So the kids were outside today, and Vincent was being a bit grumpy. Abigail decided to send him into the house because of his behaviour. He did not want to go. She walked him back to the door, when all of a sudden he ran ahead. The little stinker got to the door before her, opened it up, flipped the lock and closed the door again.

He locked them all outside so that he would not be able to be sent inside.

He is so not allowed to play outside for the rest of the day, but honestly, I am secretly laughing so hard over his ingenuity.

I sit here holding a sleeping Simon in my arms. He has been napping for about an hour now, snuggled up here.

There are a million things I need to do. My computer work is long finished. Yet here I sit because I know that this is my last baby to snuggle as he sleeps. Too soon he will be too big for this.

Sometimes it is the simplest things that make people feel special.

I know how important time is. This year, Luis finally gave me a Mother's Day that was special. We did nothing more than walk around in downtown Madison, get lattes at the Union, sit on library mall and listen to the drumming circle. What made it special was it was spending time doing what I wanted.

Abigail loves when her one uncle takes her on a date, and last year was radiant after her her other uncle finally took her shopping. Vincent was glowing after Luis took him to the car wash recently. They painted the camper, went to Farm & Fleet, ate dinner at Burger King. Nothing too special, but it was special because it was focused time for Vincent. He wore that Burger King crown for three days. Isabella especially craves time. If she is having a difficult week, simply taking her to the office with one of us makes a world of difference. She sits quietly and does her school, yet she soaks up energy of being alone with me or with Luis.

I used to sit and play cards for hours with my grandma. As a child, she gave me the time and quiet attention I needed, and later in her elderly years, playing crazy eights with her gave her what she needed. Sitting with my grandpa in the last years of his life was special. We didn't talk much, but what mattered was the fact that we were there side by side on the sofa and I was focused on him as much as he was on me.

Time and attention are the most precious gifts we have to give. I have been thinking of that because of the elderly man we met while at a park this weekend. We were camping, and we stopped at the Lion's Park in Lena for the kids to play for a while. We weren't there five minutes when I noticed a very elderly man watching the kids play. He edged closer and closer, until he was within talking distance. We talked with him, truly listened to what he was saying. We had no clue who he was, but I now know all about his youngest grandson's struggles with cancer, his red-headed great grandchild, his upcoming trip to visit his sister, and that his wife suffered from Alzheimer's. I will likely never see him again, but the time I spent listening to him and talking with him made a difference in his day and mine.

I thought I was only being kind to him at the time, but the peaceful feeling I gained from listening has lasted for days. It was a gift that went both ways.

I ducked into Cafe Claudeen today on a whim to pick up a biscotti, part of my 3/50 pledge. Once there, I ended up talking with Claudia and Kareesa for almost an hour. This is not the first time I have done that, and I sincerely hope it is not the last. One of my favorite parts about patronizing the local independent businesses is the lovely people it brings into my life. After talking with Claudia and Kareesa, I am often reminded of this saying:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~Leo Buscaglia

There is a calm, kind aura around them, a smile and a willingness to set aside what they are doing to simply talk. It is one of the things that makes me loving going into their cafe so much.

I have a nugget of a dream forming deep inside of me. Oh who am I kidding, I've had the dream for a while, but it has laid dormant deep inside there. A crack of sunshine has hit it and a little water has sprinkled on it until now the shoots contemplate breaking the surface.

Friends compliment my baked goods and breads all the time. Are they good enough? Could I sell them?

Never have I had a place bake commercially. A new kitchen has opened, and the owner will rent time to others.

Do I have the time at this stage of my life to tackle something like this? Do I have the desire? I do not know the answer to these questions yet.

The little dream sits still, beneath the surface. Maybe. Someday. Maybe.

I'm up far too late this evening, listening to the sounds of my family sleeping as the rain gently falls outside.

I have not been writing here lately. I could blame the fact that my work blog takes up much of my writing inspiration or that status updates on facebook steal the fodder for these posts, but neither is true.

I have composed many a post in my head over the weeks of this summer, but not taken the time to type them out. Consequently, when I read back over these months a few years down the road, there will be a gaping hole, like the one that stretches from back before Simon's birth. I will have missed out on the memories of things like the butternut squash plants that are on a mission to over take the garden, and Simon's decision to move to his own bed earlier this summer. Not recorded are things like Abigail's request to start wearing make up as she grows into a simply incredible young woman and Isabella's self-awareness as she requested to take a reading classes in summer school this year. I may not remember feeling crushed under stress of time and obligations this summer or the way that Vincent is very slowly beginning to learning to cope with young friendships.

I have been lazy, and I will regret not recording those thoughts. This blog is not just a shout into cyberspace, but more like a journal that I am okay with others reading. As a child, I wondered why my grandmother wrote in a journal daily, often just a few sentences about the weather, visits or gardening. I understand now. We write to remember. Those few sentences I wrote years ago help me to remember things like Vincent trying to pay me for letting him take laundry off the line or learning the hard way never to use anything other than a pie pumpkin in my baking. I can go back and stun myself with wisdom that had slipped my mind, this this thought I typed out nearly six years ago about Isabella:

Isabella is a little me in so many ways: intense, withdrawn, cautious, tenacious, awkward, insecure, not to mention that she looks just like me. It's like to effectively parent her, I need to parent myself and calm my tendencies to do the same things she does before I can react to her without both of us going into intense mode.

This is still so true, and it is something I need to remember more often.

I should take the time more often to record a few thoughts here.

Have you ever seen the movie One Hundred One Dalmatians? One my favorite characters has always been Rolly. He is little puppy who is perpetually hungry, saying in a charming little English accent things like "I'm hungry, Mother" "I'm not sleepy. I'm hungry", and "But I am. I'm so hungry I could eat a whole elephant."

Ever since Isabella's toddler years, when she opens the snack cupboard shortly after a meal and I question what she is doing because we just ate, she will reply "But I'm hungry mama." It makes me think of Rolly every time.

The other day, she did it again. Then she stopped and giggled. She told me that when she says that, she sound like the little dalmatian who is always hungry.

I love that she figured out all on her own something that has been my private little giggle for years.

So, I was listening to a program talking about health care in the US. It was being compared and contrasted to the Canadian system. Some facts were touted - the Canadians have a longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, spend less than half of what we do, they are facing an expected doctor shortage, the long waits for elective or specialist care. The terrible keyword "medical rationing" was used.

Do people really think we don't have medical rationing in the US? We do, but it is rationed out by socio-economic status instead of by the government rationing across the board.

If you have money, you can get whatever care you want. I am guessing that is probably true in Canada too, by the way.

If someone makes too much to have government health care, but has poor private insurance, their care is rationed. I have been there. No dentistry care for years due to financial reasons, both as a child and as an adult. Not going to the doctor for certain things because we didn't have the money. I have friends who have to think long and hard about whether something warrants a doctor visit for their children because of the expense involved in an after-hours emergency room visit.

This is rationing, we just don't call it that.

I might question whether extreme treatments are valid in every case and support medical rationing to some degree, but that is beside the point. The point is that by no providing adequate medical coverage to all of our citizens, we are creating a system that requires some people to either abuse the system (depends on your perspective, but I have to say that some of those people who call an ambulance to get to the hospital for non-emergency care are doing so because they have no other way to get there) or for people to opt-out because they don't want to bankrupt their families.

This is still a form of medical rationing in my opinion.

Photo Day!

Look at Isabella swimming! We went to Lake Le-Aqua-Na and my darling princess had no fears at all of swimming around. Proud mama.
Vincent was all about helping make homemade ice cream at the Reunion. He enjoyed every bite.

Abigail caught a stray kitten and managed to hold it for a little while. She was so proud of herself. The kids worked together for quite a while to catch the kitten, but Abigail was the only one who managed to hold it.

Simon, looking very thoughtful as he hung out in the greenhouse at Inn Serendipity with Lisa and the adults as they talked.

Storypeople

Found this gem on Storypeople today. Somehow it summed up what I have been feeling lately:

I finally got to exactly where I wanted to be, she said, so why won't all these growth experiences go away & leave me alone?

