Body of Work

About That Turkey

2011-12-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

I'm done with searching for the perfect turkey recipe. Every year I would research relentlessly in an effort to find a recipe that would allow me to cook the traditional protein prescribed for Thanksgiving, but would also actually taste good. I actually love the flavor of turkey, but as anyone who's ever cooked a turkey knows it can be near impossible to roast a turkey that has decent texture.

Not anymore.

You should make this turkey. Then, in the words of SNL, you should go out and buy yourself a hat and hold the f*** onto it. This is turkey unlike any turkey I have ever tasted. It was richly flavored, seasoned throughout and so moist that even though I overcooked it a little(seriously, what is my problem with turkey?!) again it was still phenomenally moist. Make sure that you brine it for the full three days, because that's how long science takes. The salt pulls the moisture out, seasons it up nicely and then puts it all back inside the turkey meat.

For some time now, I've been roasting turkey parts rather than a whole bird. I love the look of a whole roasted turkey on a platter with golden brown skin, but breaking down a whole bird before roasting gives you multiple advantages:

-you can use the backbone, neck and wings to make stock three days before Thanksgiving, giving you a head start on the tastiest gravy ever
-roasting the parts is much, much faster than roasting a whole bird, and if the breast meat comes to temperature before the dark meat you can simply remove just the breast from the oven
-it's a heck of a lot easier to store brining turkey parts in your fridge than it is to brine a whole turkey

To sum up, next Thanksgiving I will without question buy a whole turkey and break it down myself, apply a dry brine with fresh rosemary to the turkey parts, make stock ahead of time, and free up my oven for other things on Thanksgiving day. No need to get up super early to get the bird in the oven in time for dinner. You can sleep in, forget about the turkey for several hours and then put it in the oven at your leisure. Also, I think it's unnecessary to apply the initial blast of high heat; the only advantage is that it makes the skin a gorgeous color, but I think it heats up the oven too much. Next year(or, let's be honest, maybe even next week) I'll just keep the oven at 275 for the whole time. If you must have brown skin, broil it at the end or remove the skin when the turkey is cooked and roast it separately.

The other major advantage to the dry brine is that it uses much, much less salt than a wet brine, which sometimes made the drippings inedibly salty. I don't know about you, but I'm not okay with wasting delicious drippings. If breaking down a whole turkey intimidates you, I can't recommend enough that you do it anyway. Clean out your kitchen sink really well and then plop the whole bird in there; it will contain all the mess, the extra juices will just go down the drain, and it makes the perfect container for wrestling with a slippery whole animal. Get yourself a short, sharp knife, brace yourself for the crunching of bones and then get in touch with your inner savage. It's highly satisfying.

Also in the category of highly satisfying is the fact that we finally have a complete Jesse Tree this year. We try it every Advent, but something always went wrong. When I was growing up my siblings and I made a whole set of ornaments out of Fimo, but that stuff is way too hard for my kids to work with. Then I had the brilliant idea of getting little wooden ornaments and letting the boys color them with markers. It was one of those rare afternoons when everyone was well-rested and well-fed enough to stick with a project, and the boys happily colored for almost two hours until the set was done. I was further delighted when I realized that I have finally gotten to point in my life where I not actually own a hot glue gun, but I also know with a high degree of accuracy where it is located, which makes it a much more useful device. I utilized it to glue some loops of ribbon onto each ornament, and those were done. And no one even cried. I'm telling you, we have reached a new era around here.

I used a 50% off coupon to buy a cork board which I tried painting directly on, but it puckered so then I used another 50% off coupon to buy a stapler, and used it to attach some unbleached muslin to the puckered cork board. Then I laid out the ornaments until I found an arrangement I liked and used a pencil to trace branches where I thought they should go. I slapped some acrylic paint on there and then used thumb tacks to hang the ornaments.

This is everyone's favorite ornament. It's Noah's Ark, painted by Jack.

This is my other favorite: Jacob's Ladder by Matteas.

See how happy the high priests are to be carrying the Ark of the Covenant?

So that's what's going on at our house; moist meat and crafts galore. Good times.

Because You Don't Know Until You Do

2011-11-29T14:24:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks in our house. In Homestead news, one of our chickens developed a prolapsed cloaca. Don't google images of that, it's disgusting. I think it was because she was low on calcium, which can cause a chicken's muscles to lose tension and things that ought to be on the inside of them start hanging out on the outside. Then these things need to be cleaned and swabbed with a mixture of honey, preparation H, and Neosporin, before being tucked back on the inside of the chicken(a lot of research went into this, I didn't just jam preparation H in there mindlessly). I've never been so grateful for gloves. We had to isolate the chicken during her treatment because if other chickens see anything that looks like blood or innards, they will go crazy and peck at the affected chicken until they have cannibalized her. We told the other chickens she was at the spa. For the past week she's been in a cozy little house of her own in the garage, and during the first few days of this the other two white chickens would stay outside the chicken coop long after dark, looking for her. At least that's what I told Aaron I thought they were doing. Yesterday everything stayed inside that ought to, and then she laid an egg and everything still stayed inside. Today I let her outside(outside of the chicken run) and she kept pacing along the fence line of the chicken run like she wanted to get back in there real bad, and since her bum was back to normal I decided to let her get reacquainted with her sister chickens. I was worried they might peck at her after all that time away, but no one really seemed to notice and then Pluck(that's what we've decided to name her after witnessing her heroism throughout her ordeal) went straight into the chicken coop and hopped into the nesting box. I know because I followed her.

What's interesting is that before, I could only tell one of our white chickens apart because she has a spikey comb while the other two have soft, floppy combs, but I couldn't tell the difference between the soft floppy two. After a week of close contact with one of the chickens, she now looks as indivudual to me as if she were painted bright purple. When you've shared certain intimacies with a chicken, you can pick her out of a crowd. That sort of thing creates a bond, you know?

All of this was not very picturesque, so I decided to post some pictures of a table Aaron built for a breakfast nook. Not our breakfast nook. We don't have one of those. I told him I might not be okay with him building furniture for other women, because when I saw this table I thought "Damn, no wonder I've had that man's babies."

Here's the sexiest part: there is no metal hardware in the table. Aaron made the whole thing from hand-chosen pieces of walnut, and no screws or nails. Just his bare man hands. It is satiny smooth, sanded down layer by layer using the entire range of sandpaper grit. Also: this was Aaron's very first table. So we are both doing things we never have before, and I like when life's challenges teach you new skills because you don't know how to treat a prolapsed cloaca until you do, and then it's knowledge in your back pocket for the next time you find a bulging mass of inside stuff on the outside of a chicken.

We also got our carpet cleaned a few days before Thanksgiving, and all this new and improved grooming is putting a little extra spring in everyones' step.

I have some thoughts about Thanksgiving which I will share a little later because I'm making more turkey. This year I used a dry brine, and even though I only had 24 hours instead of the prescribed 72 AND I overcooked the turkey, it was still the best turkey I've ever had. So I'm doing it again for the proper three days and hopefully not overcooking it, and I'll report back here. For now I have to go obsessively vacuum my carpet.

Trying to Hold Out

2011-11-15T14:39:00.000-08:00

This year I broke out the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack far earlier than I intended. My only defense is that it was a stormy, cold day, Aaron worked from home that morning and built a fire and it just felt kind of right. The other day though, Aaron gently suggested to me that I should give it a rest so we're not tired of it by Christmas. My cousin Kayleigh is flying out to spend Thanksgiving with me(commence squealing and rolling around on the floor, which is what I do when overwhelmed by unspeakable joy) so I have resolved not to play any more Charlie Brown Christmas until she's here and we're making pumpkin pie.

As you can see, we have plenty of Fall decorations up: our leaf garland and lights on the fireplace, some leaf prints the boys and I made on fabric on the dining room wall, candles and pumpkins on the dining room table and a Platter of Nature with a candle on the coffee table. The other thing you can see is that I don't dust. Ssh.

Despite my resolve, I couldn't resist these beautiful sprigs of holly. They were just right there in my back yard, beckoning, and they look so pretty against my white curtains and gray walls. I have all kinds of plans to do a proper Advent this year, starting with actually completing a set of Jesse Tree ornaments. The boys have been super into painting lately, so I want to get a bunch of tiny square canvases and have them paint all the symbols for our Jesse Tree.

Other things that have happened: Matteas got some really terrible blisters after he got water in his boots at the beach the other day. The blisters became swollen, bulging orbs of puss surrounded by angry red halos of infection. I lanced them and soaked his feet in warm salt water with tea tree oil several times a day, with bandaids and Neosporin in between soaks and the angry red halos have receded, the puss is no more. I feel like a shaman. Or just a really bad-ass mama.

I finally caught one of the colds that the boys have been circulating for the past six weeks. No joke, someone has had some kind of cold symptom for the entire month of October through the present day. Aaron still has a cough, the boys both have runny noses and for the past two days I've had a nasty sore throat. Aaron brought me pho for dinner last night and I've been drinking gallons of tea, as well as mugs of hot water with fresh ginger, lemon, honey and cayenne. It's actually quite tasty and I'm feeling a little better today despite waking up at 7:30. I got in bed with some tea and the laptop last night and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives, but since I never watch the show I had no idea what was going on. It seemed a lot like the only other episode of that show I've ever seen, only this time someone else was dead and someone else has an alcohol problem. I think that show's motto is "What goes around comes around." It was less than compelling, but I kind of enjoyed the voyeurism.

Shrimp and Sugar Snap Peas with Peanut Sauce

2011-11-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Aaron and I had separate errands to run this morning, so I took Jack and he took Matteas, and afterwards we met up at Costco. When the shopping was all done and we brought our haul home, we were both starving and Aaron had someplace to be in 45 minutes. This lunch was the perfect solution, and I will definitely be making it again even if I have all the time in the world. I didn't actually time myself, but if I had to guess I'd say the elapsed time from defrosting the shrimp to plating was a maximum of 20 minutes. If you avoid peanuts and wheat, substitute tamari sauce for the soy and cashew butter for the peanut butter.

I made my rice in a rice cooker while I prepared the shrimp, but brought the water to a boil in a kettle first. I find this cuts the cooking time in half and my rice was perfectly cooked by the time I'd finished the shrimp. I made one cup of dry rice for two people, and the serving above was the portion leftover. If you don't have sugar snap peas on hand, substitute with any quick-cooking vegetable or combination of vegetables, such as snow peas, thinly sliced bell pepper, or bok choy. This sauce would be phenomenal with asparagus come spring time, but if you went ahead and bought asparagus out of season I would totally not judge you. If you want a visually stunning garnish, sprinkle each serving with black sesame seeds.

Shrimp and Sugar Snap Peas with Peanut Sauce
Serves two for dinner or three for lunch

30 shrimp, raw, tail-on(about a pound, depending on the size of your shrimp)
1 cup fresh sugar snap peas
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
2 scallions, chopped

For the Sauce
1/3 cup creamy natural peanut butter(no Skippy or sugar added brands)
1 TB soy sauce
1 inch grated fresh ginger root
1/2 tsp. Chinese hot mustard
2 TB water
A few dashes sesame oil

If your shrimp are frozen like mine were, defrost them in a colandar under cold running water.

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

Heat a little oil(olive, vegetable, coconut) in a saute pan over medium-high heat. When it's hot, add the sugar snap peas and saute for about a minute. Remove the peas into a bowl.

Return the pan to the heat, making sure there is still enough oil in the pan to just coat the bottom. When the oil is hot, add the shrimp in a single layer. After about 30 seconds, add the garlic and toss the shrimp around to flip them. Immediately add the peanut sauce(the shrimp won't be completely pink), add the peanut sauce and the sauteed sugar snap peas and toss to coat. Let everything cook together for 30-60 seconds, just until the sauce is heated through and the shrimp are finished cooking Remove from the heat and sprinkle with the chopped scallions. Serve over brown rice. This is delicious with sriracha.

Caramelized Leeks

2011-11-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

As an eater, one of my pet peeves is to see food used in a way that fails to utilize its full flavor potential. One of the ways in which I see this happen most often is the under-cooking of onions and leeks: too pale, too raw, too crunchy, too sad. A lot of people I know think they either don't like cooking or aren't good at it, but most of the time I think the real problem is that they lack the right information, and maybe proper confidence and time.

I'm not going to lie: properly caramelized leeks take time. An astonishing amount, actually. Like forty minutes. For one leek. It is, however, one of those time-consuming things that is really worth the effort and can change the way you feel about your while life, at least during breakfast.

