Redwall Feast

Two and a half years after our last Redwall Feast, the kids took matters into their own hands. Sage put the Redwall Cookbook on hold from the library, and when it got here she chose a menu.

I shopped for the ingredients -- not always an easy or cheap task, given some of the unusual ones Brian Jacques favored -- but managed to come up with them, or at least fair substitutions. (Jicama for Jerusalem artichoke...)

And then I delegated. Last Feast, I spent hours chopping vegetables. This time, as you can see, I let the helpers do it ALL. I was there for mentorship, but they put in the labor. My dear hubby did that whole bowl of beautiful matchstick carrots and parsnips, bless his heart. In fact, he did the whole 'Sunsalad'.

Ian was in charge of the 'Hogbake', which is named after a hedgehog character who cooks it, but we aptly added bacon to this otherwise vegetarian dish (and meal). In fact, we rather modified the whole hogbake recipe, and were very pleased with the result. We've made it before with much less success, but this time we precooked the onions, added mushrooms and bacon, and left the tomatoes off because I forgot to buy any. People fought over the last bits in the pan.

Some helpers didn't put in as much elbow grease, but we're glad for their cuteness contribution.

So, this is one view of the final results. 'Hare's Haversack Crumble', 'Cheese n' Onion Hogbake', and 'Hotroot Sunsalad'. 

Along with 'Summer Strawberry Fizz'.

The one portion of leftovers from all that, a little bit of salad, got taken for lunch by S., so I'd say this year's feast was a triumph. This was more of a meal and less of an intriguing exotic sampler as in years past. 

One of the most fun parts of this tradition is reading little story-bits out of the cookbook itself. Brian Jacques spared no effort, this isn't just a tie-in book of recipes to maximize the branding -- he really wanted the food to be a part of the true Redwall experience. So there's some fairly extensive fiction (for a cookbook) that relates to each set of recipes. We took turns reading some aloud while we feasted, and enjoyed trying to approximate the many local dialects the characters use.

Yes, the crumble was that good... 

Lastly, credit where credit is due:

Sage acquired the cookbook, printed the menu, and made the fizz and the crumble.

S. chopped all those leeks and other veggies for the salad, and got them cooked; he also did the mushrooms and the grated cheese for the hogbake.

Ian practiced his egg-cracking, onion-chopping and sauteing skills, and put together all the ingredients for the hogbake; he made the dressing for the salad as well.

Lucy and Nora made place cards and set the table beautifully.

And everyone helped with dishes afterward.

It's like I got two Mother's Days in a row!!

I'm so, so grateful for my incredible family.

Annual Edible Experiments

I've got my garden basically completely planted, and have my fingers crossed for what looks like a really good year. 

My beets are well up and thinned already, and my onions, shallots, and potatoes are all looking strong. 

I planted my peppers and tomatoes literally THE first day the frost tables indicated I might be able to, and that gamble seems to have paid off. We got down to about 38 the night before last and it looked almost frosty in spots; but not enough to hurt, they looked fine when I checked them yesterday afternoon. So we should be well ahead of the curve for those. 

I'm going to have to use a nasty bug-killer this year after losing two years' worth of vine crops despite intense non-chemical efforts, but it's worth it to me to get all my cucumbers and butternut and zucchini and melons. Better a free abundance than buying a few at the store where they'll have pesticides on them too, or worse, not even getting any because they're so expensive. (I'm looking at you, butternut.) 

Also, corn, bush beans, peas, sunflowers, lettuce, and spinach. 

I'm attempting a few cole crops, but they're not sprouting yet like I had hoped they would -- we'll see if the cabbage, kale, and brussels sprouts show or not. 

A few carrots are in, as well as a litany of herbs, many of them volunteers from last year. 

It looks like I might not have to plant any fennel, parsely or cilantro, and though I already planted some dill I've since found a renegade patch that carried over. As long as my cucumbers are equally as vigorous, I don't mind extra dill at all, we've missed our homemade pickles... 

I have hopes for a good basil crop so I can make more pesto, and Lucy has planted a pot on our porch with a bunch of oregano. But I've decided to leave off swiss chard for a year, my family will probably be thrilled, they got awfully sick of it over the last 5 years.

