July 2015 – Katie Curtis

How Cooking Dinner Changed My Life

31 July, 2015/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Katie

Once upon a time, I was a busy working girl in downtown Boston, working at a financial firm where I met my husband, and I had lots and lots of opportunities to go out to dinner. I loved good food, especially when really talented people made it.

Then I got married. We lived in Rochester, NY our first year of marriage. I knew no one, my husband traveled for his job in finance, and aside from a few date nights and work dinners, I mostly ate solo. I was teaching Philosophy 101 at a nearby college (which was super interesting and hilarious) and on my way home, I would stop at Wegman’s, an enormous grocery store that has literally everything under the sun in their aisles. Everything. I had lots of time and lots of amazing ingredients, and a bookshelf of cookbooks we got for our wedding. I also had memories of growing up with really good food, and my love of cooking began. That year I cooked crab legs as big as your arm and a simple but delicious roast chicken. I perfected filet mignon and failed at terrines. I cooked salmon with cream sauce, pasta with homemade rustic tomato sauce, and vegetables braised in wine. I was isolated, but I was also busy. I had a lot to learn if I wanted to eat like I did at restaurants.

Then I had kids. What felt like isolation before now felt like frozen tundra. Now I was alone and unable to leave the house on a whim. And my husband still traveled. So I stayed home and while my kids slept I would read Bon Appetite cover to cover and make ratatouille (a revelation) and lemon orzo soup, warm goat cheese frisee salad and quiche. My kitchen was my best friend, and my stove was my vehicle to go anywhere. Just like books let me travel the world, so could food. Thailand through curry, the South of France through bouillabaisse, Italy through pesto.

When my third child was born, I watched Ina and Giada while I nursed. I wrote down recipes with a pen and paper, pausing the show and making notes. I read Julia Child’s ‘My Life in France’ and MFK Fisher, James Beard and Michael Pollack – anyone who was having a conversation about food. I was listening.

There was a night shortly after our third was born when I had a sitter to help me put the kids down while my husband traveled. She came in and I had made a dish by Ina Garten; something complicated with aioli on top, the whir of the food processor greeting her when she came in, and she laughed. You just had a baby! Maybe keep the food simple! She was older and wiser and all of that. And she was right, but I just had a baby! I hadn’t been able to eat raw eggs for 9 months. That aioli was freedom for me.

My kids got older and they started to love good food. Dinner became not just my passport, but theirs too. My oldest daughter loves shrimp and mussels, my youngest pasta and soups, and my sons just love everything. And four kids means we still don’t eat out a ton, but now it is treated like an event, like the celebratory affair that food should be.

But all those nights at home, all that time belly up to the stove, was as rich and lovely as any restaurant. Having to cook dinner, day in and day out meant that I had to craft our quality of life with food, its flavors and ingredients, its combinations and history. The amount of garlic or butter or lemons we had on hand became the currency of our happiness. And even though some seasons mean we have to do the simplest of meals because of hectic schedules, cooking dinner will always bring us back to an equilibrium, a pace of life where we have to slow down in order to eat well. It will always link us to seasonal living, since summer means fresh tomatoes and corn and blueberries and ice cream and winter will keep us craving soup and stew and hot chocolate. Living in seasons is part of the joy of food. But as I look back now, the seasons I have the most time to cook are my happiest. I love good take out sushi as much as the next girl, but too many nights of that make me feel disconnected from something essential.

Even though there were many times over the last ten years where the glass felt half empty because I no longer had happy hours and chef tasting menus and Saturday mornings to sleep in, or because the strain of cleaning the kitchen again made my shoulders tense, I can see now that every day I get to create something for dinner is a joy. That sharing a table with loved ones is one of the best things life has to offer, even if there is always someone who spills and someone who interrupts. I can see now that my life of cooking dinner, of selecting ingredients that are beautiful while they are at school, opening wine while they tell stories about their day, and sharing good food together makes my glass more then half full – it’s over flowing.

Someday, before I know it, they will have to work until 9 and leave for college. And when they do, I will savor every memory, and learn how to cook something new. And I’ll keep a pot of whatever it is on the stove for them, in case they come home hungry.