The first thing to do with a leek is clean it, as they are grown in very sandy soil that can get into their crevices. Slice the leek in half from top to bottom, then gently rinse each half under cold running water. Usually the outer layers will be the dirtiest, so pay careful attention to those. Do your best to dry them, because water is the enemy of caramelization. Slice them into uniform crescents, and put them in a pan drizzled with olive oil and a little butter over low heat. Don't touch them for ten whole minutes. TEN WHOLE MINUTES. If you have a husband who suffers from the compulsion to stir any cooking thing he walks by without regard to the delicate and vital process that is happening, keep him out of the kitchen.

After ten minutes, the leeks should look like this: beginning to soften and picking up some nice(but not too much) color. If the leeks are looking dry or like they're becoming crispy, add a little more oil or butter. You don't want them too dry or they'll fry crisp, but neither do you want them swimming in fat because that will just steam them. While we're on the subject of steam, don't crowd the pan. You will never be able to caramelize anything properly if the pan is too full.

Continue the process of stirring only once every ten minutes, adding more oil/butter when necessary, until the leeks are golden and soft, about forty minutes.

A pan full of pleasure.

See now, wasn't that worth the wait?

And if you've got some ham, zucchini, oven-roasted grape tomatoes and a fried egg, go right ahead and introduce them to your beautifully caramelized leeks. Other good places for them would be an omelet or frittata, a potato gratin(or anything made of potatoes), in soup, spooned over roasted chicken, or anyplace you need something earthy, sweet and satisfying.

Aaron's Birthday Torte

2011-11-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to become a once-a-month blogger, but a lot has been going on lately. September came and life got crazy busy, and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon although we're in more of a groove now than we were at first. I do not excel at being super scheduled, but I've been enjoying the rhythm and structure that standing commitments provide. In addition to soccer, the boys have started swim lessons and somehow working around those two commitments(which fall on three of our weekdays) seems to fill up all our days. I like having things divided up into Days We Have to be Someplace and Days When Our Time is Our Own; it's not like we stayed home all the time before, but somehow having to be in a specific place at a specific time makes everything that happens before and after it feel more structured.

Speaking of specific times, Aaron turned 33 on Monday. We are still keeping up our Monday Night Football soup tradition, which involves anywhere from 1-10 people(though usually just 1-2) coming over to watch football and me making a giant pot of soup. Since Aaron's birthday fell on a Monday this year, I told him we could have Monday Night Football: Birthday Edition, or he could just choose whatever day or meal he wanted and I would make it for him. Given free reign over my culinary arsenal, Aaron chose beef stew and flourless chocolate cake. I tell you, it doesn't take much to make that man happy.

I knew exactly who I wanted to consult about the flourless chocolate cake. A few years ago, Anna gave me a copy of Fran Bigelow's Pure Chocolate. It's one of those really beautiful cookbooks that is both well-written and well-photographed, so much so that you can curl up on the couch with it and read it from cover to cover. What is even more remarkable about my love for this book is that I don't really care for chocolate or dessert in general, but I still think Fran's recipes are amazing. As I was working on this torte, I realized that it's largely due to the color and texture of chocolate; it doesn't just feel like cooking, it feels like making art. Thick, dark, velvety and lustrous, melted chocolate brings me all the satisfaction of really luxurious fingerpaint. Add in the fact that often there is a lot of science involved, and you have my full attention. I ate fully three bites of this torte, so I know it tastes good. If you're into that kind of thing.

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Cayenne Pepper
Adapted from Fran Bigelow

1 1/4 pounds good quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 pound(2 sticks) salted butter
6 eggs
2 TB sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter a 9 inch round cake pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and butter the parchment.

Melt the chocolate over low heat in a double boiler(to make one, place stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of simmer water, making sure the water doesn't touch the bowl). When the chocolate is nearly melted and only a few lumps remain, remove it from the heat and add the sugar, vanilla and cayenne. Stir until smooth.

Whip the eggs until fluffy and tripled in volume, about five minutes(if you have a free-standing mixer, whip them on high and set a timer for five minutes while you're melting the chocolate).

When the eggs are whipped and the chocolate has cooled slightly(it should be warm but not hot to the touch), fold in the eggs gently until the eggs are well incorporated. You'll lose a lot of the volume at this stage, but that's okay. Pour the batter into your prepared pan.

Place your 9 inch cake pan inside a larger, flat-bottomed pan(a rimmed cookie sheet or larger round cake pan works well) and pour simmering water into the larger pan, enough to come halfway up the side of the 9 inch cake pan. Bake at 300 degrees for 30-35 minutes. When the torte is finished the top should look dull, but the cake will jiggle slightly when you give the pan a gentle shimmy. If you pull the torte out too soon the center will fall as it cools, but if you leave it in too long it will dry out.

Cool the torte in the pan on a rack for at least an hour. When the torte has cooled, run a thin bladed knife around the edge. Place a round of parchment cut to the same size as the cake on top of the cake, then place a cooling rack on top of the torte, press the cake pan and rack together firmly and invert. If the torte seems a little stuck, gently tap the bottom of the pan until it comes loose. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

This torte is so rich in can be served as-is, but if you're into gilding the lily you can cover it in:

Chocolate Ganache

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream

Place the cream in a double boiler over simmering water and stir until melted. Let cool slightly before using.

To prepare your work space, place a sheet of foil on a counter. Put the rack with the cooled torte over the foil so the foil catches any drips of ganache. Working quickly, pour the ganache over the center of the torte. Using an offset spatula, gently push the ganache over the edges of the torte so it drips down the sides. If you have any gaps, use a small spatula to cover the them.

ganache in a ziploc bag and cut a very tiny hole in one corner of the bag. Carefully pipe three circles of white ganache around the outside edge of the torte, leaving about 1/4 inch between circles. Don't worry if the circles aren't perfectly straight, you're going to mess them up anyway. Starting at the top line of ganache, use a toothpick to draw figure 8's continuously making sure to come all the way down through the bottom line. Without picking up your toothpick, gently drag your toothpick out to the side and back up to the top, leaving enough room to write enough figure eight directly to the right of the one you just made. It sounds confusing, but your hand will find a rhythm. I recommend practicing on a piece of paper with a pen. Don't worry if your lines are wobbly, it's not an exact science and it will still come out looking really pretty.

Note: Make sure to do the figure 8 work while the ganache is still warm. If your base layer of ganache sets too quickly or doesn't spread evenly, you can soften it up very carefully by running a hairdryer over it briefly. Make sure not to have the hairdryer too close or the ganache will splatter as it warms.

In Which I Become Totally Suburban

2011-09-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

The boys started soccer last week, and it is pretty hilarious.

Jack having a casually athletic moment.

See that yellow flag Jack is holding? They played a game where some of the kids had those flags tucked into their shorts as "tails" and the rest of the kids had to chase them around the field and yank their tails out. The tricky part was that the kids with tails had to run while dribbling a soccer ball, the goal being to get the kids to dribble really fast. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long, long time. Jack got his tail yanked out pretty quickly by a girl who, failing to catch him from behind, ran directly in front of him so he had to stop or run her over, and once he'd stopped she reached around from the front like she was hugging him and swiped his tail. Strategy.

When it was Matteas' turn to chase, he grabbed his coach's tail and then stopped running to do a victory dance while the rest of the game continued without him. Team participation is a skill which largely eluded most of the kids on the field, but they all seemed pretty thrilled to be there even though actual soccer doesn't seem to be much of a focal point for the kids. They're all, "Other kids! Open space! Running! An adult is paying attention to us! We don't really care what happens next!"

Meanwhile, I was standing on the sidelines in my anthropologie shirt and pearl earrings when Aaron came over with a latte for me. I didn't even make that last part up.

Other stuff that's happened: I've made two wedding cakes which have not yet appeared here but I'll get to them eventually; we are homeschooling with great success and learning life lessons during math; our chickens are molting and therefore not laying eggs. Life is pretty exciting in a domestic kind of way.

That Was Fast

2011-08-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Today, Matteas turned four. My baby is four years old. Somehow it feels like he can't possibly be that old, even though it seems like he's been part of my life forever. I have to try really hard to think about what it felt like not to be his mom. I think that's partly due to the fact that in many ways, my 28 year-old self doesn't feel all that different to me than my 17 year-old self. A little less dramatic maybe, more sure of who I am, but basically the same personality. For the same reason I sometimes feel a little panicked that I am responsible for two whole children; some days I feel so young, I feel like I still need a mother.

It has been so much fun to watch Matteas develop his personality. There is never a dull moment with this boy; he is always sharing his boundless knowledge with anyone who will listen, following the neighbors around as they water the grass and get the mail, making sure they get their daily dose of Matteas Wisdom. I love this about him. He had such a sweet personality as a baby and is still very sweet most days, but somewhere in his third year he turned a corner and became really challenging. One of my least favorite parts of parenting is how unpredictable it is, because I'm the sort of person who likes to have a plan. If I have a plan, I know what to do. I don't like not knowing what to do, but my kids are really good at teaching me over and over again to let go of my expectations, to roll with the punches. Lately, Matteas has been the more challenging child to parent. I never thought I would say that, but there it is. He is so, so stubborn and will NOT admit when he's wrong(I have no idea where he gets this). I've been feeling kind of weepy about him getting older, I think because I enjoyed him so much as a baby. With Jack, I couldn't wait for his infancy to be over; he was so angry about being an infant, and the older he got the happier he got. Plus he was so tiny when he was born and wouldn't nurse, and pumping two bottles a night really taxed my sanity.

But Matteas was different. Quiet and sweet from birth, he took long naps during the day and nursed with ease. He slept better than Jack did, and seemed quite content to be whatever age he happened to be at the time. He loved to chat, and would sometimes smile so hard during a "conversation" that his big brown eyes would turn into little half-moon slits that almost disappeared into his enormous grin. He was, and still is, a boy who loves life and relationship. Until him, I didn't know that a baby could be so satisfying. So I'm kind of bummed that we seem to be getting to the hard part of our relationship.

Speaking of unpredictable, we haven't had a party for Matteas yet because Jack has had a fever since Thursday. Today was his first day of not running a temperature and trying to get warm through fits of chills, so we had a quiet dinner at home and then took the boys out for ice cream cones. We ended up eating them in the parking lot because the ice cream place was so stinkin' hot inside. For presents, we got him a scooter(which he's had his eye on for a while) and: a popcorn popper. Yes, he actually asked for one. I have a feeling he's going to feel so empowered that we will be eating popcorn for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The Trouble with Red Velvet

2011-08-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of dye or artificial ingredients, so when I was asked to make a red velvet wedding cake I was determined to do it naturally. The baking frenzy that ensued was the most obsessive cooking endeavor I've ever been involved with, and included the boiling, roasting, pureeing and reducing of many many pounds of cooked beets. I won't lie; it got ugly.

I baked between two and five sample cakes a day, a single-layer eight inch round, auditioning different recipes and trying different tricks between crazy amounts of googling. I have read everything ever published on the internet about red velvet cake. The results were mostly cakes that were decidedly neither red nor velvety, and the only one I succeeded in keeping red tasted like borscht.

The problem is pH. Baked goods that are red are acidic; baking soda, the main leavening agent in baked goods, is alkaline. An alkaline cake = brown cake. I tried and tried and tried: I added more acid, left out the baking soda, reduced the beets for longer, added tons of lemon juice directly to the beets. I'd end up most times with a beautifully scarlet batter, but 30 minutes later I'd pull a brown cake out of the oven.

I finally gave in and bought red dye, then baked off the wedding cake, wrapped it and froze it. Then proceeded to have nightmares about how brown the cake still was, and woke up with a conviction: I'm not proud of that cake.

So I started again.

In all, I baked 27 layers of cake over the course of four days. The final result, while brown on the outside, was a satisfying ruby red on the inside thanks to the four jars of red gel dye I used.

It was an interesting lesson in delivering a product I was not, in an ultimate sense, proud of. I don't believe in sacrificing flavor for visual presentation, and the nature of red velvet cake is such that only a minimal amount of cocoa powder can be used without turning the whole thing brown. In my rebellion, I added extra vanilla, lemon zest and a pinch of cinnamon. I'm not going to bother putting up the recipe, because taste-wise it was unremarkable. I realized the next day that when I scaled up the recipe I finally settled on after dozens of changes and substitutions, I forgot to scale up the amount sour cream I used and the final cake came out a little dry. I got lots of feedback about the frosting, which confirmed my belief that cake is really just a vehicle for frosting. I hate that about cake.

