MOTHERHOOD: TRICK...OR TREAT? (VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED IF YOU DO, OR IF YOU DON'T) and turkey meatloaf and sweet potato spiders recipe

photos courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

We've had this conversation before. Spoken of the insidious ways motherhood has us judging each other. Never a thing more telling than running into another mom in the grocery store, and scrutinizing the contents of her cart, seeing her eyes flick over yours. The way we point one gleeful, sugarshaking finger--just out of the frosting can--at Angelina Jolie (my all-time favorite mark): "AHA! Look! Shiloh is eating Cheetos and Mallomars in her stroller--out of a non-recycleable plastic bag!"

That finger-waggling which means: I am justified in what I do as a mother; I am not that bad; We are One.

It's all fun and games...until you find yourself, your mothering and your food in the paper--literally.

In the biggest serving of food irony to-date, I, who never work from or write down a recipe, find myself with a recipe in a national newspaper article, as well as a mortifyingly large but okay mostly pretty good half-page photo of myself & the kids, happily assembling an art-project-style Halloween dinner.

I was asked to share my recipe & be photographed making this healthful pre-trick-or-treat dinner recipe for The Sun (a truly delightful female experience from reporter Maria Blackburn and photographer Chiaki Kawajiri, to food editor and Charm City Moms' blogger, Kate Shatzkin).

An experience where, shockingly, both my kids and hair seemed to cooperate fully. I feel good about the article and great about the recipe (Turkey Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Spiders), which is really just an art-project riff on the same meatloaf I always make (thank you, mom), honest.

Leave it to me to stir the cauldron: No, I haven't received any negative comments (but then I don't call Angelina directly with my bitter concerns) on the article, and the comments I have received have all been more along the lines of "You out-Martha'd Martha, girlfriend!" which has caused me to wonder: Should "Martha" be both an adjective and a verb--and... is it a compliment?

Or is it backlash? (not to me specifically, but as a part of our culture)

Seeing the paper and hearing these comparisons, my dear friend Edamommy immediately quipped,"Your photo is 4 columns wide! The last time that happened to Martha, she was being sentenced."

Martha Stewart, the strange, the unattainable, the easiest of all deckle-edged targets:

"She may be a creative genius, but I hear she was a pretty bad mother."

This is human nature: another mother's perfection, felled at the knees. And motherly perfection right now in our society means being the most green, the most organic, the most nutritious (it's not even good enough to be slyly nutritious, your kids have to looooove it too, to almost thank you for it) the most creative, the most interactive--in short, the most most-ness.

The biggest, tricky truth in motherhood is that you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The only maternal plaguing fear bigger than being "not enough," is being too much. Most of us inhabit the torturous rack somewhere between these two seeping walls in The Pit of Despair.

And lordlove Martha Stewart and her genius, but that is not a Good Thing.

Another trick of motherhood is the more exceptional you are at more aspects of it (by this I mean grossly neglectful or over-the-top involved in your kids' lives), the more scrutiny you invite. So, if you want to avoid scrutiny, the middle ground beckons...and maybe, um...there's nothing wrong with that--if that works for you.

As I mulled over some other recipe concepts with my own mother (ones which did not make it into this article), I debated things like whittling spooky ulnae & radii out of cauliflower. "Oh God, don't do all that," my mother cautioned. "People will hate you."
Yes, motherhood is like an endless Pantene commercial on a loop, "Don't hate me because my kids like _______(insert healthy food name, past time, standardized test score)."

Just as waves of secrecy and shame tell us that a complete childhood diet of Sour Skittles, dinosaur-shaped chicken and generic boxed mac and cheese is wrong, so we also know in our hearts that no child's palate should enlarge while his 3-year old quads atrophy, shoved in the back of a Trader Joe's cart for hours in the pursuit of those ingredients. We know no one can afford to shop local or organic 100% of the time right now and that that no kid--not even Anthony Bourdain's kid--really wants to see just-pulled beets (albeit gorgeously organic) laid artfully in her cereal bowl.

If I didn't know myself better, it would sound like what I am suggesting is some...sort of...moderation.

What I wonder most is if I will be drawn in butter and quartered for taking my mother's meatloaf public. My mother, who has a habit of turning out the most magnificent food like it is nothing--nothing!--waving it away with an easy ice-glass tinkle of a laugh, who actually shares all secrets with you without proprietary talons. Maybe because she never writes down a recipe (in fact, it took us an afternoon on the phone to turn the familiar ancient action of making this meatloaf into a legitimate recipe with measurements--and even that had to be edited)? Maybe this is the key? Because there really is no secret ingredient, Po.