Gazpacho with Crab & Avocado

28 July, 2015/in humbleonion/by Katie

Is there anything more refreshing on a hot day then Gazpacho? It is one of my all time favorite summer dishes. It is like drinking your salad – so filling and delicious, with the tang of vinegar and kick from jalapeño.

On our first day in Paris, it was a 100 degrees, and we ate lunch at a bistro where I saw it on a chalk board menu served with vegetable tartar on top. It was so refreshing – ice cold, and the tartar made of just cucumbers, onions and zucchini was so different (and so precisely chopped! The woman who waited on us came up and asked how I liked it and I am guessing she made it herself).

Her dish made me think about adding something on top, and I wanted to add a protein to make it a meal. I adore the combination of crab and avocado, and I was craving them tossed in lemon. So I made a mixture tossed in a quick vinaigrette out of lemon, olive oil, and mustard. The result was…amazing! Perfect for lunch or as an appetizer. (You could even put them in little glasses for a party).

To make the gazpacho: Chop all the veggies and put them in a food processor. Then tear up the bread and add it along with all the liquids (water, vinegar, extra virgin olive oil). That is it!

Pulse it to the desired consistency (fine, but not liquified). So easy. And it makes a huge batch, great for a party or for luxurious lunches the whole week.

For the crab and avocado (which would be good on anything, right?):

Cube two avocados, and squeeze half of a lemon over it. Then add half of the 1 lb. can of lump crab – I really love Heron Point’s brand, and you can freeze the other half, though we ate ours as an appetizer with easy remoulade the next night. But you could also use shrimp as well, chopped if they are large. In a bowl, mix together 3 T. olive oil, 1 teaspoon dijon, and the other half of a lemon, a dash of tabasco sauce along with salt and pepper. Then pour that over the lump crab-avacado mixture, and stir. Add 2-3 T. scallions.

To serve, pour chilled gazpacho into bowl. Spoon crab mixture on top and enjoy.

This is just the most luxurious dish, the crab goes so well with the tomatoes and spicy jalapeño. Simple flavors, simple ingredients. So stock up at your next farmer’s market or with your garden bounty and whip this up – I promise you will thank me!

Gazpacho with Crab and Avocado (printer version here)

For Gazpacho:

4-5 very ripe beefsteak tomatoes

2 large English cucumbers, halved and seeded

2 red bell peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped

2 jalapenos, seeded and stemmed

1 small (or ½ of one large) red onion

2 slices day old white bread

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 cup ice plus ½ cup water

4 T. red wine vinegar

½ cup extra virgin olive oil plus more to drizzle

Directions:

Core and seed tomatoes. Peel and seed cucumbers. Stem and seed the peppers. Tear two slices of bread into pieces. Combine vegetables, bread and liquids in food processor and process until almost smooth; season with salt and pepper.

Pour soup into pitcher, cover and refrigerate until very cold. (You can serve with croutons if making without the crab mixture.)

For the Crab and Avocado Topping:

2 ripe avocados

½ lb. lump crab

1 lemon

3 T. olive oil

dash of tabasco

salt and pepper

2 T. scallions, sliced

Directions:

Cube avocados and spoon out. Sprinkle with half the lemon juice. Add crabmeat and toss lightly so ingredients stay chunky. Make vinaigrette out of next 5 ingredients, and gently toss to combine. Add one large spoonful on top of each bowl of soup.

A Taste of France, Part II

23 July, 2015/in humbleonion/by Katie

Sorry if you were waiting for Part II of our trip to France – my computer got a virus! While it was out of commission I forced myself to have fun at the beach and eat at every yummy Portsmouth restaurant with friends who were in town. But it is so fun to think about food, and France, and travel again. This post is SUPER long, but I have a great-line up of recipes to share so I wanted to finish the story of our trip. If you are in a hurry just skip to the story of our Best Meal Ever at the end. Happy reading!

There are a few stories from our trip that warm my heart just thinking about them.

The first is Claude’s tea shop – Le Maison du Bleu Lin. The people who owned our house recommended going there for tea, so I brought sweet Sophie, who loves tea, there one afternoon.