Flowers by Maureen Arpin

I'm not sure what I'll do if I'm asked to make another red velvet cake. I understand the appeal of a jewel-red cake visually, but the flavor trade off still troubles me on a deeply spiritual level. Pleasure should be about pleasure, and when all is said and done I'd rather eat an ugly tasty cake than a beautiful flavorless one. That's what troubles me about this wedding cake; it failed to maximize the opportunity for pleasure, something I feel confident my previous wedding cakes accomplished.

Still, it was an interesting experience to add to my cake baking evolution. I look back at some of the cakes I've made and cringe with embarrassment that I served them in public, but I realize that I had to make those first, lumpy cakes to get to the smooth, sleek ones. Because I'm all about growth.

A Few Rash Decisions and a Good Vacation

2011-08-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

A million years ago, when I was pregnant with Matteas, I tried contacts. With no success. So I'm trying them again because even after 13 years I'm not used to my glasses, and I hate them every day. It's kind of working. I don't hate them as much as I did the first time, and my optometrist saw fit to order me six months worth of contacts because he assures me that I'll eventually get used to them, and because his whole face lifts a visible inch when he smiles I'm choosing to believe him.

But it's weird, because I've worn glasses for such a long time and now my face looks so naked, and my eyes look so small and my lips are enormous so I thought I'd level the playing field a bit and cut some bangs. And now I have no idea what I look like: bangs, no bangs, glasses, no glasses? What does anyone look like, anyway, and what does it matter? Cue existential crisis. But during all this we went to Whidbey Island, and it was magical.

This is as normal as it gets. I have over ten of these; Matteas will not make a normal face in any of them. I'm not really sure what his deal is right now, because for once in his life he is being The More Difficult Child and this is new for everyone.

Our last night there, I asked my cousin Christopher to make a bonfire so we could have Cousins Bonfire, and he was all over it. We drank cheap wine and watched the crazy half moon get eaten by the mountains, and it was epic.

Warmer Days

2011-07-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

It never fails to impress that, while we've had some excellent parties that involved careful planning and extensive preparation, some of our most magical dinners have happened spontaneously. You can't plan on making the kids climb up into an apple tree to eat their dinner at sunset; these things need to happen naturally.

Anna's back yard is a lovely place for an outdoor party.

After dinner, the kids kept each other entertained on the swing while the grown ups finished their wine and the sun sank lower, and for a few hours life felt magical and safe and lovely.

As I type this, Matteas is walking around naked and crying because the gingerbread man tatttoo he wanted got ripped because he didn't know how to put it on and wouldn't let Jack help him, and Jack is being domineering and bossy about how Matteas should have let him help. Also, it's raining which makes me extra pleased that we ate crab and drank wine in the back yard last night. Carpe diem.

Crab and Cancer

2011-07-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

The theme continues.

Tomorrow my mother in-law gets the results of extensive tests to see if her cancer has spread; her oncologist doesn't sound terribly optimistic. Again again I say to you, fuck fuck fuckety fuck.

However, the spectre of potential bad news didn't keep us from having a mighty fine evening anyway, and we enjoyed cold wine, buttery crab, garlicky Ceasar and flank steak with chimichuri in the back yard. It occurred to me that regardless of the test results, there wasn't anywhere else I'd rather have been.

Cake and Cancer

2011-07-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

This morning, after a late a night necessitated by a fantastic Fourth of July party and some really, really good tequila, I came down the hallway to find that my bins of Christmas decorations had vomited their contents all over the living room. Jack, always the early riser, had decided that Christmas would be much more fun if we celebrated it more often and hefted all the stuff he would need out of the downstairs closet. I had gone to bed last night after doing a load of dishes and saving the rest of the mess(which was considerable) for the morning, after the tequila had worn off and the coffee had kicked in, so I was not immediately pleased to find that, in addition to our American flag decorations, there was now Christmas stuff EVERYWHERE. My first impulse was to be grumpy, but I quickly realized I couldn't afford to get grumpy until I'd had some coffee and by that time Jack had explained his plan to me.

He'd wanted to make Christmas for Matteas. He made a fake tree out of some scrapbook paper, set up a circle of wooden train track around it, and wrapped a present for Matteas which turned out to be some of Jack's Easter egg hunt money in a shoe box. Jack is a piece of work, but he is also the cutest. He is also, as my cousin Kayleigh says, my ultimate "teacher bird." Birds are a theme in Kayleigh's life, and teacher bird is the term she came up with for a person that comes into your life to teach you something that you need to learn. Jack has taught me a lot of things, and lately he has really been emphasizing to me what a mixed bag life is.

My sister told me she pulled up my blog to show a(very proper, non-profanity using) friend my beautiful cakes. Instead of beautiful cake, what she found was "fuck fuck fuckety FUCK." Ahem.

I would prefer my life to be neatly organized, but much of the time it isn't and I cause myself a lot of needless suffering by comparing my life as it is to my life as I think it should be. I think my life should be fabulous parties followed by beautiful cakes, and no one would ever make a mess and definitely no one would ever get cancer. As a young mother, my life often felt either/or: I was either under-slept(mostly this one) or well-rested; my house was either clean or(more often) it was messy. I'm finding more and more that the either/or game is a hard way to live life, because either/or is not how life plays. It's not either cake or cancer, it's cake AND cancer. Life doesn't look at what you have going on and say "Oh, hang on: someone you care about has cancer so I'm going to go ahead and hit the Pause button while you deal with this gracefully. Take all the time you need, nothing else will happen while you're having your moment." So I apologize for the occasional profanity, but it's where I need to be right now. I occasionally make beautiful cakes, and occasionally someone I love has cancer and there is not always a neat separation between the meat and the mess of my life. And by "meat" I mean "the good part." I sometimes have trouble being open to joy when I'm in the middle of suffering, but over and over again I feel myself being stretched to take it all in, not joy or suffering, but joy AND suffering, all of it at once and together.

Matteas is better at practicing this lesson than I am, as demonstrated by his ability to fully enjoy the pleasure of his ice cream cone while not being bothered by the one inch gash above his eyebrow. You probably can't see it very well in that picture because it's all scabbed up now, no thanks to the special glue the lady at the clinic used instead of actual stitches.

All that is to say in a disclaimer sort of way that if you come here looking for cake, you'll find some but there will most certainly be some fuckfuckfucketyFUCK along the way. Because sometimes cake and cancer happen on the same day.

A Little Food-crazy

2011-06-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

The other day, I remembered that I have a blog. A sad, lonely, neglected little blog. There's a lot going on and it felt like too much work to explain all the pieces here, but I think I may have found a way to connect my real life with my blogging life without over-sharing.

To no one's surprise, that connection is food.

It all started with a lump that my mother-in-law found in her right breast. Tests followed, with days of anxious waiting and then the confirmation no one wanted to hear.

Cancer.

Fuck fuck fuckety. FUCK.

She had a mastectomy on Wednesday and is recovering with miraculous speed and ease. Her oncologist told her that she's going to live another twenty years at least. Her doctor prescribed a special diet which focuses on removing inflammatory foods and boosting consumption of anti-inflammatory foods, so I've had food on the brain even more than usual. While the diet she's on isn't necessarily an official Paleo diet, the Paleo food philosophy lines up with the whole anti-inflammatory prescription. A friend told her about the blog nomnompaleo, which has been a useful and entertaining recipe resource. On Sunday, I spent about three hours reading that blog.

Then Tristan found this TED talk, which I've been watching on repeat. All of this information has led to a minor existential crisis for me, both because I have to deal with the fact that my sons' Grandma is mortal and I feel mildly panicked at the thought of ever making another wedding/birthday/baby shower cake. The main problem is sugar. Eating sugar raises insulin levels. It is literally insulin's job to stabilize blood sugar levels, and it does this by pulling sugar out of the bloodstream and into fat cells. In other words, fat isn't necessarily made of fat, it's made of sugar(or wheat or corn or rice). Insulin also triggers a process called angiogenesis(the growth of new blood vessels). Cancer cannot survive without angiogenesis. The really cool thing is that there are lots and lots of foods which are anti-angiogenic, and they are the sort of thing you might expect: berries, vegetables, tomato sauce, green tea. Know what's not on the list? Grains. Of any sort. Not even whole grains. This is very bad news for General Mills. Metabolically, eating grains(and simple starches like potatoes, corn and rice) has the same effect on the body's insulin levels as eating sugar: insulin levels go up.

Now look at the staple food crops of America: corn, wheat, rice, potatoes; notice a theme? Now when I look at those foods, all I can see is "inflammation, inflammation, inflammation." I'm not saying that if you eat sugar or grain you're going to get cancer, or that if you stop eating those things you won't get cancer. But I can't help but think of the nutrient opportunities each meal provides, and asking myself how I want to spend those opportunities. Nutritionally, grains don't have a whole lot to offer. I'd rather eat some pastured meat, lots of vegetables, maybe some roasted sweet potatoes. Cherries and blueberries make a delicious dessert. As a major benefit, if I skip the grains and simple starches I can eat an astonishing volume of food without feeling uncomfortably full.

I've already committed to three wedding cakes between now and September and I will craft them with love and enthusiasm, but I have this crazy idea; what if instead of cake, we started a tradition of, say, roasted free-range chicken with an assortment of roasted vegetables? Why shouldn't the symbolic first food the bride and groom feed each other be about a commitment to be healthy and delicious, not just non-nutritionally sweet? I realize the obvious setbacks to this proposal, but it still appeals to me.

For now, I plan on spending more time in this space and trying to curb my food fanaticism just a little. Refining my food philosophy, feeding my family well, and sharing the recipes here.

Getting More Involved

2011-05-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

The boys helped make dinner tonight. Jack wanted to try making salad, so he picked some spinach from the garden, juiced a lemon for dressing and asked me to cut up some almonds he'd gotten out. He ended up not really grooving on it, but I added it to the big bowl of arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette and Parmesan that Aaron and I were eating, and as it turns out the almonds were delicious. I told Jack that I loved the combination, and he was pleased to have contributed something.

When Matteas saw Jack juicing a lemon, he was desperate to juice something as well so Jack suggested I let him make orange juice. Normally I get really OCD about messy kid experiments right before dinner, but I think all the sunshine today made me a little more laid back than usual so I said yes and gave Matteas a bowl. He did his best, and I helped him squeeze the last drops of juice out of his mangled orange. Then Jack juiced another orange and I had Matteas help me strain the pulp. Next, we added the juice from the fruit salad I'd made the boys for lunch and topped it off with a little blood orange soda for added fizz. The boys were so pleased with their efforts and were chatting away the whole time, Matteas' voice shaking with excitement as he hatched a brilliant plan: "Jack, you can make a salad while I make the juice, and then we can share the food and have a party!" This was a particularly amusing plan to me because neither of the boys like salad, but I encouraged them in their communal sentiments.

Because we were feeling fancy, we poured the juice into champagne flutes and lit candles, which I had the boys pick out at the store earlier this week. We had a family toast, and the boys pronounced the evening the Best Dinner Ever. I need to come up with more ways to authentically involve them in meal preparation, not just give them mushrooms and butter knives whenever they want to 'help.'

We also planted a whole bunch of seeds before dinner, and we're going to make charts to keep track of how long it takes before they sprout. Because everything is more official when you make a chart.

A Baby Shower Cake

2011-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

I am getting around. In a cake baking kind of way, that is. A friend of a friend is being thrown a fancy baby shower today, and I got to make the cake. I lost a little of my enthusiasm as I was whipping up a batch of frosting at 9 p.m. last night, knowing I would be frosting into the wee hours. As the cake started coming together I got more and more excited, and when I was finished with the rows of tiny dots I almost woke up Aaron so he could admire it in real time. I decided he could wait until this morning, and as a testament to my cake obsession I woke up at 7 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. I never wake up at 7 a.m., or have trouble going back to sleep. Generally speaking, 7 a.m. and I are strangers.

I blame the flowers. I bought some beautiful baby blue hydrangeas yesterday and congratulated myself for getting the flowers a day ahead of time, but it was warm and by the time I got them home the poor hydrangeas had wilted. So I got up early this morning, had coffee with Aaron and then went to not one but two stores in search of suitable gilding. Hydrangeas aren't really in season, so I got roses and gerbera daisies with some pale green (scarce)hydrangeas for accent.

Because it's important to see these things from all angles.

