Winter has been over the top this year. Someone told me that this is the most snow we have received here and the most snowfalls we have had since people starting keeping track of these conditions. There has been so much ice that it has been dangerous to shovel the snow off of sidewalks in places because the grit of the snow preserved a little traction. The kids and I walk many places downtown, and I am tired of wading through slushy puddles and snowdrifts, tired of wet cuffs on my pants and the cold shock of snow getting into my shoes when the drift was higher than anticipated.

One thing I am not tired of though is the beauty of the snow. We had yet another snowfall late this afternoon and evening. Huge fluffy flakes floating down to coat the granular snowbanks. The tree branches are coated with sticky, fluffy snow shining in the moonlight. I should be bored to death of snow. Instead, I was reaching for my camera a little while ago to try to capture an image of the snowy trees in the night.

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout

I know spring is coming; I can feel it in my bones and in the energy of the earth. I know that there cannot be too many more of these snowfalls coming. So I will savor these even as I am tired of them. Even as I curse the slush and heating bills, I will enjoy the beauty and the time that they give me for quiet reflection. This winter has kept us shut in more than usual, hibernating. Is that really such a bad thing?

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. ~Pietro Aretino

Not even a year and he is walking already!



















Of course, crawling is still easier...

If you are a parent, go listen to this now. Do not just read the article. Listen to the full story. Go ahead, it is less than 8 minutes long and it is important.

Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

I have always believed in giving the children free time to just be. It shows in their imagination and their play. I know that I am not just making this up as their mother; I have heard it over and over from other adults in our lives. I have also believed in limited screen time for kids and in not inundating the children with toys. It is nice to have my "wacky" beliefs validated.

The choices we make for our kids today influence the choices they will make and the skills they will have tomorrow. I firmly believe that the skills I see them developing in their free play will make a huge difference in their adult lives.

My hands are growing older. I have always had smooth hands, soft hands. Lately, I have noticed that my skin is getting drier. The landscape of my hands, the lines in the skin, are growing more visible. Is it my imagination or are my knuckles growing larger, more pronounced? My new, older hands remind me of my grandmothers.

I feel like they should remind me of my mother, but they do not. Her hand are quite soft for a woman in her late fifties, the skin growing crepe-y, but not drying. I do not see the knuckles and the lines in her hands like I see developing in mine. Instead of mom, when I look at my hands, I see my one grandmother shuffling cards and my other grandmother holding a crochet hook.

I look in the mirror, and I see traces of the face of the girl I was in my teens. I look at my hands and I see signs of the woman I will be in my sixties.

Is there anything as precious as a newly born child?

I am feeling random again tonight...

Perusing the King Arthur Flour catalog or Levenger catalog late at night is as dangerous as browsing ebay in the wee hours. When sleepy, I can almost convince myself that yes, I do need both a nutmeg mill and cinnamon grinder as well as a yogurt maker, professional kitchen scale, and brotforms from King Arthur. The Levenger 3x5 system (with both the leather folio and desk holder) makes so much sense to my sleepy mind, and wouldn't the wood and leather Cubi Collectionbe exactly what I need to sort out the desk in the kitchen?

Is it weird that I browse baking and organization catalogs like a kid looking through the JC Penney toy catalog? I even circle things that I will likely never purchase, even if I had a gift certificate, but that I would probably love if they were to magically appear on my doorstep one day.

What did appear on my doorstep today was a new set of Calphalon pans. I had bought a set of Simply Calphalon three years ago. When I bought it, I knew that it would not perform as well as the Calphalon Commercial that I had, but I was expecting better than what I got from it. That set left me feeling ripped off like no other purchase I have made in recent years. After calling to complain about two years ago and getting my concerns pooh-poohed, I had resigned myself to simply simmering about my pans while my lasagna sauce simmered. Recently, I noticed the emergence of a new layer of color in the interior of a few of the pans, and it was the straw that broke this camel's back. I called again to complain and this time was taken seriously. I sent the entire set back for warranty replacement, and this afternoon a new set of pans appeared: 8, 10 and 12 inch frying pans; a 3 quart skillet; 1, 2 and 4 quart sauce pans; and a 6 quart stock pot. I had sent back an 8 quart stock pot, so I called to question the smaller size. I was told to keep the 6 quart one and they would send out an 8 quart as well. Hopefully this set performs more like Calphalon should, even if it is the cheaper cousin of my beloved Calphalon Commercial and Calphalon One Hard Anodized.