Randomness

I haven't done a random post in while.

~ Does it make me a freak that I am completely unaffected by the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson? Death is part of life, and I didn't know them personally. Famous people dying and being mourned by so many who never truly knew them feels odd to me. Maybe I am too icy on somethings.

~ Would you use a $1 off coupon at your farmers market? There was one in our paper. I cut it out and intend to use it, but Luis is astonished. There is a minimum $5 purchase with it, and I almost never spend more than $2-3 with one vendor, so whomever I buy from will actually end up with an extra dollar or two after I use the coupon. Or am I just rationalizing and being cheap?

~ Do you ever just tear up with love for your kids? Please, let me be the parent these amazing souls deserve.

~ I want a good set of popsicle molds, like Tupperware made when we were kids. I want to be able to make HFCS-free popsicles for the aforementioned amazing souls.

Why?

I am sitting outside listening to the birds and enjoying the cool morning air. I am watching a man spray poison on the weeds in the beds around his house. Instead of taking an hour to weed (there are not that many weeds, and it really would be less than an hour's work), he is spending ten minutes poisoning the plants, poisoning our earth, poisoning our water supply.

That feels so very wrong to me.

A reason to love farmers markets

Conversation at the market a week ago Saturday:

Me: Do you have any rosemary?
Plant Lady: No, my husband did not pack any herbs today.

Conversation this Saturday:

Me: (walking up to the plant lady's stall)
Plant Lady: Oh, I have that rosemary for you this week! I told my husband he had to pack herbs this time.

It is the little extra attention to service that make buying direct from independent people so much nice.

Photo Day!

Time for some more photos...

The kids had a lot of fun playing on Bascom Hill when we were there a few weeks ago.

Vincent being goofy at the top on Bascom Hill.

We went to the Brodhead Airport for breakfast with Peter and Mary on a breezy morning.

The kids have been having a great time in the garden. Notice my little baldie. He wanted a short haircut for summer.

Simon enjoyed harvesting radishes too.

I took this one at the farmers market this week, and I love the way it turned out.
Our pear trees have fruit on them this year! Hurray!

Heinz, Log Cabin, Stay-Puft, Grey Poupon...or my own?

I have come to the conclusion that there was a food conspiracy that took place over the last half century.

Power was taken away from the people of the US and given to the processed food industries. It was a slow process, and it was probably not planned out long term, at least in the beginning. I'm guessing it started with convenience, but the long term event was a considerable loss of our culinary cultural knowledge.

I never questioned most of the things I bought until Isabella and Vincent started having problems after consuming foods with corn syrup in them. That stuff is insidious. The number of foods with corn syrup is insane, and in order to allow them to eat, I had to learn to cook foods that I had never even considered making myself before. Syrup. Graham crackers. Marshmallows. Hamburger buns. Ketchup.

Sure, I could have bought most of these things without the corn syrup in them, but the price on the natural, organic processed verions is wicked high. Sorry, I am not going to pay $5 a box for crackers or $8 for a couple of marshmallows.

So, gentle reader (channeling Bronte from Jane Eyre there), should you have the desire to make your own staple foods, I promise you that they are actually very easy to do. Insanely easy.

Pancake Syrup:
3 c sugar
3 c water
a glug of molasses, vanilla or other flavoring agent

Boil about 15 minutes or so until thickened. Cool and pour into a jar. Keep in the fridge. I'm sure there is a technical temperature to heat to for the proper thickness, but I can never find the candy thermometer, so I just go until it looks good. Yes, once I cooked it too long and it crystalized and a couple of time I didn't cook it quite long enough and it was thin. 95% of the time, though, I get perfect syrup with zero effort and no nasty corn syrup in it.

Marshmallows:
I like this recipe. It is so easy you will fall over yourself for having never made marshmallows before. I mean really, mix water and gelatin in a bowl. Boil some water and sugar on the stove. Dump them all together and let your mixer do its thing for the next 20 minutes. How easy is that? It roasts nicely for a s'more and it makes a good rice krispie bar too.

Graham Crackers:
There a lot of recipes on line. I like this one from Vegan Cupcakes take over the World. You can be eating homemade crackers in less than 30 minutes from the time you start. They are easy to roll out, even if you are like me and don't follow the insructions perfectly. I generall just roll them, square out the edges and cut with my bench knife to the size instead of rolling them out twice for perfectly shaped crackers like the recipe calls for, but I'm lazy that way.

Mustard:
Mustard seeds, check. Water, vinegar, bit of sugar, check. Puree in a food processor and you have mustard. Okay, there is a day or two for soaking the seeds in there, but really, mustard is easy peasy.

Ketchup:
Recipes abound for this one, so have fun finding what fits your preferances. Basic recipe is tomatoes, onion, garlic, little bit of oil, some spices, brown sugar and vinegar. Puree, cook until it as thick as you like.

It is rather funny how easy making your own food is. Mac and cheese, hamburger helper type foods, taco seasoning mix - these are not hard foods to make. Once we start thinking outside of the processed food aisle, it is interesting how perspective changes.

Time + Kids = Creativity

Question #1

What do you get when you mix one pile of scrap wood, one determined kid who is mechanically inclined and lots of free time?

Vincent's fort

This has been his project of the week, built with his own tools. He took out the screws that were already in the wood so that it would be safe for everyone, then reused the screws to hold everything together. He hung the tire on there as a doorknocker, and he put the turtle shell on top for shade. He is trying to figure out what he can use for sides because our scrap wood pile was rather low. I'm sure he will come up with something interesting.

Question #2

What do you get when you mix one toddler who got the morning munchies with one 6 year old boy who often forgets to put away the cereal and milk after he is done with breakfast?
Looks so sweet and innocent doesn't he? Well, the highly classy ricotta cheese container bowl made its appearance in front of him after I discovered what he was doing. Notice the white line on the bottom of the cereal container? Those are not Frosted Flakes, and that is not sugar. Here, take a closer look:
Yes, he put the milk into the cereal container. Good gravy. Let's just say that all of the kids had a quick snack of cereal before it was mush. That was a brand new box of cereal that I had just put into the container the afternoon before too.

Happy days!

Breaking News:

Isabella is reading for pleasure! Daily!

I have actually had to tell her to put the book down in order to do something.

Given her struggles and the fact that she is so into visual images like Luis, I was not sure that this day would ever come. This is so cool.

Drip drop

Each season has its own type of rain.

The rain of summer has fat drops they plop down, cooling as they fall.

The rain of fall slices down from the sky, stripping the trees of their leaves, taking the oranges and crimson away, leaving us with brown and getting us ready for the stark look of winter.

Today we have a spring rain, steadily drenching. Suddenly, everything is brighter than it was a week ago. The soil is blacker. The buds burst into flashes of light green. The brown patches of grass turn emerald. My little onion sets have miniature stalks poking out of the garden beds.

Welcome back, spring.

Food and Safety

So, obviously I am big fan of eating local. No surprise to anyone reading this on a regular basis.

With all of the food safety scares in recent years and months, I suspect that more and more people will be seeing the importance of local food, buying direct.

Those big national food conglomerates buy foodstuffs from hundreds of sources. They mix foods of various origin (including international usually without labeling nation of origin). They process, package and distribute throughout the nation. It is efficient from a cheap oil, processed food standpoint. From a resources standpoint, it is extremely wasteful. The materials used in transportation and packaging represent waste. There is spoilage and a decrease in nutritional value of the foods that have to be picked in California and Texas, processed in Mississippi and delivered to Vermont and Montana. When situations like the salmonella poisonings happen, the amount of waste is beyond comprehension. Millions of pounds of food become suspect and tainted by association. Maybe it was a couple of hundred of pounds of pistachios that actually had salmonella. Because they were mixed and blended without regard, we have no way of knowing how many were tainted and where they may be. As a result, over a million pounds of nuts are being recalled. That is waste on a monumental scale.

If I buy spinach from a local source*, I can be reasonably certain that I know how it was grown and harvested. If I grow it myself, I can guarantee it is free from salmonella.

If I buy foods from a source that sticks with a few sources for food, I can be more confident that my food is secure. From a food safety standpoint, it only makes sense to east local, buy direct.

