Back in September when I first started thinking about clothes and my wardrobe and what I might like to do about my increasing dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs I was wary of the possibility of doing what I thought as too much thinking about the subject. I didn't want to become one of those women, those whom I have judged in the past to be over concerned with appearances or expenditures, who (I assumed) didn't dress to please themselves or those closest to them but rather other women in some vast public fashion show where only the rich and the beautiful (two things I am not) survive and the rules are rigged that way deliberately.
And then I got over myself and remembered that women (and men, now that I think more on it) have been adorning themselves since time immemorial. Berries crushed for the juice to be used on lips or cheeks, henna, kohl, and all manner of oils and salves served our ancient sisters in the same way that anything from Sephora serves us and I don't doubt that as soon as someone figured out a way to get a new dye color by smashing an as-yet unsmashed plant that a new color flax or wool or whatever became all the rage in the village.
Thus rationalizing my newly emerging interest in my own appearance, I pressed on to find an extraordinary trove of resources to inform my thinking. I haven't come to any real conclusions yet about what to change or how to change it, although I am taking ongoing inspiration from, in no particular order:
1) House Art Journal: Regina Doman writes on many subjects, including how she organized her wardrobe to satisfy the requirements of her busy life with "just" 35 thrifted components. Regina's and my needs aren't really similar, but I am excited about the possibility of applying a true, intentional, mindful organization to my closet. Using Mrs. Doman's categories as a springboard, I'm tossing around the idea of using four for myself: dressy/festive, church/professional, outings/casual, and (in a nod to one of the Boy's favorite television shows) Dirty Jobs.
2) Bombshell Beauty: A chatty blog taking the position that enjoying beauty and fashion needn't be the sole province of the slender (or rich). The sensibility is one younger than I might desire for myself and I like that it teaches me that throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. Bombshell Beauty mixes things up in a way that I find interesting and informative.
3) Fat Chic pulls no punches when it comes to plus size fashion, beauty and health. With advice for handling retailers, researchers and even family who would treat the curvy crowd as lesser citizens, Diana Rajchel urges women to be more than the culture would have them be. Ms. Rajchel actively strives to build up micro-businesses and artisans, something I find really cool. Say no to cookie cutter dressing!
4) Fussypants: Fussypants is a very popular blogger of whom I have only recently heard. She has contests, she gives away prizes, she's amusing and la la la, but what I found truly astonishing is her Fight the Frump series. Now, I don't love it all (and people who know me well will now precisely the bits I don't care for) but mostly the series is a nice kick in the pants for girls like me who are more inclined to wear something because it's clean than for any other reason. Sure, I'm no longer young and have an alarmingly high-numbered birthday bearing down on me but I've still got some fight in me and I'm going to use it against the Frump.
5) Wardrobe Refashion: Now this, I love. Wardrobe Refashioners take a pledge that for the duration of a pre-determined time frame (three, six or twelve months, I think) they will not purchase off-the-rack clothing but instead provide "new" items to their wardrobes by making from scratch or "re-fashioning" existing garments. Some of the participants are inspirational hardcore sewers whose creations send me into fits of awe, others are working their way through as I would - tentatively and perhaps with a little frustration. Reading their accounts of refashioning has prompted me to look at some of my own wardrobe duds in a new light and I am hatching plans to take the sleeves of one shirt and the bodice of another to create something I might wear out of two things that I categorically won't but which I am too cheap to throw away.
These are the women I've adopted as karmic sisters in my own closet-related battles. Hipsters, goth chicks, religiously devout moms, girls-about town...and me. Despite our outward appearances and the ways in which we lead our lives it seems to me that we are closer under the skin by our attention to what we wear on the outside of it and I have learned much from each of them.
Point 1) I just slid a "peppermint" cake (half red velvet, half white, swirled together) into the oven - the proper three layers now possible through the rummage-sale acquisition of a third (and fourth) nine-inch cake pan - and the kids are watching a rapidly failing VHS* copy of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas**. I ought to be, I don't know, cleaning or something, but instead I'm here while trying to wrap my head around today's marketing list (peanut butter - not the good no preservative kind, it's for cookies - sour cream, graham crackers, frozen spinach, cider and something else that I'm sure to forget.
Point 2) "I need to remember to take a crow bar to church tomorrow," mused Brainiac last night. Now that has got to be one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me. What on earth?
Point 3) My parents are, as I type this, preparing to attend one of the White House Christmas parties. Now, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the current administration (come to think of it, I can't recall being a fan of any administration but I'm hard to please like that), but I surely would love to take a gander at the gingerbread White House. I saw one being made on Food TV last year and - wow - is that cool. Anyway, this is special for my parents and I'm happy for them. Hope the Secret Service remembers to count the spoons when they leave 'cause my mom has a thing for spoons and who knows what she might hide about her person. Kidding! Kidding! My mom is a very moral and upstanding citizen. Ask anyone. You - with the earpiece - I'm talking to you. Don't touch my mom.
Point 4) I had hoped to make a batch of both jerk sauce and chocolate sauce but have come to realize that my personal sanity and overall well-being hinges closely on waiting until after Christmas. Things like jerk sauce are great winter-time canning projects since they rely much less heavily on warm-season ingredients. And then there's marmalade which can be made with all kind of winter citrus. So if you, like I, have not yet put away the canning kettle there's no real reason to go to the trouble now. Might as well leave it out and make up a batch of something or other when you have a less-than busy moment.
Point 5) My last post shared some of our Advent traditions. What I didn't talk about is one tradition that I've decided to cancel, at least for this year - the new pajamas for Christmas Eve thing. My kids don't need pajamas and buying some anyway would require a shopping trip I don't intend to make. We're a little light on hand-me-down, thrifted and clearance pajamas for warmer weather, though, so maybe I'll revisit this as an, I don't know, Easter tradition or something. Another key part of mothering sanity is, in my opinion, knowing when to let go of something that at first blush seemed unletgoable.
*My parents for years had one of those huge console-type stereos. For most of my childhood the stereo cabinet served as storage for candles, crayons and random household flotsam because the turntable rarely worked, except at Christmas. Yep, our own Christmas miracle. Turns out that my adult household experiences a similar technology-related holiday phenomenon in our VCR, which only works reliably at Christmas to show not only Emmet Otter but also a Finnish production entitled Santa and the Magic Drum which involves a Shaman who wants to be an elf. Those Finns, now they have themselves some Christmas spirit. Shamans! Indeed.
**Did you know there's, like, heated controversy over the DVD offerings of Emmet Otter? It never fails to amaze me the things over which otherwise rational people will argue.
Point 2) "I need to remember to take a crow bar to church tomorrow," mused Brainiac last night. Now that has got to be one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me. What on earth?
Point 3) My parents are, as I type this, preparing to attend one of the White House Christmas parties. Now, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the current administration (come to think of it, I can't recall being a fan of any administration but I'm hard to please like that), but I surely would love to take a gander at the gingerbread White House. I saw one being made on Food TV last year and - wow - is that cool. Anyway, this is special for my parents and I'm happy for them. Hope the Secret Service remembers to count the spoons when they leave 'cause my mom has a thing for spoons and who knows what she might hide about her person. Kidding! Kidding! My mom is a very moral and upstanding citizen. Ask anyone. You - with the earpiece - I'm talking to you. Don't touch my mom.
Point 4) I had hoped to make a batch of both jerk sauce and chocolate sauce but have come to realize that my personal sanity and overall well-being hinges closely on waiting until after Christmas. Things like jerk sauce are great winter-time canning projects since they rely much less heavily on warm-season ingredients. And then there's marmalade which can be made with all kind of winter citrus. So if you, like I, have not yet put away the canning kettle there's no real reason to go to the trouble now. Might as well leave it out and make up a batch of something or other when you have a less-than busy moment.
Point 5) My last post shared some of our Advent traditions. What I didn't talk about is one tradition that I've decided to cancel, at least for this year - the new pajamas for Christmas Eve thing. My kids don't need pajamas and buying some anyway would require a shopping trip I don't intend to make. We're a little light on hand-me-down, thrifted and clearance pajamas for warmer weather, though, so maybe I'll revisit this as an, I don't know, Easter tradition or something. Another key part of mothering sanity is, in my opinion, knowing when to let go of something that at first blush seemed unletgoable.
*My parents for years had one of those huge console-type stereos. For most of my childhood the stereo cabinet served as storage for candles, crayons and random household flotsam because the turntable rarely worked, except at Christmas. Yep, our own Christmas miracle. Turns out that my adult household experiences a similar technology-related holiday phenomenon in our VCR, which only works reliably at Christmas to show not only Emmet Otter but also a Finnish production entitled Santa and the Magic Drum which involves a Shaman who wants to be an elf. Those Finns, now they have themselves some Christmas spirit. Shamans! Indeed.
**Did you know there's, like, heated controversy over the DVD offerings of Emmet Otter? It never fails to amaze me the things over which otherwise rational people will argue.
 | We've had such a delightful couple of weeks around here that I'm fairly tempted to pinch myself. Sure, there's been the usual frustrations, kid shenanigans, sniffles and forgotten trash days, but in the main we've all been all frolicky and festive and I have to say it's rather nice. I'm not super dogmatic on the point of holiday traditions, but I am finding as the children get older that having a very few provide a nice framework on which they can base their own developing sense of observance. |
(By the way, don't hold the red eyes above against me. My kids don't really have the eyes of Satan spawn, merely a mom who can never remember from one shot to the next what to do about them.)
We have the little Advent tree I mentioned in a previous post, where every day one kid (they take turns with some minor scuffling which I now regard as part of tradition) chooses an ornament from a little cabinet and places it on the lighted tree. There are teeny ballet shoes and mittens and wreaths and toy soldiers and it's darling. The last ornament is always a star, and this year the Boy suggested that he and his sister hang it together so they could both have the pleasure of marking Christmas Eve, a proposal that made my heart grow three sizes.
And I do an Advent thing with my vast and varied selection of Christmas books, consisting of everything from A Child's Christmas in Wales to Merry Christmas, Rugrats!" (as yet unread, mercifully). Every night the child who did not choose an ornament for the tree chooses a pre-bedtime story. Among my favorites is The Baker's Dozen, which I (not so) discretely encourage for the night of December 6, St. Nicholas' Day. Even if I don't manage to get my way on this point, it'll come up during the month and I know we'll enjoy the book whenever it's turn arises. Some of our collection belonged to my father in his childhood and I feel honored that my own children enjoy these same stories. It an extraordinary privilege to experience that kind of continuity, one that I hope I am able to encourage them to appreciate.
And then there's the cookie baking. Every year I urge each and every Hot Water Bath visitor to make haste to Christmas Baking and this year will prove no exception. As a bonus you can read, in addition to wonderful recipes for all manner of confection (the recipe for gingerbread is hands-down the finest I have ever used), stories of my Baking Disasters that I have submitted over the years. This year I will attempt zimsterne, cinnamon stars, after being put off forever by Sue's description of the dough as "sticky". This year, I say, is finally the year of the zimsterne.
I adore Christmas cookies and love sharing them with friend, acquaintance and stranger alike. I like the fancy pants fussy kind and the homey ones made with marshmallows or chocolate kisses, the crisp and the chewy, the iced and the plain. I love them all and have yet to meet a cookie that I could not embrace as perfect.
So while many of us here in the northeast U.S. await tomorrow's freezing rain and sleet my heart remains warm.
Among the crudest responses one can make in civil discourse is to say, when confronted with dissent, "Oh, but I didn't mean it that way."
Crude, inelegant, and just not all that bright. And yet.
Oh, but I didn't mean it like that. I heard from two pals, one in an e-mail and one in a comment, shortly after making my last post, each expressing an appreciation for Advent in such a way that made me reread my post and think, "Egads! I've left out a few nouns or verbs or perhaps even an entire paragraph somewhere."
I don't know what went wrong only that something did, for I adore Advent in ways large and small and regret falling down so thoroughly on the job of defending the honor of a season I find so pleasing.
Onward.
Crude, inelegant, and just not all that bright. And yet.
Oh, but I didn't mean it like that. I heard from two pals, one in an e-mail and one in a comment, shortly after making my last post, each expressing an appreciation for Advent in such a way that made me reread my post and think, "Egads! I've left out a few nouns or verbs or perhaps even an entire paragraph somewhere."
I don't know what went wrong only that something did, for I adore Advent in ways large and small and regret falling down so thoroughly on the job of defending the honor of a season I find so pleasing.
Onward.
There hasn't been all that much going on lately. A typical case of blogger's block for someone who is even less interested in writing about my atypically quiet life than you are in reading about it. It's all been very workaday around here and, frankly, kind of nice in that regard.
I'm enjoying the calm mostly because I know it will not last. Brainiac is doing a spot of travel next week, the social calendar is filling up in a very agreeable way with lots of Advent, Christmas and New Years fun and there's nothing like a solid month of baking and crafting to put a smile on my face. And then there's the gingerbread party and the church craft fair, the preschool Barnes & Noble night and, my favorite, the Sunday afternoon carols and lessons at church. Lovely stuff, all, but nothing that could ever be described as restful.
A colleague jokingly accused me of undermining the team by responding, when asked, that "[my] shopping" is nearly complete. On the one hand, of course, being "finished her shopping" smacks of rushing the season and focusing on the materialistic. I take a different view that sees the month of December as properly being shopping-free, focusing instead on the actual liturgical and spiritual aspects of both Advent and Christmas. By planning ahead I am now free to focus entirely on the giving as opposed to the buying. Plus, Christmas falls at the same time every year, it's not like one cannot plan, right?
Truthfully, I'm not all that bothered (well, not much - see below) about the whole Christmas present thing. It's the memorial of a birthday and we give presents on birthdays. Makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the whole presents for Advent thing. Advent is about waiting and hope and gathering excitement over the wonders that are unfolding. And, if can stretch the birthday idea further, we don't give presents to a kid every day for a month while she waits for her birthday now, do we?
There's not much waiting and gathering excitement when there's a present every day leading up to Christmas. (Aside: I am not meaning to pick on this particular blogger, not at all. Her project has turned out beautifully. She's also just the first link that turned up when I googled "advent boxes" - I'm actually impressed that she made them, when commercial versions are popping up everywhere.) We use both an Advent wreath and a small tree that is dressed one ornament at a time throughout December leading up to Christmas. Neither these are particularly necessary either, of course, although they do certainly add to that feeling of anticipation. I've seen the Advent calendars that reveal a chocolates behind their numbered drawers and one year was badly tempted by Playmobil's Advent Calendar (which, I suppose could technically be used year after year if one doesn't have the kind of child who would abscond with all the pieces to integrate into the Lego space station set up he's built in his bedroom). Anyway. My point is that Christmas is the present and lots of piddly (or not so piddly - jewelry?) presents leading up to the day kind of dilute that meaning.
Ah, well. Since I'm on a tear with my cranky old self I should probably just get off my chest the conviction that anyone who believes that his partner needs to be thrilled by the holiday presentation of expensive sparklies and/or automobiles or she will not be happy - neither with him nor the relationship - needs to have drilled into his brain that said partner will likely not be happy in the presence of those things, either. I mean, they're nice and all, pretty to have around and I'm all for them, generally-speaking, but their happiness-inducing qualities are small and very temporary. I just feel so terribly bad for the male of the species this time of year - the full court press from jewelry and car sellers is just so relentless. Relentless.
