You may view the menu offerings at Flea Street Cafe on their website: http://www.cooleatz.com/flea-st-cafe/index.html

I highly recommend reservations if you go for dinner:

3607 Alameda De Las Pulgas
Menlo Park, CA 94025
(650) 854-1226

Recently, however, I started reading a bunch of cookbooks and remembered I wanted to check out this one: New Jersey girl meets Parisien man, moves to France, marries and settles in Paris. The book is lovely. It’s a fast read and the recipes are simple and straightforward. I really want to try out the Yogurt Cake as it looks easy enough for a novice baker like me. Elizabeth doesn’t use her own recipe though; she references one by Clotilde Dusoulier, author of “Chocolate & Zucchini” – in a complete coincidence, I checked out “Chocolate & Zucchini” from the library at the same time!

Rather than report the recipe here, I’m including a link to it on Clotilde’s blog: http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2005/10/yogurt_cake.php

Before we went to Paris last year, I bought her other book, “Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris”. I also copied down the addendums from her website and took them with us. She provided great guidance to many of the boulangeries, pâtisseries and restaurants we went to!

I had to hurry and finish this book yesterday because it was due back at the library today. I’m not unhappy to have rushed: no matter how you feel about the subject matter, it’s a fascinating look at someone else’s parenting style. At times I felt my blood pressure rising, other times I had tears in my eyes. Sometimes I felt pity for the author appearing to be so blindly convinced of her own superiority. As a parent, I do my best but don’t consider anything I do to be the “best” way. That said, however, I concede admiration for someone having so much conviction they perserve through the pain. And there ‘appears’ to be a lot of pain in the book. How much of this is true is unclear, especially after reading a few articles in the Wall Street Journal (responses to her book by other parents and her responses to the responses).

Am I really supposed to believe she meant it to be self-mocking and exaggerated certain episodes? I didn’t quite get that from my first read through. The book jacket declares it to be “unerringly honest, often hilarious, and always provocative story of one mother’s adventure in extreme parenting”. If she was unerringly honest, how can she be tongue-in-cheek at the same time? We who don’t know her personally cannot tell when she is joking or even being ironic. Personally, I didn’t find it hilarious. Fascinating, YES. Funny, no. How is touting the supremacy of one culture’s parenting methods over another funny? Isn’t there room for both?

And can we please stop competing? There are no medals for parenting. The most you can hope for is to foster/nuture cooperation, self motivation, understanding, tolerance and empathy. If your child can lead the world out of some of its current messes, that is a BONUS! However one chooses to parent, it is her/his business. I just hope we can all agree on some base level outcomes (cooperation, tolerance and empathy among them).

Somewhere between the author’s parenting ideas and other parenting ideas is BALANCE. The funny thing is, the concept of Yin and Yang is Eastern in origin. In interviews, Amy Chua has stated the book is about her journey from an extreme position to a more moderate one. But the transition seems to take place only in the final three chapters. We don’t get enough detail about her parenting style AFTER her daughter’s meltdown to make me feel a sense of balance in her story. It seems heavily weighted towards a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to parenting. That’s probably why it has created such a furor.

The most important thing to remember, however, is that this is a memoir, NOT a parenting guide. My feeling is, if you don’t like what’s she’s written, walk away knowing you won’t be following in her footsteps. Period. Then forget about it. I’ve already forgotten a lot of the book, which actually makes it a bit hard to write in a cogent manner today.

I’m sure this is going to cause a lot of commentary – and I do welcome your input – please weigh in below!

P.S. I want to mention my take away from reading this book (it took me a while to crystalize what I want to say). I’m very much a ‘lead by example’ type of parent. I believe in being authoritative but think it can be done with a “please” and a “thank you” thrown in. I don’t tolerate misbehavior of any sort and can say with reasonable certainty that my kids did not throw temper tantrums when they were little. I would have nipped any outbursts in the bud within seconds. Really. So I respect Amy Chua’s position that parents should be the decision makers and authority figures. It was a great reminder about what it means to be a parent. Authoritativeness is not popular with kids but I need to toughen up EVEN MORE as mine enter adolescence. Thank you, Tiger Mother, for reminding me who is Queen of the Jungle around here.

It’s hard to read the paper this week; the images and stories of the devastation in Japan make me sad and scared. I’m sad so many people lost their lives, their homes and their sense of stability. I’m scared there may be worse things to come. I can’t remember when we had this many natural disasters, at seemingly epic proportions, in such a short space of time. Am I imagining things, or is there A LOT of havoc being wreaked all over our planet?

In times like these, I look to others for words of wisdom. Books are such a salve, and, if I’m being completely candid, a way to forget about the bad news for a little while.