I've even got my soaker hoses laid out to my satisfaction, and the lower half of my fence put back up. (I take it down during the winter so it's not an eyesore along the sort-of main road there.) I should put the top part on soon so that maybe I'll have one year where I beat the deer to it. 

Always an adventure!

Monday Menus

Muesli; Chicken cacciatore
Cornbread, smoothie; Refried beans and rice
Strawberry oatmeal; Fish, salad, biscuits
Apple-bran muffins; Curried potatoes, green beans
Cracked wheat, eggs, fruit; Dhal makhani
French toast, bacon, applesauce; Pizza, fresh veggies
Cereal, eggs; another Redwall Feast (yippee!)

Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is a pretty impossible holiday. No news there, really. It should be simple and straightforward, everyone HAS a mother (or has had) or they wouldn’t be here, and they can find a way to honor her. But in actuality, it means that difficult relationships get highlighted; shattered or waylaid dreams get dragged into the light; and the cute-beautiful perfection of the ideal weighs on everyone.

I had a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday. My husband and kids were the best company I could ever ask for. Yet, of course, today the reality and contrast of normal life is sinking back in. I’ve had some horrible Mother’s Days in the past, as well as wonderful ones, and in either case there’s never a good way to transition to and from. 

The lack of my own mother is also creeping in now that I’m alone again this morning, hence I'm sitting here with tears on my face. I left her a kind voice message which I’d like to think wasn’t pointless, but I can't hang around and wait for closure. Moving on, hopefully onward and upward.

Paean, From a Distance

It’s not hard to recall good times I’ve had with my mother, ways she’s given me the world, so to speak. She used to iron our sheets right on our beds on cold winter nights, and send us hot baked potatoes in our pockets when we went ice skating down at the pond. She taught me how to bake bread when I was only eight years old, she took us camping, she played games, she unfailingly took us to the library (and paid the inevitable fines). She sewed all my prom dresses and my wedding dress, she threw me a surprise 16th birthday party and I came home to a house full of friends and flower bouquets, somehow she knew what I had wanted most. She takes in dogs and people, and I remember once having a whole litter of newborn puppies in our basement (the latest dog had delivered them) at the same time as a family of Bulgarian refugees. She found homes for all of them. She’s resourceful, intelligent, and compassionate.

But I miss her. I had to spend a solid year bringing these good memories back to the surface, writing them in a journal because they were getting buried by the darkness that has become our recent history. No one can get close to her now; she lives alone with the dogs, communication is nearly non-existent, and what there is of it seems mocking and contemptuous, or the flipside, sickly-sweet and manipulative. The mom that drove nearly 50 hours straight, with a few hours’ stop in the middle to attend my junior flute recital, is now the mom that has no idea I recently had my first essay published, though I tried to tell her. My messages of love are not getting through, and my life is somehow unacceptable to her on its own merits.

Meantime, I watch my own kids, with their individual moments of sweetness and enthusiasm and imperfection, and I want to honor who they are; I’m not sure exactly how much of a previous existence we each bring with us, but I know there is a spark in them (and in me) that began long, long before this moment. We’re in this together, they and I, and you and I, and all of us. And so, I work on kindness. I practice meeting resentment and anger with love. I let my children see my mistakes and how I try to fix them. I offer them my time, my heart, my hands, starting here and now but hopefully forever and anywhere. Who I am for them is who I want to be for you, too, in the end. And for her.

Hopelessly Normal

One of the greatest compliments a friend can give me is to let me see them (or their kids, or their home) when they are less than perfect. I often laugh when, at the end of the movie Sense and Sensibility, the women are all outside in aprons and a gentleman’s carriage approaches; they scurry inside to take off the work clothes and take up some embroidery.

I’ve literally done that -- well, the apron part, not the embroidery part. If an unexpected knock comes to my door, you can usually find said apron crumpled in a corner juuuust around the hallway where I cast it off as fast as I could while simultaneously walking to answer the knock. (I’ve reassured my husband, though, that I will never, ever be found in a muumuu.) But if I’m expecting you and see your car pull up, instead of embroidery, I usually sit down at the piano. So now if you ever are invited to dinner and you arrive to a gloriously clean house with me playing a little song, you’ll know that literally 30 seconds before, I was frantically finishing up sweeping, or clearing shoes from the hallway, or hollering for kids to remove books and papers left on the couch.