As I was taking these pictures, Claude, who is a lovely tall, strong French woman with curly hair and beautiful eyes, totally yelled at me for taking a photo of her shop without asking. After a few excuse moi! si vous plait! she warmed up to us – well, Sophie at least. We quickly started chatting about rude tourists (Claude kept exlaiming “they don’t even say bonjour madame!” after every person ducked their head in) and of course, food. In her shop she carried 12 different varieties of chutneys from England. I wanted to buy them all, even though it would make my bag heavier then it already was. So she let me try them. She had sample jars ready in the fridge! I sat there like a kid in a candy store, or a food blogger in a tea/chutney shop, and savored the amazing spices and interesting combinations. I settled on a pickled lime chile, a cheeseboard chutney, and a red pepper chutney that we ate that night with chicken with herbs de Provence, fresh tomatoes and lemon. RJ said it made his mouth explode with flavor.

The next day we headed to Paris. (Barely. Carrying bags up this hill almost did us all in.)

Our three train connection went so smoothly and we all read the whole way. When we got into Paris, it was a 100 degree heat-wave. Luckily our hotel was air conditioned. We stayed at The Millennial Marriott, which was so enormous, it must have been a hospital before. It was painted in lovely French colors, gorgeous grays and blues and mirrored French doors everywhere. I may have come home and painted my dining room the color of this door and picked up a gray and white rug that looks like this one. And these Bensimon shoes and shorts from Boden were the comfiest clothes to travel in. (Shorts are sold out but see similar here). Did I mention it was the 4th of July?:

We braved the heat for our first night and ventured out. We ate at Le Trumilou which was a recommendation from David Leibovitz’s website, who JUST did a whole post about this restaurant on his website! The guy he pictured with the beard and blue shirt was our waiter, and the olives and sausages were amazing. Sadly, his post talks about the smoking outside when people are eating and my father in law couldn’t even down his gorgeous food because he was eating smoke. On our end of the table though, it was fine, and the people watching was superb.

The lardons on the frisee salad were soaked in some kind of vinegar that was so delicious. I didn’t think you could make bacon taste better then it already does, but I was wrong.

Sorry for the half-eaten plate BUT I had to show you the Cote de Boeuf that was SO good and SO huge. Good thing we walked a few miles back to the hotel.

^^RJ is apparently in a no-smiling phase. My father-in-law during happier times before he got smoked out.

The next day, we saw some of the gorgeous sites, starting with Mass at Notre Dame.

We saw all the Locks of Love at Pont Neuf:

We ate lunch at a lovely bistro just in time to sit under a canopy while it rained. I had a country salad that was delicious:

And we saw this old thing which I can’t even look at the same after reading the Da Vinci code (ugg. Thanks a lot Dan Brown!)

Outside the Louvre was hot and crowded. Inside the Louvre was hot, crowded and beautiful.

^^ I grew up with a charcoal copy of this Da Vinci so I love it.

Even though my husband thought it was sort of a waste of 30 euros to go to Louvre (we had already been there before), the morning after we got home, I heard RJ telling Lucy as he pointed at pictures on my phone, “See this Lucy? This is the most famous museum in the world. And this is the most famous painting in the world.”

I am going to call that a parenting win.

From the Louvre my kids could see this ferris wheel towering up on the sky line and were like, “we are going there.” They were such good travelers I couldn’t argue.

We made our way to the Tulleries, which thankfully had lots of entertainment. I didn’t remember an entire fair in the middle of the Tulleries last time I was there, but the proximity to the Louvre makes me think they were just meeting the demand of bored kids.

Then we had a quick photo op by the Eiffel Tower:

RJ really wanted to go to it, but it was after 5 and we had been walking in the heat since 10. It was worth getting only this close to the Eiffel Tower to be back in an air conditioned hotel where we hit up the Concierge Room hard for cold drinks and snacks (hello best spicy eggplant and zucchini ever!).

But the best story of our whole trip was what happened at the very end.

Dinner with my husband.

This was sort of an anniversary trip, and a dinner out alone in Paris was sort of the heart of the trip for us. So we left the kids with grandpa, who after a day of heat and crowds were in heaven doing this:

And at 6:30, we set out on our mission: To find the best meal of our lives.

I had researched the dinner the night before, but tonight we wanted to be spontaneous and discover a hidden gem. My husband had walked by one that looked great, near our hotel. But when we got there it was closed on Sundays. We had seen a bunch of restaurants in the 2nd Arrondissement the night before near Le Trumilou and thought we’d go back. But when we did, we found that all of the restaurants were the standard bistro fare that we had eaten many times or had very touristy food. The atmosphere was fun, but like Fanueil Hall in Boston, you can get really bad food in a fun area. And our mission was most definitely good food. My husband was really craving warm salmon as well (after our beef the size of a labrador the night before).