Our food safety increased for decades, but as food supply chains have spiderwebbed our nation, growing longer and longer, this is no longer the case. Our food safety has not increased in the last three years, and in my opinion, an argument could be made for stating that is decreasing. Without saying so directly, the message from the New York Times article is pretty clear. Eat local. Buy directly as possible.

I'm not a hundred mile locavore. I love me some coffee beans and chocolate, not to mention those avocados I treat myself to sometimes. However, I am aware of the source of my foods. I'm not fooling myself into thinking that the strawberries in the grocery store in December were grown in a greenhouse in Wisconsin or were picked two days ago on a small family farm in South America, package carefully and flown directly to my store for the bargain price of $3 per pound. Awareness and eduction about our basic needs is vital.

Nothing is more basic than food.

Eat local. Buy direct.

*And if you are in the Green County area and have any desire to begin a food based microbusiness of any sort, help a new Community Kitchen/Buy Local Initiative get off the ground. Go to Green County Kitchen and fill out the survey. Spread the word!

Open Letter to my Children

Dear Children of Mine:

Please for the love of everything that is holy, stop fighting, bickering, tattle telling, grumbling and picking on each other. Forever would be nice, but hey, I'd take one day of peace. That is all.

Love,
your Mama, who is on her last nerve

Run along now

I was not thrilled to wake up this morning to another layer of white covering the ground. Most of it has already melted off, but still, the mere fact that it was here means spring is still being held at bay by winter.

I am so ready for little sprouts poking through the earth. I am ready to play in the gardens, plant veggies for the year, harvest some rhubarb. I want asparagus, spinach and spring greens.

Winter, you run along now. We will see you again in six or seven months.

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus -
Crocus.
~Lilja Rogers

It doesn't matter

I read this tonight on Story People, and it touched me.

I had a dream & I heard music & there were children standing around, but no one was dancing. I asked a little girl, why not? & she said they didn't know how, or maybe they used to but they forgot & so I started to hop up & down & the children asked me, Is that dancing? & I laughed & said, no, that's hopping, but at least it's a start & soon everyone was hopping & laughing & it didn't matter any more that no one was dancing.

The end of an era

I am getting ready to put aside something that has been a fixture in our home for the last eleven years. How strange it will feel to fully reclaim this space.

Good bye, diaper pail.

Simon has been using the potty consistently even when wearing clothes. Yes, we are big fans of the "let 'em go bottomless" school of potty training. It works, but then they have to learn to use the potty while wearing clothing too, and Simon is doing great.

I thought that putting aside the diapers forever in our household would be a bittersweet milestone, but I have to say that it is not. Maybe I'll feel a bit verklempt when I get around to packing up the diapers themselves, but for now, I am thrilled. No more diaper changes and diaper bags. Forever.

I wonder what other milestones will feel this way as Simon ages?

Oh the memories

Luis and I took a ballroom dance class back in our college years. It was a lovely experience except for one thing: the instructor insisted that we could not focus on learning how to dance together. She said we must dance with other partners because that is the way life is.

She was wrong. I could count on one hand the number of times I have danced with another man as an adult woman. I'd bet all of those times were with my own father. I am sure she thought college romance wouldn't last, and that she was doing a good thing by teaching us to dance with others, but what she did instead was take some of the joy and beauty out of dance for us.

Over the years, I have occasionally mentioned to Luis that I would like to take another dance class with him. When the local theater guild started a dance class for the bargain price of $10 per person for five classes, he signed us up.

What a joy it has been to relearn to dance with my husband. Sure, he is usually a half beat off and I often mess up on the footing after spins, but when we dance and he looks at me...

I remember why I fell in love.

To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak. ~Hopi Indian Saying

Points to ponder

Think about it:

~ Many other developed countries tax gas at a rate of $2-4 per gallon. We tax it at less than 55 cents per gallon in most states.

~ Levi's says it take 919 gallons of water to create one pair of 501 blue jeans. That is to grow the cotton, create and dye the cloth, and put the finish on. Good news: they are starting to recycle the water more, up to 70-80%. They are also encouraging consumers to wash only when dirty and encouraging line drying. Kudos to them for their changes.

Saturday Randomness

Rambling today:

~ China has better fuel efficiency standards for their cars than we do. They banned plastic bags. Why can't we?

~ Starting broccoli seeds this weekend. Only a week late.

~ I made a fantastic sweet and sour pork this week with pork from my friend Paula at Caulpris Farms. They are local, keep their pigs on dirt, and raise a very tasty animal.

~ I am starting to see the appeal of texting.

~ I am signed up for an event in March that I really do not want to go to. It cost $45 and I do not think I can get a refund.

~ *fingers crossed* That is all I'm going to say about that one. Just cross your for me today too, okay?

~ Has anyone else taken the volunteering challenge for 2009? I am putting in about 12-15 hours a month in volunteer services divided amongst four different organizations, and it is so invigorating.

You know how I was talking about how great things were going with school and the kids?

I realized that the reason school was going so well was because Isabella was cheating on all of her work. This is why she was getting it done so quickly, so perfectly, why she was working so great only when she was in another room "free from distractions."

Damn.

Another quote post

I am feeling very quotey lately...

[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells... there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread. ~M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating


This is one reason I love to make bread.

Poetry for the day

Come, gentle Spring! Ethereal Mildness! Come.
~ James Thomson

Strange, the way life works

I find life rather full of odd coincidences. Too full.

Yesterday, I was flipping through some photo folders on my computer when I saw the shot of the tomatoes I featured here late late summer. They looked so good. I have not had fresh tomatoes since our wintering supply ran out in mid-December. Fresh tomatoes will not reappear on our plates here until the first harvest sometimes in July, an event I eagerly anticipate every year. I put the tomato photo up on Facebook as my profile picture along with a comment about missing tomatoes and looking forward to winter's end. I know I could just buy some, but they never taste right when from a grocery store, so I have not done that in years. It is so tempting when I am in Brennan's and the little stacks of tomatoes look so appealing, though.

Today, I opened up my new issue of Gourmet. There was a photo of a worker picking tomatoes in the "Politics of the Plate" section. The article was titled "The Price of Tomatoes: if you have eaten a tomato this winter, it might well have been picked by a person who lives in virtual slavery". Shocking statement.

The article details conditions in the United States, not some Latin American or Third World country. It talks about cases in Florida. Florida. Men and women held in appalling conditions of involuntary servitude. People who are in our country illegally, but still people. People who may work all day to pick up to a ton of green, hard tomatoes for about $50, but who are held in slavery and company store conditions of spiraling debt. Over 1,000 people freed by law enforcement officials since 1997; that is only the 1,000 we know about.

To quote the article:
But when asked if it is reasonable to assume that an American who has eaten a fresh tomato from a grocery story or food service company during the winter has eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a slave, Malloy said, "It is not an assumption. It is a fact."

Suddenly the thought of waiting months to taste a fresh tomato again seems a lot more acceptable.

Recipe-palooza continues

For Darla this time, here is that hot fudge sauce recipe.

Chocolate Sauce

1/2 c butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 c sugar
1 c light cream or evaporated milk*
1/2 c light corn syrup **
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter and chocolate. Add sugar, cream, corn syrup and vanilla. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil 1 1/2 minutes.*** Remove from heat.

Makes about 3.5 cups. Serve warm or cold.

*I always use evaporated milk. And since a can of evaporated milk is about 1 1/2 cups, I usually make 1 1/2 batches of the syrup at a time because otherwise what else am I going to do with 4 ounces of evaporated milk? I could probably come up with something, but it is just easier to make an extra half batch. The kids gobble this down on their pancakes, so that extra bit makes sure I get some for my mochas. And yes, I let the kids put this chocolate syrup on their pancakes.

**Okay, I have never actually used the corn syrup in the recipe. I usually toss in a little extra sugar to compensate for it, but I rarely measure the extra. It is probably about 1/4 c or so.

***The longer you boil, the thicker and fudgier the syrup is. I usually try for a scant 1 1/4 minutes if I want it pourable, 1 1/2 or 2 minutes if I want to be able to just eat it with a spoon.