Given redundancies in my pot and pan inventory now that I had received the replacement sets, I am thinking of selling a few of the new ones on ebay. Would that be bad? The three quart skillet and 12" frying pan are both nice, but I like my Commercial 12" Everyday pan better. I like my little 9" Calphalon One skillet so much that I question whether I really need an 8" frying pan too. I do think I'll keep redundant 2 quart sauce pans because that is such a handy size, and the multiple stock pots are good for soup nights.

We do need to hold another soup night soon, maybe next weekend. I do enjoy the companionship of these evenings in, even when it is just us and another set of good friends. I do not think I have any untried soups in my recipe box anymore though. Maybe it is time to browse through Epicurious and my cookbooks some more. Ooo, and what bread to make? Honey oatmeal of course, because I love that and rarely make it (too many calories and too yummy to be left alone with me). Pumpernickel? Sourdough? Grandma's? French? Italian? Polish Rye? Yes, I do think we need a soup night next weekend.

I have come the the realization recently that cooking, specifically baking, is a passion of mine. I love doing it. Love measuring out the ingredients, wiping my hands on the aprons, mixing the doughs, forming the cookies, watching the air pockets form in bread doughs, shaping the croissants, tweaking recipes out to my moods and tastes, experimenting (the recent strawberry cream cheese sourdough croissants were a Very Good Thing *swoon*). I love sharing the products of my efforts with others. It is a personal expression from deep within me.

Immigrant foods intrigue me. Time seems to stop for people with regard to their cooking when they leave their homelands. The Norwegians around here make a huge deal out of their annual lutefisk and lefse suppers. I thought these foods were huge in Norway as well when I was growing up, but I came to learn that more lutefisk is consumed in North America than in Norway. The immigrants in the nineteenth century preserved this food as a part of their heritage while the people in Norway moved on to more modern methods of food preservation, reducing the popularity of lye-soaked cod over there.

I was thinking about this again last night while rereading one of my cookbooks (Memories of a Cuban Kitchen). Until I read this book the first time, I had been perplexed by some of my mother in law's cooking techniques. Canned peas as a garnish? Use of canned asparagus instead of fresh? I had always thought of these and some of her other cooking habits as completely bizarre. I realized upon reading this book, though, that it was immigrant cooking at it's finest. Her homeland cooking is frozen in the 1960s.

So that leaves me wondering if I can substitute fresh peas for the canned peas used to accent the arroz amarillo con pollo. Do I need to keep the recipes she brought with her from her homeland as they were back in the mid-'60s or can I update them for the modern era and palate?

There are few things as soft as newborn baby hair, as precious as a newborn baby coo and as beautiful as the smile of a mother as she looks down at the newly born baby nestled in her arms.

Nephew, may your life be seasoned with laughter, music, love, friends and sunshine, salted with just enough rain and darkness to help you appreciate the wonderful times. May you grow to old age able to look back over the years with a smile and think "my life was good".

I look forward to getting to know the person that you are and will grow to be. I love you already, but I hope to know you well as you grow.

Welcome to this world, little one.

Years ago, as a newlywed, I began baking bread. The urge to do so was one part economy, three parts embracing my inner hausfrau and two parts connection with my grandmother. Throughout my childhood, I cannot recall ever seeing store bought bread in my grandmother's home. I can still remember the unique scent of her bread drawer, can still see in my mind the drawer lined with paper bags and filled with partial loaves of simple bread and wheels of lightly glazed cinnamon rolls.

All through my childhood, my mother baked, and I always stood near, watching and learning. For many years, Saturday meant the smell of cinnamon rolls rising on the warm dryer while the laundry spun dry. I learned from her just how to knead doughs, how to gauge the temperature of the water and many other bread baking techniques, but the one thing I never remember her doing was forming the dough she created into a loaf of bread. Perhaps she did only make sweet doughs. I should ask her someday. So I began my bread baking career with my grandmother's recipe for bread, my mother's technique for kneading and Betty Crocker's method of handling the dough and shaping.

I have baked on and off for years since those first forays. As a busy new mom, the bread machine was the cat's meow. Toss in a few ingredients and a couple of hours later, voila warm bread. The luster faded quickly though, and it fell to the wayside once my gleaming white Kitchen Aid stand mixer appeared on the scene. Machine-made bread never had the same flavor or texture as loaves that I formed and baked myself. I branched out from my grandmother's recipe to new ones from friends, and occasionally baked free-form loaves on my stones.