We headed out and stopped to have a drink at a little place, studied the menu and thought about it as a dinner venue. All the while we were silently asking ourselves:

Was this the place where we would get the Best Meal of Our Lives?

^^Not a winner. But it had a solid charcuterie board that was our pre-game.

Then we did that on repeat for two hours. We didn’t mean to bar crawl our way through Paris, but we did. Because we would sit down and read the menu, and be disappointed, or one of us would go to the bathroom and get a weird vibe and we were like, nope, this isn’t the place. Or they lacked salmon on the menu, which became increasingly important as the night wore on. After a while I thought, are we just being picky? Is the Best Meal of Our Lives too much pressure, do you think? Why didn’t we pick from the million and one recommendations online?

Guinness sustained us in our quest. (My husband studied abroad in Ireland. And we are Irish.)

Finally, after leaving a restaurant that my husband was sure was the one but I veto’d after it had karaoke going in the back when I went to the bathroom, I looked at my watch. It was 10:00. We decided to walk back to the hotel. I had seen some places the night before that I hoped were open on Sunday. Or at 10 pm. If not we could eat at the hotel. At the very least, we had a fun night out and we would be back someday, right?

{Commence Panic.}

Then, when we were almost to the hotel, we looked down an alley and there it was, like an oasis in our desert of hunger:

It was called Le Poule au Pot, or Chicken in a Pot,which just sounded like a place where you might have the Best Meal of Your Life, non?

And guess what?

It totally was.

The menu looked incredible (see all those VERY recent awards and recommendations?) and when we sat down, the waiter sensed our hunger/panic and was like a monk in the middle ages offering us food and drink.

We started with the best wine from their very short wine list (because they only picked great ones, obv):

And started with the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. If you have been reading for a while you know of my love of artichokes.

But you may not know of my dislike of the runny egg. I know, how can I even be called a food person if I don’t like soft cooked eggs? But I finally discovered what all the fuss is about, because it was delicious here. The artichoke heart was so fresh, and the smoked salmon with dill on top had a vinaigrette that mixed with the egg and made it all delicious.

And then came the main course. My husband got (can you even guess?):

The salmon. But not just ANY salmon. The kind with the cutest puff pastry man on the side (endless possibilities on that front), and his favorite, creamed spinach.

I got a braised lamb shank that was just so good it hurt. And the potatoes were stacked like lincoln logs, something I must try in the future.

My favorite thing about eating really good food, the kind that fills your soul and your belly, is how you have to close your eyes when you take a bite. And this food was so good we practically ate with our eyes closed.

The search made this meal even more sweet. It was a total adventure, exactly what we wanted on our last night in Paris.

Finally, all week I had wanted to order a Tarte Tatin, and we were always too full. But I insisted, and I am so glad I did:

When we THOUGHT we were done, our waiter brought out a complementary shot of pear distilled liquor that was delicious but strong. I think he liked the story of our quest. Or my bad French accent.

Either way, we walked back content and full and touched by the magic of Paris.

(Of course all these photos were taken at night on our phones and are not the best. But I had to share them because this really will go down as one of my favorite food memories ever.)

Thanks for reading this novel! I promise to turn around and bring some of this deliciousness to the food blog. But if you have any fun magical Paris stories feel free to share them!

XOXO Katie

Marriage Math

10 July, 2015/0 Comments/in Marriage, Writing/by Katie

Sorry for the radio silence on my writing blog. As this post can attest to, we had a busy June! But I am looking forward to getting back to regular writing after our travels. Good writing takes time, and I am striving for quality, so I will always choose that over quantity. But I love this little space on the internet. I hope you do too.

***

“Going once. Going twice. Sold to the gentleman in the back.”

The auctioneer pointed to my husband, Rob.

When he had put in a bid for a week long stay at a house in France moments before, I thought he was just trying to help the charity fundraiser by upping the bid*. We had four kids. A busy life. A trip abroad was not even on the radar. But when he outbid another person, I knew.

He was doing it for me.