So that I do not forget

I made a very scrumptious soup last night, and I am putting the recipe here to remind myself of it in the future.

Lentil Soup

2 leeks, sliced
1 small onion, diced
2 carrots, sliced
2 red potatoes, diced small
about 2.5 cups red lentils
8 cups stock (I used beef, but turkey or chicken would be good)
4 slices of bacon
2 smoked Polish sausage

Saute leeks, onions and carrots in a pot in 1-2 T olive oil until they have nice golden color. Be patient; this will take about 15 minutes or so. When you think it is done, give it another 2 minutes. Run two cloves of garlic through the press and add it to the veggie mix when they are starting to just turn golden.

Add just a little stock to cool down the pan a bit and thicken up the nice leek fibers for a minute, then add the remaining stock, lentils and potatoes. Simmer until lentils and potatoes are soft. This will take about 30 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. I threw in about a tsp of salt and four or five cranks on the pepper mill.

While the soup simmers, fry the bacon until crisp. Cool, crumble and add to the soup. Add about 2 spoonfuls of the bacon grease to the soup too. Slice the sausage. Fry it in the remaining bacon grease until hot. Add to the soup a few minutes before serving.

Normally, when making lentil soup, I would puree part of it, but did not do that this time. Just be sure to cook that soup until the lentils are really soft and the potatoes essentially melt away.

For Lisa

Lisa, my dear, ask and you shall receive.

Double Chocolate Scones

2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1/3 c dutch process cocoa
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c unsalted butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 c bitter dark chocolate coarsely chopped
1/2 c chopped pecans, toasted (optional)

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl, mix egg, whipping cream, and vanilla. Add egg mixture to the flour mixture. Add chocolate and optional pecans. Using a fork, stir just until moistened.

Turn out onto a lightly floured counter. Gently knead by folding and pressing dough 10-12 times or until nearly smooth. Handle dough as little as possible to keep it light. Divide into two pieces. Lightly press or roll each half into a 4 1/2 inch round. Cut each round into 6 wedges. Place wedges onto a parchment lined or ungreased baking sheet. If you like, brush scones with extra whipping cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 12-14 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Remove from sheet and cool on wire rack for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

312 calories per scone, 15 g fat, 39 g carbs and 5 g protein when made with heavy cream.

I have also made this with soy milk for people with dietary restrictions and unlike a lot of scones, these work well with the substitution.

Conversation

Conversation in the car yesterday:

Isabella: Mama, turn right!
Me: Why? We are taking (babysitter's name) home.
Isabella: Because I'm hungry.
Me: Why would I turn right if you are hungry?
Isabella: Because the sign said "Food, next right." I want some food.

So, her reading ability is really taking off.

May this continue

I hesitate to say anything lest I jinx things, but what a good week overall. There were some issues with children fighting (especially those middle two, oiy), but homeschooling has been a breeze, buyers are starting to bite a little, we had a taste of early spring, and I found the motivation to step on the Nordic Track again.

Of course the double chocolate scones with pecans that I made yesterday probably negated the Nordic Track usage, but I am remebering that I have muscles in my stomach again.

I have noticed something interesting about those double chocolate scones. I tend to forget about them until I feel a need to bake something without having planned ahead. Sometimes, I just need to bake now. Now. Double chocolate scones use cold butter, and no melting and cooling of chocolate is necessary. They are just tricky enough to make me feel skilled. They have to be worked just enough to incorporate the dry ingredients properly, but overworking the dough takes away their tenderness. A tender, properly worked scone is a gift from the gods.

I do hope a good weekend follows this good week. It would be even nicer to have the schoolwork trend continue, but I know there will be cycles on that front, so I will just take it when I can get it.

For my son

I read this tonight, and it reminded me of Simon. He dances to the music of life, the rhythms and the songs that we have forgotten to listen for.

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.

~William Stafford

Planting the flag

We took the flag down from the shopping center and we planted it in the Victory Garden
~ Barbara Kingsolver

I was catching up on podcasts of The Splendid Table today. One of the topics was the end of their year long locavore project. After listening to the inspiring snippets from the participants, there was an interview with Barbara Kingsolver. She was discussing the hard times our country has come through before when she made the comment above.

While we are still in the depths of winter here, the spring planting season is truly just around the corner. Let us all plant that flag in the Victory Garden this year.

Local and sustainable over cheap. Consume fewer goods with a willingness to pay a fair price for the goods that are consumed. Buy direct; buy local. Get back to basics.

Television as a right?

Why should the US government fund the purchase of television converter boxes?

This has been bothering me since I first heard about the coupon program.

There are people who cannot financially afford the converter box, who do not have cable or digital televisions and who rely on the television for news and public information. This is the angle from which the vouchers were first explained to me, and I can kind of understand it from this perspective.

However, it seems like the vast majority of the people who are getting these vouchers are not in this category.

These coupons were not intended to covert every single analog television in this country to digital.

The bigger issue to me is why is television considered a right and public safety issue (for the reasons mentioned above) when health insurance is not?

Our priorities as a nation are screwed up.

Things we never grow out of

When we were kids, my siblings and I drove our mother nuts with one of our habits. She would go grocery shopping, and we three would spend the next two days eating all of the good cereals for breakfasts and every snack. You know, the ones that were expensive and chock full of sugar. Peanut Butter Crunch and Super Sugar Crisp (or should I say Super Golden Crisp nowadays?) were huge favorites.

Since mom went grocery shopping every other week, devouring all the good cereal quickly meant our breakfast choices mostly consisted of Cheerios* or cornflakes until she went grocery shopping again. Being kids, we even had the nerve to complain about the lack of good cereal, even though if we had not gorged ourselves on it, it could have lasted a week.

I realized last night, that I still do this. I rarely eat cereal. I prefer a bagel, scrambled eggs with spinach or yougurt with granola for breakfast. However, if I buy good cereal, I always eat a bowl or two within the next day. Now, my definition of good cereal has changed a little. These days, good cereal means Raisin Nut Bran or Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. I picked up a big of box of the former yesterday at a great price, so come late evening, guess what I was snacking on?

Yum.

*Mom had a weakness for Honey Nut Cheerios. This would explain my lifelong love of that cereal. Honey Nut Cheerios are second only to eating Frosted Cheerios with fresh blueberries, and it is a close second.

What if?

What if every adult and teen in the United States gave just four hours a month to volunteering in 2009?

What if we gave our time to any service organization on a consistent basis? Any type of volunteering - community service groups, eduction, health care, elderly services, youth programs, environmental programs, social services programs, anything.

Four hours a month. That is one hour a week playing cards with lonely elders at the nursing home. One Saturday morning a month spent gathering donated food for the food pantry. One afternoon a month volunteering in the reading program at the local school or pulling invasive plants along the bike trail. One meeting and action item for a community development committee.

Can you imagine the impact on your nation, your state, your community?

Could you donate just four hours a month to helping our society? Four hours on a bi-weekly basis? Four hours a week?

I am up for the challenge. How about you?

Sounds of Snow

I find it interesting that one can guage warm it is in winter just by the sound of the snow

Warm days mean snow that squelches wetly underfoot. It squishes and compacts as we walk along.

Snow gets squeakier as the mercury drops. When the temperature is in the teens, our boots squeak merrily as we walk downtown to do our errands.

Today, it was eighteen below zero as I walked to work. The snow was crisp and reminded me of styrofoam as I walked quickly through the frigid elements.

I do hope the squelchy, slushy sounds come back quickly.

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
~ Christina Rossetti

Foods I can live without

Reading the Homesick Texan's blog today got me thinking about foods that I wish I liked. She was writing about grapefruit, and how she only likes it sweeten.

Grapefruit is one of those foods I wish I liked. Growing up, I was often the one who would prepare a grapefruit for my father. I'd cut it in half, use the special knife to section it and run around the sides. I enjoyed the ritual of it, and I loved the smell. The taste though? Bleh. Not for me. I still do not like grapefruit, though the smell is still wonderful.