I'm enjoying the calm mostly because I know it will not last. Brainiac is doing a spot of travel next week, the social calendar is filling up in a very agreeable way with lots of Advent, Christmas and New Years fun and there's nothing like a solid month of baking and crafting to put a smile on my face. And then there's the gingerbread party and the church craft fair, the preschool Barnes & Noble night and, my favorite, the Sunday afternoon carols and lessons at church. Lovely stuff, all, but nothing that could ever be described as restful.
A colleague jokingly accused me of undermining the team by responding, when asked, that "[my] shopping" is nearly complete. On the one hand, of course, being "finished her shopping" smacks of rushing the season and focusing on the materialistic. I take a different view that sees the month of December as properly being shopping-free, focusing instead on the actual liturgical and spiritual aspects of both Advent and Christmas. By planning ahead I am now free to focus entirely on the giving as opposed to the buying. Plus, Christmas falls at the same time every year, it's not like one cannot plan, right?
Truthfully, I'm not all that bothered (well, not much - see below) about the whole Christmas present thing. It's the memorial of a birthday and we give presents on birthdays. Makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the whole presents for Advent thing. Advent is about waiting and hope and gathering excitement over the wonders that are unfolding. And, if can stretch the birthday idea further, we don't give presents to a kid every day for a month while she waits for her birthday now, do we?
There's not much waiting and gathering excitement when there's a present every day leading up to Christmas. (Aside: I am not meaning to pick on this particular blogger, not at all. Her project has turned out beautifully. She's also just the first link that turned up when I googled "advent boxes" - I'm actually impressed that she made them, when commercial versions are popping up everywhere.) We use both an Advent wreath and a small tree that is dressed one ornament at a time throughout December leading up to Christmas. Neither these are particularly necessary either, of course, although they do certainly add to that feeling of anticipation. I've seen the Advent calendars that reveal a chocolates behind their numbered drawers and one year was badly tempted by Playmobil's Advent Calendar (which, I suppose could technically be used year after year if one doesn't have the kind of child who would abscond with all the pieces to integrate into the Lego space station set up he's built in his bedroom). Anyway. My point is that Christmas is the present and lots of piddly (or not so piddly - jewelry?) presents leading up to the day kind of dilute that meaning.
Ah, well. Since I'm on a tear with my cranky old self I should probably just get off my chest the conviction that anyone who believes that his partner needs to be thrilled by the holiday presentation of expensive sparklies and/or automobiles or she will not be happy - neither with him nor the relationship - needs to have drilled into his brain that said partner will likely not be happy in the presence of those things, either. I mean, they're nice and all, pretty to have around and I'm all for them, generally-speaking, but their happiness-inducing qualities are small and very temporary. I just feel so terribly bad for the male of the species this time of year - the full court press from jewelry and car sellers is just so relentless. Relentless.
I believe there is a word for the phenomenon where one learns a new word and subsequently hears that word all over the place. Not that people are suddenly using the word to reinforce one's advancing vocabulary, of course. As they say (to wildly mix a metaphor), when the student is ready the teacher appears - so now all those helpful word-saying people are like the teacher.
Interestingly, I've recently become very aware of all the things about which I've just learned but to which the entire world evidently beat me. This is always happening to me - I am the one at the cocktail party who says something like, "Oh! Did you hear that Al Gore has made some kind of film about the weather?" - not unlike your dear but befuddled great-aunt, the one who can't keep up with the Thanksgiving dinner conversation and in the middle of your nephew's explanation of his first grade art-music-gym rotation shouts, "Who went to prison" just having caught up on the bit about your cousin's wife from hours prior.
The latest parties at which my arrival has been delayed:
1) Beverley Nichols' entire body of garden and kitchen memoir. Nichols was an incredibly prolific writer whose witty takes on everything from roses to parliament are worth staying home to read. In my enthusiasm for Garden Open Today I sent an excited e-mail to a friend with a recommendation and an offer to send my own copy only to receive a "duh, Marsha" in return, along with snippets of messages which I'd apparently received well into the past that made not of the book's popularity among gardeners. Seems like everyone has made Mr. Nichols' acqaintance but me.
2) We've started a new thing we call "family movie night" and once or twice a month we all pile onto the futon with a bowl of popcorn (eating in the family room? Mom's done craaaaaazeeeee) and watch a, well, family movie. Making liberal use of Gnovies I've been able to "discover" new movies in the way that only a person who hasn't set foot in a cinema in six-plus years can. Virtually my entire family and most of my circle of friends were astonished to learn that I had not, until recently, ever heard of National Treasure which was a blockbuster of some note quite a while back. It was a really fun film. Total nonsense, of course, but nothing that I (a dedicated devotee of suspending disbelief wherever possible - and even sometimes when it's not) couldn't eagerly embrace.
3) I'd always wondered how the needlepoint bloggers 'round about the web made such cool designs on "blanks" (plain napkins, shirts, pillowcases, or whatever). I made a comment to a friend expressing my total admiration that someone could, say, cross-stitch a three-tone lilac onto a linen handkerchief. How could such a thing be possible, I wondered. How could I have been born so utterly deficient in spacial skills that this is completely beyond me? "Uh, Marsha," said A., eyes a-rolling, "You may want to google iron-on needlepoint transfers." So I did and now I know and am deeply relieved that I have not been denied some kind of handcraft skill bestowed upon the rest of the world. I am also now the proud owner of several iron-on cross-stitch alphabets.
4) Just this week I fell inlove strong like with a slow cooker. A few key changes around the Hot Water Bath homestead meant that dinner times have lately started to become somewhat lacking in leisure and taste. That my sisters have been singing the praises of slow cookers for years did nothing to sway me to adding one to my own kitchen until faced with either making nice with our changing schedules or starting a diet comprised exclusively of stir-fry. I'm a little disappointed with the "pour in a can of cream of whatnot soup" recipes that are out there but my own experiments have been successful enough that my (again, late) enthusiasm earned me yet more eye rolling and "duh, Marsha" from the other moms at preschool drop-off.
For my next trick, I think I'll call my mom and tell her about this great new television show I've discovered. They take a two teams of people and put them at some remote location, where they compete in all kind of immunity challenges and stuff. It's really neat!
Interestingly, I've recently become very aware of all the things about which I've just learned but to which the entire world evidently beat me. This is always happening to me - I am the one at the cocktail party who says something like, "Oh! Did you hear that Al Gore has made some kind of film about the weather?" - not unlike your dear but befuddled great-aunt, the one who can't keep up with the Thanksgiving dinner conversation and in the middle of your nephew's explanation of his first grade art-music-gym rotation shouts, "Who went to prison" just having caught up on the bit about your cousin's wife from hours prior.
The latest parties at which my arrival has been delayed:
1) Beverley Nichols' entire body of garden and kitchen memoir. Nichols was an incredibly prolific writer whose witty takes on everything from roses to parliament are worth staying home to read. In my enthusiasm for Garden Open Today I sent an excited e-mail to a friend with a recommendation and an offer to send my own copy only to receive a "duh, Marsha" in return, along with snippets of messages which I'd apparently received well into the past that made not of the book's popularity among gardeners. Seems like everyone has made Mr. Nichols' acqaintance but me.
2) We've started a new thing we call "family movie night" and once or twice a month we all pile onto the futon with a bowl of popcorn (eating in the family room? Mom's done craaaaaazeeeee) and watch a, well, family movie. Making liberal use of Gnovies I've been able to "discover" new movies in the way that only a person who hasn't set foot in a cinema in six-plus years can. Virtually my entire family and most of my circle of friends were astonished to learn that I had not, until recently, ever heard of National Treasure which was a blockbuster of some note quite a while back. It was a really fun film. Total nonsense, of course, but nothing that I (a dedicated devotee of suspending disbelief wherever possible - and even sometimes when it's not) couldn't eagerly embrace.
3) I'd always wondered how the needlepoint bloggers 'round about the web made such cool designs on "blanks" (plain napkins, shirts, pillowcases, or whatever). I made a comment to a friend expressing my total admiration that someone could, say, cross-stitch a three-tone lilac onto a linen handkerchief. How could such a thing be possible, I wondered. How could I have been born so utterly deficient in spacial skills that this is completely beyond me? "Uh, Marsha," said A., eyes a-rolling, "You may want to google iron-on needlepoint transfers." So I did and now I know and am deeply relieved that I have not been denied some kind of handcraft skill bestowed upon the rest of the world. I am also now the proud owner of several iron-on cross-stitch alphabets.
4) Just this week I fell in
For my next trick, I think I'll call my mom and tell her about this great new television show I've discovered. They take a two teams of people and put them at some remote location, where they compete in all kind of immunity challenges and stuff. It's really neat!
Applesauce is simultaneously an ideal project for a novice canner and also a very bad idea for a novice canner. One the one hand, there's only one ingredient (that would be apples) and no tricky timing issues like with jam or jelly. On the other hand you need, in addition to a canning kettle and jars and such, a large pot for cooking the cored* apples, a large bowl into which the softened apples with be ground, a food mill with which to actually grind them**, another bowl for dumping the spent skins out of the food mill and another smaller pot for simmering the lids and rings. Then there are little enhancements like a corer, measuring cup and cutting board, although an argument can be made that the corer isn't strictly necessary. Applesauce also makes a mess - bits of apple get everywhere - much more so than crushing tomatoes, in my experience, and you can easily give yourself a terrible burn with the hot apple flying around.
It's the part about one ingredient that gets new canners, though, and frequently a newbie cannot restrain herself from the idea of heading out to the nearest u-pick orchard and loading up on a bushel or two***. After all, is there anyone who doesn't love applesauce? Moms give it by the ton to kids, very few people are allergic to apples, it can be used by the calorie-conscious as a substitute for any number of things in baking and a bowl of warm with a bit of cinnamon is the very essence of autumn. Plus, since commercial sauce now includes more often than not the much-dreaded high fructose corn syrup or some crazy coloring agent the DIY approach is totally rational.
The process (other than the mess and resulting dishes) is simple: Core* your apples and put them in a large pot (I did half a bushel at a time, each resulting in 10 pints) with about an inch of water. Cover and heat on high, watching closely for scorching. Scorched apples are nobody's friend. Once the apples begin to soften, lower the heat and allow to get pretty gosh darn mushy. When the apples are pretty uniformly soft - and some will have begun to fall apart - remove from heat. Position your food mill over a large bowl and grind away, scooping apples from the pot into the grinder CAREFULLY using a measuring cup. When each scoop is ground down to skins, dump into another bowl and repeat until all the apples are processed. Here, if you wish, you can add a bit of cinnamon or even some of those red hot candies but it's not at all necessary - fresh applesauce is yummy completely on its own. Ladle the sauce into prepared, sterilized jars leaving 3/4 inch of headspace, seal and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes (for pints) or 20 minutes (for quarts). After processing, cool on a rack or folded tea towel - any jars that didn't seal can go in the fridge for more immediate use.
That's it. It took a while and made a mess, but you've just made applesauce and are a hero in many quarters.
* I have an apple corer that removes a half-inch diameter chunk from the apple center. Some people use a fancy contraption that cores and slices the apples all at once. A colleague explained to me that she doesn't bother coring, she just slices the apples in half and cooks them, relying on the food mill to take care of seeds and such. I asked if she's ever had a problem with seeds in the apple sauce and she doesn't. As I really don't enjoy coring apples at all I may consider this approach next year.
** You don't need a food mill if you just want to make the occasional batch of sauce to, say, go with dinner or as a treat for the kids. To make a single-batch, core and peel an apple per person and slice it into a saucepan with just a bit of water. Cook them down in the same fashion as the larger batch and when uniformly soft, pour them into a bowl and smash with a fork. Add cinnamon if you like and there you have a very respectable and easy side dish to go along with pork (traditionally) or just about anything else you can imagine.
*** I use "seconds" - apples that are perfectly good but not quite as ready for their close-up - at half the price of "firsts". A bushel of seconds cost me $22.00 and resulted in 20 pints of applesauce and 6 half-pints of spiced apples, not a huge savings off of retail but a very large savings on what economists call "the intangibles". Your friendly orchardist will have signs letting you know what varieties are good for which uses. For saucing I use a combination that gives me lots of different flavors blended together. My mom likes jonamacs (I think this is what they're called) for the pinky hue they lend to the resulting product. My sauce is the more standard beige but tasty nonetheless.
It's the part about one ingredient that gets new canners, though, and frequently a newbie cannot restrain herself from the idea of heading out to the nearest u-pick orchard and loading up on a bushel or two***. After all, is there anyone who doesn't love applesauce? Moms give it by the ton to kids, very few people are allergic to apples, it can be used by the calorie-conscious as a substitute for any number of things in baking and a bowl of warm with a bit of cinnamon is the very essence of autumn. Plus, since commercial sauce now includes more often than not the much-dreaded high fructose corn syrup or some crazy coloring agent the DIY approach is totally rational.
The process (other than the mess and resulting dishes) is simple: Core* your apples and put them in a large pot (I did half a bushel at a time, each resulting in 10 pints) with about an inch of water. Cover and heat on high, watching closely for scorching. Scorched apples are nobody's friend. Once the apples begin to soften, lower the heat and allow to get pretty gosh darn mushy. When the apples are pretty uniformly soft - and some will have begun to fall apart - remove from heat. Position your food mill over a large bowl and grind away, scooping apples from the pot into the grinder CAREFULLY using a measuring cup. When each scoop is ground down to skins, dump into another bowl and repeat until all the apples are processed. Here, if you wish, you can add a bit of cinnamon or even some of those red hot candies but it's not at all necessary - fresh applesauce is yummy completely on its own. Ladle the sauce into prepared, sterilized jars leaving 3/4 inch of headspace, seal and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes (for pints) or 20 minutes (for quarts). After processing, cool on a rack or folded tea towel - any jars that didn't seal can go in the fridge for more immediate use.
That's it. It took a while and made a mess, but you've just made applesauce and are a hero in many quarters.
* I have an apple corer that removes a half-inch diameter chunk from the apple center. Some people use a fancy contraption that cores and slices the apples all at once. A colleague explained to me that she doesn't bother coring, she just slices the apples in half and cooks them, relying on the food mill to take care of seeds and such. I asked if she's ever had a problem with seeds in the apple sauce and she doesn't. As I really don't enjoy coring apples at all I may consider this approach next year.
** You don't need a food mill if you just want to make the occasional batch of sauce to, say, go with dinner or as a treat for the kids. To make a single-batch, core and peel an apple per person and slice it into a saucepan with just a bit of water. Cook them down in the same fashion as the larger batch and when uniformly soft, pour them into a bowl and smash with a fork. Add cinnamon if you like and there you have a very respectable and easy side dish to go along with pork (traditionally) or just about anything else you can imagine.
*** I use "seconds" - apples that are perfectly good but not quite as ready for their close-up - at half the price of "firsts". A bushel of seconds cost me $22.00 and resulted in 20 pints of applesauce and 6 half-pints of spiced apples, not a huge savings off of retail but a very large savings on what economists call "the intangibles". Your friendly orchardist will have signs letting you know what varieties are good for which uses. For saucing I use a combination that gives me lots of different flavors blended together. My mom likes jonamacs (I think this is what they're called) for the pinky hue they lend to the resulting product. My sauce is the more standard beige but tasty nonetheless.
"Uh, Hon," began Brainiac as I peeled veggies for last night's dinner, "There will be a frost tonight. Would you like me to pick the remaining peppers? T'would be a shame to lose them."
