CBS REDEFINES "SHOESTRING"

In their world, $35 for the ingredients to one home-cooked family meal is dining on a shoestring. Maybe at Katie Couric's place in Millbrook it is. Heck, in November while I was in layoff limbo we just about pulled off an entire Thanksgiving for less than $35. (I think the two bottles of cheap wine put us over the top.)

Digest this - if you can:

As The Early Show Saturday Edition's "Chef on a Shoestring," Freitag sought to take a traditional, three-course spaghetti dinner and give it a little twist any family would love - on our new, lower, recession-busting budget of $35. And, we introduced another challenge to our "Shoestring" chefs. We're calling it "How Low Can You Go?" The chef who prepares the least-costly meal will be back at the end of the year to create our big, blowout holiday feast!

Menu:
Beet Salad with Crushed Pistachios & Soft Goat Cheese
Lamb Ragu with Rigatoni and Fresh Ricotta
Greek Yogurt with Blood Oranges, Honey & Mint

And seriously, beets? Wife and I would love that, really...but you don't just spring beets on a five-year-old and a three-year-old and expect them to house it down like they're Vikings just home from six months at sea. Advance work must be done to prepare young palates.

But the story has sparked an interest in me, in finding other examples of major-media tone-deafness to family issues. Do jump in and help sprinkle CBS et al. with lots of schadenfreudey goodness!

THE DANCE RECITAL

A success. Noodle was beyond adorable in her red tutu, and the kids all had a blast. Despite what it may imply to the uninitiated on my Facebook description of the event, Noodle's dance class was more about fun and staying active than it is about ballet.

We may re-visit it in the future, but mid-winter mid-week late-afternoon schleps to Kingston are not cutting it in anybody's long term schedule for now. The Red Hook schools have some great after-school programs for kids on down to kindergarten, and Noodle's in one of those now. Either yoga or cooking, I forget which. At this hour you could tell me she signed up for a class in arms smuggling and I'd give you 20 seconds on how cool it is she's taking an interest in international relations (and would sail through those confirmation hearings today).

FIFTEEN POUNDS OF CRAZY IN A FIVE-POUND SACK

My tiny little brain is still trying to re-absorb the week.

Noodle has been alternating between nightmares and needing the potty, Beast turned 3, the Nana had to be hospitalized for a bit of falling off the wagon, yours truly had to blow up his schedule for a three-hour congressional candidates' forum and then get said Nana off to the hospital, and Her Awesomeness has been lost somewhere in a cloud of flour as she attempted to bake Beast a birthday cake as well as a couple of banana breads for the big school bus driver's appreciation day today, plus it's over to Kingston for a lighting part that just came in so that I can fix the living room lights and then off to the Wal-Mart to return some insufficiently flattering Noodlewear. She's not being spoiled...it's just that she's 99th-percentile tall for her age and standard clothing sizes don't work all that often. Add that to Wal-Mart's superior quality control (/sarcasm) and it would have been less of a time-suck to buy the nicer stuff straight off, except that the bank account is approaching Bush-approval-rating levels.

Yeah, you caught that right, I'm doing electrical work. Red's hot, black's not, why is my hair sticking straight up and what's that burnt-flesh odor I'm smelling?

FLYING SOLO

Her Awesomeness was booked at her school's open house, and that meant me getting to show off my culinary skills for Beast and Noodle, who are generally skeptical if I so much as pick up a fork even though I've fancied myself at least competent in the kitchen.

In other words, yay for Lunchables and pizza delivery.

But the meal and the bathtime and bedtime went off with a minimum of drama and squawking, something I figure can be repeated on a regular basis so long as "once every six months" counts as regular.