Ham is another of those foods. It is served at most of my family holiday celebrations, and I really do not like it. A little on a sandwich or in a risotto is good, but just a slab of ham on my plate will leave me nibbling the protein and reaching for another helping of cheesy potatoes.

I do not like ginger. Yes, I know it is more of a flavoring, not really a food you just eat, but I do not like dishes made with more than a touch of ginger. Gingersnaps, great. Gingered stir fry or curry? No.

Canned pears disgust me. I cannot stand the graininess of them. I grew up thinking I hated pears, but as a grown up I discovered that I just hate canned ones. Perfectly ripe fresh pears are satiny and wonderful though. Now that I think about it, this applies to canned fruit in general. Home canned peaches are an exception, along with pineapple.

Plums. Just do not care for them. Every year I buy them thinking I will like them this year, and every year I foist them off on the unsuspecting children.

Beer. Dis-gust-ing. Betrays my German heritage, I know. Hate the stuff. Every single one I have ever tried.

Green olives. Liverwurst. Canned peas. Grocery store cakes. Green grapes. Smoked cheeses.

I guess if anyone is thinking of treating me to a food gift, you now have a heads up to avoid these.

Sing it with me "Summer Lovin' happens so fast"

Luis popped the movie Grease in recently, which was rather ironic since it was the topic of discussion for a few minutes last week with a group of women I know.

I love the movie. I do not even know how many times I have watched it. I love to sing along with the songs, even the cheesy ones. It is such a fun movie.

When women discuss Grease, there tend to be two things that come up. Most of us love it. Many of us also comment on the fact that Sandy had to change to get her man, and was that really the right message to give women? This came up last week with the group of women again.

I was thinking about that today. Sandy was portrayed as a goody-goody, and Danny was obviously the bad boy. But really, what happened in the summer that we know nothing about? How goody-goody can Sandy be and still date a bad boy all summer? How bad can Danny be if he fell for Sandy? I think that during that summer, away from the restraining influence of friends, both let their real selves out to play.

It seems to me that Sandy has a wild streak in her that she was afraid to let out. Many young women have a hard time casting aside the "daddy's little girl" sweetness and light image to become who they are. It is only as we as women grow and mature that we gain the confidence to let the world see us as we really are.

I think Danny has the heart of gold and desire to do the right thing that he hid behind teenage bravado. Many young men want to be cool and tough, even though deep down they are earnest, good guys. Men have even more societal encouragement to hide their soft sides.

Danny made an effort to let his other side show. He tries to take Sandy out to the soda shop, takes her to the dance, earns the letterman sweater and does the good guy thing in doses, even though his teenage immaturity and desires win out often.

Throughout the entire movie, Sandy stands on her pedestal and lets him come to her. He makes the efforts and does all of the changing. Finally, at the end, she throws away society's restraints and makes an effort to meet him in the middle. She grows up and takes control of who she is. It is her choice to perm her hair, slash on the red lipstick and don the hot pants.

Like many young people, Danny and Sandy have many facets. I bet Sandy does not reject the sweater sets entirely and still enjoys going out on a sweet date to the malt shop. I bet Danny likes to drive fast, but still wants to carefully cherish the woman he loves.

Is the message in Grease that we as women should change to make our men happy or is it that young men and women should embrace who they really are?

I obviously have spent far too much time today analyzing the movie, eh?

The Long Road Home

We went to visit my father yesterday. He lives way too far away. It is a 1 hour 45 minute drive from his home to ours. It is doable to go back and forth in one day, but not necessarily fun with kids.

Coming home, Luis pulled out the GPS unit and decided to see how it sent us home. He does this sometimes, even when we know how to get where we are going. He likes to see the different route. It seems like the Garmin will send us a different way every time even though we usually keep it programmed for shortest driving time.

We ended up coming a convoluted back way, through Highland and who knows where. We did see some lovely sights. There was a huge rock outcropping jutting out of the earth at an angle that looked like it would fall right on the road if a tree had not been holding it up. There were oxbow creeks meandering and a couple of springs bubbling. There was even hillbilly heaven, a bright pink creation of what looked like two single wide mobile homes put together surrounded by bright pink lawn accents, a bright pink garage and bright pink storage shed. Did I mention it was bright pink? Think Pepto even brighter.

However, for all the sights, it was not the best route to take with people prone to car sickness. The loveliest roads in this area are the curviest and hilliest. Thankfully, the contents of everyone's stomachs stayed in place, but Isabella and I were feeling ill by the time we pulled into Monroe.

It also took fifteen minutes longer than our normal route. When chosing shortest driving time routes, Garmin seems to forget that cars cannot take those corners at 55 miles an hour. We have noticed this before. I had to tease Luis that his short way got us all sick and still took longer.

Nice drive, but I think I will stick to the straight highway until the kids are older.

Randomness

New Year's Randomness for my sister who is complaining that she needs something new to read while she eats her Wheaties:

~ I have not actually had Wheaties in years. Do they still make them? I am pretty sure I have typed this exact same sentence before, and yet I still have not checked.

~ We joined the modern age last month with a programmable thermostat. I am curious to see if it has any impact on our astronomical heating bills. We may keep our house at 62, but it is old and costs a mint to heat. We lowered the temperature to 58 between 11 pm and 7 am, which had Luis complaining at first, but he seems okay with it now. No one has complained or even mentioned the mid day drop to 60. We are almost always home, but with the sun coming in most days and our activity level, I thought dropping it to 60 from about 11 am until 3 pm would work.

~ I have been thinking about my bread post recently, and it was really snobby of me. I was feeling inundated with people who were making the no knead breads; it seemed like it was everywhere right then. I have eaten it, and it tastes fine. However, I enjoy making the artisan sourdoughs and other breads. I like to work with the dough a bit. That is my choice though. If someone does not enjoy making the breads, but likes good bread, the no knead and 5 minutes a day methods are great alternatives. I retract that post, and my apologies to anyone who makes them.

~ I have been wondering lately why I do not eat pickles more. Not kosher dills and that kind, but pickles as a vegetable on the plate. They taste good, the crunch is nice this time of year, but I never think to put them out with dinner. Pickles were something we pretty much only put on hamburgers as a kid.* That and the occasional pickled beets at my grandmothers. I should pickle more things and serve them more often.

~ I just used the words I have in the beginning of two thirds of my first entries. Must use other words.

~ We took down the holiday tree today, and it is so nice to have the open space again. I think that every year. The tree is pretty, but I like to be able to see out the window and have the room back.

~ Vincent has learned how to dial my cell phone number from the home cell phone. When I was at work for four hours the other day, he called me 12 times during the first three hours. He also called Luis at least once that I know of. Yes, I discussed appropriate telephone use with him, and hopefully it has been nipped in the bud. It is cute the way he ends every conversation with a *mwah* kiss though. He forgot with one call, and he immediately called back to kiss me and hang up.

~ I get the very fun job of taking a sensory child clothes shopping soon. Isabella received many, many clothes for the holidays. She has grown, so only two pair of pants and one shirt fit and did not feel "funny". We get exchange a pile that is two feet high. I think I will leave the other three at my in laws to a) make it easier for me, and b) give her some special one on one time.

~ I went grocery shopping on New Years Eve day, just to pick up a few things.** I never knew the store was such a madhouse that day. Many of the checkout lines were open, and the lines were still four carts deep. I was thankful that I was taking advantage of the kids being home with the neighbor girl who was babysitting while I was at work. It cost me an extra $2 for the extra time the shopping took, but it was the best $2 I have ever spent. I am starting to wonder if I should hire her every time I go grocery shopping. It would make the process much more fun.

~ I still think of The Daily Digress every time I do a footnote. Annie, you and footnotes are permanently linked in my head. If you have not read The Daily Digress, you should do so. She writes much more often than I do, and she is a hoot.

Okay, little sister, I hope you had an enjoyable read. I will try to get back on the ball and blog more often.


*Well, except for my freak of a brother who would put them on his bizarre ketchup and mayo sandwiches, but that was just weird.