My husband doesn’t love France. He’s big, they’re little. He’s loud, they’re quiet. In a country of demure, he’s a mechanical bull in a china shop. But he does love me, and he was thinking that this trip could be our 10 year anniversary gift. We had talked about doing a big trip, perhaps skiing in Austria or Rome in a few years, but he knows my passion for food has some big roots in French cooking, since my mom studied there for a year and was really influenced by the food. Growing up she passed the love on to us. I had visited Paris in college with good friends when I did a semester abroad in London, fell deeply in love, and vowed to return. In the mean time, I worshipped at the knee of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and David Leibowitz’s My Paris Kitchen. Rob knew all this, and on a whim, acted on love.

And that’s how, a few weeks ago, I was packing a bag for France. The week was a doozy: I was solo parenting, the kids were on their first week of summer vacation (read: fighting). I had to bring the car to the mechanics and meet a plumber to install a new hot water heater, go to lots of tennis lessons, mine and the kids, and leave my house and fridge ready for my mother-in-law to watch my 5 and 2 year old. My plate was Thanksgiving buffet in Vegas full. I really didn’t even have the head space to consider what we should do in France. Should I brush up on my French? Research wines? Or just grab my passport and go? Wait. Where was my passport? (Commence turning house inside out. I should have done the ConMari method while I was at it if I had an ounce of time to spare. It was on my desk the whole time, where I had searched over and over. !@#$%#!) Finally, thanks to my saintly mother-in-law watching the two youngest at home, and a blessed father-in-law who came along and watched the big kids so we could go out at night, it happened. We were on the plane, Champagne in hand.

This was the longest trip we had ever taken. Even our honeymoon was a quick 5 day affair to Aruba because it had a direct flight and my husband had just started a new territory for work. Then we had four kids in succession and moved a couple of times. We also learned that since Rob has to travel a lot during the week, family trips were best taken on long weekends.

But the other truth is that we ski a lot. All of our travel eggs went into a ski condo basket, which we bought just after our third was born. It was a tough decision at the time. I wanted to figure out our main house first, and we were in the process of looking for a house in a bigger neighborhood with more kids. But my husband loves to ski the way I love to cook. He took me up to see the condo one fall weekend, at peak foliage time in the mountains, because he is a salesman and knows to do things like that. We committed – to skiing and spaghetti dinners and weekends away – before we even knew where we were going to live the rest of the time. Since then it has become our family get away. Going up there has not always been easy, especially when our fourth was a baby. There have been tears and fights. But it has been so worth it to have that family time up north, to have a familiar place with rituals and routine and relaxation.

So when he bid on the trip to France, it was a gesture. A giving back to all of the times I have packed up four kids, driven them north (often alone since he would meet us from work), returned tired but happy on Sunday night, only to dive into a busy school week. He knows the sacrifice involved, and how I made room in our lives for his passions. He was returning the favor, and I was deeply grateful.

We went into this trip knowing that we have both made concessions for the other. Sacrificed to fit in big important things – our time, our money, our sanity – for something vital to the other person. All sweet things in a marriage. But what is beautiful to see is that all this giving has made a certain alchemy happen. When we shared in each other’s passions, they took root in our own hearts and grew. And when our kids share in it too, the joy grows exponentially.

I have become passionate about skiing, excited to see the first flurry in winter, philosophical as I navigate a challenging run, and giddy when I ski with my kids next to me. And they love it even more then I do. When we are skiing, we are in the moment. Fully present, fully alive.

And Rob has grown to love new food, and possibly even France. When we got married, he hated fish. On our last night in Paris, we sought out a salmon for dinner. We all made happy memories over a cote de boef that was as big as our labrador, the intense flavor in the raspberry macarons, the trois fromage crepe that called to us every night at 5 o’clock, hungry and thirsty from exploring hot streets. We ate in the moment. Fully present, fully alive. And while there is no question that Rob would take the beaches of Saint-Malo over the hot crowded streets of Paris, he still found beaucoup de joie de vivre in France.

They say that love is when you can halve each others sorrows and double each others joys.

It is marriage math. And I am so thankful to be its student.