Look! Cute dots!

I love the brown centers of these daisies.

From the top.

And now I want to make myself a wedding cake.

I can sort of understand the appeal of flowers made from frosting in that the end result is an entirely edible cake, but I think real flowers are so much lovelier. Plus it's not that much work to take a rose or two off your slice of cake before eating it. I am now fantasizing about having my own bakery and making cupcakes that are each topped with a single baby rose, you know those tiny ones sold in three-dozen bunches? I'd top the vanilla frosted cupcakes with a tiny red rose, and the chocolate frosted cupcakes with a pale pink rose. Then I'd probably have to make some robin's egg colored frosted cupcakes and top them with orange roses...

Also, I finished this cake a full five hours before delivery time. I'm getting almost professional.

Harvest

2011-05-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

Matteas helped me plant these seeds, carefully tracing his finger in the soft dirt to make a trench, mindfully sprinkling in the seeds, then gently covering them like he was tucking very small children into an earthy bed. He is also a faithful little waterer, and as the spinach and lettuce have come leaping out of the ground he declared "Look mama! It's because I did such good watering!" Last night we had a salad, all the greens for which came from our own garden. Matteas desperately wanted to help me cut the arugula, and when we came to a baby leaf he begged me not to cut it.

He finds it easier to collect eggs, now that he understands there is no chance that any of them contain a baby chicken. This morning we slipped on our boots and headed out to the chicken coop together, and he let out a yell of joy when he saw four brown eggs nestled among the wood chips in the milk crate we use as a nesting box. I love that gathering eggs is something we do every single morning, but it hasn't lost its magic for Matteas. Or me. There is something mystical about picking up a still-warm egg in the early morning sunshine, the way the curve of it fits perfectly into the palm of your hand, the satisfying weight of it. I love that we can get breakfast from our own back yard, literally. We haven't bought eggs in months, we just use our own eggs when we have them and go eggless when we don't, which doesn't really happen. We get at least three eggs every day, and during a week when the boys are interested in other things for breakfast it doesn't take long to accumulate a dozen. And that's how we know it's time for cake.

Some Kind of Recovery

2011-05-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

I was talking to someone the other day and somehow, drawing came up. Everyone who knows me is aware of my passion for food, but there are other things about me that have fallen by the wayside since having kids. I felt a tiny prick of grief when I realized that drawing is no longer a part of my life to the extent that someone would be surprised to know that I ever did it. And, not for the first time, I took a look at my life and asked myself, when the f*** did that happen?

As a teenager, drawing was a way to stay sane. Alone in my room, I could say whatever I wanted to say in a language of my choosing. This is a drawing I did of a paperback cover for Fahrenheit 451, but for the pages of "armor" I chose my own texts and kept a running list of authors as I worked on it. I started this when I was 17. Eleven years ago. When I pulled out my tablet this morning, I found an expired moth among the pages. A place I used to go on a regular basis has become such a ghost town that living things go there to die.

Oh dear.

It took four years, but we finally finished the master bedroom. Noticing that we had an "extra" room on our hands, I decided to jam my drafting table into it. It was kind of a disaster and Aaron eventually came home and fixed it, but the point is that now I have an established space to get all dramatic and creative again. I'm curious to see what will come out of me now that I'm not driven by huge amounts of teenaged angst; then again, I've got plenty of parenting angst, but somehow that particular brand feels less artsy. Perhaps if I stop locking myself in the bathroom with chocolate, I might actually finish a drawing.

Thirty schmirty

2011-04-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Birthday Menu

Wedge salad with apples, blue cheese and balsamic vinaigrette -Dave
Pistachio chicken with a mustard cream sauce -Aaron
Grilled green and white asparagus with duck egg -Albert
Wild rice with sauteed mushrooms -Aaron
Caramelized apple bread pudding with boozy raisins -Aaron

Today, I turned 28. When I was little, 28 seemed quite aged to me; approaching antiquity, even. I imagined that by the time I had achieved such lifespan as this that I would have rescued half of Africa from starvation, written three great American novels, cured cancer, and met at least half of the important people in the world because they wanted to tell me how much they admired my paintings.

I haven't done any of those things.

What I have done is cultivated a number of relationships with people of such fine quality that they enhance my life in inumerable ways, people I have loved, laughed and lived with. People who love me enough to make me dinner, and raise a glass to me on my birthday.

(we are blurry, but we are having a fabulous time.)

I have also learned some really valuable lessons on what it feels like to be myself. I used to imagine that I would have to do a lot of things in my life to be happy, and sometimes that's been true; I love to plant things in the dirt, to make my boys laugh, to put flowers on the table and make my home a beautiful living space. Other times, the most vital thing had nothing to do with doing: breathing through the contractions that brought my babies into this world, weeping at my brother's grave, lying next to my husband at night.

At my party, almost no one knew how old I was. It's never really mattered to me; I haven't ever really felt any particular age. When I was younger I didn't like for people to know my age because in one way or another, it didn't seem to match their expectation: my vocabulary made me sound older; I looked way too young to have kids; always there was some disparity. I felt it in myself, too; I was never quite at home with any particular number.

Now I feel quite at home, but it has nothing to do with numbers. Age is just one way to frame a person, but it really doesn't tell you anything about them. I have met some infants who seem like old souls, and I've met senior citizens who are young at heart, and all sorts of people in between and most of the time, when I look at the people I know, I don't think of a number. What I think of is what that person means to me, and what I mean to them.

That being said, I will probably still freak out a little bit when I turn 30. Still, it's hard to mind getting older(and yes, I know I'm not really "older") when I can look around the table and see a crowd of people I want to spend the rest of my life with.

All About Jack

2011-04-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

The other day, I remembered that I have a blog. I realized it had been so long since I'd posted, one of my children was a whole year older. In honor of my first-born, I decided to dedicate my comeback post entirely to him.

For his sixth(!!!) birthday, Jack requested "a cake with two layers, blue and white frosting, white flowers, and a bird on a pipe cleaner on the top that looks like it's flying." The boy knows what he wants. It came out looking a little more Marie Antoinette than I'd intended, but as far as Jack was concerned I delivered. His party was the best kid birthday party I've ever thrown; low-key and fun for all. We started the party off by serving the kids a lunch of tacos and fresh strawberries, with a special birthday treat of boxed chocolate milk. Next we did cake and presents.

"I've always wanted this one!"

Then, my stroke of brilliance: I tossed 25 containers of Play-doh on the table with several cookie cutters, and the kids proceeded to play(quietly, I might add) for about 90 minutes. Clean-up wasn't even that bad. And yes, there was a giant mound of gray Play-doh in the middle of the table when they were done, but that was fine by me because they made it by mixing most of the lame colors together anyway.

This was some time after his birthday. Jack asked me to take his picture because he was "being a walrus." I think my favorite thing about my kids is their sense of humor.

And now, Jack is all grown up. He was due for new glasses quite a while ago, but it's so difficult convincing him to go to any kind of official appointment that I put it off for a long time. Finally, the guilt of knowing that he wasn't seeing the world as clearly as he could got to me and I dragged him to Wal-mart to get some cheap glasses. We usually go with Costco, but the last pair we got there for him kept breaking. I hate Wal-mart and I hate that I gave them my money, but Jack's glasses were a) half the price of Costco b) under warranty for a whole year, no matter what happens to them and c) plastic frames. Costco only carries metal frames for kids, which is dumb because they bend out of shape so easily. I can tell that the lens material Wal-mart uses isn't as thin as the Costco stuff, but that really only effects how Jack looks to other people, not how he sees. And for a six year-old boy who is constantly running, jumping, climbing, wrestling, and otherwise imperilling his glasses six ways till Sunday, cheap glasses are a good thing.

Lorna's Lemon Bars

2011-02-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

Remember when I asked you to pray for a beautiful girl named Lorna? Well, now that beautiful girl named Lorna is living in the Pacific Northwest and she comes to my house for dinner a lot. She has been dutifully eating anything I put in front of her, and despite my encouragement to request specific foods she always says she likes anything I make. That's all very flattering and everything, but the only thing more fun than making good food for someone is to make good food that they specifically asked for, by name. I got very excited last week when Lorna asked if I ever made lemon bars.
"Not recently," I replied, "but I do now."

I then proceeded to research all the lemon bar recipes I'd ever tried and thought about what I had liked about each of them. I usually have similar criticisms of most lemon bar recipes which are, in no particular order:
-inefficient use of lemon product; why call for the juice but not the zest? Flavor opportunity FAIL
-gooey filling; lemon bars should not have to be eaten with a spoon
-large amounts of flour in the filling; structure cop-out
-too much sugar in the crust; I like a sweet-and-salty contrast. It is the beauty of good lemon bars.

So imagine my delight when, on the very day Lorna was coming over for dinner, Dave Lebovitz posted a recipe for Whole Lemon Bars. A whole lemon cut up and tossed into the food processor? These were going to be lemony and great. I made them right away and as soon as they were cool, bit into one. For the first three seconds I was all "Oh-man-these-are-so-freaking-good-and-lemony-and-- bitter. Really bitter." I thought maybe I'd just gotten a really pithy bite, so I tried another. And another. Every time, that burning bitterness at the back of my throat. I was so disappointed I almost wept. These lemon bars were so incredibly close to perfection, but I couldn't feed them to Lorna.

The only thing more satisfying than finding a perfect recipe for something is finding a nearly-perfect recipe for something and improving on it. Good food+ego boost. Win win. Dave's crust is light, crumbly perfection and the texture of the filling is perfect; the cut bars don't ooze at all, but they're not gummy.

I didn't really change these much. I love the simplicity of using melted butter for the crust(Dave's idea) and the addition of vanilla(also Dave's idea); it contributes such a subtle loveliness to the flavor profile. Also, while I almost always approve of using additional butter in just about anything, when I made the second batch I left the butter out of the filling to no ill effect. I also left out the additional lemon juice, since I love the idea of using a whole lemon and just a whole lemon. Something in me objects to partially-used lemon carcasses lying around my fridge. I also wanted a lemon bar recipe that was un-fussy and would produce a straightforward, uncomplicated sort of lemon bar, the low-maintenance kind that says "My only purpose in life is to provide a few moments of unbridled pleasure." The geisha of lemon bars. There was perhaps a line somewhere back there that I've crossed, but it's too late now; the lemon bars have gone to my head. Finally, I fixed one tiny last flaw: I doubled the quantities. If you are having only a small party or want to impose an admirable amount of self-control, simply halve the batch. I can't tell you how long any leftovers will last, since they're always gone by the next day.

Lorna's Lemon Bars
Adapted from Dave Lebovitz

For the crust
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 cubes melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt(increase to a full tsp. if using unsalted butter)

For the topping
2 whole lemons
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
2 TB + 2 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a 9x13(!) pan with foil.
Melt the butter in a medium-sized, microwave-proof bowl. Add the 1/2 cup of sugar, the vanilla and salt, and stir to combine. Add the flour and stir until just combined. Press evening into the bottom of the pan, making sure that the crust comes all the way to the edges. You don't need to build the crust up along the sides; the filling can be depended on to stay put. Bake the crust on 350 for 20-25 minutes, until golden on top.

While the crust is baking, prepare the filling. Zest the two lemons, then slice off the pith(the white foamy stuff). Cut the flesh into chunks and put them into a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the sugar and the zest and process until the chunks of lemon are very finely chopped, about 30 seconds. Add the cornstarch and salt and process for 5 seconds. Add the eggs one at a time, processing briefly after each addition. Don't process excessively after the last egg has been added or you'll incorporate too much air into the filling and it will bake with a lot of bubbles in it.

When the crust is baked and still hot, pour the filling on top, reduce the oven temperature to 300 and bake until the filling is just set, 20-25 minutes. I found when I baked the larger batch that the filling was done closer to the 20 minute mark. Let cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then lift the bars out using the foil and cool completely on a rack. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

Serve them to the loveliest girl in the world.

Trolololo!

2011-02-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

One of the best laughs I've had in a long time, via Suburban Matron. I'm pretty sure the cure to any future grumpiness on my part lies in watching this music video.

http://www.suburbanmatron.com/2011/02/wigs-from-behind-iron-curtain.html

I have a soup recipe to write up and post, but I'm taking things slow as we're all recovering from the stomach flu. It got all four of us, but thankfully at slightly different times so there was always at least one functioning parent to clean up the barf. We're all well again and the boys are playing outside, but no one is much interested in food. I'm not sure what to do with myself in this condition; it weirds me out to lack interest in food. Who am I? Which way is up? Who is running this crazy universe anyway?