**I am the only one who will go in for one five dollar item and spend $75? Never fails.

Taste the Capers

As a teen, I used to love to watch Jeff Smith's Frugal Gourmet on public television. I learned so much from him. Yes, I was the teen who thought nothing of spending part of her Saturday afternoon watching a cooking show twenty years before the Food Network made cooking shows cool. Luis would say I was a nerd, but I prefer to think of it as a food lover in training.

When I was growing up, our household was very meat and potatoes. Rice was so foreign to me that I felt like a gourmand whenever I made it as a side dish for a meal. So, you can imagine that the mere thought of the some of the foods that the Frugal Gourmet made were the ultimate in cuisine in my mind.

I remember one show in which he cooked a dish with capers. I had never even heard of capers before. I had to look them up to find out what they were, and I could not image how they tasted. It was probably another ten years before I had the courage to buy a small bottle of capers. I was scared to try to cook with something I had never had before. For months, that little bottle sat in my refrigerator, chiding me for my lack of culinary adventure every time I opened up the refrigerator door.

When I finally had the courage to open the bottle and cook something with those capers, I was testing my culinary wings. It was a pasta dish. I could not tell you what the recipe was exactly, but I can still taste that first bite of a caper, all briney and vinegary. It was a huge step in my culinary development.

I do not pretend to be a fancy chef. I like food and I love to prepare it, but I have yet to cook with truffles or many of the haute cuisine recipes I find in my monthly issue of Gourmet. However, no tuna sandwich is complete to me without capers anymore, and for that I say thank you to the Frugal Gourmet.

I still feel a little exotic every time I open those small bottles, though.

Now I am thinking of making Pasta Puttanesca for dinner.

Artisan Bread in .......

Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. No knead bread. So many shortcuts.

How long does it take to make a good loaf of bread? Even Luis seems to be under the misconception that it takes gobs and gobs of time every day. It really does not if one is willing to embrace modern technology. Yes, I resisted for years. No, I do not mean a bread machine. Bleh. Throw those things out. Inferior crusts, poor crumb. Used one for a while, and while it was better than store bought, the amount of real effort that good bread takes is so little that using a bread machine makes no sense.

I mean let technology handling the kneading for you. I mixed and kneaded by hand because that was the traditional thing to do. Then I got the Kitchen-aid mixer a number of years ago and tradition flew out the window when I saw how easy and effective that machine was at mixing bread dough.

Straight French baguettes? About 5 minutes of actually working with the dough.

Honey oat bread takes even less because I only have to shape one loaf, not three.

Sourdoughs are easy. They maybe take 10 minutes of actual work putting the ingredients in, maintaining the starter and shaping the loaves. The ten minutes is spread out over a couple of hours.

The Kitchen-aid handles the mixing, and I load the dishwasher, make lunch or do other housework while it kneads the dough. Rising happens without any effort on my part. Pop the dough into a lightly oiled container, cover and let it do its thing.

Bread is easy! Try it! It does not take a herculean effort to make breads. The hardest part is learning to shape, but boules are so easy and a great place to start. Skip the peel and shape onto a little parchment paper. You can slide that into the oven with the bread and not have to worry about deflating your loaf as you put it into the oven.

You can always expand into trickier breads if it appeals to you, but basic breads are just that. Basic. Anyone can do them. Try it. Do not let these shortcut bread books and bread article trick you into thinking that regular artisan breads are difficult. They are not.

Just Say No

I was reading through the headlines on iGoogle (woohoo, love iGoogle), when I encountered this article. It left me shaking my head at our society.

Parents want toy companies to stop marketing products at children. Not because of any of the myriad reasons sociologists and psychologist have suggested marketing for children should not happen. No. These parents want toy companies to stop marketing to children because it makes the children want things the families cannot afford to buy them this year.

Ooooookay.

It is time the parents in the US pony up to their responsibilities. It is okay to say No to our children. It is okay to teach them to budget and prioritize. It is okay for our kids to have different things or fewer things or handmade things. Voluntary simplicity is okay. Even better, turn off the bloody TV and prevent the kids from seeing the ads in the first place. Spend the time playing card games or putting together tomorrow's dinner together (since too many families claim to be too busy to cook). Stop the recreational shopping so that the kids are not faced with all the "I wants" in the stores. Spend the weekends playing at the park or getting together with friends or gardening or doing the housework and the homework.

Toy companies market the way that they do because it works. Well, if we as parents in this country start to say No, the toy company marketing strategies will no longer work.

That will get the toy companies to change their marketing much more quickly than any letter writing campaign asking.

Food so Fast...

So Jimmy Johns opened in town recently. Luis ordered lunch from there a while back and he said it was so fast, he freaked. Really.

Then on Wednesday he ordered again while I was in the office. Being the snot that I am, I set a stopwatch on the computer to time it. I started the timer as soon as he finished the telephone conversation, stopped it when they walked in the door. 7 minutes, 56 second. Pretty darn good, but not freak worthy considering it was after 1 pm.

Then today I was in the office for a little bit right about noon, and two others were ordering Jimmy Johns. Luis walked in a few minutes after they ordered, and decided he wanted something too. The receptionist mentioned that my friends over at our local independent place, Garden Deli, had stopped in to remind everyone that they have always delivered to the Downtown area even though everyone seems to forget about that.

You know me. I told Luis he should order from Garden Deli. He spent a minute checking out the menu. He called over the order. By this point, it had been about 10 minutes since the Jimmy Johns order was phoned in.

Guess which order arrived first?

Yep, the Garden Deli one. It was so fast, Luis freaked again, and to be honest so did I. He paid, started eating, said bye to me and the kids. We left to go home for our lunch.

Still no sign of Jimmy Johns. Score one for the little guy.

Luis always enjoys going over to Garden Deli to pick up lunch, but had been calling Jimmy Johns because that delivery was mighty convenient. I am thinking Garden Deli has him back as a customer for good.

Our mini mes.

Those apples do not fall far from the trees.

When we entertain, I handle the making of the food. I love to cook and bake. That is probably no shock to anyone who reads this on a regular basis. Luis, on the other hand, is about presentation. He is the one fanning the crackers on the plate and putting the shrimp just so.

The girls, they are me. They start planning food gifts weeks in advance, and they both know already what they want to contribute to our Thanksgiving table.

I just realized that Vincent is Luis. How I missed this before, I am not sure. I realized it today when he decided to get himself cheese for a snack. He cut it all into tiny squares, arranged the squares in a circle on a plate and stuck a toothpick in each square. Then he put a circle of plantain chips in the middle of the cheese circle. In the very center of it all, he placed one gingersnap. That was his snack.

Oh that boy is his father's son.

Sleep, my baby

I have noticed over the years that how old my child looks is directly related to the angle I am facing him/her from and whether said child is awake or asleep.

They all look so small, so fragile when sleeping. The curve of the eyelashes on the cheek is so precious, and each has a different sleeping personality that never leaves as they grow from baby to child. Abigail is still likely to be flailed across the bed with a leg sticking over the side. Isabella is still usually curled up on her side. Vincent sleeps at an angle like I do, slashed across the bed. Simon likes to be on his back with his shoulders out of the blankets.

As I was snuggling with Simon the other morning, he appeared so tiny he compared to how I normally see him. At that angle, glancing down on his face from behind, I did not see the round cheeks and the big forehead. I saw the elfin chin, the hint of his cheekbones, the bitty nose. It made him appear so much smaller than the toddler who runs gleefully around. For a few minutes, I had my little baby in my arms again.

Then he woke up, rolled over, tackled me, and the toddler was back.

Join Hands and Sing Kumbaya

As much as I love the internet, I despise it sometimes too. It is such an imperfect medium. Face to face or telephone conversations have a degree of personal intimacy and immediacy that the online world lacks. For all that we feel close to each other online, the online world and the online conversations lack tone, expression. People have made do with emoticons and acronyms to help bridge this gap, but it cannot ever be fully spanned in my opinion.

Being in person or on the telephone allows for a focus and an immediacy in our interactions that online does not. Message boards and emails let us zap off quick thoughts when our time allows, but it also allows for conversations to drag for hours and for misunderstanding to blossom. Even chat does not have the same feeling of a real conversation. It is an egotistical medium. As I chat, I focus on my screen and my words. I focus more on my words than on the words of my friend.