Compare that to my first and second impressions of someone who is now a dear friend. The first impression was of her in a church class (teaching? commenting? I don’t remember) and how well and thoughtfully she understood the scriptures. I immediately thought, this woman is my kind of woman. We were just visiting, and when we moved in permanently the following year, I found out she had been recently called as the Relief Society president. That, coupled with her large family of still-young children, made me sigh; I figured I wouldn’t have much chance to get to know her beyond public formalities. But then I went to her house for some reason -- I no longer recall why, though I know she was expecting me -- and as soon as I walked in her door, I got my second impression of her in the form of a pair of dirty underwear landing at my feet. Her youngest child (two-ish?) had chosen that moment to dump an entire hamper of laundry down the main staircase, with that pair of panties rolling the farthest. I laughed, she casually apologized, and it was the perfect start to a friendship I value to this day.

Make Fat Thy Bones

http://www.eatingrules.com/2012/02/cooking-oil-comparison-chart/

I've looked forever for some good, trustworthy, comprehensive source on how cooking fats stack up. I found it! I still have no idea where to get most of the good stuff, even if I could afford it, but this chart is very helpful and friendly in understanding the different uses for fats and oils in food and their relative merits. Without having to keep track in my head anymore.

And the title is from Isaiah 58:11 --

And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Photos: Sourdough Potato Bread and Spinach Noodles

A few of my recent escapades:

 

With a goat cheese sauce and marinara

Next time, I'm NOT cutting all those noodles, I'm just putting the flat sheet straight into a lasagna pan. It wasn't even the cutting itself that was so time-consuming, but the unrolling of each noodle! But the goat cheese sauce, yes I'm adding that into a lasagna, because it was so crazy easy. I plopped a bunch of goat cheese (Costco!) and some cottage cheese and a few snipped chives and Parmesan into a bowl in the microwave for like a minute. I was late for an appointment and so I didn't measure, but it didn't matter a whit. So pretty and delicious.

Pickled Lemons

Right now, I've got three different bacterial food-processes on my counter. Yogurt, which I do frequently; sourdough bread, also a pretty normal sight in my kitchen; and my first fermented-pickle experiment, Moroccan preserved lemons.

It may fail miserably -- and Sage pointed out that it smelled like mouthwash -- but it's pretty, and the Meyer lemons were free leftovers from a fancy event water-dispenser. Can't let them go to waste! Day 1 I packed them into jars with salt and squooshed some juice out of them with a big spoon, then topped them off with some more bottled lemon juice; the second picture is on Day 4. 

We already are taken with a Moroccan soup called harira which has lemon juice as an ingredient, I'll use this instead; and supposedly it's the rinds that are the real delicacy, you rinse off the salt and they taste extra-lemony but without that puckery note, salty-sweet and mild. It will be a few weeks before we can start to sample our own, so we'll see! 

Another beautiful and expert post on lemons like this:

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

Probiotic Ramen

S. likes the traditional miso soup -- he has fond childhood memories of seeing his dad eat it -- but I still have a hard time stomaching tofu and seaweed. The kids and I, however, have found the perfect marriage of cheap convenience food with healthy stuff you can pat yourself on the back for:

Probiotic Ramen Super-Galore

1 packet ramen, any flavor (but not the instant styrofoam-cup kind)

2 c. water

frozen mixed vegetables, one cup or so

an egg

about 1 T. miso, or to taste

Put cold water and vegetables together in a pot and bring to a boil; when boiling, add ramen noodles (reserving flavor pouch, as directed on packet) and cook for 3 minutes. The last minute or so of cooking, crack egg into boiling liquid and quickly stir to break it up. Remove from heat and add contents of flavor pouches. When soup has cooled enough to eat, add miso and stir to incorporate. Makes 2 servings.
TIP: miso is a live cultured food and for full benefit should not be subjected to temperatures hot enough to kill bacteria, though taste would be unaffected.

I've basically done this styrofoam version in gas stations on road trips, but am happy to bring it up a notch .

Menus

So, Mark Bittman is relaunching his blog - sort of - as a flexitarian exploration of his menus and a few recipes. Now, I like Mark Bittman and appreciate his contribution to modern eating. He's a tad too full of bluster for my taste, I'd choose the quieter, brainier Michael Pollan most days, but he's fun and accessible. Still, what gives, Bittman? Isn't that what I'm doing over here? Man, these celebrities get all the press.*

But -sigh- I'll keep plodding away in my little kitchen over here. I think my real crowd-pleasing mistake is not liking meat enough. Even if I don't eat it often, I should express some vague longing and regrets about that. Can I become a celebrity based on my love of beans?? I want to share the joy...