I mumbled a distracted sure and expressed my belief that I didn't really think that there were all that many peppers left in the garden, that certainly somewhere in the haze of applesauce and pumpkins and whatever else it is that I've been doing I managed to get them all. Whatever, I thought as I poured milk over a casserole of flour and sliced potatoes, if there's a few more we can dry them for pepper flakes for pizzas and pastas. Or maybe I can cover them in chocolate like I saw in that commercial for...what is that commercial for, anyway? No matter. Peppers, fine, whatever.
I was wrong.
This is what Brainiac brought into me. I guess you could say that that it was a pretty good year for just about every kind of pepper that we ever thought of growing. Can we agree to describe this as an embarrassment of peppers? We will dry some, I think - a few the old-fashioned way of stringing them through their stems and hanging in a window and more in the dehydrator OUTSIDE in the mudroom (you know that oft-repeated warning about not wiping one's eyes or lips or nose just after handling hot peppers? Well, drying something in a machine means quickly removing the water and transferring that moisture into the air. YOU DO NOT WANT SPICY WATER RELEASED INTO YOUR HOUSEHOLD AIR for breathing and walking around in. Seriously. Ouch.)
I may also make a bit of hot pepper jam. As a rule, I don't care for spicy-sweet combinations but pepper jam has a nostalgic hook for me in that my paternal grandmother used to make a batch here and there and always remembered to send a jar "back east" in her Christmas box. With a bit of cream cheese on a cracker and a sprig of cilantro, pepper jam makes a nice canape and can serve as a bit of a pick-me-up for an otherwise plain grilled steak. Although it's not something I'd want in the same quantities as, say, strawberry jam, a couple of jars would be nice to keep around. Especially since, clearly, I've got the peppers to spare.
I mumbled a distracted sure and expressed my belief that I didn't really think that there were all that many peppers left in the garden, that certainly somewhere in the haze of applesauce and pumpkins and whatever else it is that I've been doing I managed to get them all. Whatever, I thought as I poured milk over a casserole of flour and sliced potatoes, if there's a few more we can dry them for pepper flakes for pizzas and pastas. Or maybe I can cover them in chocolate like I saw in that commercial for...what is that commercial for, anyway? No matter. Peppers, fine, whatever.
I was wrong.
This is what Brainiac brought into me. I guess you could say that that it was a pretty good year for just about every kind of pepper that we ever thought of growing. Can we agree to describe this as an embarrassment of peppers? We will dry some, I think - a few the old-fashioned way of stringing them through their stems and hanging in a window and more in the dehydrator OUTSIDE in the mudroom (you know that oft-repeated warning about not wiping one's eyes or lips or nose just after handling hot peppers? Well, drying something in a machine means quickly removing the water and transferring that moisture into the air. YOU DO NOT WANT SPICY WATER RELEASED INTO YOUR HOUSEHOLD AIR for breathing and walking around in. Seriously. Ouch.)
I may also make a bit of hot pepper jam. As a rule, I don't care for spicy-sweet combinations but pepper jam has a nostalgic hook for me in that my paternal grandmother used to make a batch here and there and always remembered to send a jar "back east" in her Christmas box. With a bit of cream cheese on a cracker and a sprig of cilantro, pepper jam makes a nice canape and can serve as a bit of a pick-me-up for an otherwise plain grilled steak. Although it's not something I'd want in the same quantities as, say, strawberry jam, a couple of jars would be nice to keep around. Especially since, clearly, I've got the peppers to spare.
Regretably, Outlander was checked out (all six copies) when Brainiac went to the library for me. In its stead he brought me something called Blackthorne Cottage wherein the heroine inherits from a kindly employer a tumbledown cottage in a small (quaint, natch) English village where she sets about to correct some sort of problem vexing the Vicar's property committee while (whilst?) also falling in love with the estate agent who wishes to purchases the house from her for less than its value and whose motives, alas, may not be entirely pure. Or something like that.
Luckily, the cool grey rainy-ness we're expecting over the next several days makes for the perfect environment in which to settle in with exactly this sort of book. With it, Shirley Valentine in from Netflix, and the task of producing a large number of Halloween-themed cupcakes for various kid events set before me I figure I'm in for a very cozy, restorative weekend. My original plan for tomorrow included running around to various purveyors of I don't remember what and a schlep up to Ikea, but no. Plan B, now in effect, dictates going nowhere, buying nothing, resting lots. Better, I think.
Mad props go out today to Jenn who suggested the best use yet for the embarassing excess of green tomatoes hanging out on my kitchen table: chopping and freezing them for use in curries. Ding Ding Ding - I think we have a winner. I've been putting off making the mincemeat because I couldn't really see anyone enjoying it outside of my own satisfaction in making something different (to us) and conquering a new recipe and it seemed like such a waste of food, energy and time to create what might well have been successful only in the abstract. So I am taking Jenn's suggestion and chopping/freezing is exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it tonight - to most of the tomatoes, anyway. Coincidentally, I planned on a curry for tonight's dinner but it never once occured to me to include the tomatoes but you can bet at least a couple will make it into the pot. Fab. Thanks, Jenn.
Luckily, the cool grey rainy-ness we're expecting over the next several days makes for the perfect environment in which to settle in with exactly this sort of book. With it, Shirley Valentine in from Netflix, and the task of producing a large number of Halloween-themed cupcakes for various kid events set before me I figure I'm in for a very cozy, restorative weekend. My original plan for tomorrow included running around to various purveyors of I don't remember what and a schlep up to Ikea, but no. Plan B, now in effect, dictates going nowhere, buying nothing, resting lots. Better, I think.
Mad props go out today to Jenn who suggested the best use yet for the embarassing excess of green tomatoes hanging out on my kitchen table: chopping and freezing them for use in curries. Ding Ding Ding - I think we have a winner. I've been putting off making the mincemeat because I couldn't really see anyone enjoying it outside of my own satisfaction in making something different (to us) and conquering a new recipe and it seemed like such a waste of food, energy and time to create what might well have been successful only in the abstract. So I am taking Jenn's suggestion and chopping/freezing is exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it tonight - to most of the tomatoes, anyway. Coincidentally, I planned on a curry for tonight's dinner but it never once occured to me to include the tomatoes but you can bet at least a couple will make it into the pot. Fab. Thanks, Jenn.
Well, I think you can put my accomplishments down as "incremental". I did manage to make the pickled green tomatoes and even took a picture to prove it to you. Do you know, though, that pickled green tomatoes don't really look all that nice? I used a cold pack (raw food put into sterilized jars) and at the start they were a brilliant emerald green. After processing they're more a greenish whitish tone and...not lovely. I'm sure I'll appreciate them in winter's martinis where I don't really have to look at their rather ickish color.
With the rest of the green tomatoes, the non-cherry sized ones, I don't know. I had tossed around that tomato mincemeat idea but...I really don't want to end up with a bunch of jars of something that no one's going to eat. I only know one person (my dad) who enjoys mincemeat and he probably means the real thing when he says that. Does anyone actually make mincemeat anymore, or is it all this veggie and fruit business? The recipe is nothing more than a chutney, although a non-spicy one, and it just might be nice in little button-sized tarts at the gingerbread house party. See? I talk myself out of something and then talk myself right back into it again. No wonder I don't get much done. Too busy prevaricating.
And worrying. I haven't yet finished the gift for my oldest sister because I've been so totally exhausted from a few nights in a row of worried awakeness. I come from a long line of overnight worriers. My people, they could have been clog dancers or ice wine makers or a political dynasty but no, their contribution to the world is worry. All night long for nights and months at a time. It is, literally and figuratively, tiresome.
I won't tell you what I worry about - some of it totally legit scary stuff,some most of it ridiculous - as I don't want to set you worrying and don't wish to further imprint the list on myself, but here are some things I thought about in between bouts of breathless panic:
1) Where I might have laid the lavender thread I bought to finish a pillow case for the Girl. The poor girl gets the most incredible knots in her hair from sleeping on cotton. Mom to the rescue (maybe) with lavender satin pillowcases with a bit of Daisy Kingdom fabric peeking out from inside. I could use white thread, sure, but where is the lavender?
2) Would everyone like a bit of chocolate bread pudding this weekend? I haven't made any in a while and it's supposed to be kind of rainy and yucky, if unseasonably warm. Maybe I'd be better off waiting for a colder day.
3) Whether or not I should start reading the Outlander series. I've been very keen lately to find books that won't feed this cycle of worry - I want nothing that Julia so aptly described as "depressing, depressing-but-redemptive, intensely thoughtful, or nonfiction unless it is funny". Where Outlander falls in these requirements I don't know, but people keep telling me I need to read it.
4) Whether Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity is going to be made available here in the States.
5) Why is it, do you think, that last year we had few apples on the apple trees but rather too an abundant a showing from the gingko but this year the reverse was true with lots of apples and mercifully few gingko berries. Those of you know understand what a highly fruiting gingko tree is all about also understand why we're so happy about the switcheroo and probably also get why we're trying to figure out what happened so we can encourage it to happen again next year and the year after and so on.
6) Reading older books and memoirs of days gone by can be very helpful with the worrying stuff. It's very nice to know that despite a drought in France in '49 that convinced the country that the end times where near, coupled with crushing shortages and rationing of just about everything, did not stop Julia Child or anyone else there at the time from enjoying what there was to enjoy, no guilt involved. I also appreciated reading of Delia Lutes' belief that the Christmas celebrations she knew as a child in the 1880s were nothing at all like the "soul killing" consumption-oriented orgies of the "children of today" (Lutes wrote in the 1930s). And in The American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Marie Child bemoans the focus that mothers place on their children's clothing and activities - to the detriment of their useful educations, and that so many of her fellow citizens spend more than they earn trying to match the lifestyle of the wealthy and famous.
In short, it is nice to know that the more things change...and with that in mind, perhaps tonight I will finish my sister's gift.
With the rest of the green tomatoes, the non-cherry sized ones, I don't know. I had tossed around that tomato mincemeat idea but...I really don't want to end up with a bunch of jars of something that no one's going to eat. I only know one person (my dad) who enjoys mincemeat and he probably means the real thing when he says that. Does anyone actually make mincemeat anymore, or is it all this veggie and fruit business? The recipe is nothing more than a chutney, although a non-spicy one, and it just might be nice in little button-sized tarts at the gingerbread house party. See? I talk myself out of something and then talk myself right back into it again. No wonder I don't get much done. Too busy prevaricating.
And worrying. I haven't yet finished the gift for my oldest sister because I've been so totally exhausted from a few nights in a row of worried awakeness. I come from a long line of overnight worriers. My people, they could have been clog dancers or ice wine makers or a political dynasty but no, their contribution to the world is worry. All night long for nights and months at a time. It is, literally and figuratively, tiresome.
I won't tell you what I worry about - some of it totally legit scary stuff,
1) Where I might have laid the lavender thread I bought to finish a pillow case for the Girl. The poor girl gets the most incredible knots in her hair from sleeping on cotton. Mom to the rescue (maybe) with lavender satin pillowcases with a bit of Daisy Kingdom fabric peeking out from inside. I could use white thread, sure, but where is the lavender?
2) Would everyone like a bit of chocolate bread pudding this weekend? I haven't made any in a while and it's supposed to be kind of rainy and yucky, if unseasonably warm. Maybe I'd be better off waiting for a colder day.
3) Whether or not I should start reading the Outlander series. I've been very keen lately to find books that won't feed this cycle of worry - I want nothing that Julia so aptly described as "depressing, depressing-but-redemptive, intensely thoughtful, or nonfiction unless it is funny". Where Outlander falls in these requirements I don't know, but people keep telling me I need to read it.
4) Whether Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity is going to be made available here in the States.
5) Why is it, do you think, that last year we had few apples on the apple trees but rather too an abundant a showing from the gingko but this year the reverse was true with lots of apples and mercifully few gingko berries. Those of you know understand what a highly fruiting gingko tree is all about also understand why we're so happy about the switcheroo and probably also get why we're trying to figure out what happened so we can encourage it to happen again next year and the year after and so on.
6) Reading older books and memoirs of days gone by can be very helpful with the worrying stuff. It's very nice to know that despite a drought in France in '49 that convinced the country that the end times where near, coupled with crushing shortages and rationing of just about everything, did not stop Julia Child or anyone else there at the time from enjoying what there was to enjoy, no guilt involved. I also appreciated reading of Delia Lutes' belief that the Christmas celebrations she knew as a child in the 1880s were nothing at all like the "soul killing" consumption-oriented orgies of the "children of today" (Lutes wrote in the 1930s). And in The American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Marie Child bemoans the focus that mothers place on their children's clothing and activities - to the detriment of their useful educations, and that so many of her fellow citizens spend more than they earn trying to match the lifestyle of the wealthy and famous.
In short, it is nice to know that the more things change...and with that in mind, perhaps tonight I will finish my sister's gift.
I started to put a little list of ongoing and outstanding projects on the sidebar. Perhaps it'll motivate me, I thought, to have a bit of public accountability for my window treatment making, cross stitching, chocolate saucing, candle pouring, wizard cape making self. As the list became longer and longer and longer (this is for projects for which I already have the materials, not the "stuff I wish I could learn to do" list) I didn't feel motivated or accountable so much as depressed. Even so, I don't feel like I have too much to do, just that I haven't organized things (by this I mean "my life") properly (I have to get things out and then put them away and then get them out and...resulting in a whole bunch of stuff that's partially completed. It occured to me last night that I can avoid the problem of having to clean up and then reaccess unfinished projects by actually finishing them. Stress will be further avoided by finishing things in the order in which they need to be delivered - things sent to Buffalo need to be done and wrapped by Thanksgiving, items for local recipients can be worked on through December, food processing trumps all of this. (You are probably as shocked as I that, for these brainstorms if nothing else, the Nobel Committe didn't award me a little something. Where are the awards for achievement in domestic arts and organization?)
Tonight's goal is to complete the gift I'm planning on sending my oldest sister for Christmas. Given its current state, I shouldn't need more than an hour. After that...pickling the last of the green cherry tomatoes. That, too, will be quick, maybe 45 minutes total and not all of that hands-on. If I can stay awake long enough tonight, both of these projects should be well within hand.
Here are some other brainstorms I've recently enjoyed:
1) No matter how beautiful, sweet and delicious, homemade raspberry-infused vodka is, it is still vodka and should be treated as such.
2) I am no longer young and fit enough to ignore #1, above, at anything other than extreme bodily peril.
3) Numbers 1 and 2, above, very likely also apply to the ginger, pepper and mint infusions still bubbling away in the kitchen.
4) If one doesn't, at the close of Christmas celebrations, pack the advent wreath candle holder in the box marked "Advent Wreath" one will not be able to find it for a preschool fundraising committee meeting the following October just by opening said box. Instead, profanity-filled excursions into the third floor storage area will be required and the candle holder will remain unlocated.
5) When a colleague remarks that one lives one's life as if in "an English village in the '50s" it is probably not meant as a compliment. However, it may be the less career-limiting move to treat it as such.
So ends the collected wisdom of Hot Water Bath for today.
Tonight's goal is to complete the gift I'm planning on sending my oldest sister for Christmas. Given its current state, I shouldn't need more than an hour. After that...pickling the last of the green cherry tomatoes. That, too, will be quick, maybe 45 minutes total and not all of that hands-on. If I can stay awake long enough tonight, both of these projects should be well within hand.
Here are some other brainstorms I've recently enjoyed:
1) No matter how beautiful, sweet and delicious, homemade raspberry-infused vodka is, it is still vodka and should be treated as such.
2) I am no longer young and fit enough to ignore #1, above, at anything other than extreme bodily peril.
3) Numbers 1 and 2, above, very likely also apply to the ginger, pepper and mint infusions still bubbling away in the kitchen.