I decided to take the boys on a much needed trip to the library yesterday. Dane is reading certain books for the fifth, sixth and seventh times and reminded me he was desperate for something new. Even though I’m deep in the middle of ‘No Impact Man’ (which I got at the Borders sale and am engrossed in), I thought it would be a good idea to check out a few myself.

‘Simply Organic’ is beautifully photographed and the author, Jesse Ziff Cool, runs a restaurant in Palo Alto – Flea Street Cafe. I’ve heard about it but we haven’t gone yet. Maybe we’ll get a chance this rainy weekend (I’m relieved to report the boys’ camping trip to Point Reyes was cancelled – only 40MPH winds and 18 ft swells could deter my intrepid husband and the Boy Scouts).

‘Recipes from an Italian Summer’ looks amazing. I hope to do a little daydreaming about the meals we’ll enjoy in Italy this summer.

‘The Art of Eating In’ is another book in my favorite genre: real life account of author’s yearlong [BLANK] project. As you know, I’m a big fan of ‘Julie and Julia’, “The Year of Living Biblically’, ‘The Know-it-All’, ‘The Happiness Project’ and such. This one is about author Cathy Erway’s attempt to dine at home for not one but TWO years.

‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ has been recommended by two friends: Judy and Nina. It’s quite a hot button topic (this author’s parenting style); I’ll let you know what I think.

‘Mini Shopaholic’ is a terrible book in a series that really should have stopped after the second one. These books really annoy me (maybe why I don’t read fiction all that much?) but it’s a great antidote when I’m itching to shop (which I am). I can’t stand the main character because she NEVER changes; every other character is more interesting and/or nice. Has anyone read this series? What are your thoughts?

‘The Girls’ Guide to Everything’ reminded me of my boys’ favorite books, ‘The Big Book of Boy Stuff’ and ‘The Dangerous Book for Boys’ – here’s a version for grown-ups.

I hope you’re cozy if it’s raining where you are (it is here). I hope to make a dent in the pile above!

Would you like to win a copy of Selma?

All you need to do is leave me a comment with some of your favorite parenting titles (I love recommendations). I’ll select a random winner from all comments received by Monday, March 21 (please leave a comment on this post, though, in order to qualify).

P.S. Missing from the above stack is a must-read for parents, ‘The Price of Privilege’ by Madeline Levine, Ph.D. I’ve loaned my copy out to a friend; if you want to read a bit about her main messages (from notes I took at a talk she gave), please visit my website at http://dirtandsunshine.com/articles.html – there are other parenting-related notes and links there you might also like. I’ll close with three of my all-time favorite quotes:

Be the person you want the world to be. Gandhi

Figure out one thing you can do every day to be a part of the solution. Anne Lamott

Freedom fighters don’t always win, but they’re always right. Molly Ivins

Gretchen realized time was passing and she wasn’t focusing on the things that really matter. (Sound familiar?). Unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, however, she didn’t want to uproot her life and family. She wanted to focus on improving her life as it was. In her year-long Happiness Project, she tackled a different resolution each month. For example, find more fun, make time for friends, etc.

Here is the full breakdown:

• January – Boost energy
• February – Remember love
• March – Aim higher
• April – Lighten up
• May – Be serious about play
• June – Make time for friends
• July – Buy some happiness
• August – Contemplate the heavens
• September – Pursue a passion
• October – Pay attention
• November – Keep a contented heart
• December – Boot camp perfect

Even though I consider myself a very happy person, this book was a terrific reminder to take time NOW to enjoy as much of each day as is feasible (and also find joy in the more mundane aspects). Now who wouldn’t benefit from a little of that?

I would love to start some sort of local Happiness Project Circle if anyone is interested (we can also include the far away folks in a virtual manner) – let me know if this is you! Gretchen provides helpful starts in the form of toolkits and other information on her blog. I highly encourage you to check it out!

http://www.happiness-project.com/

In the interest of sharing a worthwhile idea, I’m taking a break from my usual blogging topics for a brief education-related advertisement:

I am tremendously excited about the Parent Education event at our middle school tonight – “Conversations with Great Teachers… at SMS!”. We have Dr. Bill Smoot, author of “Conversations with Great Teachers” and a panel of six SMS teachers. I hope the turnout is incredible as this is a must-see for parents in the California public education system.

The discussion will illuminate the creative teaching that goes on right here at our local middle school! Dr. Smoot will moderate a panel of six SMS teachers (representing grade levels as well as subject areas) who will share interesting and engaging stories of their secrets to our students’ success.