This fall, I got the courage to start a batch of sourdough starter, and my bread baking changed forever. I am not sure why sourdough took so much courage to begin, but now that I finally am working with it and gaining confidence with it, I have a renewed love of all things bread. If I can create sourdough starter and keep it alive, I can learn how to form baguettes the proper way and form pan loaves in a manner that Betty never covered. I can explore the art of traditional breads from other cultures. I can experiment with pumpernickel and whole grains. I can make croissants. (My first attempt at those should be ready late morning tomorrow. Stop by for a sample and a latte if you are near.)

I have invested in good cookbooks on breads and have been talking with other experienced home bakers. I especially love the ideas covered in Local Breads, the ancient traditions involved in using sourdough starters (levains, bigas, whatever language you want to use to describe the essential mix of flour, water and wild yeast) to create an endless variety of bread.

Bread to me is like a new year or new day dawning. The basic recipe for a leavened loaf is always the same - flour, water, a little yeast, simplicity itself. Bakers around the world and throughout the centuries have taken those simple ingredients and created from them an stunning variety of breads. Vary the flours, the amounts of water, the types of yeast, the fermentation time, the shaping and you have completely changed the character of the finished bread. If that isn't enough, toss in some other ingredients, accent the bread with seeds, nuts, cheeses, herbs, anything. Keep it simple, make it complex, the possibilities are endless.

There is a magic in the rising strands of gluten, a faith that something unseen acting in a way that I cannot fully explain will soon become something wonderful. For me, it is a reminder of the mysteries, the magic, the wonder of life.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would love to share recipes, but do not want to infringe upon copyright. So, I will share the only recipe that I can, the recipe that began my passion for breads, my grandmother's recipe. She never actually measured, but my mother took a day off from work nearly three decades ago to sit with grandma while she baked, measuring each item that grandma pulled out to put into her bread. I am thankful she did because to my tongue, this bread still tastes like my grandmother's house. It is a simple white bread, nothing fancy, but a part of my heritage nonetheless and my simple contribution to the bread baking world.

4 c hot water
2-3 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp lard (I have used shortening, but the taste with lard is different. I usually use the lard like my grandmother did)
1 1/2 pkg dry active yeast (I usually use about 1.5 Tbsp)

Mix the above. Add flour to absorb the liquid. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add flour until firm. Knead. Let rise once or twice (depending on time, it does do fine with a single rise). Form into loaves and let rise. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. This makes 4 loaves, but it can be halved to make two loaves.

It has come to my attention that some of you out there (waves to the peanut gallery) are disappointed in the shortness of some of my recent entries. Here is a compilation of thoughts for you to enjoy with your Wheaties.

~ Do they even make Wheaties anymore? *dons best old fogey voice* Do the younguns know what I am talking when I say that?

~ I love the fact that Isabella actually has the word eek as part of her everyday vocabulary. It makes me smile every time she says it.

~ NPR's Science Friday had a feature last week on the Six Degrees of Separation Theory. Apparently, some scientists have shown it to be false. Listening to the segement and learning about the actual experiment that led to the theory becoming part of our popular culture, I agree that the actual experiment did not prove much. However, looking at my own set of Six Degrees of Separation, I do not know that I doubt the theory that much. I am a farm girl from Wisconsin. Even without my internet connections, I can make some amazing jumps in just a couple of degrees. It is four degrees from me to Fidel Castro (I know -> J who met -> Che Guevara who was a revolutionary with -> Castro). Three steps from me to Frank Lloyd Wright (I know -> D who met -> Wright. D even got a personal tour of Taliesin from Wright). Four steps from me to Josef Stalin (I -> met Brandoch Peters years ago -> he was married to Svetlana Alliluyeva for a short time she was -> Stalin's daughter). That is only going three or four degrees. Luis and I have consistently been shocked at how many of people we know, even those who are hundreds of miles away, have overlapping circles of acquaintance. I do not care if the theory is perfectly true. Even if it takes 8 or 10 or 12 degrees to connect everyone in the entire world, it is still a fun parlour game. How many degrees is it from you to someone well known? (/start subliminal message/ Comments people, leave comments! I know you are reading, leave a comment! /end subliminal message/)

Part of the NPR segment questioned why people grab on to this theory and love it so much. I think that we love the connection it creates between us and the rest of the world. People love to know how they fit together with others. I think that is why some people enjoy geneology. In some cultures, upon meeting new people, it was or is important to discuss family trees and social acquaintances until a connection is made. Humans like to know how we fit together.