The internet has allowed me to become friends with people I never would have met. It has allowed me to stay connected to or reconnect with old friends. I have learned much and grown towards becoming the parent and the person I want to be because of the online world.

And yet...

All I want is peace. I want some way to bridge the two worlds, the real and the virtual. I know that I try to present an honest picture of who and what I am in my online communications, and I take everyone at face value. I do this in real life too; it drives Luis nuts, but I digress. I wish that small hurts did not need to be magnified by the failings of online communication. I wish that people did not feel so cocooned by the failings of internet communication to say hurtful things they would never say in real life.

This post probably makes no sense to some reading it and perfect sense to others. That is okay. I just needed to write tonight about this.

All I want is peace. Join hands with me and sing Kumbaya, dear friends. Then we'll make s'mores.

Just be careful because those homemade marshmallows are wicked hot when you roast them, and I know from experience that they can burn the beejeebees out of you. Let us bring peace and harmony to the real world and the online world. Hey, while we are at it, let us try to heal the divide that politics has wrought in our nation too.

We interrupt this blog

We interrupt this blog for the following special program



Watch it. Please.

I'll return to our regularly scheduled programing of food, photos and family after next week's election. I promise.

Help me understand this

I was reading some political stuff tonight when I was hit by a question that I really have never seen anyone ask or answer before.

Why, in the US, it is considered an employer's responsibility to provide health insurance?

Can anyone explain this for me? So many are questioning in our society whether or not universal health care is socialist, but I would really like to know why health insurance falls into the benefits employers are supposed to provide. Disability insurance I could understand, but health insurance? Does it stem from the fact that a healthy employee is a more productive one? I wonder why it got started because it seems to be a rather silly way to doing things given job turnover and changing economic landscapes.

If Anton and Bethany Gibson (John and Jane Doe is just too boring) get laid off from a company that has HIJ health insurance and hired somewhere with QRS insurance, one insurance company has to do the administrative work to remove them from the rolls, send out letters of prior insurance and whatnot and the other company has to do the work to add them to the insured roster, send out cards and whatnot. Care providers have to spend extra time and money updating insurance information. It seems to be an added layer of duplicated administration that is just wasting money and resources.

Who came up with this system? Do we as Americans really think this is the best we can do? I do not understand why it is considered such a good system of insurance or such a good idea given the changing nature of the workforce in the US. We do not spend our entire careers with one or two companies any more. The average US worker changes jobs rather frequently, meaning we change health insurance rather frequently too, if the new employer even offers it.

Tradition

It is almost time to turn the calendar page to November, and the weather took a dramatic turn today from brisk autumnal splendor to the chill and damp of pre-winter. That got my mind looking ahead to Thanksgiving.

I host a gathering every Thanksgiving of family and friends. It is not that large, about 20 people give or take every year, but it nice. We have hosted at our house for a number of years now, and already traditions have started to become set in stone. My mother-in-law bring morros y christianos. My mother makes grandma's stuffing recipe. Luis' brother brings baklava. I serve apple and pumpkin pies with fresh vanilla whipped cream.

As I have been browsing the latest issue of Gourmet this week, I keep looking at their four Thanksgiving dinner menus. Wouldn't the Roasted Potatoes and Shallots taste good? Look at the Carrot Fennel soup. The Sage and Leek Stuffing sounds really good. Mmmm, a poached pear tart.

What would happen if I took mashed potatoes off the menu and substituted the roasted potatoes or a parsnip puree? Could I experiment with the Pumpkin Tart with Anise Crust without a mutiny on my hands? How offended would my mother be if I suggested trying a different stuffing just one year?

I realized tonight that in these few short years, the menu has become stuck in a tradition that I cannot bend too much without upsetting the others. Even the mere suggestion that I might not make the sacred red Jello with whipped topping was enough to get Luis grumbling. Mess with his mashed potatoes? Yeah, right.

I guess I am just stuck reading about these feasts of foods I will never get to serve at my Thanksgiving table.

I wonder if Grandma ever felt this way?

I am going to ask my aunt to bring her broccoli salad instead of yam dish because I found a recipe for Parmesan Roasted Squash that I will try instead. I think that the yams are something I can mess with without people complaining too much, and I love the crunch of her salad to balance all the soft textured foods. Maybe I can change the green beans from the the creamy dish to a sauteed version with bacon and chestnuts without too much fuss? I love the creamy version, but I need a little bit of change this year.

Look out tradition; I am going give your pedestal a tiny shake this fall.

{{{ insert name here }}}

In the online world, we dole out virtual hugs with liberality. What is different about real life? Many shy away from physical contact in the real world today. Hugs and embraces are reserved, somehow, for children and lovers.

Yet a greeting from a friend or even an acquaintance that includes a generous hug or quick embrace brightness the day for me. Just today, the hug hello of a friend's mother walking by was a spot of sunshine on a cloudy day. There is the squeeze of a hand of an older person greeting or farewell or just while sitting and talking. Put an arm around the shoulder, even for a moment, of a friend who looks down.

All of these things are the creation of emotion and memory for me. I can still remember sitting and just holding my grandmother's hand or the endearing way she would embrace my hand between both of hers as we parted after my weekly visits to her. I can tell you who I hugged hello at the last event we attended at the Piazza, but I cannot tell you what I ate there, and I go there as much for the wonderful food as anything else.

As strange as it feels for me to say this - me, someone who easily gets touched out after a decade of small children climbing on her and tugging at her - there is not enough touch in our society today.

We all know babies need skin to skin contact, need touch. So do adults.

Why?

Why does a toddler put glue in his hair?

Why are two muffins in the pan always darker than the rest?

Why is universal public education a right, but universal public health insurance is socialism?

Why does mama always eat the burnt piece of bacon?

Why is the bed with the folded laundry on it more fun to bounce on than any other bed?

Why it is human nature to always look forward to what is coming next instead of enjoying what is happening right now?

Why is it okay for the state to mandate the Christian version of marriage being between a man and a woman, but allow still divorce, the antithesis of Christian marriage?

Why is there never a sharp pencil in the house?

Why can I never find a nail clippers even though we own three pair?

Why do I cut it so close to the freeze date every year before pulling out my tomatoes?

Why do tomatoes ripen so well in the house even when picked totally green?

Why does coffee smell nothing like it tastes?

Why am I sitting in the office on a lovely fall day?

Eavesdropping

Have you ever sat and read random blogs? It is people watching and eavesdropping rolled together.

While doing a search in Google, one link took me to a blog post about Elinore and Andrew's trip to India. I have no clue who Elinore and Andrew may be, but Elinore writes an interesting blog post. I just wasted ten minutes reading about their adventures traveling in India on a modest budget.

PSA - It is important to remember that anyone could be reading our blogs. Nothing online is private. It you would not say something at the Thanksgiving dinner table or to your friends at a party, do not type it out online. You never know who could be eavesdropping.

Never too big

No matter how big our children grow, they really never change. They are always our babies.

Vincent was sick yesterday. He woke with a bad headache and by mid-afternoon was full out sick. I spent more time holding him and cuddling yesterday than he had let me do all summer long. Just like his toddler self, all he wanted to do was lay on top of me. He is better today, so I am settling for quick hugs and his fishy lipped kisses, but I know my snuggly little boy is still there.

As for Abigail, my great big girl is thrilled to bits by her new footie pajamas. At the moment, my youngest and oldest are laying here in fleece footie jammies, and it warms my heart. Closing my eyes, I can still see the toddler she was nine years ago, snuggled up asleep in the red jammies with navy stars her brother now wears as he sleeps next to her. Nine years from now, will he wear the green jammies with St Bernards on them?

Randomness

Friday afternoon randomness:

~ When a man is wearing a shirt and tie, he needs to leave the baseball cap at home. There are many types of hats; pick something more appropriate please.

~ The E button on my keyboard is not working well today, and it is driving me bonkers.

~ I love the fact that if there is something on TV that I really, really want to see (like last night's debate), I can find it online now. That is one of the best internet advances of the last few years. I do like listening to the Daily Show while working out. Jon Stewart is da bomb.