Bill Smoot, Ph.D.,  teaches English at the Castilleja School in Palo Alto where he has received the Outstanding Teacher Award. In his book, he investigates what it is that passes between the best teachers and their students to make learning happen. His insightful questions elicit thought-provoking reflections on teaching as a calling and its aims, frustrations, and satisfactions.

How did this come together, you might be wondering?

Several months ago, I read an interview with Bill Smoot in the SJ Mercury News. I was immediately intrigued by the possibility of him coming to our school to help shed light on the innovative teaching that goes on – mostly undetected by parents in my opinion. I contact Bill the next morning and to my delighted surprise, he emailed me back within an hour and said he would be happy to moderate our panel! When in life does this happen? My feeling is – when you make a bold move! What’s the worst he could have said? No? I can handle a “No”. In this case, however, the stars were in my favor and I started planning the event (one of my hats is the Parent Ed coodinator at the school).

The past week or so, I’ve been frantically preparing for tonight’s event. Back in October, I purchased 30 copies of Bill’s book in order to give the teachers a basis for the type of anecdotes we wanted to illustrate in the program. At first, they were a little reluctant to check out or read the book. But I started teasing them with excerpts and all of the sudden, the vast majority were hooked! (Giving prizes for correctly identifying details such as page numbers or names didn’t hurt, either).

So the teaching staff is totally jazzed about tonight and so am I. If you live in the Bay Area and want more details, send me an email.

I will leave you with my favorite anecdote from the book. If this doesn’t get you excited about what teachers can accomplish with our students then I don’t know what will!

EXCERPT——————————

Could you give us some examples of these projects?

…The ultimate project I did with them was that I emptied out the entire classroom and they arrived on the first day of school to an empty room. Their challenge was to design, fund, and then build their classroom. This was my favorite of all projects because I love to take stuff away from these kids, and then they get nothing except what they worked for and figured out how to get on their own.

…

In the year that they started with an empty room, what did they come up with?

We had to study the Pilgrims. That was a big part of our curriculum. So every time we came to a problem, that was our excuse to go do research about Pilgrims to see if they met that problem, and if they did, how they solved it.

The first problem was about getting money, so we looked into how the Pilgrims got the money to fund their voyage. We found that they got it from companies investing in them. So we tried to use the model we learned from the Pilgrims for our own work. We learned what investment was, and the kids wrote hundreds of letters to every business in our town inviting people to buy a share. They sold forty-four shares. A carpenter bought a share, so we asked him if he would come in and design a desk to build. An accountant bought a share, so we asked her to come in and show us how to set up books to keep track of all the money we had. We had banks buy a share, so we had the banks explain how interest worked. A retired handyman bought a share, so he came in and helped us build the desks. We didn’t finish building the desks until February. They were these beautiful desks with tops that flipped up. That was a pretty exciting year. That was a pinnacle year in my teaching…

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That’s pretty close to being a 6-word memoir, isn’t it? I love, love, LOVE this little book by Michael Pollan (one of my favorite authors and a Bay Area resident, too). I am bummed it’s due back to the library today. But before I return it, I want to make a little PSA – check out this gem next time you’re at a bookstore (independently owned, if possible) or local library!

For those of you too busy right now, I offer a few pearls of wisdom from the book (out of 64 suggested rules):

#28 If you have the space, buy a freezer (why? because you can buy produce in bulk at the height of its season and freezing does not significantly diminish the nutritional value of produce).

#41 Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. (why? people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than those who eat a modern Western diet of processed foods)

$50 The banquet is in the first bite (taking this adage to heart will help you enjoy your food and eat more slowly).

As you may know, I am an inveterate collector of good advice, particularly as it relates to raising kind, competent, and well-mannered children. Well, I think I hit the jackpot with the book I’m currently reading, The Blessing of a B Minus’, by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. I heard Dr. Mogel speak on Friday night at the Challenge Success plenary at Stanford. She dished up some amazing nuggets of useful, practical advice in her keynote address.

I bought the book on a break in the agenda and have been reading a little bit every day. I would normally devour a book like this in a few hours but am trying to slow down in order to fully absorb the wealth of information she provides. I’ve also been jotting down notes from each chapter and seriously think I am going to create some wall decals or posters so we may (visually) encounter this valuable advice on a daily basis.

Here are some select quotations from the book:

“All the world is a very narrow bridge. The main thing it to not be afraid.” Rabbi Nachman

“The only way out is through.”

“A large portion of life is maintenance and repair.”

“Manners grease the wheels of society.”

“Deed over creed. Actions are more important than beliefs.”

“Learn the value of ordinary work. God really is in the details.” (re: the cosmic impact of daily chores)

If I do create wall art, would anyone like it as well? I can easily make it available via PDF download.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about Challenge Success, I encourage you to visit the website: http://challengesuccess.org/