(Aren't you glad you're only here electronically? I'm getting all goofy and intentionally leading you to mental places you don't want to go. At least the lack of in-person interaction goes both ways, and you can't throw any shoes or rotten tomatoes at me.)

So finally, drum roll, we're eating food over here:

Almond-apple-cinnamon oatmeal with cream; Minestrone soup (postponed from last week)
Cornmeal mush with syrup, scrambled eggs, canned fruit; Quinoa with feta and spinach, a green salad
Strawberry-hazelnut oatmeal with cream; Carrot soup and sourdough bread
Cracked wheat with syrup, fried eggs, grapefruit; Some kind of pasta with spinach and goat cheese
Muffins; Harira (a delicious Moroccan soup)
Butterscotch oatmeal; Niçoise salad
Cereal; Pancakes, bacon, applesauce

*I also heard him recently, by chance, on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me taking some quiz questions on Batman. You know, Bittman, Batman...it's about as far from food as you can get, but quite entertaining.
 http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=177035130&m=177049455

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives" -- Annie Dillard

From the Hands-Free Mama, who inspires me, this is what I would have written yesterday if I were that awesome:

I vividly remember the day I stopped wishing away time. 

My daughter had just picked a dandelion and was studying it intently. 

“If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?” I asked curiously anticipating what my then four-year-old child would say. I expected her response to be a place with sea shells, princesses, cotton candy, or Toy Story characters. But what she said left me speechless and a bit enamored with her.

“Picking dandelions with you,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation.

Out of any place in the world she could dream of being, my child chose to be right where she was in that very moment.

As my eyes filled with tears, I could recall too many unsettling lines that had come from my lips…

“ I can't wait for school to start.”

“I wish the warmer weather would finally get here.”

“When is it going to be Friday? This week is killing me.”

“Once I get through this busy month, we'll do something fun as a family.”

“I can’t wait for her to be able to ride in the booster seat.”

“I look forward to the day she stops sucking her thumb.”

To put it bluntly, I wished time away.

Because in this fast-paced, task-driven world, slowing down takes effort. Allowing myself to simply BE in the moment at hand is a rare and beautiful gift.

How easily I forget that there is no guarantee that tomorrow will even come. Or that tomorrow will be as good as it is today.

Today, I have my health, my happiness, and my security. But there will come a day when I won’t. Why ask for that heartbreaking day to be here any sooner?

Thanks to the wisdom of child and the beauty of a dandelion, things are different now. Instead of wishing time away, I find myself hoping time would stand still … so I could savor it just a little more.

Rachel Macy Stafford© 
(including photo credit)

Flourishing: Time

I recently grabbed a book out from the library called 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. And by chance in my private writing, I've been working through some prompts around the themes of how I spend my time. For example, what my favorite childhood activities were in those wonderful bygone days when time was mine to kill; and also if I've ever had any time addictions, so to speak, ways that I escape if I possibly can at all. (For the record, besides reading and looking at plants, as a child I loved to draw imaginary neighborhoods/subdivisions and make winding streets that I gave all sorts of creative names. And my only time addiction or escape is sleep. Ah, blessed, blissful bed...) 

And, this is my bedside table. Way beyond possible. 

Ironically, I've decided my priorities right now do not include reading a book about time management, and that I need to be much more realistic about the size of my pile of library books.

Beyond that, though, I've been thinking about time and how it's really not as linear as maybe I envision it. It's more a pearl or cupped hands to fill than a path to be trod one way or another. I want to think about it as something more vital than a set of railroad tracks carrying me forward against my will. 

 Elder Uchtdorf spoke wonderfully about this topic last October: "Sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life."

How do you flourish without time? You can't. But while time is not money, and you can't hoard it, or give it away to someone else (not really), I've started to notice my relationship with it change over these years as I've tried to flourish and be my true self. 

You can use time to give yourself more time. You can't get time back once it's gone, but you can claim it to fuel important things first so that crises don't take over down the road. Though, important things are often small things, not momentous ones. You know, Quadrant II and the jar with rocks and sand and all that.