4) If one doesn't, at the close of Christmas celebrations, pack the advent wreath candle holder in the box marked "Advent Wreath" one will not be able to find it for a preschool fundraising committee meeting the following October just by opening said box. Instead, profanity-filled excursions into the third floor storage area will be required and the candle holder will remain unlocated.
5) When a colleague remarks that one lives one's life as if in "an English village in the '50s" it is probably not meant as a compliment. However, it may be the less career-limiting move to treat it as such.
So ends the collected wisdom of Hot Water Bath for today.
 | The advent of fall weather found me matching capless acorns with acornless caps and hot gluing the pairs together. What nature won't provide, I am happy to create in a way that seems to me to be closely related to what my decision sciences professor explained as the brute force method. |
These are meant, along with the intended purchase of a couple dozen Jack B Little pumpkins, will comprise some sort of activity for the scout meeting we're hosting next week. It'll be too dark for a nature walk so I had the idea to bring a bit of nature inside and let the boys create little autumn dioramas. Really, what could be more natural than hot-glued acorns? With the nuts and pumpkins and perhaps some leaves, grasses and seed pods from elsewhere around the yard I think we'll be in good shape for a perfectly respectable scout activity.
| The entire family spent a good amount of time cleaning out the garden today, too. The kids were delighted to pick the remaining green cherry tomatoes and dried bean pods and take down the bamboo poles while their father mulched the plants with the mower and I did my best impression of a porcupine after falling butt-first into a totally new (to me) kind of burr-plant thing. Fun for all. |  |
The bean pods held more than enough seed for next year (to the Girl's amusement, "Mommy! It's food in here!") and there are enough green tomatoes (cherry and otherwise) that I am looking about for canning recipes to use them and which don't involve anything that could conceivably be though of as sweet-n-sour. Maybe a nice mincemeat? Not a clue what I'd do with it after making it, but it sure does sound intriguing, eh
We've been Netflix customers for some time now, having joined in the first place because we aren't exactly at what you'd call an optimum level of returning rented movies on time. Since we never actually go to the cinema (I haven't been since the first Harry Potter and Brainiac probably since the second-to-last Star Trek) and our public library charges for movies (and is a trigger for the aforementioned not-returning problem), the comparatively nominal Netflix fees are a downright steal and, with nearly 200 items in my queue (the result of years of non-movie goingness) I have settled in for a nice, long relationship with the company.
My feelings on the subject became even more rosy with the discovery that Netflix carries a whole genre that I hadn't even noticed before - something called "Special Interest" - which carries a whole series of Martha Stewart holiday- and entertaining-related DVDs, as well as gardening and spoken word and theater arts and....well, as someone who prefers reading non-fiction, it's like finding a whole new arm of the Dewey Decimal System.
Last night I watched Martha's Halloween DVD, which I found charming (especially the bit about using a keyhole saw to carve pumpkins - doh! never thought of it). I don't generally "do" Halloween, but I like thinking about what I might try if I did. Next up (after we return the Girl's choice of Mary Poppins) is Martha's Thanksgiving disk. And then there's Alton Brown's first Feasting on Asphalt and Julia Child's original French Chef series and Flower Power and...it's just all so great. If possible, I am now even more in love with Netflix.
As a DIY junkie, I might just have found the perfect enabler.
My feelings on the subject became even more rosy with the discovery that Netflix carries a whole genre that I hadn't even noticed before - something called "Special Interest" - which carries a whole series of Martha Stewart holiday- and entertaining-related DVDs, as well as gardening and spoken word and theater arts and....well, as someone who prefers reading non-fiction, it's like finding a whole new arm of the Dewey Decimal System.
Last night I watched Martha's Halloween DVD, which I found charming (especially the bit about using a keyhole saw to carve pumpkins - doh! never thought of it). I don't generally "do" Halloween, but I like thinking about what I might try if I did. Next up (after we return the Girl's choice of Mary Poppins) is Martha's Thanksgiving disk. And then there's Alton Brown's first Feasting on Asphalt and Julia Child's original French Chef series and Flower Power and...it's just all so great. If possible, I am now even more in love with Netflix.
As a DIY junkie, I might just have found the perfect enabler.
The recent recall of green beans and other commercially-produced canned goods got me to thinking about the upcoming winter gift-giving holidays and the toy-related recalls. With regards to the parental side of my identity, these recalls hitting me where I 1) feed and 2) delight my kids is really getting just a bit too close to my inner Mama Bear and are hits I don't take blithely. Growing and processing at least some of my family's food and procuring what I can from people whom I recognize and can call by name gives me a feeling - however much of an illusion - of control. Likewise does an alternative approach to gift giving. I may pay a bit more for gifts than I would if I shopped at Stuff*Mart (with thanks and apologies to Madame Blueberry and the rest of the Veggie Tales crew), but what are mere pennies when stretched over the life of a gift that will last for years, possibly becoming an heirloom, or - let's be frank - meets my rather minimum standard of flat-out NOT poisoning the recipient?
So what's a girl who loves giving gifts, who loves determining just the right gift, to do? Here are my Official 2007 Hot Water Bath gift-giving strategies:
1) Thinking about giving less. Not less in terms of thought or even in terms of the number of recipients (I am the daughter of a woman who gave gifts to her favorite restaurant servers and as such I am incapable of not giving presents) but rather in terms of the actual tangible items. The families on your list might enjoy a museum or zoo membership or a cool picnic basket of the kind that can actually be used (with a promise to fill it with a great picnic once spring comes anew). For years when I couldn't purchase gifts for all my girlfriends I instead had a holiday brunch at my apartment. Champagne and smoked salmon at a restaurant is expensive and kind of a hassle. At home they're indulgent and nurturing. If my nieces lived closer, I think I'd give them a tea party. Alas, they're at a distance but I can still give them tea...and special tea cups just for them. Not elaborate, not cluttering, not too much, just special and just right. My father let it be known some time ago that he does not need anything that he has to dust and/or in some other way care for so he usually receives consumables like steaks or wine, or a book (he's a voracious reader) or greens fees. Note to self: talk to Dad about putting together a wish list on Amazon.
2) DIYing wherever possible. This year's homemade gifts on my project list include home canned items (pickled hot peppers, chocolate sauce, jerk sauce) gifted in embellished jars and including recipes and serving ideas, aprons, a wizard cape for my Harry Potter-mad nephew, wreaths, a puppet theater and more. Those who would laugh at or sneer at a made-with-love present do not deserve a place on the gift-list, I think. Even homemade items that miss the mark ought to be received with love and gratitude - effort and love always trump cash. If you fear that a child (or, sadly, an adult) on your list may not be charmed by a homemade whatever in the face of plastic battery-operated madness, persist. As the saying goes, we must be the change we want in the world and even if you're not a knitter (I'm not) or a quilter (I'm not) or a...I don't know...candle-dipper, you surely must have some kind of talent that can be put to good use. I cannot be the only 38-year old in the world who still loves mixtapes CDs, right? And I especially love them with collaged covers.
3) Avoiding mass-market retailers in favor of local shops, artisan-focused web clearinghouses like Etsy and your neighbors who exhibit at the school winter fair. My sisters and I have been known to pick up the occasional thrifted or yard sale item for each other with great success - both are excellent for pretty retro tableware (wine glasses to go with a bottle of local wine, say), jewelry (a nifty broach), books (great frameables can be found in old art books) or even toys (I've bought hundreds of legos at my local cancer-center thrift). The proprietress of my local toy store - they still exist! - knows what is made where and what companies really feel their products and resist such rapid growth as to require lowering quality and sourcing standards. She's the one who turned me onto Maine-made Taurus Toys and their marble run components that work with Duplo.
4) Not gifting for the sake of obligation. We've all been on the receiving end of gifts that were given for no other reason than the giver felt obliged - and it showed. Someday I'll tell you about the present I received that was accompanied by the statement, "I don't know what this is. Some kind of weird jam maybe. Whatever, Merry Christmas." Gifts given begrudgingly are not gifts at all and I'd rather receive heartfelt good wishes over a "here's the present I must give you" any day. A handwritten note of appreciation is yards better than the pre-wrapped random whatsits poorly made goodness knows where, for sale by the scores, not intended to last (or at least not last the year and you can buy another one) and only intended to put a thing in an emotional space that advertisers would have you believe to be empty but really isn't. Buy some substantial writing paper - Crane is nice, but there are lots of others - something heavy that says read this, it's important, get a pen that works (not always a simple proposition, I know) and dust off your best pre-email handwriting. You do to have time. It only takes two or three minutes to write down how much you value someone and the relationship you share. Put on the address and stamp before you stand up from your desk or dining table or wherever and put the finished card with your keys so you will remember it when you next go out.
5) Being practical where called for. Sometimes, delight and whimsy aren't on the menu. That should be o.k. and not something from which to shy. My newly-engaged grandmother and her fiancé have between them decades of acquisitions that they are about to combine into a single household and, while they are quite independent and mobile, getting out and about isn't always the easiest thing. Stamps, a selection of greeting cards, pre-paid phone cards and the like are the things I'm thinking of for them.
There you have it. Reading this, I think that my sister thinks she knows what I'm sending to her house for Christmas and she so totally does not.
So what's a girl who loves giving gifts, who loves determining just the right gift, to do? Here are my Official 2007 Hot Water Bath gift-giving strategies:
1) Thinking about giving less. Not less in terms of thought or even in terms of the number of recipients (I am the daughter of a woman who gave gifts to her favorite restaurant servers and as such I am incapable of not giving presents) but rather in terms of the actual tangible items. The families on your list might enjoy a museum or zoo membership or a cool picnic basket of the kind that can actually be used (with a promise to fill it with a great picnic once spring comes anew). For years when I couldn't purchase gifts for all my girlfriends I instead had a holiday brunch at my apartment. Champagne and smoked salmon at a restaurant is expensive and kind of a hassle. At home they're indulgent and nurturing. If my nieces lived closer, I think I'd give them a tea party. Alas, they're at a distance but I can still give them tea...and special tea cups just for them. Not elaborate, not cluttering, not too much, just special and just right. My father let it be known some time ago that he does not need anything that he has to dust and/or in some other way care for so he usually receives consumables like steaks or wine, or a book (he's a voracious reader) or greens fees. Note to self: talk to Dad about putting together a wish list on Amazon.
2) DIYing wherever possible. This year's homemade gifts on my project list include home canned items (pickled hot peppers, chocolate sauce, jerk sauce) gifted in embellished jars and including recipes and serving ideas, aprons, a wizard cape for my Harry Potter-mad nephew, wreaths, a puppet theater and more. Those who would laugh at or sneer at a made-with-love present do not deserve a place on the gift-list, I think. Even homemade items that miss the mark ought to be received with love and gratitude - effort and love always trump cash. If you fear that a child (or, sadly, an adult) on your list may not be charmed by a homemade whatever in the face of plastic battery-operated madness, persist. As the saying goes, we must be the change we want in the world and even if you're not a knitter (I'm not) or a quilter (I'm not) or a...I don't know...candle-dipper, you surely must have some kind of talent that can be put to good use. I cannot be the only 38-year old in the world who still loves mix
3) Avoiding mass-market retailers in favor of local shops, artisan-focused web clearinghouses like Etsy and your neighbors who exhibit at the school winter fair. My sisters and I have been known to pick up the occasional thrifted or yard sale item for each other with great success - both are excellent for pretty retro tableware (wine glasses to go with a bottle of local wine, say), jewelry (a nifty broach), books (great frameables can be found in old art books) or even toys (I've bought hundreds of legos at my local cancer-center thrift). The proprietress of my local toy store - they still exist! - knows what is made where and what companies really feel their products and resist such rapid growth as to require lowering quality and sourcing standards. She's the one who turned me onto Maine-made Taurus Toys and their marble run components that work with Duplo.
4) Not gifting for the sake of obligation. We've all been on the receiving end of gifts that were given for no other reason than the giver felt obliged - and it showed. Someday I'll tell you about the present I received that was accompanied by the statement, "I don't know what this is. Some kind of weird jam maybe. Whatever, Merry Christmas." Gifts given begrudgingly are not gifts at all and I'd rather receive heartfelt good wishes over a "here's the present I must give you" any day. A handwritten note of appreciation is yards better than the pre-wrapped random whatsits poorly made goodness knows where, for sale by the scores, not intended to last (or at least not last the year and you can buy another one) and only intended to put a thing in an emotional space that advertisers would have you believe to be empty but really isn't. Buy some substantial writing paper - Crane is nice, but there are lots of others - something heavy that says read this, it's important, get a pen that works (not always a simple proposition, I know) and dust off your best pre-email handwriting. You do to have time. It only takes two or three minutes to write down how much you value someone and the relationship you share. Put on the address and stamp before you stand up from your desk or dining table or wherever and put the finished card with your keys so you will remember it when you next go out.
5) Being practical where called for. Sometimes, delight and whimsy aren't on the menu. That should be o.k. and not something from which to shy. My newly-engaged grandmother and her fiancé have between them decades of acquisitions that they are about to combine into a single household and, while they are quite independent and mobile, getting out and about isn't always the easiest thing. Stamps, a selection of greeting cards, pre-paid phone cards and the like are the things I'm thinking of for them.
There you have it. Reading this, I think that my sister thinks she knows what I'm sending to her house for Christmas and she so totally does not.
I finished a project last night.
Wait. I like the sound of that. Let me repeat myself: I finished a project last night.
That reads beautifully, doesn't it? The project I finished is a tutu long promised to the Girl and worked on only in fits and starts. Yesterday after her grandparents left from a weekend visit and her brother was whisked off to (another) birthday party she asked with such sweetness if I thought perhaps, maybe, just possibly we could work on it, the tutu which had been pinned months ago and languishing in a sideboard cupboard ever since.
In the end, the finishing wasn't that difficult. Produced only of three layers of white tulle covered in two layers of a silky pinky something (bought unmarked from a remnants bin for twenty-five cents), stitched together at the waist and run through with a bit of elastic, I'd say that the total effort - stretched over months, granted - was probably no more than 45 minutes with five minutes of that needed to secure a butterfly to the waist.
The final product could be a bit fluffier and I may well cut the underlying tulle to graduate it into greater overall volume. It's not a professional job, to be sure, but not at all bad for no pattern, I think. The Girl is happy and for that I am even happier.
The next project to complete - grabbing the low-hanging fruit, the things almost done - is an apron intended for my sis-in-law and which has been in its current not-quite-finished state for at least three months. (Aside: Why on earth I get things so close to done and then don't finish them is beyond me. Especially when completion is so satisfying.) And then, I think, a few of some teeny tiny counted cross-stitch Christmas things from Mary Engelbreit. Mary can sometimes a bit too much for my tastes but when it comes to Christmas all bets are off and the more too much I can get, the better.
Susie J will say I need to post pictures. She's right. Forthcoming, tonight, maybe, perhaps, just possibly.
Wait. I like the sound of that. Let me repeat myself: I finished a project last night.
That reads beautifully, doesn't it? The project I finished is a tutu long promised to the Girl and worked on only in fits and starts. Yesterday after her grandparents left from a weekend visit and her brother was whisked off to (another) birthday party she asked with such sweetness if I thought perhaps, maybe, just possibly we could work on it, the tutu which had been pinned months ago and languishing in a sideboard cupboard ever since.
In the end, the finishing wasn't that difficult. Produced only of three layers of white tulle covered in two layers of a silky pinky something (bought unmarked from a remnants bin for twenty-five cents), stitched together at the waist and run through with a bit of elastic, I'd say that the total effort - stretched over months, granted - was probably no more than 45 minutes with five minutes of that needed to secure a butterfly to the waist.