*I wrote before how our trip was from the charity fundraiser for the Hope For Gus foundation. Please visit their page to learn more about helping families with sons who have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

A Taste of France: Part 1

9 July, 2015/in humbleonion/by Katie

For a food lover, a trip to France is like a football fan going to the Super Bowl: impossible to recount every play. But I will try to share some highlights because France is such a magical place and so inspiring, from food to flowers to fashion. And I read My Sweet Life in Paris by David Leibovitz on the flight over, so if you want to know even more and live vicariously from someone who has been there longer then 10 days, I highly recommend it.

We felt very lucky to be staying in the Brittany region in the northwest – it turned out to be totally enchanting. Our house was in Dinan, which is about 1,000 years old, and is one of the oldest towns in France since it was bypassed during WWII and was never bombed. We also explored the beaches of Saint-Malo three of the days, which was leveled during the war but they rebuilt it and it is just beautiful. We really felt like we got to know both towns. Then we took the train back to Paris and spent two nights there. It was great to contrast a small town with the big city, and both places had their own charms.

Dinan sits on the Rive Rance, and though it is a small town, it enjoys a lot of tourists since people boat all the way from Great Britain for the day. The house we stayed in was on a street filled with artists, shop keepers, jewelry and ceramic makers.

A lot of what made our trip great was the house. It was a 500 year old stone house that stayed so cool even during the worst heat wave. We had the windows and doors open the whole week, and the back yard was a dream terraced creation that I could have read and sipped coffee in every day if there wasn’t so much to do. And talk about lush – roses, hydrangeas, impatients, ferns, ivy and forget-me-nots were all overflowing in our backyard and in all the window boxes.

As soon as we got there, after walking down the biggest hill you could ever imagine (think Lombard St. in San Francisco and you are part of the way there):

We of course immediately went and had champagne at a bistro on the river while the kids and my father in law settled into the house.

Then we dropped off some champagne for my father in law and some macarons for the kids:

After digging out my very rusty French, I got directions to a market that turned out to be much too far away, and much too uphill. (There was one closer that we learned about a few days later. That the person who gave us directions didn’t know we didn’t have a car is filed under ‘lost in translation’. On the plus side, we burned off all the wine and bread we were about to eat since bottles of wine are not light and we had many).

We settled in on the patio with delicious foods for an easy dinner our first night.

It was such a happy time. After a long flight and a full day of trains we let out a deep sigh and drank lots of wine with these treats.

The next day we walked around and learned about our city of Dinan, which was a major foothold for wealth and transportation during the middle ages. There is a large cathedral and a walled fortress that runs around the whole town. And the aqueducts were amazing:

Having our big kids along was a joy, they were such good travelers. I think they made memories that will last them a lifetime. Plus, they really did skip down three doors in the morning and get us fresh croissants. Slave labor or enrichment? You decide.

We found a great place in the heart of the city to have dinner after our day of exploring and shopping. Those red blankets on the backs of the chairs were so cozy! The night got cool and they were such a nice touch.

I had an amazing filet with Bernaise sauce and au poivre sauce, and a little pat of foie grois like it was no big deal.

Then we had some shenanigans around the town:

The next day we went to Saint Malo. At the bus station (which has the most beautiful fresco on the wall):

We ate a quick lunch we had picked up along the way. It was a pizza with ricotta and a salad made with celery, tomato, egg, comte cheese (like gruyere), ham and mayo. It was a reminder of how good a salad made with celery can be.

When we got off the bus at Saint-Malo, we were in heaven, especially since it was a heat wave. The cool ocean air was parfait.

There were artists everywhere, and we did some shopping and toured the Castle. We sat out at a bistro for, you guessed it, bread and cheese. And our kids had 3 square meals of ice cream every day.

Then we took the bus ride home with a baguette and some wine and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Naturally, the next day I was craving some greens. Lucky for me Les Halles was open and the market vendors held out gorgeous veggies. The tomatoes were amazing, I don’t know what is in their soil that makes them taste that good.

We made hot dogs for the kids and feasted on a summer bounty. We still had 4 glorious days left in Dinan and 2 in Paris.

But you’ll have to wait for the next post because I am sure there has to be a limit for how many photos you can squeeze into one blog post. To be continued…BUT if you have some time on your hands, feel free to try out Martha Stewarts recipe for macarons – she shows you how to make all the flavors so her version looked the best and I can’t wait to try them at home!

xoxo Katie