On the other hand, it can be valuable to just let time go and not stress about it. That one's hard for me, though I know the balance may skew in the other direction for many people. I just have to tell myself that some things that come up, or get in the way, or take time from me almost by force -- illnesses, the DMV, car accidents -- are just water under the bridge. To borrow a phrase from the most entertaining fitness instructor out there, do your best and forget the rest.

In an odd way, time is the seed of eternity, the real measure of our identity. I don't think it's just a matter of having the right apps on your phone, multitasking, or being inflexible. Time is the sum of what we become, because it's the medium in which we act. We don't always choose when and where things happen, but we're the only ones living that moment and recognizing it within ourselves. Meditation, good whole food, exercise, sleep, loving relationships with people and with Deity -- we've got time for those things. We burnish the time we've got when we nourish ourselves in those ways. 

One of my nitty-gritty personal tricks is what I call a "work party". I hate that paralyzing, overwhelming feeling when you have too many things to do, you know you can try with all your might and you'll only be swimming upstream, and you wonder where to even start. For those moments when I just want to scream or cry or go crawl back under the covers and I haven't even started on my day, I have a little idea that gives me some built-in perspective and jump-starts my momentum. The kids like it too on occasion. This only works on a day that doesn't have too many external time constraints, but is just bursting at the seams.

I put down a list on paper of everything, everything that's on my mind to get done. It's funny how for me, at least, that list gets longer the more stressed and busy I feel. My brain just keeps churning out reasons to be discouraged...Anyhow, I let it all out, each item on its own line with some space between. Then I think of some things that I want to do, that I would choose to do if I had complete free time that day. If I have little kids underfoot, I add things that they will want to do as well. Quick bike rides, making cookies, or just reading a book or having a giant group hug have been popular ones around here.

Then, I cut all the items up into strips that I put into a hat. I find a timer. Then I draw one task, and go for 10 minutes. That's it. I figure I can do just about anything for only 10 minutes, even something I really hate; and that combined with the chance that I might draw something wonderful from the basket (like playing the piano, or reading a magazine) is decent motivation to start. Even the kids are willing to do something if they know that particular misery will end in only 10 minutes; and I give them the added incentive that if they happen to finish a particular task early, they can read until the timer goes off. Often, if I'm working alone, I find that I don't like to leave a task halfway done, so I keep going a little longer and finish it off and feel amazingly proud of myself.

Of course, I never finish all the items. That's not the point. But I often get a head start on things I would have otherwise procrastinated, which is an awesome feeling, and I totally more than break even in terms of what I would have done if I puttered around on my own, afraid of facing it all. Knowing that I won't finish it all is sort of a relief going into it, as well; then I don't think of it as a mongo list that I'll never conquer, I just take it each task at a time and accept that I did my best.

Of course, that best varies over the seasons and stages of life; I wouldn't have been able to sit here and work on my writing for hours when I had newborns. But I see the time then and the time now as related. The way I spent my time with my very young children set the path for me to have (relatively more) time to flourish now. My abilities, priorities, and outer emotional and physical boundaries were stretched and stretched again, more than they ever would have been if I had lived as even my most ambitious, driven self without kids. I continue to find it amazing, that what I thought I lost of my core being during those long years was only dormant, and has come roaring back even brighter than before.

I found someone else's blog that put this sense of time very well: "So listen closely, darlings. Time is not anything like what we have been told. It is not a linear thing with equal increments of seconds, hours, months and years. It is fluid, dynamic, malleable. It breathes and stretches and bends to expand and contract the moments, to hold the possibilities. Time wrinkles to bring us together right here, right now, when our bodies aren’t face to face, but here we are, interacting, connecting, me and you." (Link)

Glad you're here.

Menus

Cream of Wheat, poached eggs, fresh pineapple; Homemade refried beans, rice, tomato-cucumber salad

Rice w/cinnamon and sugar, maple-blueberry-banana smoothie; Caldo verde, cooked carrots

Oatmeal w/blueberries and nuts; Mexican pork-quinoa dish (TBD), salad

Muesli; Corn chowder

Banana muffins, eggs; Pizza, frozen mixed vegetables

French toast, applesauce; Minestrone

Cereal; Pancakes, applesauce, bacon

Confidence

So, a while ago I posted that I was listening to a Healthy Life conference thing, at least a little of it, and it’s been interesting but not groundbreaking for me. I’ve had a couple of thoughts and realizations as I’ve heard from various notable names in what I’ll call the traditional food movement. 