Just For Fun

2011-02-10T09:53:00.001-08:00

Justice may be blind, but freedom is evidently naked. And headless.

What a Man Wants

2011-02-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

This post could alternately be titled, 'How to Take Most of the Convenience Out of a Crock Pot.' I'll admit it; I've long been skeptical of crock pots. I think this is because I've never really had a positive experience with the contents of one before. Usually I'd run into one at some really cool homeschooler potluck, and it would contain something with a thick sauce, maybe something cheesy with pools of grease floating on the top, and hunks of things I couldn't identify which may or may not have been meat. It could have been dog food. You never can tell with crock pots.

So I was less than thrilled when my dad gave me one for Christmas a few years ago. I thanked him and then stuck it, still in the box, in the garage where it sat for a few years. I think part of me was afraid that if I opened it, I would actually find a meal that had been made with canned condensed soup in there. I loathe canned condensed soup, and while I can see that putting some hunks of animal flesh and some highly processed ingredients into a warm environment is a good way to get consistently moist bites of animal flesh covered in condensed soup, I can also see that it's a good way to get very little flavor out of one's food. So I decided to fix that.

A few years ago, I had an amazing pork shoulder that a friend had slow-roasted in the oven at 250 degrees for about twelve hours. I'd never roasted pork shoulder before, and that one meal opened my eyes to some amazing possibilities. It occurred to me that if the goal was to maintain a low temperature for a prolonged period of time, a crock pot might be the ideal thing. Who knew?

With a thrilling realization that I didn't have to use condensed soup if I didn't want to, I pulled out the crock pot and got to work. First I bought a lovely pork shoulder from PCC, rubbed it all over with salt, and browned it in a hot, hot pan(though I have since purchased an amazing stainless steel pan that browns SO much better) and then tossed a whole chopped onion into the rendered fat. When you make this, pay very careful attention to this part. Not because it's hard, but because it's kind of miraculous. I'm firmly convinced that there are few things in this world that smell better than onions meeting hot pork fat. It's such a powerful and intoxicating combination that I'm pretty sure it's where babies come from, no matter what biology has to say on the matter.

When the onions have had some time to pick up some color, I add a lot of garlic and herbs.

Then I deglaze the pan with some vinegar and add what I guess could be called my version of canned condensed soup: apricot jam. I let it simmer a few minutes until all the ingredients have melded together to form an incredibly delicious sauce, then pour it over the seared pork shoulder which has been waiting patiently in the pre-warmed crock pot.

If, like me, you're new to the wonders of the crock pot, you might be concerned over the apparent lack of juice at this stage. Fear not. Put the lid on and walk away, preferably for several hours. The longer the better, and if you can find a way to actually leave your house and fill your lungs with air from the woods it would be ideal. Hauling branches while your husband builds a house works well too. That way, when you walk back into your house you will go weak in the knees from the warm succulence that now perfumes your entire house. Meat perfume. It's better than it sounds.

I've served this roast with a lot of different things, but I really like the taste of an orange, starchy vegetable with it such as butternut squash or sweet potatoes. In the first picture I paired it with roasted butternut squash(roasted in the oven, which is available thanks to the crock pot) and sauteed kale. It was delicious, but a bit rich. Now I try to serve it with something starchy and then balance it with something light and green, like a simple arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette.

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder

1 boneless pork shoulder, 4-8 pounds

1 white or yellow onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, chopped

1 TB fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

2 TB herbes de Provence

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup apricot jam

salt and pepper

First, turn on your empty crock pot. We don't want the meat to cool down after we transfer it from the hot frying pan.

Next, heat a pan to medium-high and drizzle a good amount of oil(olive, vegetable, or canola) into the pan. While the oil heats, give the pork shoulder a good rub-down with salt on all sides, then sear each side in the hot oil until golden brown. Transfer to the warm crock pot(low if you have 6-8 hours before eating, high if you have 4 hours).

To the hot frying pan, add the chopped onion. Try not to swoon too much over the smell, unless you have a secure counter to hang onto. Swooning over hot animal fat can be dangerous. Don't stir the onions too much; let them sit in the pan, undisturbed, for at least four minutes. Stir them up so the other side gets a little attention, then leave them alone again.

When the onions have some color, add the rosemary and herbes de Provence. After about a minute, add the garlic and reduce the heat to medium(don't ever, ever burn garlic).

After a mere 30 seconds, add the red wine vinegar making sure to scrape up all the lovely browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Add the apricot jam and stir until the jam has melted into the onion mixture.

Pour the entire contents of the pan over the pork shoulder, add salt and pepper, and put the lid on. Now go about your day as you please, and every once in a while remind yourself that while you're felling trees, raising the wall of a house or maybe just reading a book, that dinner is cooking without any help from you. Allow yourself a satisfied chuckle. The whole process takes less than half an hour of work upfront, and while it's slightly more complicated than tossing high-sodium food products into the crock-pot I hope you'll agree that the results are worth it. The texture of the meat is softly seductive, the flavors of the sauce rich and developed because of the bit with the frying pan. The final result doesn't really taste anything like red wine vinegar or apricots, but like something that has combined in such a way that it becomes more than just the sum of its parts. Much the same way that a baby doesn't resemble separate gametes, but a new thing entirely.

Just before eating, carefully spoon off(and discard) most of the fat from the surface of the now-abundant juices, the ones that seem to have appeared magically from nowhere. If the juice seems thin, ladel it into a sauce pan and simmer over low heat until reduced to your satisfaction. This step isn't necessary, but if the whole process has seemed a little too easy and you feel the need to complicate things a bit, do it. You won't be sorry. Serve to a hungry man you love, and when your five year-old asks you where babies come from answer with confidence, "From the crock pot."

Things We've Done Lately

2011-01-31T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is the tackiest cake I've ever made, but I think it also brought the recipient more joy than any floral masterpiece I've executed.

Rachel's boyfriend Dave loves PBR, so when I decided to make him a cake for his birthday I knew I had to somehow incorporate the famous red white and blue can into the theme.

I even etched the top of a can into some tinfoil for the top. Because I like to keep things official. When I walked into the party carrying that cake, Dave's face was like a kid on Christmas morning. "For me?!?!?!"

Yes Dave. For you.

Aaron's work on the guest house for my parents continues. Aaron and Matteas are heading to the river after a long work day.

This is just a tiny piece of my parents' property. The boys were "helping" my mom clear the back field of branches to prepare it for mowing, which is pretty much my mom's favorite thing to do.

Sometimes I think I should have been a farmer's wife. I love working outside, I love dirt, and in the words of my sister Moira, I love moving heavy objects. There's something vital and satisfying about changing the landscape of a field, and I think I understand how my mom feels about their acreage. Maybe it's the Irish/Scottish blood in me, but I feel like I can hear a piece of land speaking to me, and it's saying "Subdue me." And once you've done that, you can plant things on your subdued piece of land and wrestle food from the loins of the earth, make edible things grow where there used to be bramble and weeds. I also really like the working side-by-side aspect; the house Aaron is building is a literal stone's throw(or hearty shout) from the field I was working in(read: subduing with my labor), and even though we were doing separate work it felt like we spent the day together. He was building a guest house, I was clearing branches. And when I say branches, I mean whole branches, not some lady-like game of pick-up sticks. We've had some crazy wind storms this winter, and whole limbs were ripped from some of my parents' many trees. Whole limbs are not good for John Deere mowers, so my mom and I worked to clear the field so she could mow to her heart's content. It takes a lot of mowing to content my mother's heart. The spot on her heart designated to Mowing Satisfaction takes up a large part of her cardiac landscape, and I was not about to come between her and Ultimate Mowing Satisfaction. We worked together to clear a large enough section to get her started, then she began mowing while I scrambled to clear another section before she was finished mowing the already-cleared part. Jack and Matteas took turns riding along with her while I ran and hauled like a beaver preparing for winter, and at the end of the day we were all tired, filthy, and thoroughly pleased with our efforts. I meant to take pictures of the enormous branch piles we'd made, but it was dark and cold and I was hungry from all the subduing, so we headed inside for a feast of slow-roasted pork shoulder. I will share the recipe shortly, although I should tell you in advance that it is a meal best eaten after some serious Manual labor. It's Hungry Man Food, not like those sad TV dinners meant to replace the cooking of a sturdy farm wife, but the kind of food that can satisfy the appetite of a man who is hungry in the way only a hard-working, hand-saw-wielding, there-is-a-structure-here-where-there-was-only-grass -because-of-the-work-of-my-Man-Hands type of man can be hungry. It's not the sort of meal I'd recommend after a day of light housework. Unless your idea of 'light housework' involves building an actual house or moving heavy objects.

Matteas Reads "The Mitten"

2011-01-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFfb0T1BrT0 The youtube video is much better quality so I included the link; the nuances in his eyebrows kill me.

New Year's Eve Wedding Cake

2011-01-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

On Monday, I got a phone call from a friend of a friend asking if I'd be willing to make a last-minute wedding cake for a New Year's Eve wedding. Since it was for a small cake, I said yes. My instructions were: top tier- pistachio cake with Nutella filling bottom tier- white cake with buttercream filling frosting- white with white dots flowers- white and peridot pom poms

I've never done tiny all-over dots before, but I'm kind of in love with them. I think they'd make a really sweet baby shower cake.

Experimenting with the flowers. I couldn't find actual pom poms, so I picked up some flowers that were in the same "tight clusters of poufy petals" family in the right colors.

I really liked the all-white simplicity of this cake and now I really want to make a super-elegant all-white cake, with white roses and freesias. Summer wedding, anyone?

The final result. This was definitely the most relaxed I've ever felt about a cake, and I finished it a full three hours before I had to deliver it. I would have finished it even earlier, but I didn't have a small enough frosting tip for the dots. My husband ventured into the craft store for me and bought me two frosting tips, which I thought was pretty heroic since I'm pretty sure the craft store is the last place he wants to be, ever. I just wish I could have seen my burly husband in the cake decorating aisle, carefully picking out frosting tips while wearing his work clothes. Totally awesome.

I think I may have succeeded in getting the Swiss Buttercream as smooth as humanly possible on this cake. I had to step up my game a bit because the couple didn't want any ribbon on the cake, which I think looks lovely but also has the added benefit of concealing the seams between the tiers. It's hard to get that seam sealed nice and smooth, and I'd never actually done it before. I think there's a tool I need for that which isn't currently in my arsenal, but I managed it anyway and was really pleased with the improvement in my sculpture skills. I thought this cake would be easier than past cakes on account of how simple it was, but on a technical level it was more challenging; with no ribbon and simple flowers, I couldn't rely on distraction and floral impact to hide any of my mistakes. This was also the very first time I've delivered a cake already assembled. I'm not sure I'd attempt the same thing with a three-tiered cake, but it was awfully nice to arrive at the reception site, plop(or, you know, professionally deposit) the cake on the cake table and walk out. There was no swearing, no shaking hands piping last-minute pearls, no stashing my bowl of frosting under a table cloth, no leaving behind of valuable cake tools. A clean drop. Highly satisfying.

Let it Snow(please)

2010-12-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas, which I'll share later. We got a (very)light dusting of snow this morning which has me lusting after other people's weather. Since I have children to feed, a dinner party to prepare for and a wedding cake to make, for now I'll leave you with these incredibly lovely images from Meg and Maya.

If you prefer something sweeter to look at, last night when I was too jazzed over my wedding cake sketches to sleep I got up and put together this album. The first cake(picture above) in the album is my most recent, from Iain and Jiyoon's wedding in October.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

Because we happened to be dressed like this

2010-12-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

It's challenging to get four people to look good in a picture simultaneously.

It's also challenging to get two kids not to move too much when you're taking pictures without a flash.

Sometimes, when everything else lines up, the lighting turns a weird greenish color.

Other times, the yellow pants on your three year-old that weren't supposed to be in the shot creep in.

Other obstacles notwithstanding, sometimes one of the grown ups moves.

Or blatantly sabotages.

Still other times, one of the children might be a little too excited to see what the picture looks like and jumps up to see before the picture has even been taken.

This is what I get for trying to pretend that we're the sort of family who dons matching casual sweater wear and then hangs out in front of the Christmas tree. I almost considered buying the kids a golden retriever, just so our Christmas card picture would have that little something extra. Good thing I realized that would be ridiculous.