For everyday, I am fondest of a mixture of beef, veal and pork for pure meatloaf flavor, but I do like turkey--as long as you can bypass its dry, tasteless aspects--the hoisin does the trick. Turkey meatloaf a la mom's recipe is fantastic, but B-V-P is divine--you just cannot get that addictive hardened juice-fat crust (arguably the best part), slightly bitter, slightly sweet, 100 proof distilled "meat" flavor on top of the loaf with turkey--you just can't.

The original recipe I submitted was bound with a mixture of ground flax seed and organic oats--NOT because I am wedded to either of those things, but because that was what I had in the cabinet that day. And, since I was really trying to hit the mark of high-protein/long-acting carbs for pre-trick-or-treating, the flax/oats and turkey combo fit the bill.

The point is, it's about a willingness for substitutions, and method and luck, over details.

I think occasionally we all luck out in motherhood--very occasionally there is a camera present, and this was one of those times.

What you can see in this photo?--my kids love meatloaf, sweet potatoes, and making a mess. So, we know it's genetic. And, those fancy hoisin webs are a product of Bobby's Flay's favorite gussying-up item: the lowly squeeze bottle, and the fact that my daughter would eat a shoe if she could be in control of the hoisin sauce.

You know what else I think?

I think most moms I know make very good if not excellent, thoughtful food for their kids on some kind of reasonable, creative-when-possible scale, without neglect or scars necessitating years of therapy.
I think sometimes I get a lot of mileage out of my previous career as a kindergarten teacher, and because I can draw and make a blow-out on my hair last last a week (if I am really careful).

I think I'm thrilled I worked myself, my mom's meatloaf recipe, and Bobby's squeeze bottle into a newspaper, as well as one of the new colored shirts from THE HAPPY TOMATO--in a very organic way, even if the casual reader won't notice those things, because that is my life.

Yesterday was Huck's birthday and Sylph came to the table in a hotel shower cap, initially without any explanation, a radically funny visual.

"In case there's overspray. You knooooow [shoots me the "obvious" look]. With the ice cream cake." Ahhhhh. Behind the fantastic visual, a whole story--a practical explanation.

The newspaper hits the stoop-of-dawn on another perplexingly huge day of motherhood. Here comes The Sun.

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I think this recipe straddles simplicity and festivity; kid-participation and adult-direction; nutrition and taste. Somewhere between Brittany and Martha (dear heavens, I said it), lies this recipe.

Turkey Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Spiders

(Makes 6 servings)

3 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed

1/3 cup quick oats

1 soft piece 12-grain bread

1 1/2 pounds ground turkey

2 envelopes dried onion-mushroom soup mix

2 eggs

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, or to taste

1 large unpeeled zucchini, ends trimmed

1 jar hoisin sauce, about 7.5 ounces (divided use)

2 tablespoons butter, or 1 tablespoon olive oil

sea salt and pepper to taste

Decorating

legs: carrot and celery sticks, cut in small, thin pieces (about 4 inches), enough for 8 per spider (or use whole-grain pretzel sticks)

eyes: black-eyed peas, sliced olives, scallions cut into small rounds or peanuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Prick potatoes with fork and put in microwave.

Bake potatoes in microwave for 12 minutes or until soft. Make bread crumbs by pulsing oats and bread in food processor.

Place turkey, soup mix, eggs, Worcestershire sauce and bread crumbs in large bowl.

Grate the zucchini, skin and all, directly over the mixture in the bowl.

Using your hands, mix very gently, until just combined. Do not over-mix or it will be tough.

Spoon a generously mounded mixture into 6 greased muffin cups (3 inches across).

Measure out 1/3 cup of hoisin sauce and pour the rest into a squeeze bottle for webs.

Use the 1/3 cup sauce to brush the top of each meatloaf.

Place muffin pan on a cookie sheet in the oven.

Bake for 35 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in thickest part of a meatloaf reads 160 degrees.

Let sit for 5 minutes.

While meatloaves are cooking, scoop flesh of potatoes into a food processor and pulse with the butter or oil until just smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble: Have kids help make a web on each plate by squeezing hoisin sauce into concentric circles, then pulling a toothpick or plastic knife from the center outward.

Lay one meatloaf body on each plate and, using an ice cream scoop sprayed with cooking spray, top each with one scoop of potatoes. Allow kids to decorate spiders by pressing "legs" into the potatoes (or the loaves), and adding eyes of their choice.

Note: Kids also can help by rinsing the black-eyed peas, cutting vegetables if possible, and setting decorations out in small bowls.

per serving (without decorations): 443 calories, 28 grams protein, 18 grams fat, 6 grams saturated fat, 41 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams fiber, 164 milligrams cholesterol, 862 milligrams sodium