~ Do you listen to NPR? Do you support it? The segments and shows on NPR are both informative and entertaining, and not just for upper class intellectual geeks. Take a listen someday! Support it if you do listen regularly!

~ Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread is a gift from the gods. I think it is my current favorite bread.

~ iGoogle is fabulous. I love it to bits. One simple webpage for my homepage will show me the news I want, the woot of the day, the current weather, the current moon phase, gives me quick access to my calendar, lets me track my water consumption, gives me a new Spanish word and interesting quotes every day, and provides me with easy links to last week's Whad'Ya Know and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I *heart* iGoogle. Now if only my google calendar could be downloaded onto my cellphone, I could be a happy camper, at least for the time being.

Could I please have just one easy day with her for a change? I am not greedy; I will settle for just one.

Pretty please with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a cherry one top?

Luis brought me some Hershey's chocolate bars last night. While I appreciated the effort, what is the point of a plain Hershy's bar if I cannot slather it in peanut butter? Since peanut butter is no longer an option in our house, what was I to do?

It was a brilliant moment, MacGyver in the kitchen. One gas stove. One bamboo kabob stick. A couple of mini-marshmallows. Two graham crackers. One chocolate bar. One husband shaking his head at the lunacy of it all.

Two s'mores later, my sweet tooth was satisfied and I was a happy woman.

The bitter cold days of winter are not my favorites, but today it did warm up enough to snow. I was watching the snow fall in the dark tonight. The flakes are huge and fluffy, falling by the glow of the streetlights.

I went outside for a few minutes to listen to the snow falling. When the world is quiet on a snowing evening, there is nothing like listening to the snow fall. It is a such a thick quiet, so different from other types of quiet. The muffled, soft noise of snow falling is one of my favorite things about winter evenings.

January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.
Sara Coleridge

I am typing this while lying down, looking at the soft little bundle cuddled up next to me. His eyelashes lay across his chubby cheeks, his lips are slightly pursed in his sleep. His breath flutters against me. He is beautiful beyond belief.

It amazes me how much love can fill up my heart when I look at my children sometimes. I always love them, of course, but there are times when I look at them and something catches me off guard. Love pours out like a tangible substance.

I am blessed beyond measure.

My princess Isabella started ballet today. She absolutely adored it.

It must be January.

Every new year, I get the bug to change things in our home. The little things that have bothered me since we moved in or huge things, it doesn't really matter. I get a need for change. One year, we finally painted over the horrid sponge painting the previous owners had left us. Last year was stellar. I was pregnant and nesting in addition to having my normal January urges. We ripped out the carpeting and refinished the wood floors, tiled the backsplash in the kitchen, put new faucets in the downstairs bathroom and repainted the upstairs.

Last night, I was sitting at the kitchen table just before putting the children to bed when the January bug hit. It hit hard. I suddenly knew just how I could redo my kitchen to expand my counter and cupboard space with minimal time and cost. The closet redo that Luis did for me in the fall was not enough. I still wanted more counter space.

After a quick consult with Luis, in which he naturally agreed with me and even expanded upon the idea (January hits him too), I had a plan. Unfortunately, Luis was not supportive of starting a kitchen redo at 9:30 at night after I had the baby to sleep. I was awake for hours last night, arranging and rearranging things in my mind. I even got up at 2 am to go downstairs and measure something out.

There was a small snag with counter top widths, but that will be okay. One new counter top won't be too much. Okay, one new counter top and and two hanging cabinets. Plus a half wall that Luis wants to construct. Nothing at all, really. Right?

We rearranged the cabinets after dinner tonight, and I changed the orientation of the kitchen table. I will have to get a new counter top as soon as possible, but the hanging cabinets can wait a little if necessary. We ended up dividing up the room, but I like the functionality, and I am going to finally have more functional counter space and more room in my cabinets. Hurray!

Oh what fun January brings around here. Home Depot and Menards love us when the New Year comes.

How many meals can a family of six get out of one and a half pounds of ground beef?

No, that is not a trick question. One? Two? Three? Four? What do you think?