Excess? What Excess?

2010-12-12T21:07:00.000-08:00

We were invited to my aunt's Christmas dinner cruise on a beautiful boat, and I volunteered to bring dessert. My aunt requested something along the lines of a red velvet cake with crushed candy canes. I latched onto the candy cane idea and then got a little out of control with it. I ended up adding a few more holly leaves around the bottom, but didn't have time to take more pictures because I was of course working on the cake up until the very last minute. I'm kind of in love with red and white, and I just happen to have a ginormous holly bush in my back yard.

This cake was so much fun to make; the boys helped me unwrap all the little round candies and were really good about not licking one single piece. The cake was chocolate-peppermint and the frosting was my usual Swiss Butter Cream, but I added some peppermint extract to match the candy cane theme. There was a lot of cake left over and my aunt asked me if I wanted to take some home, but I sent it all home with her because as it turns out, I still prefer decorating a cake to eating it.

Oh Christmas Tree

2010-12-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

Every year, Aaron and I get into a funk over the tree. I'm not really sure how or why it happens, but almost every year it does.

First, it was the lights. He comes from a colored lights family, I'm from an all white lights family. There are strong feelings on both sides. At first, we alternated; our first Christmas together we used colored lights, the next Christmas all white. I didn't like how one of us was always disappointed, so I came up with the idea of using red and white lights intertwined. We both liked that better, but it still wasn't highly satisfactory for either of us. This year I decided I wanted Aaron to have colored lights, and as I was untangling the many strands of brightly colored offensiveness he asked "What are you doing?"

"I thought we'd use colored lights this year. You know, like the Mickey Mouse Christmas tree cartoon where Chip and Dale are hiding in the tree and it looks like a magical Christmas village inside the branches."

"Oh. I was going to tell you to go ahead and use all white lights this year."

"But you hate all white lights."

"I'm not crazy about all white, but I like you, and you like white lights."

So we used both.

At 5 and 3, the boys are actually pretty good decorators. It's nice not to have a baby trying to chew on the lights or smash the glass balls together. Our kids never terrorized the tree much as babies, but they've never been able to hang ornaments very effectively either. I guess this year, everyone grew up a little.

I never buy Good Housekeeping, but I couldn't resist this one.

It was a good buy, because I got the snowflake idea out of it. We hung a snowflake garland last year, but I'd never thought of doing it from a mirror. I like it.

I think our tree turned out nicely as well. The whole thing was, by far, the most painless tree experience we've ever had. In the past we've made the purchase in the evening, after Aaron comes home from work. That was a terrible idea. It was always freezing cold and we were all hungry, so we'd arrive back home as a family of frozen, grumpy elves. Then it'd be too late to decorate the tree that evening and Jack would have a meltdown, but not before Aaron and I got really irritated with each other over trying to get the tree straight in the stand.

This year was great. We went to Costco first and stocked up on a few things, which felt really cozy. When we got to our usual tree place(a convenient, short drive from our house) there were really only two likely candidates, so we let the boys choose. We paid and got out of there, then headed home where I'd already rearranged the furniture to accommodate the tree. I put on some Christmas music and put away all the food, while Aaron took the boys outside to put up lights on the chicken coop. Hormones(non-pregnant ones) may have been a factor, but I got a little choked up watching the boys through the window. It has been one of Jack's fondest desires to decorate the chicken coop so that "it will look DUST like Snoopy's house in Charlie Brown Christmas!" Even typing about it now, I get a little misty. I love, love, love that Aaron takes our kids' dreams seriously, even if they don't seem "important" by adult standards. The way Jack's eyes were shining told me that Aaron had done so much more than put up a strand of lights.

As an added bonus, Jack's blood work came back: normal. While part of me is bummed that nothing indicates where his migraines are coming from, I'm enormously relieved that everything really bad can be considered ruled out. He hasn't had a migraine since his last chiropractor visit a week ago, and has had fewer headaches in general. I don't think this is the last we'll see of his migraines, but at least the next time he gets one I won't be worried that something deeply menacing is going on with his brain.

Bring back that Blogging Feeling

2010-12-03T21:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I've gotten too busy, too lazy, or if my children have gotten more interesting, but I don't seem to have much of a blogging drive lately. I'm not sure what to make of this. I still blog everything in my head, and maybe that habit is having some kind of placebo effect on my desire to do any actual blogging. Also, it's early December, the time of year when I really don't have my act together at all. I'm trying not to celebrate Christmas prematurely while trying to simultaneously stay on top of some kind of Advent tradition, and it never ever works. And at this point, there are so many things I haven't blogged that the list of Significant Posts I Should Have Written is kind of big. For example:

-Iain and Jiyoon's wedding

-The cake I made for said wedding

-My trip to Boston

-My trip to NYC and the famous people I saw while I was there

-The first snow of the season in the Pacific Northwest

-How chickens feel about snow

-Thanksgiving and the only reasonable way to roast turkey

See what kind of pressure I'm under? Add to that list the fact that Matteas decided to spontaneously potty-train himself on Thanksgiving, and you've got a serious blogging back-log. We've also had a bit of family rearrangement lately, as Aaron is building a bunk house for my parents down at their cabin. That's what he's working on in the picture. Drilling into concrete is a necessary step in the process of bunk house building. Aaron doesn't like it when I watch him build stuff because occasionally he can't see his work through the thick cloud of lust emanating from me, so I have to snap a few quick pictures and head back to the cabin. We've been spending every Friday and Saturday down there for the past month until now, when Aaron drove down without me. Jack had a migraine last weekend and some appointments this week, including a blood draw yesterday which he tolerated calmly as I panicked that he would panic. So I felt like Jack should have a mellow weekend, meaning one that didn't include five hours of driving.

About that blood draw: I'd deeply appreciate your prayers. Since taking him to the chiropractor, Jack's migraine situation has been much better but they do still happen. Thus the blood draw. I'm torn between wanting the tests to come back normal and hoping that they point to some kind of diagnosis, something we can hopefully fix. They're not looking for anything serious at this point so I'm not super anxious, I just want to know what's going on with my kid and why he occasionally experiences debilitating pain. I'm an attentive mother like that. The results should be back by Wednesday, at which point I will promptly update. I might even throw up a recipe or two between now and then, a few things which prominently feature NOT turkey. I love Thanksgiving, but I'm glad it only happens once a year.

I Hope They Let Us Come Back

2010-11-20T18:55:00.000-08:00

We're at Target. Jack is walking, Matteas is in the cart. He scoots his bum forward so that his legs stick out as far as possible, and notices that the bar between his legs does some interesting things to his pants.

"Mom, look at my pa-china!!!" he shouts, grinning from ear to ear.

"Meatteas, you don't have a vagina, you have a penis."

"Yes I do have a pa-china! Look at my pa-china!!!" he insists.

"Fine, you have a pa-china, just stop shouting about it."

Worth the Wait

2010-11-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

I didn't mean to do that. Be gone for over a month, that is. I was on the East Coast for ten days, then I was trying to get back into the swing of home life, and then it had been so long that the pressure of "what do I blog about next?" only increased. At least, in my own mind. So what is the deeply significant topic that brings me back to this space? Pie. Pumpkin pie, specifically. I'm not a huge pie fan usually, least of all pies that have vegetables in them, but what I am a fan of is tradition and this time of year, tradition calls for pumpkin pie. I continually find that my best recipes are born out of a challenge to improve something I don't like, and this pie is one of my favorites because it has been a point of conversion for a lot of people who've eaten. Almost every time I serve it someone at the table says(after a second slice) that they usually hate pumpkin pie, but this one is delicious. I've gotten a few requests for the recipe this week, and seeing as how Thanksgiving is a week from today I thought I'd put it up here in a timely fashion. I kind of sort of adapted this recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but I've changed it so much that I feel it kind of belongs to me now. The parts I took from Cooks Illustrated were combining pumpkin with sweet potato, and reducing the mixture with the spices on the stove to remove some of the water and concentrate the flavors. The step of baking at 400 degrees to start and then reducing the heat to 300 after 10 minutes is also a Cooks Illustrated trick. The rest of the recipe I came up with after making about eight pumpkin pies, each of them different from the last. Cooks Illustrated calls for canned pumpkin and canned candied yams(say that ten times fast), but I strongly feel that if you're going to eat pie it should be the best pie possible. You can't get the best pie possible from a can. I've tried. It always tastes vaguely of skunk farts. Maybe you're the sort of person who enjoys that kind of funk, but if not, welcome to a better way. Life-changing Pumpkin Pie 1 sugar pie pumpkin, roasted 1 medium-sized sweet potato, roasted 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg 2 tsp. grated fresh ginger 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup heavy cream 1 tsp. vanilla 2 eggs, well beaten Prepare your favorite crust(see bottom of post for suggestions). Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, then lay the pumpkin halves cut-side down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Poke the skin a few times with a fork for ventilation. Wrap the sweet potato in foil and put it on the baking sheet next to the pumpkin. Roast until the pumpkin and potato are soft and gooey, about 25 minutes for the pumpkin and 35 minutes for the sweet potato. When cool, remove the skin. Slice into large chunks and puree in a food processor, or blend with a hand-held mixer until smooth and no lumps remain. This process yielded 2 1/2 cups of pumpkin/sweet potato puree. Transfer the puree to a medium sauce pan and add the ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is reduced to 2 cups. I'm not positive exactly how long this took because while I was doing this part Matteas knocked over a huge pillar candle, spilling about 1/2 cup of hot green wax on the carpet. While I cleaned that up he peed in the corner of the living room, so then I cleaned that. I think it was about 20 minutes. Use your own household disasters to gauge the time. You can skip this step, but consider the fact that by doing this you're removing 1/2 cup of water, water that doesn't have a lot of flavor. Removing the water also makes for a firmer, silkier texture. In any case, what you want to end up with is 2 cups of pumpkin/sweet potato puree. Remove from the heat and add the salt, brown sugar, cream and vanilla. When the mixture is well incorporated, add the beaten eggs and combine well. Pour into prepared pie crust and bake at 400 degrees for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 300 and bake an additional 40 minutes. Let cool to room temperature before further cooling in the fridge. Go ahead and top it with whipped cream when you serve it, but honestly, it doesn't even need it. The texture of this pie is rich and silky-smooth, the flavor buttery and perfectly spiced. It's downright voluptuous, which I didn't know a pie could be. For the crust, I pulsed the following in my food processor: 1 cup oats 1/2 pecans 1/2 cup flour(spelt works great) 3 TB sugar 1 cube frozen butter, cut into chunks 2 TB ice water Pulse the oats and pecans together until they form a coarse flour. Add the sugar and pulse to combine, then add the butter and pulse about ten times. Begin adding ice water 1 TB at a time and pulse a few times until the mixture holds together when you pinch it. Press about 2/3 of the mixture into an ungreased, glass pie pan and bake for 10 minutes on 400. You will have a lot of pie crust mixture left over, but I loved the flavor; a crunchy, nutty shortbread crust that was a perfect compliment to the spicy pumpkin. It was also easy to work with and didn't require any rolling-out or extra fussing, which I appreciate. Another great pie crust shortcut is to grind up those crunchy Nature Valley granola bars, the really hard ones that come with two bars in a shiny green wrapper, and add melted butter. I've also used ground graham crackers or gluten-free ginger snaps. They all work. Note: I've also substituted the heavy cream with soy milk and coconut milk for my dairy-intolerant dinner guests. The coconut flavor does come through, but it wasn't something I objected to. Using all soy milk tasted just fine, and I imagine that full-fat almond milk would be lovely as well.

