Happy Hour Hack: BIG NEWS for Mother's Day
The Genevieve Villamora edition
Welcome to the Happy Hour Hack, a weekly Friday post of tips and inspiration to take you into the weekend. I always share one thing from my interviewee of the week, along with any ideas I receive from readers, plus some things that are piquing my own interest.
The Forum: Big Announcement!
I’m beyond excited to announce a very special upcoming interview guest: the one and only punk poet laureate, Patti Smith. I have deemed her The Creators Forum’s godmother, and I’ll be running a two-week interview series with her starting on Monday, May 15, the day after Mother’s Day. A warning that there will be a paywall for part of the interview. If you know a mother who would appreciate parenting and art, and, basically, life advice from Patti Smith, consider a gift subscription. If you know a mother who would benefit from being part of a supportive community of creative mothers, hearing their experiences and their tips, consider a gift subscription. If you are a free subscriber but want access to the full Patti interview, consider a paid subscription.
Hack
The tips this week come from the lovely restaurateur Genevieve Villamora. In true overachieving fashion, she gave me not one but three things that she wanted to share with you all, from parenting advice to not being an, ahem, overachiever:
I always give this advice to new parents whether they solicit it or not: Make space for other adults to love your children. In our culture, and I think this attitude is fairly new historically speaking, there is so much weight on the shoulders of parents to be the sole responsible adults for children. Not only is that an incredibly unrealistic expectation, but if we really want children to have all the love and support that they need to thrive and grow, more people need to care about them than their parents.
The other one is, and I’m really, really working on this is: do less. It’s not one of the dominant messages of our culture, and there’s this weird bragging that happens when people say how busy they are or how rundown they are. What is the glory of that? I often find myself stretching so much to fulfill an expectation, but then I realize I’m the one who made that expectation, and nobody else is expecting that for me.
My last hack is again about parenting: Parent the child that’s in front of you. I’ve had so many moments as a parent where the voice that I hear is not my own voice as a parent. It’s an echo of how my parents raised me. Or it’s an echo from what I think other parents are doing. But when I’ve had my best moments as a parent, it’s because I’m responding to my own child and where he is at a certain moment in time and what he needs, not what I think I’m supposed to do for him, or what I think he should be doing compared to other children.
You can read more here about Genevieve and how she learned that being forced to not be perfect gave her the freedom to experiment and revive her creativity.
Dance
When Genevieve was working at nonprofits and feeling like only a sliver of her creative talents were being used, she sought out extracurricular activities for satisfaction. At point she discovered a love for Butoh:
Butoh is this postmodern form of dance that was developed in Japan after World War II, and it basically looks like it’s from outer space. It’s hard to describe, but it doesn’t look anything like traditional Western dance. It’s inspired a lot by nature, and the movement is very organic and not really technical in the way that we’re used to thinking about dance in the West.
Here’s an example of Butoh:
Dinner
Genevieve wrote a lovely piece for The Kitchn about growing up in a Filipino American community in Chicago. This is a dish that connected her to her roots, reminds her of her childhood in Chicago, and will always be on rotation in her D.C. home.
Ginataan Na Sugpo (Prawns with Coconut Milk)
INGREDIENTS
1 (2-inch) piece ginger
2 to 3 serrano or jalapeño peppers (depending on desired spice level)
1/2 bunch medium scallions (4 to 5)
1 1/2 medium red onions
1 medium lime
3 stalks fresh lemongrass
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 (2-ounce) tins oil-packed anchovy fillets, such as Cento
2 large tomatoes (about 14 ounces total)
3 cups chile leaves, sweet potato greens, or baby spinach (about 3 ounces)
1 1/2 pounds raw, unpeeled prawns or extra-jumbo shrimp, preferably head-on (13 to 20 per pound)
2 (about 13-ounce) cans full-fat unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
Cooked jasmine rice, for serving
INSTRUCTIONS
Prepare the following, placing each in the same medium bowl as you complete it: Peel and mince 2 inches ginger (about 2 tablespoons). Trim the stems from 2 serrano or jalapeño peppers (depending on heat preference), then slice into thin rounds (about 2 1/2 tablespoons). (If you’d like the dish extra-spicy, thinly slice the third pepper and place in a separate small bowl.) Thinly slice the green and white parts of 1/2 bunch medium scallions (about 1 cup). Finely chop 1 1/2 medium red onions (1 1/2 cups). Finely grate the zest of 1 medium lime (about 1 tablespoon).
Trim 3 stalks lemongrass until you have 6 to 7 inches of the bottom portion. Halve each stalk lengthwise, then smash the base end of the stalks with the flat side of a chef’s knife. Tie the stalks together tightly with kitchen twine to make a little bundle.
Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot on medium heat until shimmering. Add the lemongrass bundle, contents of the medium bowl, and 2 (2-ounce) tins anchovy fillets and the oil they’re packed in. Break up the anchovy fillets into small pieces with a wooden spoon and cook, stirring every few minutes, until the scallions are a dull green and the onions have fully released their liquid and are a light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, cut 2 large tomatoes into large dice (about 2 cups). Cut the zested lime into wedges and set aside for serving.
Increase the heat to medium-high and add the tomatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have collapsed and the liquid they released thickens, 8 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, rinse and dry 3 cups greens of choice. Rinse 1 1/2 pounds prawns in cold water. Trim the antennae off with kitchen shears if needed. If desired, cut up the back of each prawn and remove the vein.
Add 2 cans coconut milk, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper to the pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, 6 to 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thickened and reduced by about a quarter, 10 to 12 minutes.
Add the prawns and stir to combine. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Uncover and stir. Cover and simmer until the prawns are pink and opaque, about 2 minutes more. Taste and season the sauce with more kosher salt and black pepper as needed.
Turn off the heat. Add the greens and remaining serrano or jalapeño if desired and stir to combine. Cover, remove from the heat, and let sit until the greens wilt but are still a vibrant bright green, about 2 minutes. Discard the lemongrass bundle. Serve with jasmine rice and the lime wedges.
Community
This piece by Jessica Blankenship that ran in Bon Appétit back in February really resonated with me. It’s a call to embrace having children in restaurants instead of treating them, and their parents, like pariahs. This is such an American phenomenon. I’m always hearing stories from people in other countries about how when a baby is crying in a dining room, it’s not uncommon for a server to scoop the kid up and take them into the kitchen to be entertained. Because other cultures actually like children. And they seem to understand in a way that we don’t, that we’re all in this together. This paragraph from Jessica’s piece is a wonderful call to arms:
The contrast and even the friction between different people—young and old, loud and quiet, all existing in the same space—represents a restaurant at its best. Taking a shared interest in the raising of the community’s children is an innately human practice that has all but disappeared from our lives. If tolerating other people’s kids in restaurants so they can learn to be people in the world is the last remaining expression of community-centered child-rearing, then I am solidly in favor of defending it.