!” type advice, and I think we conveyed a realism that was very different from typical balance panels. Here are the key takeaways, some of which have served me extremely well this week while I’ve been playing catch up with work:
Today, Kate reflects on the beauty of ballet across generations:
Does the beauty of ballet call to every little girl at some point in her life? Probably not -- there must be at least a few who are immune to the magic of toe shoes, the awe of the light-as-air lift, the seeming impossibility of a dancer on pointe -- but the appeal seems to be almost universal. I remember my mother describing how as a child she would watch and re-watch The Red Shoes, an overwrought 1948 melodrama about love and devotion gone wrong among dancers, and though the film itself didn't do much for me, I fully appreciated the pull of the ballet scenes. I'm not sure whether it's the costumes, the immense strength and discipline hidden under layers of pink tulle, or the fairy tales recreated on the stage, but ballet got to me too, and now it's gotten to my preschool-aged daughter.
Between recently watching the PBS Raising Girls program and reading about Phoebe Prince last week, my mind has been on cyberbullying. I’m subsequently grateful to PPLM Parent Education Program Manager Amy Cody, who today shares helpful information, tips, and resources for parents regarding cyberbullying:A couple of weeks ago I announced my plan to launch the Boston Mamas Have a Heart for Haiti campaign. I’m thrilled to share this group of talented and generous Boston Mamas mamapreneur network members who are donating a percentage of sales collected from February 1 - 15 to the campaign. Proceeds will be directed to UNICEF, which is absorbing administrative costs so that 100% of every dollar donated goes directly to relief efforts for children in Haiti. So please shop these vendors and shop them generously! Your dollars will do double duty by supporting local women business owners and relief efforts in Haiti.
Apologies for my reduced posting this week, but, save a couple of brief Twitter and Facebook updates on the front end of my trip, from Saturday through Tuesday I went radio silent while absorbing a visit to Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas and I'm currently attempting to cope with my besieged inbox. While the trip was for work (a press event), it also was very personal, signaling my first mom-daughter flight with Laurel and my first work trip where Laurel was encouraged to attend. The trip also provided opportunity to reflect on some of my baggage about life's luxuries (suffice to say, growing up, my immediate family of nine never flew anywhere), and also about human behavior in response to rushes of all kinds (you can take the girl out of psychology, but not the psychologist out of the girl).
I haven’t been to Lanes & Games since I was in high school, which was, well, a really long time ago. Earlier this week, however, I broke my (inadvertent) non-attendance streak with a group of friends and was reminded of how fun candlepin bowling is. The kids all went berserk over it, and Laurel was a machine out there, mowing down frames well beyond when others had lost interest.
It’s been over a decade since I visited Houston and I’m thrilled to return to this city next month for the Mom 2.0 Summit. Last year I heard incredible things about this conference, which serves as a meeting grounds for moms and marketers and this year explores professional, product, and personal paths. My attendance, however, would not be possible were it not for the kind and generous sponsorship of Care.com.
This past weekend I finally had a chance to view PBS’s program A Girl’s Life with Rachel Simmons, and I highly recommend that parents watch the program. Though the issues (e.g., body image, cyberbullying) were not new to me, learning that girls are equal to or ahead of boys until middle school (at which point they tend to fall behind as confidence crumbles due to social issues, negative body image, etc.) and seeing the interview footage made the issues so much more real to me. I couldn’t help but envision Laurel five years (or less) forward.