The final product could be a bit fluffier and I may well cut the underlying tulle to graduate it into greater overall volume. It's not a professional job, to be sure, but not at all bad for no pattern, I think. The Girl is happy and for that I am even happier.
The next project to complete - grabbing the low-hanging fruit, the things almost done - is an apron intended for my sis-in-law and which has been in its current not-quite-finished state for at least three months. (Aside: Why on earth I get things so close to done and then don't finish them is beyond me. Especially when completion is so satisfying.) And then, I think, a few of some teeny tiny counted cross-stitch Christmas things from Mary Engelbreit. Mary can sometimes a bit too much for my tastes but when it comes to Christmas all bets are off and the more too much I can get, the better.
Susie J will say I need to post pictures. She's right. Forthcoming, tonight, maybe, perhaps, just possibly.
One of the challenges in being rather abundant of figure is finding clothes that aren't 1) made like junk, 2) poorly fitted/executed, 3) heading into Mrs. Roper territory, 4) priced to cost the kingdom. Like most women facing this particular vexation - and I know that every woman faces some kind of wardrobe limitation, be it size-related, access to clothing, financial or whatever - over time I have cobbled together a collection of what I suppose could be called "solutions" sourced from the late, great Mode magazine, Vogue's annual Size (or whatever it's called) Issue, a lifetime of way-too-intimate knowledge of the offerings of the various mall-based purveyors of the aforementioned junk and/or expensiveness.
As a result my wardrobe is serviceable if not as pleasurable as I might like. Jeans from KMart (no, seriously), plain tees from Old Navy, intimates from Lane Bryant, sweaters and skirts from Talbots or Jones New York, odds and ends from a TJ Maxxish kind of place and the very occasional marked-down specialty item from Nordstrom make the bulk of my clothes-shopping routine. I don't go in for patterns much (dangerous Mrs. Ropertude, which even Nordstrom alarmingly enables) and fearing the Mimi effect I also avoid what I think of as "art" (i.e., embellished) clothing. A perfect outfit as far as I'm concerned more or less begins and ends with Donna Karen circa 1985.
Lately I've felt a call to be a bit more proactive in my wardrobing efforts, relying more on conscious, ordered choices and less on clearance-rack mayhem. To that end I've ditched some ill-considered higher-end purchases via Craig's List, donated other stuff to Goodwill, cut up still others for the rag bin and, while I cannot claim the kind of streamlined closet of the kind that would please Andree Putman*, I'm working on it. I've also decided to expand my sewing from tutus, rod-pocket curtains and pillows into more interesting territory - that is, sewing for myself.
Close perusal of the complete works of those What Not to Wear girls and a lifetime of pondering why exactly it is that I always look rather disreputable have led me to understand that I need to obtain the following: better underwear, more wrap blouses, three-quarter length or longer sleeves, a total absence of turtlenecks, boot cut jeans, accenuation of the waist and perhaps more in the way of twinset-type things. Some of this I think I'd like to try making myself.
Good. I've got a plan. That's something at least, right?
* "I love America, and I love American women. But there is one thing that deeply shocks me - American closets. I cannot believe one can dress well when you have so much." So said the much-esteemed Ms. Putman.
As a result my wardrobe is serviceable if not as pleasurable as I might like. Jeans from KMart (no, seriously), plain tees from Old Navy, intimates from Lane Bryant, sweaters and skirts from Talbots or Jones New York, odds and ends from a TJ Maxxish kind of place and the very occasional marked-down specialty item from Nordstrom make the bulk of my clothes-shopping routine. I don't go in for patterns much (dangerous Mrs. Ropertude, which even Nordstrom alarmingly enables) and fearing the Mimi effect I also avoid what I think of as "art" (i.e., embellished) clothing. A perfect outfit as far as I'm concerned more or less begins and ends with Donna Karen circa 1985.
Lately I've felt a call to be a bit more proactive in my wardrobing efforts, relying more on conscious, ordered choices and less on clearance-rack mayhem. To that end I've ditched some ill-considered higher-end purchases via Craig's List, donated other stuff to Goodwill, cut up still others for the rag bin and, while I cannot claim the kind of streamlined closet of the kind that would please Andree Putman*, I'm working on it. I've also decided to expand my sewing from tutus, rod-pocket curtains and pillows into more interesting territory - that is, sewing for myself.
Close perusal of the complete works of those What Not to Wear girls and a lifetime of pondering why exactly it is that I always look rather disreputable have led me to understand that I need to obtain the following: better underwear, more wrap blouses, three-quarter length or longer sleeves, a total absence of turtlenecks, boot cut jeans, accenuation of the waist and perhaps more in the way of twinset-type things. Some of this I think I'd like to try making myself.
Good. I've got a plan. That's something at least, right?
* "I love America, and I love American women. But there is one thing that deeply shocks me - American closets. I cannot believe one can dress well when you have so much." So said the much-esteemed Ms. Putman.
I had a brainstorm this morning about how to deal with a piece of furniture recently acquired from a friend and I am now being driven to utter distraction with my inability to go get started right now. Donna, my friend, gave me her great-aunt's dining room set - neither her sister nor cousins wanted it and she, knowing that I prefer old furniture to new, offered me the table, chairs, two (!) sideboards and small china cabinet. That we don't have a strict need for all of these pieces deterred me not a bit in my (perhaps unseemly speedy) acceptance of her offer for the alternative to me taking them was that they'd be put out at her curb. No, not on my watch.
Such was the disconnect between Donna's feelings about the furniture and my own that at her recent graduation party (she's a lawyer now) I kept thanking her mother for the incredible gift of their family heirlooms and her mother kept thanking me for taking "all that junk" off their hands. Count this among my life's burdens, my tendency to fall in love with peoples' junk (someday I will tell you about the bag full of costume jewelry I grabhandedly selected from my friend Anna's mother's estate - that it was offered to me reduces my shame only slightly). Whatever. I now have six matching dining room chairs, only a teensy bit in need of recovering, a thrill for which I thank Donna's great-aunt from the bottom of my junk-loving heart.
The china cabinet we put into a back room, not sure how it might be used. Our long-range plans include the purchase of a mountain house for vacations and/or retirement, but it seems a shame to keep a lovely piece set aside for what is at the moment a rather vague notion. Then this morning it hit me while reading an account of a woman glazing unlovely laundry room fixtures - the perfect use for such a sweet little cabinet.
I think I'd like to paint it for use in the Girl's bedroom as a bookshelf. Last September we brought home my own "little girl" furniture - white with brass and china pulls - and I can totally see this piece painted glossy white and filled with the Little House, Illustrated Children's Classics, Nancy Drew and all the other books that currently fill a rather rickety and very unattractive IKEA workhorse (bought in 1993 for my first "my own" apartment and now quite worn) in what is otherwise a very nice bedroom. In exchange, the existing bookcase will go into the storage room to help organize empty canning jars and sundry gardening tools.
I am so excited about this plan and so frustrated by my inability to do anything about it for at least, let's see...seven days (birthday parties - for my own and others' kids, out-of-town company, scout meeting, a girls' gathering at a friend's house, family dinner with my newly engaged (!) grandmother, etc., etc., etc.) that I am going to have to force myself to stick to the knitting, as it were, until then. The not-so-small matter of convincing Braniac that this is a good idea (he being of the twin beliefs that furniture probably oughtn't be painted and that dining room furniture belongs in the dining room and living room furniture belongs in the...) makes nary a dent in what I am certain is an excellent plan.
Such was the disconnect between Donna's feelings about the furniture and my own that at her recent graduation party (she's a lawyer now) I kept thanking her mother for the incredible gift of their family heirlooms and her mother kept thanking me for taking "all that junk" off their hands. Count this among my life's burdens, my tendency to fall in love with peoples' junk (someday I will tell you about the bag full of costume jewelry I grabhandedly selected from my friend Anna's mother's estate - that it was offered to me reduces my shame only slightly). Whatever. I now have six matching dining room chairs, only a teensy bit in need of recovering, a thrill for which I thank Donna's great-aunt from the bottom of my junk-loving heart.
The china cabinet we put into a back room, not sure how it might be used. Our long-range plans include the purchase of a mountain house for vacations and/or retirement, but it seems a shame to keep a lovely piece set aside for what is at the moment a rather vague notion. Then this morning it hit me while reading an account of a woman glazing unlovely laundry room fixtures - the perfect use for such a sweet little cabinet.
I think I'd like to paint it for use in the Girl's bedroom as a bookshelf. Last September we brought home my own "little girl" furniture - white with brass and china pulls - and I can totally see this piece painted glossy white and filled with the Little House, Illustrated Children's Classics, Nancy Drew and all the other books that currently fill a rather rickety and very unattractive IKEA workhorse (bought in 1993 for my first "my own" apartment and now quite worn) in what is otherwise a very nice bedroom. In exchange, the existing bookcase will go into the storage room to help organize empty canning jars and sundry gardening tools.
I am so excited about this plan and so frustrated by my inability to do anything about it for at least, let's see...seven days (birthday parties - for my own and others' kids, out-of-town company, scout meeting, a girls' gathering at a friend's house, family dinner with my newly engaged (!) grandmother, etc., etc., etc.) that I am going to have to force myself to stick to the knitting, as it were, until then. The not-so-small matter of convincing Braniac that this is a good idea (he being of the twin beliefs that furniture probably oughtn't be painted and that dining room furniture belongs in the dining room and living room furniture belongs in the...) makes nary a dent in what I am certain is an excellent plan.
The concept of quitting has been much on my mind lately. Well, not quitting per se, where one makes a conscious choice to stop doing something but rather I've been thinking of a more passive variety, the kind where after a (possibly long) while one sits up, looks around and says, "Hey, remember that thing we used to do? How come we don't do that anymore? What happened?" But there's no clear break, no before and after.
Along those lines, lately I've kind of been wondering about this blog. I've not been able to remember why I started writing - other than the whole canning thing - but carried on out of inertia and a feeling like this little collection of bytes has seen me through quite a lot and some loyalty was in order. I mean, from the first post until now I've moved house twice, given birth, planned parties, taken trips, read books and had all manner of kitchen adventures. Inasmuch as a blog is a diary, this is the closest I've ever come to the latter.
While pondering whether or not to continue, I embarked on a house cleaning and decluttering spree. The lengths to which I need to go with said cleaning are a bit embarassing for a family that hasn't lived in this house two years yet especially a family led by two adults who love to believe that they don't buy much. Ahem. As part of this cleaning I've discovered all sorts of interesting things - copies of apparently unread cooking magazines shoved into the cookbook shelf, a barely begun needlepoint chair cover, plans for a wedding cake I intended to make just to see if I could do it, documentation of plans to organize a reunion of the descendants of one of my great-great-great-grandfathers and more. In other words, evidence of things I used to enjoy doing and writing about but about which I'd completely forgotten.
How could I have forgotten? I sat down to read the Gourmet magazine I'd found and vaguely remember once having had a subscription to that and two or three of its competitors, and how on the day they'd arrive I'd declare a household day of recipe experimentation and plan out the next month's new meals to try. How could I have forgotten? Somewhere along the line, I'd simply quit reading cooking magazines, despite my profound enjoyment of the genre. I don't recall deciding to stop, I just did. I realize that I have been missing this sense of culinary adventure and the sheer joy of receiving such pure fun in the mail. I didn't know I'd been missing these things, but it's clear to me now that I was, profoundly.
Likewise with the needlepoint. I remember fondly my paternal grandmother's needlepoint chair pads and recall with sadness that when she died I was not in a position to ask to have the chairs (or even just the covers) shipped to me "back East" with the result that the chairs were donated to some or other worthy organization and lost to the family forever. But I took great pleasure in planning out covers of my own depicting my favorite flowers (hydrangea, lillies, lilacs), purchasing supplies and, like a medieval chatelaine working on her tapestries, embarking on what I saw to be a multi-year project. And then? Nothing. It appears that I quit that, too, without really having decided to.
It occurs to me that it wasn't so much the blog that troubled me as that I couldn't imagine what on earth I used to put in it. Finding these fairly recent artifacts of my abandoned creative life along with a short survey of my archives revealed to me that I couldn't think of anything to write about because I'd ceased altogether doing the kinds of things that caused me to start writing in the first place. A year or so ago I thought that the slowdown in canning had been the problem. Turns out I wasn't looking in the right place. It was my own unconscious turning away from, quitting if you will, my own creativity in favor of a severe practicality that emphasized only what I could define as useful, dictated by forces external to my family and home. Thank goodness I've realized what I'd done before I'd practical'ed myself into a serious depression.
Coming up? Less practical, more delightful.
Along those lines, lately I've kind of been wondering about this blog. I've not been able to remember why I started writing - other than the whole canning thing - but carried on out of inertia and a feeling like this little collection of bytes has seen me through quite a lot and some loyalty was in order. I mean, from the first post until now I've moved house twice, given birth, planned parties, taken trips, read books and had all manner of kitchen adventures. Inasmuch as a blog is a diary, this is the closest I've ever come to the latter.
While pondering whether or not to continue, I embarked on a house cleaning and decluttering spree. The lengths to which I need to go with said cleaning are a bit embarassing for a family that hasn't lived in this house two years yet especially a family led by two adults who love to believe that they don't buy much. Ahem. As part of this cleaning I've discovered all sorts of interesting things - copies of apparently unread cooking magazines shoved into the cookbook shelf, a barely begun needlepoint chair cover, plans for a wedding cake I intended to make just to see if I could do it, documentation of plans to organize a reunion of the descendants of one of my great-great-great-grandfathers and more. In other words, evidence of things I used to enjoy doing and writing about but about which I'd completely forgotten.
How could I have forgotten? I sat down to read the Gourmet magazine I'd found and vaguely remember once having had a subscription to that and two or three of its competitors, and how on the day they'd arrive I'd declare a household day of recipe experimentation and plan out the next month's new meals to try. How could I have forgotten? Somewhere along the line, I'd simply quit reading cooking magazines, despite my profound enjoyment of the genre. I don't recall deciding to stop, I just did. I realize that I have been missing this sense of culinary adventure and the sheer joy of receiving such pure fun in the mail. I didn't know I'd been missing these things, but it's clear to me now that I was, profoundly.
Likewise with the needlepoint. I remember fondly my paternal grandmother's needlepoint chair pads and recall with sadness that when she died I was not in a position to ask to have the chairs (or even just the covers) shipped to me "back East" with the result that the chairs were donated to some or other worthy organization and lost to the family forever. But I took great pleasure in planning out covers of my own depicting my favorite flowers (hydrangea, lillies, lilacs), purchasing supplies and, like a medieval chatelaine working on her tapestries, embarking on what I saw to be a multi-year project. And then? Nothing. It appears that I quit that, too, without really having decided to.
It occurs to me that it wasn't so much the blog that troubled me as that I couldn't imagine what on earth I used to put in it. Finding these fairly recent artifacts of my abandoned creative life along with a short survey of my archives revealed to me that I couldn't think of anything to write about because I'd ceased altogether doing the kinds of things that caused me to start writing in the first place. A year or so ago I thought that the slowdown in canning had been the problem. Turns out I wasn't looking in the right place. It was my own unconscious turning away from, quitting if you will, my own creativity in favor of a severe practicality that emphasized only what I could define as useful, dictated by forces external to my family and home. Thank goodness I've realized what I'd done before I'd practical'ed myself into a serious depression.
Coming up? Less practical, more delightful.