One is, I know a lot. I think I tend to underestimate my knowledge of this field, trying to be humble and recognizing that I don’t have any official credentials. But I've started to notice more and more, and it was confirmed by these interviews and podcasts, that it doesn't take official expertise to be on the cutting edge of real nourishing and flourishing. This isn't just a hobby, and while trying to give my family the best possible life I can, I'm definitely capable of contributing more openly to my community. A majority of the informed, inspiring people that I've seen speak about food were complete novices and outsiders when they started. In fact, you almost have to be, since food 'insiders' are now all just large agricultural factory farms and slaughterhouses, distribution conglomerates, and seed/chemical monopolies, and no positive change is going to come from that direction. So, I don't have the handicap that maybe I've thought I had.

The other thing I've been realizing, is that while I feel extreme compared to my friends and get teased by my husband for trying to make everything harder, there are people taking this waaaay more seriously than I am. That was one of the things that made me a little uncomfortable listening, in fact, because while the information mostly wasn't new or scary to me, the condescension or willful blindness to cost and other factors was sometimes offensive. 

So I've been trying, in my own writing, to walk that careful line between humility and confidence, avoiding elitism along the way, and I guess I'm doing OK. At the same time, maybe I can lean a little more towards confidence. I can even add a little Word of Wisdom perspective that I noticed was still highly lacking from the conversations between the adherents of all the different modern diets.

So, leaning more toward confidence, what am I confident in? For a simple beginning, whole milk, egg yolks, and butter. Breakfast. Soaking whole grains and dried beans. Freshly ground wheat. Water to drink. 

More later, but start there.

Dillard Moment

I just finished a wonderful book by Annie Dillard -- sitting in my quiet house with, finally, a few moments to spare after a crazy crazy busy few days -- and want to wallow in it a while longer. Yes, I cried all through the last chapter.

But also, as I was trying to keep up with life's treadmill yesterday, including working my way through said Annie Dillard book for the book club it was my turn to host that night, I found something and had a wonderful moment of pause.

“Free egg for Sage

it has salt” 

on a sticky note

in Lucy's handwriting

(the egg in question had been peeled and salted by Nora, who didn’t want it after one bite)

but somehow their love for each other and my love for them suddenly overwhelms me as I’m cleaning and pick that bitty paper up off the counter

Fisherman's Wharf in Provincetown MA, the real-life setting of The Maytrees

And lastly, I had a successful coincidence as well last night. My oven was unexpectedly out of commission, so my gingerbread (which is really originally cake, most people don't know that) had to bake somewhere else. I put half the batch in a square pan in the toaster oven, and half the batch into my giant crock pot for 2 hours. I thought neither would work, especially because I had tweaked the recipe very unscientifically in a panic, but both did! So that was my success. 

But what makes it a coincidence, is that I decided ages ago to serve gingerbread and lemon sauce when it was my turn for book club. Then just the night before, on page exactly 100 of the book, I read:

"Deary baked gingerbread in square pans and steamed for it a translucent lemon sauce."

In honor of that, here's my recipe:

GINGERBREAD

2 sticks butter, softened

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. water

1 c. molasses

3 1/2 c. flour (all-purpose or cake)

2 tsp. baking soda

2-3 tsp. ginger

Cream the butter, add the sugar, and beat until light. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl, combine molasses and water. In another bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add alternately to creamed ingredients, beating well after each addition. Pour into greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350º for 35-45 minutes; or, put into greased 6-qt. crock pot and bake on high for 2 1/2 hours or so. A toothpick should come out clean.

And of course I -- and Annie Dillard -- know that lemon sauce (and some whipped cream) is the true mate for tall, tenderly moist, fresh-baked gingerbread:

LEMON SAUCE

1 c. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

2 c. boiling water

4 T. butter

1/2 c. lemon juice

pinch of salt

grated lemon rind (optional)

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together in a small saucepan. Add the boiling water, stirring constantly. Boil 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove from the heat and swirl in the butter, lemon juice and rind, and salt. Serve warm.