~ Speaking of working out, I want to join the Y again. Simon is older, and I could leave him with Luis to go workout. I love using the Precor there and zoning out for 30 minutes. I can use the Nordic Track at home, but then I worry about bonking Simon with it while he walks around. If I try to workout while he naps, it is guaranteed that he will wake up 15 minutes into it.

~ I want a fountain pen again. I had one in college that I loved, but misplaced it my junior year and never replaced it. I do like the way the ink flows on paper when writing with a fountain pen, so contemplative.

~ Do not buy Hershey's anymore. They are no longer putting cocoa butter in their chocolate, turning it from milk chocolate to simply chocolate candy. Inferior product. Stupid idea.

~ So, I watched the debate. Loved Biden. Was happy Palin did not have any gaffes. It was an interesting performance by both of them. Would someone please tell her to lay off the folksy shtick, though? Gotcha, betcha, winking at the camera. These are inappropriate for the national political arena. Cut the crap and tell me what you believe, Palin. I believe there is a fairly good politician under all of that acting, so please let her out. Also, oh boy, you could tell when Biden was annoyed. That giant smile and all the scratching his neck. I wanted to tell him to stop fidgeting.

~ Coco Lopez is bleeping addictive. A spoonful into my cafe con leche is so very good. Too bad it probably has like 500 calories per tablespoon. I swear I could eat the entire can.

Winds of change

Seasonal change is in the air today. A cool wind blows, caressing us with the crisp scent of fall. Leaves are starting to scuttle on the sidewalk, and the carrots are ready to harvest.

Welcome, Professor Wind!

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
~George Cooper, "October's Party"

Late night musings

Sometimes I worry that things are getting lost in the shuffle of life. Am I doing the best that I can? Am I giving each child what he or she needs? Am I missing something big or something little that will become big?

Being a parent is stressful. What if I mess up? What little incident will the kids look back on with fondness or with horror twenty or thirty years from now?

We all do the best we can with what we know at the time. I know this. But am I doing my best?

The late night worries of a mother...

Isn't that Special?

I heard an interesting little ditty on NPR this morning while driving to the city. They played a snippet of a the question session at the end of a recent McCain rally. One woman spoke up with a comment for the media, not the candidate. She said (and I quote because I just listened to it again on the Morning Edition webcast) "We want the media to start doing their job and stop picking on little children because of their age and their pregnancies. Shame on you! Shame on all of you!", said to a ringing round of applause and catcalls from the audience (she starts talking at 1:50).

Oh. Really?

So it is no one's business who gets pregnant how and at what age except for the kid in question and the kid's parents, eh?

Tell that to all the teen moms that have been vilified by the Religious Right, the media and the Republican party for a couple of decades now.

Wait, those wicked teen moms made the mistake of not being privileged white kids of respected parents.

Hypocrites. Shame on you. Shame on all of you.

Reason #8976 I love my area

While at Cheese Days today, we stopped in at the Hospitality Tent to watch locally renowned chef Wave Kasprzak give a food demonstration. Wave is the chef and one of the owners of the four star The Dining Room at 209 Main in itty bitty nearby Monticello, a destination restaurant if there ever was one.

He was preparing Tomato Blue Cheese Bruschetta. I never thought about blue cheese on bruschetta, must give that a try some day. He also made canapes with leeks and prosciutto. The leek mixture smelled heavenly. As he was cooking and giving out the ingredients, he said that recipe sheets would be available at the end.

Then he stopped a second and told us he was not very good with recipes, that he did not use them often. So, he said, if anyone had any question, just give him a call. He would be happy to help.

I love it.

26 or even 28 please

Just a couple more hours in the day would be very helpful. That is all.

For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.
~Doug Larson

Different Like Me

Isabella has some Big Issues going on, has for years, but it came to a head this year and we are getting her some help that she needs for her anxiety and other things. Unfortunately, she has been resistive at home to implementing some of the things we have been told to try for her sensory issues and her anxiety.

I cannot believe it took me until today to figure out the reason why. She had wanted the help, she has reacted positively right after the conversations with the therapists, she tells me they help when we do them, yet other times at home, she resists these completely. Well, except for the one strategy that has her earning a Really Cool Reward. That one she is all about doing.

Today, as she said that she did not want to implement a visual coping strategy if her friend came over, it hit me. She does not want to feel different, to have her peers realize what she is coping with. A few quiet questions confirmed this.

What could I say? She is different, but everyone has differences. We talked a little about what makes her different, what makes her siblings different, what makes me different, but still it didn't help much because they were not, as she said, "different like me". Today, more than any other day in my parenting career, I was thankful for the amazing community of parents I have known online in the last decade and their openness in sharing their lives and the lives of their children over the years. I was able to tell her about children who have the same issues she does or even more severe ones. Being able to talk about real people with real names was concrete and helped so much more than the abstract "there are lots of people with this."

Still, it breaks my heart to watch her struggle.

I just wish I could wrap her up and kiss it better like a skinned knee or stubbed toe.

Att-i-ca, Att-i-ca

Please help keep my husband out of jail!

Luis is getting locked up on September 30 in support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He needs to raise his bail of $1300 in donations, and luckily they give him advance time to get started.

If you can help, please visit Luis' Lock Up page. As much fun as it would be to tease him mercilessly for having to make phone calls asking for help while behind bars, it is a great cause and he hopes to raise more than he needs before the 30th.

Oh, even if he does raise enough bail, he still gets locked up for an hour or two! I promise to post pictures for all supporters.

I ams who I ams

So I was listening to NPR on the drive home from Madison a couple of days ago. They were doing a snippet on the new shishi coffee bar going in to a couple of hundred McDs in the northeast US. They aired a snippet of the commercial, which was supposed to mock Starbucks and coffee bars as something for elitist people. It went like this:

Woman 1: Did you hear McDs is serving lattes, mochas, espresso, capps..
Woman 2: That, that, that is .... GREAT. We can go there and start wearing lipstick and heels again, we don't have to listen to jazz, we can start reading trashy gossip magazines again.......

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor at the overbearingly divisive "us v them" mentality of the commercial, I started thinking.

Am I not supposed to go in to coffee bars wearing lipstick and heels? It would never have occurred to me there was a dress code or rules for people who frequent coffee bars or any other establishment.

To probably misquote a cartoon character of my youth, I ams who I ams.

In the last few years, I have become much more comfortable in my own skin, more at peace with who I am, that I was in my teens and twenties. My lack of confidence and ability to be myself made many of the experiences I had in those years something akin to torture.

Now I have enough peace to be someone who reads Mother Earth News, Gourmet, Midwest Living and People magazines. I have painted toes peeping out of my pink heeled slides which may wear with a fru-fru skirt to an organic event. I will sling my baby and breast feed him even at art center events where the average attendee is 68 and conservative. I embrace my lipstick and eye liner while vegetable gardening.

I like the improving me. I look forward to the woman I will be in another 20 years as I become even more comfortable with me. I make the prediction now that I won't dye my hair as it changes color, and I will probably switch to brighter lip sticks to contrast the hair. The heels will probably still be on my feet, but I will likely pay for the pedicure if bending down to paint them myself becomes harder. I will probably still like jazz, and I will probably have worked my way up to straight espresso.

What will you be in twenty years?

Stick to the Real News, Please

I am So Very Tired of the invasion of privacy that comes with each presidential election in the modern political climate.

John Edwards had an affair. So? Does it change his political beliefs and political record?

Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant. So? Does that change who she is as a politician?

John McCain thought about leaving the Republican Party. Cindy McCain won't release her tax returns. Barack Obama received 15 parking tickets as a college kid that he didn't pay until 17 years later. Michelle Obama is on the board of a company that sells pickles and pepper to Wal-Mart. So? So? So? So?

I will vote based upon the individual candidate's espoused political stances and track records. Paparrazzi-ish stalking of candidates and sifting through the lives of the candidates and their entire immediate families cross the line in my opinion, and I want no part of it. Is it any wonder that the people best qualified for high political office in our country will not undergo the microscopic screening we call the electoral process?