On a long ago Monday morning I arrived at work to find my boss dabbing at tears and sniffling. Being the wretchedly self-centered person that I am, my mind turned to things that could make me share her sadness - was our department being eliminated? Was the bonus pool smaller than expected? No. She'd argued with her fiancé. Phew! Comforted that I shared not her problem, I inquired as to the nature of the quarrel.
"He laughed at me because I think we shouldn't add stuff to the spaghetti sauce. I mean, if the company wanted it there they'd have put it there in the first place, right?!" she wailed.
Turns out the happy couple had been making baked ziti for dinner on Friday evening. My boss' intended added some herb or spice to the jarred sauce and she objected on the aforementioned grounds. Now, this was my boss. On the one hand, if she wanted to assert commercial spaghetti sauce purity, I was going to line up right behind her (saving my battles for issues affecting the bonus pool, say). On the other hand, I was utterly stupefied by the intensity of her opinion on the matter.
I asked if she'd never added salt, pepper or butter to frozen corn (leaving aside that it's possible to buy preseasoned frozen corn), or red pepper flakes to pizzeria pizza. In fact, I pointed out, with this line of reasoning one could argue that if the ziti company had wated its product enjoyed with sauce of any kind it would have put it there (leaving aside also that it's possible to buy canned and frozen presauced pasta).
I don't remember if I convinced her that a little oregano in the Prego was no reason to argue. I do remember thinking that if no one ever messed with commercial products to make them closer to personal tasts then few people were likely to learn to cook at all these days, what with home ec being eliminated from school curricula and the knowledge not really being handed down generationally as it was in the past.
Futzing around with the offerings of Kraft, Lipton, et. al., may well be the path to relying on those companies less. It's not that far a leap from adding garlic to a rice-and-butter mix to realizing that one can add both garlic and butter to plain rice, resulting in a healthier, tastier and cheaper meal. Lately I'm excited about learning to make my own cheese and hamburger buns. But I couldn't even consider these projects if I hadn't myself back in the day added a bit of something to a jarred or canned whatsit and worked forward from there.
I've made it plain here that I'm not among Sandra Lee's greatest fans. Truthfully, though, my feelings are complicated. "Semi-homemade" may not be a long-term goal I'd advocate, but I'd say that these days it's a totally honorable path to journey on the way to "I made it myself."
"He laughed at me because I think we shouldn't add stuff to the spaghetti sauce. I mean, if the company wanted it there they'd have put it there in the first place, right?!" she wailed.
Turns out the happy couple had been making baked ziti for dinner on Friday evening. My boss' intended added some herb or spice to the jarred sauce and she objected on the aforementioned grounds. Now, this was my boss. On the one hand, if she wanted to assert commercial spaghetti sauce purity, I was going to line up right behind her (saving my battles for issues affecting the bonus pool, say). On the other hand, I was utterly stupefied by the intensity of her opinion on the matter.
I asked if she'd never added salt, pepper or butter to frozen corn (leaving aside that it's possible to buy preseasoned frozen corn), or red pepper flakes to pizzeria pizza. In fact, I pointed out, with this line of reasoning one could argue that if the ziti company had wated its product enjoyed with sauce of any kind it would have put it there (leaving aside also that it's possible to buy canned and frozen presauced pasta).
I don't remember if I convinced her that a little oregano in the Prego was no reason to argue. I do remember thinking that if no one ever messed with commercial products to make them closer to personal tasts then few people were likely to learn to cook at all these days, what with home ec being eliminated from school curricula and the knowledge not really being handed down generationally as it was in the past.
Futzing around with the offerings of Kraft, Lipton, et. al., may well be the path to relying on those companies less. It's not that far a leap from adding garlic to a rice-and-butter mix to realizing that one can add both garlic and butter to plain rice, resulting in a healthier, tastier and cheaper meal. Lately I'm excited about learning to make my own cheese and hamburger buns. But I couldn't even consider these projects if I hadn't myself back in the day added a bit of something to a jarred or canned whatsit and worked forward from there.
I've made it plain here that I'm not among Sandra Lee's greatest fans. Truthfully, though, my feelings are complicated. "Semi-homemade" may not be a long-term goal I'd advocate, but I'd say that these days it's a totally honorable path to journey on the way to "I made it myself."
One of my pals adheres to the financial advice dispensed by Dave Ramsey and through her I've been exposed to a bit of his recommended method. Ramsey's approach to these things can be summed up by debt = bad which, although simple, is probably generally accurate. While my exposure to his actual output (despite covering any number of books, radio broadcasts, podcasts, written columns, textbooks for his "Financial Peace University" and so on - he's like the Martha Stewart of money) is almost non-existant I am familiar with his saying that one should live on "beans and rice, rice and beans" until the family debt is completely eliminated.
The message encourages frugality and responsibility, although I never thought that "beans and rice, rice and beans" was all that tough a prescription, as catchphrases go. Beans and rice is a lovely meal. Rice and beans, too, for that matter. As I ruminated on why such a delightful, nutritious, native-to-many-cultures dish was being cast as a pennance for financial irresponsibility - said ruminations happening as I was preparing last night's dinner of, natch, beans and rice and rice and beans - I realized that the way Dave Ramsey means beans and rice is probably much different than the way I, and most home cooks, actually prepare them.
I think that what he's after is this notion that, until one has paid off one's debt - a good and worthy goal - one should eat plain and uninspiring food. I envision Minute Rice and a can of store-brand beans, doled out to the miserable hoards looking forward to the day when mom is allowed by Mr. Ramsey's advice to buy a steak (with cash!) and they can all be happy again.
But no! I say to all Ramseyites that your days of beans and rice can be lovely, not punishing, largely because the reason that beans and rice came to be such a staple of peoples all over the world is precisely because it is both healthy and relatively inexpensive, and can be augmented by bits and pieces of whatever condiments, leftover meats and veggies might be on-hand. A bit of pepper, onion, grated carrot, diced squash, kale, vinegar, sausage or some of all of these and you've got a dish to please kings and paupers alike.
These days I start by rehydrating beans in my rice cooker on the "soup" setting, although I do keep some canned black and kidney beans and chick peas around for speed on the days we need it. Lentils and split peas don't require this treatment and are also nice for times when we're running in a thousand directions. Once you settle the question of what bean(s) you'd like and what you need to do to them to get ready, work on the rest.
I start by dicing some onion and mincing a bit of garlic, and sauteeing them in whatever I've got - olive oil works, as does bacon fat or broth (or a combination). If I've got bell pepper, that gets chopped and added, too. I've also been known to add grated carrot at this point or shredded cabbage or kale. This is a good time to add meats as the onion begins to become translucent - sausage like chorizo or kielbasa is nice, as is chopped leftover beef or pork - but meat is not a requirement of a tasty, filling outcome. If you've only got onion, that's fine. If you've got half an onion and an inch of carrot and the bottom half of a pepper, that's fine, too. Or whatever. There are few rules other than you use what you have and like.
When the veggies are heated, add the drained beans (remember when working with dried beans that, like rice, the end result will be much more in volume than you started with) and perhaps even some fresh or canned diced tomato (or not) and stir. Just before taking off the heat, season to taste with salt and pepper and whatever other spices seem appropriate (adobo can be nice or maybe some curry or garam masala with lentils or peas) and add any fragile greens like spinach.
Serve hot, over rice, with any condiments that might taste good. Last night we had no meat in the pot, but salsa, plain yogurt, pepper sauce and grated cheese rounded things out nicely. On other occasions mango pickle and - a recurring theme at our house - plain yougurt was nice. Once I had only a bit of homemade paneer from a friend but diced up very fine and used with lots of peas and spinach it made a very nice dinner stretched for seven people.
The point of all this is that "beans and rice, rice and beans" needn't be thought parismonious. It is, of course, but not in any way that I think Dave Ramsey means it. Messing around with a bit of this and a bit of that as ingredients are available is honest home cooking as performed by millions of cooks throughout time. Beans and rice should be an end, and one we're happy to be at, and not a means to an end to be endured until something better comes along.
The message encourages frugality and responsibility, although I never thought that "beans and rice, rice and beans" was all that tough a prescription, as catchphrases go. Beans and rice is a lovely meal. Rice and beans, too, for that matter. As I ruminated on why such a delightful, nutritious, native-to-many-cultures dish was being cast as a pennance for financial irresponsibility - said ruminations happening as I was preparing last night's dinner of, natch, beans and rice and rice and beans - I realized that the way Dave Ramsey means beans and rice is probably much different than the way I, and most home cooks, actually prepare them.
I think that what he's after is this notion that, until one has paid off one's debt - a good and worthy goal - one should eat plain and uninspiring food. I envision Minute Rice and a can of store-brand beans, doled out to the miserable hoards looking forward to the day when mom is allowed by Mr. Ramsey's advice to buy a steak (with cash!) and they can all be happy again.
But no! I say to all Ramseyites that your days of beans and rice can be lovely, not punishing, largely because the reason that beans and rice came to be such a staple of peoples all over the world is precisely because it is both healthy and relatively inexpensive, and can be augmented by bits and pieces of whatever condiments, leftover meats and veggies might be on-hand. A bit of pepper, onion, grated carrot, diced squash, kale, vinegar, sausage or some of all of these and you've got a dish to please kings and paupers alike.
These days I start by rehydrating beans in my rice cooker on the "soup" setting, although I do keep some canned black and kidney beans and chick peas around for speed on the days we need it. Lentils and split peas don't require this treatment and are also nice for times when we're running in a thousand directions. Once you settle the question of what bean(s) you'd like and what you need to do to them to get ready, work on the rest.
I start by dicing some onion and mincing a bit of garlic, and sauteeing them in whatever I've got - olive oil works, as does bacon fat or broth (or a combination). If I've got bell pepper, that gets chopped and added, too. I've also been known to add grated carrot at this point or shredded cabbage or kale. This is a good time to add meats as the onion begins to become translucent - sausage like chorizo or kielbasa is nice, as is chopped leftover beef or pork - but meat is not a requirement of a tasty, filling outcome. If you've only got onion, that's fine. If you've got half an onion and an inch of carrot and the bottom half of a pepper, that's fine, too. Or whatever. There are few rules other than you use what you have and like.
When the veggies are heated, add the drained beans (remember when working with dried beans that, like rice, the end result will be much more in volume than you started with) and perhaps even some fresh or canned diced tomato (or not) and stir. Just before taking off the heat, season to taste with salt and pepper and whatever other spices seem appropriate (adobo can be nice or maybe some curry or garam masala with lentils or peas) and add any fragile greens like spinach.
Serve hot, over rice, with any condiments that might taste good. Last night we had no meat in the pot, but salsa, plain yogurt, pepper sauce and grated cheese rounded things out nicely. On other occasions mango pickle and - a recurring theme at our house - plain yougurt was nice. Once I had only a bit of homemade paneer from a friend but diced up very fine and used with lots of peas and spinach it made a very nice dinner stretched for seven people.
The point of all this is that "beans and rice, rice and beans" needn't be thought parismonious. It is, of course, but not in any way that I think Dave Ramsey means it. Messing around with a bit of this and a bit of that as ingredients are available is honest home cooking as performed by millions of cooks throughout time. Beans and rice should be an end, and one we're happy to be at, and not a means to an end to be endured until something better comes along.
There's something about autumn that inspires to me to cook. Sure, summer has the fresh veggies and fruits and so on and I always greet warming weather with a resolve to act as if I live in one of Peter Mayle's books but the problem is that I actually don't live in one of Peter Mayle's books and while all those fresh, minimally-treated veggies and fruits are lovely they don't offer much in the way of comfort. Plus, when it's 9,000 degrees in one's kitchen making a tian or some other summer dish isn't so appealing. Hence, my predictable tiring of sauteed green beans and salade caprese.
But fall....now there's some comfort, food-wise. You've got your squashes (so far we have seven - ! - butternuts growing), your cabbages, your kales and chards, not to mention apples and pears and nuts. With a few roasts in the freezer and the addition of some hearty grains, well, I feel cozier just thinking about it.
Our daytime temps haven't fallen all that much but there is an overnight chill and slight zip to the air that tells of the coming changes. Along with those changes my thoughts move to pot roasts, macaroni and cheese, apple crisp and mulled cider. My body might be healthier in summer what with the extra daylight for outdoor activity and the sheer variety of fresh produce available, but come fall my soul revives. Perhaps it's a kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder?
I'll finish canning the peppers and tomatoes like a good girl, all the while looking forward to the first pumpkin I'll smash up into butter (lots of brown sugar and candied ginger with this - oh, how lovely to think about it) and the first big pot of bigos. And I'll need to check up on my supplies of cocoa powder (hot chocolate), molasses (gingerbread) and cinnamon (baked oatmeal).
I'd better start today. There's another flock of geese overhead and there's not a moment to lose.
But fall....now there's some comfort, food-wise. You've got your squashes (so far we have seven - ! - butternuts growing), your cabbages, your kales and chards, not to mention apples and pears and nuts. With a few roasts in the freezer and the addition of some hearty grains, well, I feel cozier just thinking about it.
Our daytime temps haven't fallen all that much but there is an overnight chill and slight zip to the air that tells of the coming changes. Along with those changes my thoughts move to pot roasts, macaroni and cheese, apple crisp and mulled cider. My body might be healthier in summer what with the extra daylight for outdoor activity and the sheer variety of fresh produce available, but come fall my soul revives. Perhaps it's a kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder?
I'll finish canning the peppers and tomatoes like a good girl, all the while looking forward to the first pumpkin I'll smash up into butter (lots of brown sugar and candied ginger with this - oh, how lovely to think about it) and the first big pot of bigos. And I'll need to check up on my supplies of cocoa powder (hot chocolate), molasses (gingerbread) and cinnamon (baked oatmeal).
I'd better start today. There's another flock of geese overhead and there's not a moment to lose.
A few quickies:
- Today is the first day of first grade. Despite the familial roundabout over homeschooling, the Boy reported for duty this morning at our neighborhood elementary. He asked to attend, a fact that weighed heavily against our inclination to pull him out. Actually, what he asked for was to 1) go to school and 2) still have "family school". We figure we can learn something from his view of these options as being not of the zero-sum nature that most grown-ups would assign. He would miss his buddies, we know, and that he had such a cheerful aspect in looking forward to the start of the school year must surely count for something. As I pointed out to a friend recently, the television show Family Ties had years of good ratings based on nothing other than the notion that sometimes kids will desire to create almost exactly the same kind of life that their parents would have rather not had. Go figure.
- You know I had fun packing his lunch, right? I am addicted to Cooking Cute and the thousands of Bento pics available from Flickr and have happily shared my addiction with both kids. Hello Kitty silicon cups? Yes! Lightning McQueen fruit picks? Of course! It's not consumerism, it's Bento! This morning I placed a BBQ pork sandwich, apple slices (some cut thin and then made into rocket ship shapes with a cookie cutter), a diamond-shaped Rice Krispie treat (a fun, sticky project with kids) and locomotive-topped skewers of alternatiing black and green olives into his little lunch carrier. Bliss. Lunch packing may just be the salve that gets me through my kids' schooling.
- The apple was from one of our backyard trees. Brainiac is consumed with apple picking lately and seems to have rather high expectations with regards to my ability to deal with them all. He has constructed an apple picker out of an empty coffee tin and some extenda-pole thing that is able to reach all but the very highest samples. Luckily, the kids don't hold their unsprayed and not-ready-for-Superfresh looks against them and eat them by the dozen.