I usually get two or three meals from about one and a half pounds of beef or chicken. I was thinking about this recently, and I feel it is an important thing to pay attention to in meal planning. Over the years, my cooking has changed dramatically from meat-focused meals to meals where the meat is more of a flavor or part of a dish. I am an unabashed omnivore. I like meat, and I have no problem with the ethical issues of eating animals. I do like to be sure that the vast majority of our meat comes from local sources and is raised in conditions that I feel are ethical and sustainable, but other than that, I have no problems at all with eating meat.

However, over the years, my cooking has changed. We may occasionally have steak or meatloaf for dinner, but it is becoming rare. I am much more likely to take one pound of steak and turn it into two meals - veggie heavy stir fry, fajitas with veggies and rice, kabobs, fried rice, soups. All stretch the meat while providing a filling meal. That one and half pound package of ground beef is likely to be turned into spaghetti with meat sauce and a side of bread, sweet and sour meatballs with lots of peppers, pineapple and rice, and chili with cornbread. Perhaps it will become beef and bean enchiladas with mexican rice, pasta pie with garlic bread, and two cheeseburger pizzas. Three hearty, satisfying meals for a family of six, one package of ground beef. A single 3 or 4 pound roasting chicken will easily become four meals for us - chicken quesadillas, stir fry, fried rice, fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli and more.

This is important to think about because of the state of the meat industry in the US today. Researching the conditions in which factory farmed meat is raised and processed is enough to turn anyone's stomach. When we eat meals with less meat, we are able to spend the extra money on locally raised, natural meat processed in small, local processing plants. I like to know that I am not supporting the factory farming industry with the vast majority of meat that we purchase. We are not perfect; I still buy deli meat on occasion or kielbasa, but I can feel good knowing that probably 95%+ of the meat that we eat is treated humanely.

Like so many other good things, change can start in the kitchen. There is power in the stove and wooden spoon. Tie on your apron, pull out a cookbook and try a new recipe, something where the meat is part of the dish, not the entire focus. Do you have a good recipe to share? Send me a link, please! I am always looking for new ones, especially Mediterranean or Asian ones.

The Yahtzee saga continues. Tonight, Luis pulled the game out again after the children were all tucked away snug in their beds. I destroyed him in the first game. Guess what amazing feat I did. Go ahead, guess.

Three Yahtzees in a single game.

Never before have I done that. We are starting to think the game is possessed. I scored a whopping 530 points in that game. I did not know it was possible to score that high.

Of course, the next game, Luis and I tied at a mere 149 points each. We took it as a cosmic sign to put the game away. Until tomorrow. Luis is completely infatuated with the game, and I know he'll pull it out again tomorrow.

Sister of mine, great gift! Thank you so much!

It amazes me that I can still learn new things about Luis after dating for 5 years and being married for 12. Tonight, I learned that he had never in his life played Yahtzee. Can you imagine living until your mid 30's and never once playing Yahtzee? That simply would not be possible in my family. My siblings and I played countless games throughout our childhood and teen years. I think we were still playing it in our young adult years.

Thanks to my dear sister gifting our family with Yahtzee for the holidays, Luis played for the first time tonight. We played the first game with the children and had a fabulous time. The girls were so into it. Isabella and I won. Luis was an instant Yahtzee fan, ready to start a second game with the kids even though we finished the first game at bedtime. After the kids were in bed, we played some more. I told him that I was a Yahtzee champ and would beat him easily. I was wrong. We played four games, and I did not win a one. Luis also achieved something that I have never seen in all of my years of Yahtzee playing.

He rolled three Yahtzees in a single game.

Three. I could not believe it. I called my sister after he rolled the second one, and then he went and rolled another. Unbelievable.

I am calling it beginner's luck. I will challenge him again tomorrow night and then we will see who the real Yahtzee champ is.

I multi-task with the best of them. Cook dinner, hold the baby, talk on the phone and tie a shoe? No problem. Nurse the baby, read aloud and knit? Okay.

Sometimes I wonder though if I am losing my ability to focus on a single thing, to really live totally in the moment. I often think ahead to the next thing, and I lose sight of what it is I am currently doing. After all these years of doing multiple things at once, I have difficulty doing only one thing at a time. When the children read to me, I find it hard to sit and do nothing other than listen to them. My hands start twitching for knitting needles or my legs want to get up and move around while listening.

Lately, I have been trying to not do as much multi-tasking, to see if I can get back the feeling of losing myself in a singe task. I am refocusing on only chopping the onions, nursing the baby or listening to the child.

I am not sure if I will be successful (is is even possible to nurse a baby to sleep without reading or knitting and stay awake myself?), but it is quite different.