Please Pray

2010-10-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

See these two beautiful girls? They are Sheila(left) and Lorna(right) Bernhoft, younger sisters of Iain Bernhoft, my friend who's getting married in Boston this Saturday. Lorna is in a coma after an accident early Tuesday morning. The Bernhoft family is responsible for introducing me to Aaron. It is no exaggeration to say that without them, my little family wouldn't be here. Aside from their role in my marital happiness, they are an amazing family. Iain and I have been friends for 15 years. His mom, Alison, is like a grandma to my children. This family means a lot to me. Alison sent the following update: lorna was relaxing with her friends from the quaker notes, her female a capella singing group, at a large, old house in philly. she sat on a piece of wood over a hole in the floor. under her tiny weight, the board broke; she fell 15 feet onto the stairs below. we arrived last night as she was coming out of a 6-hour surgery. they removed her forehead bone to allow the brain to swell. the bone is in the freezer and will be replaced in 4 - 6 weeks, when the swelling is down. her back surgery stabilized the spine: it looks as though there is significant damage to the spinal cord. our beautiful, brilliant, vibrant, loving daughter is broken. she's in a coma, on a breathing tube, her body cold to touch to reduce swelling, her face swollen so badly that only her nose is recognisable. will we ever get her back? will she be able to walk? will she still know the reams of poetry she loved to memorize? she was taking six courses, incl. organic chemistry, (last week she aced her midterm,) and was on a pace to graduate in three years from one of the nation's top 5 institutions. she would have done a year's internship with her extra year, before medical school. robin hoped she would eventually take over his ojai practice; she loved ojai so. this letter feels like an obituary. i don't know whether to use past or present tense; nobody knows if she will be herself if and when she comes back. we may not know for weeks, even months, even years. meanwhile, we have a wedding to celebrate in boston in 3 days: eldest son iain marries jiyoon, the love of his life. we struggle to see God's loving hand in this tragedy. Alison I remember the first time I met Lorna. She was four or five, and her family had come over for a day-after Thanksgiving party at my parents. She didn't say a single word to me the entire time, she just stared at me with her big blue eyes. She was wearing a little sailor dress that tied around the waist, and the bow had come undone. She held the ties in her little hands and slowly crept up to where I was sitting on a couch, then quietly placed the ties in my lap and continued staring, a silent plea. I tied her sash and she ran off without a word, but we understood each other. Some years later, when I was 17 and Lorna was 10 or so, we were in Rome together. There were a lot of fixed tours we were supposed to go on, but I remember the absolute best day as the one when Alison and Lorna decided to go on their own tour and invited me to come along. Lorna is in almost all of my pictures from Rome, a place that was made more alive by her being there. Please pray for healing for Lorna and peace for her family. If you'd like to follow her progress, go here: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/Bernhoft#

I am Getting Kind of Expensive

2010-10-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

I have traditionally loathed shopping, but this weekend I did my fair share of it. A good friend is getting married in Boston this weekend, and we're going to the wedding(how else would they have a cake?). So on Saturday, full of faith and optimism, I set out to the mall to find myself a suitable dress. I own dresses. A few. But most are too short, too hot, too cold, too something to work for this semi-formal Boston wedding. I traversed the entire mall. I went to all the major stores, and several not-so-major ones. I tried on at least thirty dresses, no joke. Eventually I just got tired of taking my clothes off. I got very tired of not finding anything that worked. So after nearly six hours, I bought myself a pair of jeans which are exactly like a pair I already own, only without holes. I'm notoriously hard on my jeans, which is why I will probably never own a designer pair. If I can't feed my chickens in them, they don't really fit my life. Then, as I was striding purposefully out of Nordstrom, I spied this sweet little pair of moccasins. My feet were killing me. I'd also been looking for a pair of dress shoes that I could conceivably walk in, since there will be a lot of public transportation going on with this Boston wedding. There are none to be had. So I was kind of despairing and then, the moccasins. I don't really need a pair of casual shoes, but they called to me. I picked them up and smelled them, touched them, asked for a pair in my size. I put them on and felt- what was this strange sensation- could it be....comfort? Suddenly, I realized with utmost clarity that I was a moccasin kind of person. It shocked me that I'd failed to realize this before, but now I knew, knew with the sort of conviction that tells you when you're looking at your own baby in a sea of nursery newborns: these moccasins and I were meant to be together. There are a few spots on them already. From bacon. But otherwise, how would I know they were mine? I won't wear them to the wedding, but they are definitely coming with me to Boston and everywhere else I go for the rest of my life. I think I shall be Pocahontas now. Six hours of shopping, and only jeans and moccasins to show for it. I love my jeans and my moccasins, but neither of them really constitutes a dress. So I set out again with renewed vigor, and decided that if I wanted something beautiful I needed to be willing to pay for it. So I went to Anthropologie. And found. This. The skirt is all pleated like a lamp shade, which doesn't sound very becoming but it is. It's one of those dresses that you put on and suddenly you can see what your life would be like in another time. It was $228. But half off. Oh sweet day.

In other news, I made my first "professional" cake. This wasn't a gift for a friend, it was an actual job for a baby shower of someone I don't know. I was asked to make a cake to match these invitations. I'm not going to lie, it was stressful. With the weddings I was plenty stressed, but at least I knew I was saving my friends a whole lot of money by giving them the cake as a gift. This owl cake wasn't a gift, I was being paid to do it.

As usual, there was a huge learning curve. I learned to dye my own fondant custom colors, I learned all kinds of ways to sculpt and even more ways not to, I learned that no matter how many times I do this I will always get nervous, and I learned that in spite of all that I still really, really enjoy it. I think my favorite part is the problem-solving factor, like figuring out that the eyes I needed were the exact size of a drinking straw, and that I could make the pupils for the eyes by using the end of a lollipop stick dipped in edible dye as a stamp.

Plus, I could buy two pairs of moccasins for how I much I got paid to make this cake. Or one Anthropologie dress. Anyone else need a cake?

Chickens, You So Crazy

2010-09-27T18:16:00.001-07:00

The Stash

After a very exciting few days of finding an egg in the yard or behind the door of the coop, the egg laying seemed to stop. Most chickens stop laying in the Fall when they molt, and I was beginning to think this was the case with our flock. Today when I went out to check the coop, I noticed there were only five chickens in the yard(we have six). I searched high and low(mostly low) and couldn't find the missing chicken anywhere. I began to worry that maybe one of the neighborhood dogs had gotten her, but I'd been home all day and hadn't heard any commotion. I was running around the yard searching and growing more frantic every minute. I knew I was attached to our chickens, but the thought of one of them coming to grief caused me more pain than I thought it would. Our chickens aren't just chickens, they're pets. I'm pretty sure I won't ever be able to keep chickens for meat; the minute I started thinking about eating one of them, I'd see the look of betrayal in their eyes and go vegetarian. So I'm running around the yard looking for this lost chicken, and it occurs to me that they respond to my voice so I call her. "Chiiiiiiiiccckkkeennnn!" "Braaaawwwk-brble-brble," muffled, near the wood pile. I pull back the piece of plywood leaning against the front of the wood pile, and there is the missing chicken sitting on nearly a dozen eggs. She gives me a guilty look and warbles a chickeny apology. I laugh, giddy with relief and the joy of discovering a bounty of eggs I thought we'd never get. The parable of the Lost Sheep was never so meaningful to me as it was at that moment: "Again again I say to you, there will be more rejoicing in Lynnwood over a single chicken that is lost and then found, than over the other five chickens who were safe in the coop." I gather the eggs, then put three rocks that make very convincing eggs back in the nest. Chickens will sometimes stop laying in a hiding spot if they notice the eggs are being taken, but they can't count so you don't have to replace every egg with a decoy. One or two is enough to assure her that her chosen spot is a safe place for eggs; there are some eggs(rocks) in there now, so it seems reasonable to her to add more. Our homeschooling for the afternoon involves testing the eggs for freshness (thanks to Briana for suggesting it), and all the eggs pass. We have some for lunch. They are delicious, and I think about the correlation between responsibility and investment: the more we take responsibility for producing our own food, the more we're willing to invest in where it comes from. I can't wait anymore, I have to go check the nest.

One Small Thing

2010-09-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Although it wasn't a great year for gardening, we did manage to sneak out a little produce. The chickens recently decided that they really like eating tomatoes, so now even the sad green ones left on the vines are in jeopardy. First my kale, now my tomatoes. "Ladies," I said in the sternest voice I could manage while addressing a flock of chickens, "I expect that if you're going to eat my hard-earned organic produce, you will at least lay some eggs in return." They stared back at me with their chicken eyes and made noises which I could tell were full of remorse. Then one of them crouched down and stuck her tail feathers up, which is chicken talk for "Let's get it on." Only a chicken who is laying will do this. I reached down and scratched her back, and explained politely but firmly that she and I cannot have that kind of relationship and while I think her feathers are just lovely, I think it's best if we keep things between us professional. She continues to fail to respect my boundaries, and every time I walk out into the yard she propositions me. Our chickens don't usually want to be touched, so the boys thought it was odd she was being so submissive. "What's she doing mom?" they asked. "Trying to make more chickens, but she doesn't know I'm not a daddy chicken." That is the kind of technical chicken language we use around here; 'daddy chicken' as opposed to 'rooster.'

The most organic, most locally produced meal I've ever eaten. Everything pictured grew within 50 feet of me.

Even though it's been a slim harvest, I still really wanted to make something that was exclusively produced on our property, even if it was just one small thing. Aaron asked what I was making for dinner. "First I'm going to make something that won't actually fill us up and later I'll make something else, but right now I feel a strong need to do this." "That's fine," he replied grinning. Five years of being married to me has taught him not to question what I do in the kitchen; it doesn't always work out, but he knows I'm going to do it anyway. I chopped, roasted and sauteed. I sprinkled, fried, and plated oh-so-carefully. It was totally worth it. While not exactly a feast fit for a king, it made a really satisfying snack for two. Everything on that plate came from our yard, except the olive oil and salt. Jack didn't care to try it, but when I told him that everything on the plate had been grown by us his whole face lit up and he said "Cool." The good news is that I would make this again, regardless of whether any of it was produced on my own soil. It was independently tasty, but was made even better by the huge dose of karmic satisfaction it gave me. Farmer's Breakfast(or lunch or pre-dinner snack) 2 medium-sized red potatoes, scrubbed 3 baby leeks, cleaned 5-6 cherry tomatoes 1 egg Fresh rosemary, chopped Fresh chives olive oil salt First, dig up some potatoes. This is best done while your kids are "helping" in the garden and your husband is installing the new nesting boxes he made for your chickens. Next, pull up a few leeks(which are actually thriving because they don't mind not having an actual Summer). Hunt around your sad tomato vines for a few gems the chickens missed. Check behind the door of the chicken coop for an egg, and tuck all your treasures carefully in a basket. Scrub and chop the potatoes, then toss them in a frying pan you've drizzled with olive oil. Roughly chop the leeks and toss them with the tomatoes, some olive oil and salt, then roast them in a small dish on 425 until they get wrinkled and soft. While those two things are going on, go outside and pick a little rosemary and a few chives. Chop the rosemary and sprinkle it over the potatoes, which should still be cooking. When they're done, transfer them to a plate and spoon the roasted tomatoes and leeks over the top. Carefully fry the egg and serve it sunny side up, nest it on top of the potatoes and sprinkle the whole thing with chives. Feed your husband a bite and feel a deep sense of connectedness to the earth and all living things. Then send your husband to the store for some halibut because, karmic satisfaction or no, you still need more food.

Officially not Messing Around

2010-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

I would tell you the final count of eggs, butter and sugar that came in and out of my oven this weekend, but I'm tired.

I can tell you that I made Swiss Buttercream in obscene quantities. Those nine cubes of butter up there? All of them went into a single batch of frosting, which I need to re-post a recipe for because I've changed it since the last time I lost my head and thought, "I can make a wedding cake, it won't be that hard."

The good news is, I'm getting better at this every time. Last time, I didn't realize how long all that mixing was going to take. Knowing a little better what I had gotten myself into, I borrowed my sister's mixer. This was a brilliant move on my part.

The whole thing was still fairly stressful, mostly the part where everything took seven times longer than I thought it would. With this wedding, I arrived a full hour before the wedding began which is a huge improvement over my first wedding. It still took so long that at a few minutes after 4:00 I realized the wedding had started and I was still wearing jeans and cleaning up stray petals. I made a mad dash to the kitchen with my cake gear, stashed it in a corner, then sprinted out to my car which was parked in a corner that was hopefully out of sight enough that no one saw me get dressed for the wedding in the passenger's seat. I wore the same dress I did for the last wedding, at which point I realized that I hadn't shaved my legs since the last wedding. Which was July 24th. Luckily I have baby-fine leg hair and not a generous supply, but I still felt less than put together. One of these days I will be on top of this situation enough to actually do my hair for a wedding or(gasp!) wear actual lipstick, but for now I end up being the sacrificial lamb for the sake of a good-looking cake.

It was definitely easier the second time around, a trend which I'm hoping continues because I've got two more wedding cakes and one baby shower cake, all in October. I'm not wildly opposed to having a little break before then, and making things that are the opposite of cake. Like soup.