- I am sick of tomatoes. You will remind me of this, won't you, when come February I yearn in poetic terms for last month's bacon and tomato sandwiches? I still have about 20 pounds to deal with and I am fighting my preference to fling them into the compost and turn my back on the whole affair. But, no, I am a responsible sort and will manage another dozen pints or so. I swear, I am NOT picking anymore other than the cherry varieties that I've been drying. Oh, but I might pick some of the remaining unripened for fried green tomatoes (use bacon grease for the frying and salsa for topping). That I could cope with.
- The geese have been flying the last few days and there's a distinct chill in the morning air. Since I am not among summer's biggest fans these are cheering developments. September is pleasant and happy month, being as it is the time when both my wedding anniversary and the birthday of my oldest fall, but its real purpose is to serve as the gateway to October.
- Today is the first day of first grade. Despite the familial roundabout over homeschooling, the Boy reported for duty this morning at our neighborhood elementary. He asked to attend, a fact that weighed heavily against our inclination to pull him out. Actually, what he asked for was to 1) go to school and 2) still have "family school". We figure we can learn something from his view of these options as being not of the zero-sum nature that most grown-ups would assign. He would miss his buddies, we know, and that he had such a cheerful aspect in looking forward to the start of the school year must surely count for something. As I pointed out to a friend recently, the television show Family Ties had years of good ratings based on nothing other than the notion that sometimes kids will desire to create almost exactly the same kind of life that their parents would have rather not had. Go figure.
- You know I had fun packing his lunch, right? I am addicted to Cooking Cute and the thousands of Bento pics available from Flickr and have happily shared my addiction with both kids. Hello Kitty silicon cups? Yes! Lightning McQueen fruit picks? Of course! It's not consumerism, it's Bento! This morning I placed a BBQ pork sandwich, apple slices (some cut thin and then made into rocket ship shapes with a cookie cutter), a diamond-shaped Rice Krispie treat (a fun, sticky project with kids) and locomotive-topped skewers of alternatiing black and green olives into his little lunch carrier. Bliss. Lunch packing may just be the salve that gets me through my kids' schooling.
- The apple was from one of our backyard trees. Brainiac is consumed with apple picking lately and seems to have rather high expectations with regards to my ability to deal with them all. He has constructed an apple picker out of an empty coffee tin and some extenda-pole thing that is able to reach all but the very highest samples. Luckily, the kids don't hold their unsprayed and not-ready-for-Superfresh looks against them and eat them by the dozen.
- I am sick of tomatoes. You will remind me of this, won't you, when come February I yearn in poetic terms for last month's bacon and tomato sandwiches? I still have about 20 pounds to deal with and I am fighting my preference to fling them into the compost and turn my back on the whole affair. But, no, I am a responsible sort and will manage another dozen pints or so. I swear, I am NOT picking anymore other than the cherry varieties that I've been drying. Oh, but I might pick some of the remaining unripened for fried green tomatoes (use bacon grease for the frying and salsa for topping). That I could cope with.
- The geese have been flying the last few days and there's a distinct chill in the morning air. Since I am not among summer's biggest fans these are cheering developments. September is pleasant and happy month, being as it is the time when both my wedding anniversary and the birthday of my oldest fall, but its real purpose is to serve as the gateway to October.
One of the sticky wickets of writing a blog that includes canning as its narrative hook, if you will, is that just about the time of year when hits spike and I get lots and lots of questions, I'm busy doing the same thing as my corespondents are doing and my posting level drops off dramatically. Like those of you who arrive here having searched for pickle or jam recipes or who are wondering how long to water bath your green beans (hint: don't - pressure can them instead) or want to know if you can use those ferny bits of the dill plant if you don't have any heads (hint: you can), know that this blog is still active, I've just been doing the same things you're doing. A lot.
So much so, in fact, that I remarked to Brainiac that I feel as if I am running a small and spectacularly understaffed (not to mention fairly unprofitable, at least in the commonly understood sense) manufacturing concern. Not that I don't include the kids in the processes underway in my kitchen - they're both old enough now to shuck corn, trim beans and destem blueberries - but sometimes canning and other preserving requires nothing so much as brute force and many strong hands to chop, mash, twist and lift.
This past Sunday I stood in my friend's kitchen (not My Girlfriend's Kitchen, but an honest-to-goodness girlfriend's kitchen) with three other women and had what I can only describe as a canningbee, enjoying the benefits that eight strong, capable hands bring to bear on this whole canning business. We canned plain tomatoes, roasted tomato sauce, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, brandied blackberries, peach/blackberry/strawberry jam, blueberry jam and something else that I can't remember. After five hours of companionable working, our husbands and children joined us for dinner. It was an altogether delightful day, reminding me how much easier long, intense projects can be when they're accomplished with friends. I never could have hoped to put up such a variety of foods in such a short time, but as our talk veered from Betty Ford to Brazilians (uh, not the people...the other Brazilian) to being in the middle of parenting vs. caring for parents, the day passed quickly, companionably and productively.
Some time ago I read an essay by Amy Dacyzcyn, of Tightwad Gazette fame, bemoaning our tendency to live as household islands. When every house on every block has its own copy of the latest hit movie, its own 28 ft. ladder and its own canning kettle, the need for neighborly collaboration on the picking of apples (assuming apples are to be had in someone's backyard in the first place) and the making of sauce with liberal movie-watching breaks is minimal. But handling the job alone can seem too big to do alone so...the movie, ladder and kettle sit idle, waiting for some burst of energy to deal with it (and missing apple season in the process) or the realignment of our twin needs for in- and inter-dependence that may never come. Dacyzcyn argued for the financial benefits that come from sharing tools and collaborating on work whereas my concerns have more to do with health and community. Still, the core of the matter is the same: used to be that every farm collaborated on the work for which, say, the shared thresher was required with no threat to any given farmer's need to feel "free and independent", as the Little House books so quaintly put it. How did we get from feeling little conflict between sharing tools and labor and our zeal for self-determination to a state where every house on the block needs to be outfitted for any eventuality as though no one were around for miles?
I suspect the reason could have something to do with no longer needing to cooperate with each other to see to basic survival. Or maybe it's issues relating to 20th century immigration patterns and difficulties in getting that blasted melting pot working or the increasing professional options open to women or...heck, I'll just be frank and lay it out there that I don't know. Haven't a clue. But while we wait for some erstwhile grad student to get a grant to study the problem I recommend grabbing a friend and a few pounds of blackberries and making some jam together. Even if you manage to leave Betty Ford and Brazilians out of the conversation, both the process and the result are bound to be excellent.
So much so, in fact, that I remarked to Brainiac that I feel as if I am running a small and spectacularly understaffed (not to mention fairly unprofitable, at least in the commonly understood sense) manufacturing concern. Not that I don't include the kids in the processes underway in my kitchen - they're both old enough now to shuck corn, trim beans and destem blueberries - but sometimes canning and other preserving requires nothing so much as brute force and many strong hands to chop, mash, twist and lift.
This past Sunday I stood in my friend's kitchen (not My Girlfriend's Kitchen, but an honest-to-goodness girlfriend's kitchen) with three other women and had what I can only describe as a canningbee, enjoying the benefits that eight strong, capable hands bring to bear on this whole canning business. We canned plain tomatoes, roasted tomato sauce, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, brandied blackberries, peach/blackberry/strawberry jam, blueberry jam and something else that I can't remember. After five hours of companionable working, our husbands and children joined us for dinner. It was an altogether delightful day, reminding me how much easier long, intense projects can be when they're accomplished with friends. I never could have hoped to put up such a variety of foods in such a short time, but as our talk veered from Betty Ford to Brazilians (uh, not the people...the other Brazilian) to being in the middle of parenting vs. caring for parents, the day passed quickly, companionably and productively.
Some time ago I read an essay by Amy Dacyzcyn, of Tightwad Gazette fame, bemoaning our tendency to live as household islands. When every house on every block has its own copy of the latest hit movie, its own 28 ft. ladder and its own canning kettle, the need for neighborly collaboration on the picking of apples (assuming apples are to be had in someone's backyard in the first place) and the making of sauce with liberal movie-watching breaks is minimal. But handling the job alone can seem too big to do alone so...the movie, ladder and kettle sit idle, waiting for some burst of energy to deal with it (and missing apple season in the process) or the realignment of our twin needs for in- and inter-dependence that may never come. Dacyzcyn argued for the financial benefits that come from sharing tools and collaborating on work whereas my concerns have more to do with health and community. Still, the core of the matter is the same: used to be that every farm collaborated on the work for which, say, the shared thresher was required with no threat to any given farmer's need to feel "free and independent", as the Little House books so quaintly put it. How did we get from feeling little conflict between sharing tools and labor and our zeal for self-determination to a state where every house on the block needs to be outfitted for any eventuality as though no one were around for miles?
I suspect the reason could have something to do with no longer needing to cooperate with each other to see to basic survival. Or maybe it's issues relating to 20th century immigration patterns and difficulties in getting that blasted melting pot working or the increasing professional options open to women or...heck, I'll just be frank and lay it out there that I don't know. Haven't a clue. But while we wait for some erstwhile grad student to get a grant to study the problem I recommend grabbing a friend and a few pounds of blackberries and making some jam together. Even if you manage to leave Betty Ford and Brazilians out of the conversation, both the process and the result are bound to be excellent.
Zucchini time, it appears, is upon us. In the course of a little over 48 hours last week I was gifted with five quite large specimens. I added these to the two that I had already purchased from the farm market and wondered how and why it is that nature finds the states of either/or to be so amusing. My own plants have only the tiniest little fruits - having lost the first blooms to an unknown nibbler - so it's with only the smallest amount of sighing that I approached my gifts this weekend. Luckily, we don't find anything particularly off-putting about a large zucchini and find them just as delicious as their smaller siblings.
The first thing I do when faced with a zucchini (or yellow squash) glut is grate and freeze a number of them. They'll add fiber and color to winter muffins (or pancakes or quick breads), and the abundant juice they give off after thawing can be combined with whatever liquids called for in a recipe - not an unhandy thing.
For day to day enjoyment, I stick to the usual suspects - raw spears dipped in peanut butter, stir fries and sautés in combination with whatever else is available, coins coated in cornmeal and fried, battered oven "fries" and fritters. It's not a huge repertoire as these things go, but it works and by the time we can't face any of them again the zucchinis are gone and we're on to getting sick of something else.
The last of the list, fritters, are particularly nice. They're quick to make and can take on whatever condiments you have around - I like a nice homemade mayo or salsa, but regular old ketchup is perfectly fine.
The recipe is sort of along the lines of "mix all this stuff together and then cook it" - but in a good way - and so is easy and quick if you get everything ready before you start to actually cook. Get yourself a pound or so of zucchini and grate it (on a box grater or with a food processor) and mix in a teaspoon of both salt and pepper, a chopped garlic clove, and maybe a few tablespoons of something herby - parsley is nice, and so is fresh thyme or maybe bit of rosemary (but not a lot, perhaps mixed with something else?). Mix it all together and add in two eggs, lightly beaten, and 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour. Be sure to mix the flour in very well, and smoosh up any lumps. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle the zucchini mixture, drop 2 tablespoons of it into the pan, leaving an inch or so in between fritters. Cook 2 to 4 minutes on each side (until golden), turning carefully. When completely done, remove to a warm plate. You may need to add more oil to the pan in small amounts as you work through the remaining mixture.
The first thing I do when faced with a zucchini (or yellow squash) glut is grate and freeze a number of them. They'll add fiber and color to winter muffins (or pancakes or quick breads), and the abundant juice they give off after thawing can be combined with whatever liquids called for in a recipe - not an unhandy thing.
For day to day enjoyment, I stick to the usual suspects - raw spears dipped in peanut butter, stir fries and sautés in combination with whatever else is available, coins coated in cornmeal and fried, battered oven "fries" and fritters. It's not a huge repertoire as these things go, but it works and by the time we can't face any of them again the zucchinis are gone and we're on to getting sick of something else.
The last of the list, fritters, are particularly nice. They're quick to make and can take on whatever condiments you have around - I like a nice homemade mayo or salsa, but regular old ketchup is perfectly fine.
The recipe is sort of along the lines of "mix all this stuff together and then cook it" - but in a good way - and so is easy and quick if you get everything ready before you start to actually cook. Get yourself a pound or so of zucchini and grate it (on a box grater or with a food processor) and mix in a teaspoon of both salt and pepper, a chopped garlic clove, and maybe a few tablespoons of something herby - parsley is nice, and so is fresh thyme or maybe bit of rosemary (but not a lot, perhaps mixed with something else?). Mix it all together and add in two eggs, lightly beaten, and 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour. Be sure to mix the flour in very well, and smoosh up any lumps. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle the zucchini mixture, drop 2 tablespoons of it into the pan, leaving an inch or so in between fritters. Cook 2 to 4 minutes on each side (until golden), turning carefully. When completely done, remove to a warm plate. You may need to add more oil to the pan in small amounts as you work through the remaining mixture.
I stayed at home on Friday to give the kids and myself a nice long weekend in which to finish some long-standing projects. Normally, this kind of planning doesn't really pan out for us because we get distracted by the sudden desire to spend two hours running around a playground or there comes an overwhelming need to lie around looking at clouds or we fail to ignore the siren call of Zingo and before you know it - poof! - an entire weekend has come and gone.
This time we managed not only to read about three dozen books (must look into getting a bigger library bag) and watch the latest Bearnstein Bears delivery from Netflix, but we also completed one toile dress, one apron (a gift for my sis-in-law - don't tell!) and two enormous reading pillows (stuffing fluff into pillows is a very fun activity to undertake with little ones, even if the process requires infinitely more time and patience than might otherwise be required), planted four rooted tomato suckers, enjoyed the first of what we hope will be a bumper crop of Sungolds, tried a new restaurant that's been on our list for a while, set out some Japanese beetle traps (which filled almost instantaneously), replaced a couple ball joints on one of the cars (more of a Brainiac operation, with extra emphasis on the aforementioned "infinitely more time and patience", not to mention a fair amount of muscle cream on the resulting sore shoulders), caught up on laundry (the kids love to "fold" and I am happy to let them experiment with the process under the "whistle while you work" clause in the parenting manual and because having them master the "GAP fold" is something in which I have no intention of investing time or energy so I suck it up and live with whatever they manage) and just generally had a great time.
The only thing I ignored was weeding. I am in full-on weeding rebellion, something I know that I will regret and for which I have no excuse other than I Don't Feel Like It. I meant to put down more newspaper last night but totally forgot, becoming engrossed instead in a biography of Sister Parish, someone who - I am quite sure - probably never thought so much about weeds. But it was nice to check out for a while, snuggle in with a Brainiac-poured (and hence quite strong) cocktail and enjoy the satisfaction of jobs well-done. This week will bring more canning (various kinds of pickles and possibly the long hoped-for blueberry pie filling), more laundry (with homemade laundry soap? more on this in another post), and, yes, the weeding. But I suppose even the weeding brings satisfactions of its own, if looked at in the right way.
This time we managed not only to read about three dozen books (must look into getting a bigger library bag) and watch the latest Bearnstein Bears delivery from Netflix, but we also completed one toile dress, one apron (a gift for my sis-in-law - don't tell!) and two enormous reading pillows (stuffing fluff into pillows is a very fun activity to undertake with little ones, even if the process requires infinitely more time and patience than might otherwise be required), planted four rooted tomato suckers, enjoyed the first of what we hope will be a bumper crop of Sungolds, tried a new restaurant that's been on our list for a while, set out some Japanese beetle traps (which filled almost instantaneously), replaced a couple ball joints on one of the cars (more of a Brainiac operation, with extra emphasis on the aforementioned "infinitely more time and patience", not to mention a fair amount of muscle cream on the resulting sore shoulders), caught up on laundry (the kids love to "fold" and I am happy to let them experiment with the process under the "whistle while you work" clause in the parenting manual and because having them master the "GAP fold" is something in which I have no intention of investing time or energy so I suck it up and live with whatever they manage) and just generally had a great time.