This Week's Menus

Stole this photo, but this is
about what our muesli is like

Orange-banana-pear smoothies, toast; Cuban black beans
Muesli; Creamed cauliflower, cornbread
Gingerbread cake with lemon sauce; Curried potatoes, salad
Cracked wheat, eggs; Burritos, corn
Butterscotch oatmeal; Hamburger stroganoff, carrots
Cereal, eggs; fish, leftovers or ramen
Fast Sunday; S.'s birthday dinner (which he hasn't chosen yet)

Victory in Virtue

I've tried the past few years not to just 'take notes' during General Conference, but to specifically note what the Spirit says to me. Often it is expressed in the actual words of the speakers, sometimes I get something of my own that's in a little different direction. In any case, after I'm done listening, I like to try to put it all into a concise motto, if you will, that I can repeat to myself or stick on my mirror and live by for the next 6 months. Something that inspires and reminds me of real spiritual connections with my daily actions. Here's my sum-up mantra for this conference:

Obedience and virtue bring power and strength -- be of good cheer, I will triumph in Christ

I'm back, just barely, from a little family trip over Spring Break.

And tonight right off the bat I need to take a meal to someone, with these stipulations: no beef or tomatoes of any kind, and essentially no vegetables in the main course (one won't touch them, so they're best as a side dish).

My fridge is still empty, I had a long meeting this morning, and am now hosting 6 little girls in my basement sewing room.

Ideas?

I hate this kind of dilemma. I guess I'll go dig through the freezer and get back to doing the laundry, and figure that since as it so happens I'm the first one to begin the meal rotation for this family everyone after me can decide how to avoid the ubiquitous chicken-rice-and-canned-soup.

I'll let you know more later!

Food History

I want to give you a little bit of my intergenerational food history, if you will. My dad grew up with chickens pecking around his (itty-bitty,dirt) backyard, and my mom’s family had an enterprising set of parents who dealt with tight money in some unusual ways, including getting a whole bunch of chicken hearts on the cheap from a local farmer. She remembers them frying in the pan for dinner, and that the taste was fine but they were tough. 

She also once told me that when my parents were first married and they really had next to nothing, her parents gave her a gift of some old, tough mutton they had gotten under similar circumstances to the chicken hearts. Decades later she still recalled that freezer full of mutton that they had to work through, and how dearly she wished they could eat something else; but since that was what they had, that was what she cooked every week for about a year. I don't think aged mutton is gourmet food by anyone's definition, and it left a lasting impression on her. My mom was always adventurous in what she cooked us, but I never once tasted lamb that I recall until I bought it a few years ago for the first time. My guess is she never wanted to taste sheep again in her life!

I remember that she tried cooking us liver a few times, bless her heart; but it was the one of the rare foods I hated with all my little heart. It’s a shame, really, apparently liver is a true superfood. But she also bought beef tongue and sent us sandwiches of it to school, and I remember trying battered-and-fried frog legs once. I’m pretty sure she bought them at the store, though they must have been a rarity.

Clearly, times have changed. No one I know has ever purchased and prepared frog legs, and if you were getting chicken hearts or mutton from a guy down the street on any kind of regular basis you’d be in pretty big trouble with the law. (Have any of you seen Farmageddon? Worth watching. Intense.) Not to mention the teasing for your tongue sandwich at the lunch table, especially if it was like the one I got which had a tiny square of skin that got missed by my mom, with all its papillae and hair...I did try a few bites off the other end, but it was sort of ruined for me by that hairy patch.

On the other hand, despite the relatively quick downhill slide our nation’s health is taking, we’re still (just) within living memory of another way of eating. I want to hear more stories about what our own parents ate before TV dinners caught on. Let’s not waste that, is my feeling. I hope it’s not too late to start putting things on our tables that don’t have to be analyzed, justified, or feared. Can we get away from the distinction between “health food” and other food, and just nourish ourselves with real food? 

I'm pretty sure that most of my scant readership has been lucky enough to have mothers who clung more tenaciously to traditional cooking when they were young, and I'd be curious to know how that has affected you. I'm especially curious to know how many hear about organ meats in their parents' or grandparents' diets; it's something that viscerally grosses me out, but I've started to hear more about the benefits of including them. Shoot me a comment if you have any relevant family food history...thanks!