Boys, Beyonce, Berbere and a little kitty in heat

I usually choose one topic to write about every week, but this week has been so chaotic that I am going to attempt to tie together Prince's birthday, the Superbowl,  Itty Bitty's need for a man and a really great recipe for lentil soup.  You may be asking yourselves,  What the hell is berbere?  It is an Ethiopian spice mix I used in the lentils.  I used it in the title because I couldn't come up with a "B" word for lentil soup. So here goes my attempt to write one blog post about four seemingly unconnected subjects.

Prince just celebrated his 11th birthday.  It has been tough on him moving away from the city and his friends, but he is trying really hard to acclimate and make new friends, so in my typical over compensating mommy way, I told him he could invite five of his friends from the city up for the weekend, invite his new friends to a roller skating party on Saturday, and then have a couple of his new friends join the slumber party on Saturday night.  Let's just say, the number of  boys you have under one roof is inversely proportional to the number of brain cells under the same roof.  In other words; they do stupid shit. At one point the husband looked at me and said, "This was your idea," as he wandered back upstairs to watch another episode of "House of Cards," leaving me to pick up Nerf gun ammo for the zillionth time. Have you seen that show btw?  It is really good.

Sunday afternoon the husband loaded the city boys into the car and headed out.  An over tired, over stimulated Prince started to cry at the prospect of peace and quiet, but gave me a hug and thanked me for a fun birthday.  I was brain dead and couldn't wait to crawl into bed and watch the Superbowl or more accurately, the Superbowl commercials.

I am not a huge football fan and trying to decide if I wanted to cheer for the Ravens or the 49ers was difficult.  Do I root for the team with the murderer or the team with the raging homophobe?  Decisions. Decisions.  I quickly sided with the 49ers though because A: Their Harbaugh brother is cuter and B: That quarterback can throw some serious passes!  My geeky science side kept yelling, "That is physics in motion you guys!"

The boys and I were all munching on popcorn by the time Beyonce took the field. I don't really like Beyonce,  though I do love, "Put a Ring on It." Normally I would take the half-time opportunity to mix up a batch of margaritas, but I was exhausted and since I was impressed by what she had to say about gender equality in her GQ magazine interview, I decided to stay and watch.   I soon realized Beyonce doesn't exactly practice what she preaches. As she was licking her fingers to caress herself and shaking her booty in the air, I couldn't help but compare her to our cat, Itty Bitty, who while in the throes of her first heat kept trying desperately to woo our dog with a booty shaking routine of her own.  At one point when the rest of Destiny's Child came onto the stage, Scrappy Doo asked, "Why do they all have boots on with their swimsuits?"

I am all for sexuality.  I think Madonna did a lot for female empowerment, but she owned her sexuality.   Watching Beyonce (the manufactured product of her father and now married to one of the most powerful men in music) prance around like a Pepsi focus group definition of sexy, just made me sad.  It was a live "Go Daddy" commercial.

Speaking of commercials, I loved the Budweiser commercial, but I love anything with baby animals, as do most people obviously since it was shown during the Superbowl.  I also started out loving the Jeep commercial narrated by Oprah.  I got all choked up thinking this was merely an expensive thank you to our veterans until all the vets started arriving home in Jeeps.  I thought this crossed a line.  It is OK to say something about Jeep supporting US troops at the end of the commercial, but it is just plain icky to put their vehicles in the actual ad, as if to say Jeep somehow makes a soldier's transition to home life easier. It also made me throw up a little in my mouth thinking about all the money Chrysler must make selling Jeeps for military combat overseas.

I was also a little nauseous watching the "Farmer" commercial that aired around 10pm.  I know there was a black out so things got pushed back, but most farmers are asleep at 10pm since they have to get up in six hours to milk the cows, so basically, instead of trying to sell huge gas guzzling trucks to people who actually need huge gas guzzling trucks, Dodge was trying to sell huge gas guzzling trucks to suburban yahoos who think it makes them look as badass as a farmer.

And speaking of farms, I made a killer soup with the last of my kale and sweet potatoes from the fall harvest.  I had never grown sweet potatoes before, but found some plants at a local nursery and decided to give it a try.  I didn't think any would grow, since central New York isn't ideal growing conditions for sweet potatoes, but when I was putting the garden to bed in October I was pleasantly surprised to find a dozen or so of the most beautiful orange sweet potatoes I have ever seen.  I don't think I had ever eaten fresh sweet potatoes before my lucky find, but they are amazing!  Here is a recipe for sweet potato, kale  and lentil soup:

1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
2 medium sweet potatoes diced small
leftover Ethiopian lentils *
1 cup chorizo diced
2 handfuls chopped kale
4 cups chicken stock

Sautee onion, garlic and sweet potatoes in olive oil until soft.  Add chorizo and stir until sweating. Add lentils and broth and cook for 10 minutes.  Add kale to pot and cover.  Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

*I have had a love affair with Ethiopian food since my college days in Boston, where there was a great Ethiopian restaurant. The husband does not share my love of lentils or eating food with spongy teff pancakes so whenever I make Ethiopian lentils I have lots left over. Here is the recipe from Saveur:
1 small onion finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
2 T berbere which is:

2 tsp. coriander seeds
1 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1⁄2 tsp. black peppercorns
1⁄4 tsp. whole allspice
6 white cardamom pods
4 whole cloves
1⁄2 cup dried onion flakes
5 dried chiles de árbol, stemmed, seeded,
   and broken into small pieces
3 tbsp. paprika
2 tsp. kosher salt
1⁄2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1⁄2 tsp. ground ginger
1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 small tomato chopped
1 C red lentils
4 T butter

Sautee onions in butter until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds.  Add lentils, 1T berere, tomato and 4 cups water to saucepan.  Simmer over medium low stirring occasionally until lentils are soft and stew is thick, 45-50 minutes.  Taste and add salt and more berbere as needed

The combination of the spice from the berbere and the sweetness of the sweet potatoes make this a really tasty lentil soup.

So there you have it.  Boys, Beyonce, Berbere and a kitty in heat, all in one post.