The only thing I ignored was weeding. I am in full-on weeding rebellion, something I know that I will regret and for which I have no excuse other than I Don't Feel Like It. I meant to put down more newspaper last night but totally forgot, becoming engrossed instead in a biography of Sister Parish, someone who - I am quite sure - probably never thought so much about weeds. But it was nice to check out for a while, snuggle in with a Brainiac-poured (and hence quite strong) cocktail and enjoy the satisfaction of jobs well-done. This week will bring more canning (various kinds of pickles and possibly the long hoped-for blueberry pie filling), more laundry (with homemade laundry soap? more on this in another post), and, yes, the weeding. But I suppose even the weeding brings satisfactions of its own, if looked at in the right way.
It's been a week of pickling 'round these parts. We started with mushrooms (much to the dismay of nearly everyone who lives with me), moved on to dilly beans and finished up with a rousing session of spiced lemons. I think it can be fairly said that I am feeling the warm glow of accomplishment. Tempered, as always, by the feelings that so much more needs to be done, but still.
Marinated mushrooms make a great addition to a relish tray, could stand alone as a salad - a scoop nestled in perhaps a raddicchio cup or on the overlapped leaves of endive - and are also fabulous piled on a sandwich. They make a great gift for those in your life who appreciate mushrooms (if you've chosen compatriots wisely, this will be almost everyone you know - alas I have chosen most unwisely) and it's with this in mind that I'm already eyeing up the three and a half pints and thinking, "not enough." But pickled mushrooms are among the easier things to can and, since I live quite close to the mushroom capital of the world (or something) it's a simple matter to pick up more for the process.
Start with four pounds of mushrooms. You can use your basic button variety or get fancier with crimini or something else - or a combination - and leave them whole, if you'd like. This time around I used regular old button mushrooms because 1) their flavor is fine for my purposes and 2) they're not nearly as expensive as other types. I also sliced mine for more flexibility - it's hard to put a whole mushroom on a sandwich, after all.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a deep pot (not to smoking) and add four pounds of mushrooms. Reduce heat to medium low. Stir the mushrooms frequently to make sure they're heated evenly. While they're heating, dice three or four large cloves of garlic (more if you like, but try not to go for less) and three shallots.* Once the mushrooms begin to give off a bit of liquid, add the garlic and shallots along with 3/4 cup of basalmic vinegar (the cheapie stuff available in most groceries is fine) and 1/4 cup of plain old white vinegar. Stir well and continue to heat on a slow burner until the mushrooms are soft - but not mushy! Remove from heat and transfer to sterilized jars (I usually use half-pints), distributing cooking liquid evenly, seal and process in a boiling hot water bath for 15 minutes). Four pounds of sliced mushrooms results in - more or less - four pints of finished product. Allow the jars to sit for six weeks or so before opening.
And that's that. You can add dried herbs, if you like - thyme is nice, and so is marjoram. Quite simple, fast and super delicious. I'm definitely going to have to make more.
* Although shallots can generally be found year 'round in American supermarkets like most things they're better in their season, which is early- to mid-summer on the northeast. In her incomperable Fancy Pantry Helen Witty suggests trimming and peeling shallots when they're available in season and freezing the cloves (bulbs?) in a quart canning jar, taking them out as needed through the year. Because I believe everything that Mrs. Witty tells me I do exactly this and have found it to be an excellent solution to the shallot-availability problem. So if you live somewhere where mushrooms are better found in fall but you have shallots now, then get the shallots and freeze them so they'll be ready when you are.
Marinated mushrooms make a great addition to a relish tray, could stand alone as a salad - a scoop nestled in perhaps a raddicchio cup or on the overlapped leaves of endive - and are also fabulous piled on a sandwich. They make a great gift for those in your life who appreciate mushrooms (if you've chosen compatriots wisely, this will be almost everyone you know - alas I have chosen most unwisely) and it's with this in mind that I'm already eyeing up the three and a half pints and thinking, "not enough." But pickled mushrooms are among the easier things to can and, since I live quite close to the mushroom capital of the world (or something) it's a simple matter to pick up more for the process.
Start with four pounds of mushrooms. You can use your basic button variety or get fancier with crimini or something else - or a combination - and leave them whole, if you'd like. This time around I used regular old button mushrooms because 1) their flavor is fine for my purposes and 2) they're not nearly as expensive as other types. I also sliced mine for more flexibility - it's hard to put a whole mushroom on a sandwich, after all.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a deep pot (not to smoking) and add four pounds of mushrooms. Reduce heat to medium low. Stir the mushrooms frequently to make sure they're heated evenly. While they're heating, dice three or four large cloves of garlic (more if you like, but try not to go for less) and three shallots.* Once the mushrooms begin to give off a bit of liquid, add the garlic and shallots along with 3/4 cup of basalmic vinegar (the cheapie stuff available in most groceries is fine) and 1/4 cup of plain old white vinegar. Stir well and continue to heat on a slow burner until the mushrooms are soft - but not mushy! Remove from heat and transfer to sterilized jars (I usually use half-pints), distributing cooking liquid evenly, seal and process in a boiling hot water bath for 15 minutes). Four pounds of sliced mushrooms results in - more or less - four pints of finished product. Allow the jars to sit for six weeks or so before opening.
And that's that. You can add dried herbs, if you like - thyme is nice, and so is marjoram. Quite simple, fast and super delicious. I'm definitely going to have to make more.
* Although shallots can generally be found year 'round in American supermarkets like most things they're better in their season, which is early- to mid-summer on the northeast. In her incomperable Fancy Pantry Helen Witty suggests trimming and peeling shallots when they're available in season and freezing the cloves (bulbs?) in a quart canning jar, taking them out as needed through the year. Because I believe everything that Mrs. Witty tells me I do exactly this and have found it to be an excellent solution to the shallot-availability problem. So if you live somewhere where mushrooms are better found in fall but you have shallots now, then get the shallots and freeze them so they'll be ready when you are.
The last two weeks have been a blur of activity, although I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what I did. There was weeding and the ever-present weed prevention efforts (file under: hope springs eternal), some watering, some dehydrating (more cherries), a spot of reupholstering, and on and on, with little actually finished. No, wait, we did finish reading Prince Caspian much to the Boy Wonder's disappointment (which came hand-in-hand with an excited rally over the next selection, Neil Armstrong: Young Flyer). Prince Caspian is a lovely tale of renewal, hope and restoration and a wonderful thing to read if you are, as I am, somewhat depressed about current events. And the Neil Armstrong book, well, it has its charms, too. The entire Childhood of Famous Americans series is admittedly a bit twee, but they do present compelling portraits of some really remarkable people in the process of becoming who we know them to have been. You know, child being the father of the man and all that, and as bedtime stories they really are nice. There is probably a reason there aren't many profiles of bond traders or product managers in the series - nor compliance specialists, for that matter (which is how I spend a good chunk of my day)- but it's not something in which I'll delve into too deeply here.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, getting things done. On that page I've been meaning to shout out to my former roommate and occasional commenter Meg to congratulate her on the addition of two (I think) children to her family. I dearly wish everyone in the family a lifetime of love and a smooth settling in. If she were in the room with me I'd ask if she ever looks back at the girls we were and wonder how we got from there to here. Myself, I'm shocked on a regular basis.
So here we are, waiting for enough beans to come in to make dilly beans, enough blueberries for jam or pie filling (actually, I prefer turnovers but you know what I'm saying) and perhaps even enough zucchini to become sick of it - although it's hard to believe that point could possibly come, this early in the season. Meanwhile, I've tasked Brainiac to the project of making some kind of rain barrel water-off-the-roof collection system, a job which I sold by reminding him that "specialization is for insects" and he probably shouldn't spend all his free time on keeping our cars running, and I'm trying to work out - again - how to knit. I think my problem was trying to knit left-handed, when clearly (it seems to be now) a girl who throws right and bats right probably ought to knit right, too, even if she writes and eats left. Right?
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, getting things done. On that page I've been meaning to shout out to my former roommate and occasional commenter Meg to congratulate her on the addition of two (I think) children to her family. I dearly wish everyone in the family a lifetime of love and a smooth settling in. If she were in the room with me I'd ask if she ever looks back at the girls we were and wonder how we got from there to here. Myself, I'm shocked on a regular basis.
So here we are, waiting for enough beans to come in to make dilly beans, enough blueberries for jam or pie filling (actually, I prefer turnovers but you know what I'm saying) and perhaps even enough zucchini to become sick of it - although it's hard to believe that point could possibly come, this early in the season. Meanwhile, I've tasked Brainiac to the project of making some kind of rain barrel water-off-the-roof collection system, a job which I sold by reminding him that "specialization is for insects" and he probably shouldn't spend all his free time on keeping our cars running, and I'm trying to work out - again - how to knit. I think my problem was trying to knit left-handed, when clearly (it seems to be now) a girl who throws right and bats right probably ought to knit right, too, even if she writes and eats left. Right?
I have finally wrested the computer from Brainiac on the strength of my conviction that one cannot control the remote, the laptop and the satellite radio simultaneously. He loves nothing more than to surf the latest gearhead and/or medical instrumentation news while watching one of those wretched military history shows that feature re-enactments AND computer-generated "footage" of aerial dogfights. No more, I say, one must choose one's media input. We'll see how far I get with this.
Now that I have control of the laptop (which I am using while watching with him a documentary of the Six Day War which, although wrenching in many ways, at least does not offer much in the way in the way of computerized fighter jets - small mercies and all that) I must figure out something about which to write. I am on the record as having hated February and being somewhat non-plussed about March; April and May were merely trying. I am still waiting for June to bring results for my efforts to solve long-standing challenges and so feel a bit at loose ends lately.
So. Here we are. I'd love to share with you my latest project but I cannot because my younger sis reads here and it's all supposed to remain a surprise for now. Or I could show you the dining room chairs I trash picked and am prepping for recovering but that would mean putting the laptop down and leaving the room to get the camera and I cannot risk that the machine would be waiting here for me on my return (Brainiac's corollary to my "one media input" at a time rule is "if you put it down, it's mine" so you can understand my motivation to stay here until he plies me with so much wine that I have no choice but to leave the room). I could tell the story of how I taught the young Ukrainian woman living with us how to make tomatilla salsa - to her sincere and acute alarm, but now that I've come up with all these things I should do but will not I am now exceedingly tired and quite hopped up on Syrah and must attend to other needs. You understand, right?
This weekend we are taking the kids fishing (!) and I am confident that any number of amusing tales will result, and I am also planning to lay in a batch of both chocolate sauce and marinated mushrooms. With luck and the ability to avoid military documentaries, not to mention June taking the turn for which I am hoping, I should have lots to share. Stay with me, will you?
Now that I have control of the laptop (which I am using while watching with him a documentary of the Six Day War which, although wrenching in many ways, at least does not offer much in the way in the way of computerized fighter jets - small mercies and all that) I must figure out something about which to write. I am on the record as having hated February and being somewhat non-plussed about March; April and May were merely trying. I am still waiting for June to bring results for my efforts to solve long-standing challenges and so feel a bit at loose ends lately.
So. Here we are. I'd love to share with you my latest project but I cannot because my younger sis reads here and it's all supposed to remain a surprise for now. Or I could show you the dining room chairs I trash picked and am prepping for recovering but that would mean putting the laptop down and leaving the room to get the camera and I cannot risk that the machine would be waiting here for me on my return (Brainiac's corollary to my "one media input" at a time rule is "if you put it down, it's mine" so you can understand my motivation to stay here until he plies me with so much wine that I have no choice but to leave the room). I could tell the story of how I taught the young Ukrainian woman living with us how to make tomatilla salsa - to her sincere and acute alarm, but now that I've come up with all these things I should do but will not I am now exceedingly tired and quite hopped up on Syrah and must attend to other needs. You understand, right?
This weekend we are taking the kids fishing (!) and I am confident that any number of amusing tales will result, and I am also planning to lay in a batch of both chocolate sauce and marinated mushrooms. With luck and the ability to avoid military documentaries, not to mention June taking the turn for which I am hoping, I should have lots to share. Stay with me, will you?
I read somewhere recently an old farmer's advice to plant triple of whatever it is one wants to produce and thinks one ought to plant: one third for the weather, one third for the critters and one third for the grower. This seems like sound advice to me, although I only followed it with tomatoes and bush beans this year. Oh, and the hot peppers. Hm, and basil. I actually planted less squash (three zucchinis only) and I'm having a bit of an anxiety attack about it, despite knowing that I've never had a squash shortage in any year I'd planted at least one.
There remains a bit of planting to do. I want to get another eight or ten bean seeds in the ground, and perhaps a couple butternut squash (I've never grown them, but I'd like to experiment with storage veggies this year). The Boy Wonder would like to try carrots, which I've never done, and although I fear it's a bit late I'm willing to give it a shot. Once that's done, we're solidly into "we'll see" territory, with watching and waiting as the primary activities.
In the meantime, I've been doing a bit of canning (tomatilla salsa, mango jam and pickled okra) and experimenting with the dehydrator that a pal gave me after she unearthed it in her basement and had no recollection of how it got there. I dried the last of our apples (until this fall) - they were getting a bit soft - with great success and have also made some cherry "raisins", taking advantage of the season. I can't say as I'll ever be a jerky and fruit leather kind of girl (as we eat neither of those foods in the first place) but being able to dry our excess of what we *do* eat has been nice.
And so there we are, in this neither here-nor-there time food-wise. I'd like to make up a batch of marinated mushrooms and perhaps even a bit of strawberry jam if I can get enough berries next week at the market. Oh, and chocolate sauce. It's definitely a good time for chocolate sauce so it will be matured and ready for gift-giving come the winter holidays. (Yes, it's true, I'm one of those people who thinks about Christmas in June. But I also think about my garden in January, so this doesn't strike me as inconsistent with my general behavior.)
There remains a bit of planting to do. I want to get another eight or ten bean seeds in the ground, and perhaps a couple butternut squash (I've never grown them, but I'd like to experiment with storage veggies this year). The Boy Wonder would like to try carrots, which I've never done, and although I fear it's a bit late I'm willing to give it a shot. Once that's done, we're solidly into "we'll see" territory, with watching and waiting as the primary activities.
In the meantime, I've been doing a bit of canning (tomatilla salsa, mango jam and pickled okra) and experimenting with the dehydrator that a pal gave me after she unearthed it in her basement and had no recollection of how it got there. I dried the last of our apples (until this fall) - they were getting a bit soft - with great success and have also made some cherry "raisins", taking advantage of the season. I can't say as I'll ever be a jerky and fruit leather kind of girl (as we eat neither of those foods in the first place) but being able to dry our excess of what we *do* eat has been nice.
And so there we are, in this neither here-nor-there time food-wise. I'd like to make up a batch of marinated mushrooms and perhaps even a bit of strawberry jam if I can get enough berries next week at the market. Oh, and chocolate sauce. It's definitely a good time for chocolate sauce so it will be matured and ready for gift-giving come the winter holidays. (Yes, it's true, I'm one of those people who thinks about Christmas in June. But I also think about my garden in January, so this doesn't strike me as inconsistent with my general behavior.)
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