I find it shocking how much sugar gets used in American desserts. Shocking and distasteful. So in my cake, I took a bunch of the sugar out. I also don't approve of how flavorless white cake is, which makes sense if you're simply using it as a vehicle for frosting, but since I actually wanted people to taste the cake I took a bunch of sugar out of the frosting too. A whole cup, which is also how much sugar I took out of the cake recipe. My other white cake secrets are lots of vanilla and- my new favorite cake ingredient- freshly ground nutmeg. I was worried that it might make the cake taste Christmas-y or Thanksgiving-y, but it didn't at all. It made it taste donut-y and lovely, and if you use ingredients that have actual flavor you can get away with way less sugar. I tried several variations of this cake, and stopped when I left a cake out on the counter and everyone who walked by kept eating it. Aaron is not a big cake person, but as he said "I really just want to keep eating this cake." I told him that was the idea. A friend kept me company the night before the wedding, and was standing next to the pile of scraps I had cut off of the layers when leveling the cake. We were talking about something funny when she realized she'd been eating the scraps and said, "You know what's NOT funny? This cake." That's the amazing thing about this cake; it has the power to turn non-dessert people into cake lovers.

Buttermilk Donut Cake

Adapted from Ina Garten's 'Barefoot Contessa Family Style'

Makes one 12x18 sheet cake, or three 8-inch round cakes, or one each 10-in, 8-inch and 6-inch round cake.

2 1/4 sticks butter, softened

2 cups sugar

6 eggs

1 cup buttermilk or sour cream

4 tsp. vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 TB freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter your cake pan(s). If you plan on turning the cake out of the pan when it's finished, line the bottom of your pan with parchment paper and butter the parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Whisk together until well combined and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy.

With mixer(or egg beater) on low speed, add the eggs one at a time.

Add the vanilla and nutmeg, and mix until just incorporated.

Add the buttermilk, mixing until just combined.

Add the flour mixture in three parts at very low speed, scraping down the bowl between additions. Don't get lazy and skip this part, or when you pour the batter into the pan you're going to find a big pocket of buttermilk and eggs at the bottom. After the last of the flour has been added, finish mixing by hand with a rubber spatula making sure to scrape all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Bake for 25-30 minutes(if baking wedding cake layers, check them after 20 minutes). When the sides begin to pull away from the side of the pan, it's done. I have found this to be the definitive test for cake doneness, and don't even bother to poke the middle with a toothpick anymore. I did several times, but whenever the sides are pulling away the toothpick ALWAYS comes out clean.

Cool the cake on a rack for five minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pan and turn the cake out onto the rack to cool. If you're baking this cake for later, wrap gently but firmly in plastic wrap and freeze. If freezes beautifully and the finished cake will be exceptionally moist, since the wrapping and freezing trap lots of moisture that otherwise would have escaped as steam. You can eat this cake on its own, totally unadorned, or sprinkle it with powdered sugar(cinnamon sugar would be lovely also)(Oooh! or brush it with an orange zest glaze!). It tastes like donut holes. If you must frost it, I recommend the following:

Whipped Chocolate Chip Ganache Filling

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium high heat until steaming but NOT boiling. Pour into a bowl, add the chocolate chips, and let it stand for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir thoroughly to combine. Cool in the fridge until well chilled, then whip as you would whipping cream. Don't get hasty and try to whip it when it's still warm, it won't turn into whipped cream. Spread between cake layers.

New and Improved Swiss Buttercream

This makes a quantity of frosting, enough to frost a two-layer sheet cake. Recipe can be cut: 8 egg whites, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 6 cubes of butter, 3/4 tsp. vanilla.

12 egg whites

2 cups sugar

5 cubes butter

4 cubes unsalted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Place eggs whites and sugar in a stainless steel bowl(a glass bowl works, but metal heats up so much faster) and place over a pot of simmering water, making sure the water isn't touching the bottom of the bowl. Whisk the egg whites and sugar until you can't feel any sugar granules when you dip your finger in the mixture and wipe it against the side of the bowl. This can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes, depending on how hot your water is when you start. Do not use boiling water and do not walk away from the bowl or your egg whites will cook too much.

When the sugar is dissolved, remove the bowl from the pot of simmering water(wearing oven mitts is a good idea to protect against steam burn) and place it on a towel. You want to make sure to wipe all the water off the bowl so that when you pour your egg whites into the bowl of your mixer, they're not contaminated with condensation(which will keep them from whipping up properly). With whisk attachment, mix in a stand mixer on high until stiff peaks form and the bowl is room temperature when you touch the outside with your hand. While the egg whites and sugar are whipping, cut each cube of butter into eight pieces. When the egg whites reach the stiff peaks stage, turn the mixer speed down to medium-low and toss the butter pieces in one at a time. You can do this fairly quickly, but the idea is to get the butter evenly distributed. When all the butter has been added, add the vanilla and then turn the mixer back to high. The mixture will curdle. Don't panic. Keep mixing, eventually it will emulsify. I find it's best of I don't actually watch this part, because it freaks me out every time. Find something to do after you've added the butter; make yourself a cup of tea, check your e-mail, panic that you're a fake baker and not a REAL wedding cake baker, and after a couple of deep breaths go back over to the mixer and admire your beautifully smooth frosting. Don't worry about being away from the mixer for too long, I once walked away for fully 15 minutes and nothing bad happened. It might be possible to over-whip this frosting, but I haven't found that threshold yet.

I've made several versions of this frosting, and I think the 12 egg white version is my favorite. It is the lightest, not-too-sweet frosting I've ever had. The unsalted butter keeps it from being too rich, but it is still pretty decadent. That's nine cubes of butter we're talking about here. But let's be honest, we're making cake, not steamed vegetables. Although, I put butter on my steamed vegetables too. Just not nine cubes of it.

Two Things

2010-09-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday night at 8:30 p.m., half an hour past the boys' bedtime. We're driving home from my mom and dad's after a party, and I remember that we're out of coffee. I also want a pork shoulder for the crock pot, so I ask Aaron to drive by PCC on our way home. My plan was to dash in by myself and be back in the car in five minutes, but as soon as we pull into the parking lot Jack shouts "Baby carts!"

PCC has the cutest damn baby shopping carts which I never let my kids use unless Aaron is with us. But he is in fact with us this particular evening, and PCC isn't really a hotbed of activity this time of night so I agree that we can all go in and they can each have their own baby cart. We go over the Baby Cart Rules- no running, no crashing, no putting things in your cart without asking- and proceed to shop as a family. Whenever I pick something up, the boys beg to have it put in their cart. I alternate. The coffee goes in Jack's cart, the pork shoulder goes to Matteas. Aaron takes them down an aisle while I grab cottage cheese, and when I come around the corner I see the boys inching their way toward me slowly and carefully. Jack's feet are off the floor, resting on the frame of his cart and Matteas is behind him, his cart pushed against Jack's but. "Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-choo-choo!" says Matteas, clearly working hard to be the quietest choo-choo he can be. "Mom," he smiles proudly, "we are being a train!"

"That's a very good train Matteas," I say, smiling back. I can tell they are feeling the magic of an ordinary activity happening at an extraordinary time, and am suddenly very glad we were out of coffee.

A few days later we are back at PCC, this time without Aaron, so no baby carts. But- oh happy day!- the cart that has a ride-in car attached to the front is sitting in front of the door and there are no other children in sight. There is only one car cart, and it's always anxiety-producing to see if it will be our turn. It's right there, so I pull into the closest parking spot and we make a mad dash through the rain to the cart, which is dry inside thanks to the cozy roof on it. We have a peaceful shopping time, I remember everything on my list except for one thing and we even make it through the check-out line with both boys still in the cart. About every two minutes they ask me to run really fast, but I always tell them there are too many people in the store. Only one time did they feel the need to make siren noises, but they did it so quietly that I let them do it for a full minute before reminding them that we were in a shared space and we couldn't take up all the sound. "We were doing that so people will here us coming," Jack says.

"People will hear us coming, trust me," I reply.

We leave, and I put the groceries in the trunk and feel cozy for the boys, dry in their little car cart as the rain picks up speed. "Boys, you behaved beautifully in the store and I really appreciate that. Want mama to push you around the parking lot as fast as I can?"

"Yes!" they answer in unison.

The parking lot is fairly quiet, so I run as fast I can while still controlling the cart and we shoot across the parking lot at top speed, the boys screaming and hollering as loudly as they can. "Wheeee-holy-cow-this-is-so-fast-whooooo-hoooo-aaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!" 45 seconds of pure, unbridled, puddle-splashing joy.

"Mom," Jack says as he buckles his own seat belt, "that was the Best Shopping Trip Ever."

"I agree," I say, soaking wet and happy. Some days, this job is so freaking hard that I lock myself in the bathroom just to have three feet of space around my body and fantasize about what it would be like to live alone, all alone in a quiet space that stayed clean. But other days, I have the incredible luck to see an opportunity for shared joy and am able to seize it with both hands, even in the pouring rain.

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

2010-09-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

Remember her? How tiny she was?

Well, she got bigger.

And then, after months of waiting, she up and laid an egg. I didn't even pose that feather on top, she did that herself.

We all remember where we were when we first heard(that is a whole lot of 'w's in one space). I was making dinner in the kitchen, Aaron was in the backyard with the boys. He was about to fill the chicken's feeder when I saw him pause by the door and smile. He waved the boys over, and suddenly I noticed that one of the chickens seemed be a little more clucky than usual.

"Aaron," I called out the kitchen window, "is there something in there?"

"Maybe," he grinned.

"It's and EGG!!!" Jack yelled, waving his hands in the air.

"IS DERE A BABY IN DERE?!" shouted Matteas, beside himself with excitement.

We all took turns holding it.

It was a little smaller than commercial eggs, and when I cracked it the shell was thick and hard, a sign our chickens are getting plenty of calcium.

We all agreed this, the first egg, should be fried. Aaron and I each got a single a bite, the boys got two bites each. It was amazing in a way which was largely to do with the fact that it came from one of our chickens, those little balls of cheeping fluff that we lost sleep over when they were babies, made fun of when they were awkward teenagers, and now follow us around like feathered, clucking puppy dogs.

After we ate the egg, I opened wine and we had a toast. I handed Aaron a glass of wine and we thought for a minute about what to drink to. I was feeling like the world was a more magical place and wondering if I was being overly-emotional, but before I had a chance to say anything Aaron looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes, then leaned over and kissed me. The world was more magical, it wasn't just me.

"To eggs," Aaron said, our glasses clinking.

We are enormously proud of ourselves. We figured that with the cost of the chicks($3 a piece), their feed, their litter, the heat lamps we bought, that our family snack of egg cost about $75. Of course, as the chickens lay more eggs the cost per egg will diminish, but I totally don't even care. We made an egg. We bought animals and cared for them, and that single, tiny egg was a huge triumph for our family. When we first got our chicks, a few people shook their heads and told us that if our goal was to save money it was a lost cause. It's not about the money. It's about getting a little closer to our food, about experiencing how real food is grown and not produced; it's about showing our kids why it's important to respect where our food comes from and why it matters that the animals we eat should be well cared for. Someday, I hope it will also be about not having to buy any eggs. I already knew about the awful conditions industrial laying chickens are kept in; they're crammed six hens to a cage, without enough room to stand up. They're never taken out of their cages, and most will go their entire lives without seeing sunshine or eating grass or bugs. I get incredible satisfaction out of doing the dishes and watching the chickens out the window. We keep them in what used to be an old playhouse at night, where the floor is lined with soft wood shavings that Aaron cleans out regularly. They sleep on a perch Aaron built them, and eat organic chicken feed and whatever they can scratch in the yard(including half of the kale I grew, which I have mixed feelings about). They have constant access to fresh water and are allowed to wander anywhere they want to in the backyard. An unexpected bonus of having free-range chickens is that they love to find cozy spots under bushes and shrubs, where they proceed to eat down all the grass and weeds.

For now, it's not about reducing our grocery bill. But some things are worth more than money.

Good to the Last Drop

2010-09-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

The last sunny day of "Summer." I have always considered myself a devoted lover of the Pacific Northwest, but I have to say I have not been impressed by the weather lately. Or by most of the weather we had in the three month period preceding Autumn. I got a few red tomatoes, but my pumpkins never materialized and the carrots can hardly claim to be doing anything close to thriving. Most of my garden just sat kind of sadly in the dirt, wondering what I expected it to do with the long overcast days and weeks of drizzle. Then BAM!it's 95 degrees! for three days and then- just kidding! we didn't mean it! drizzle is what we meant! more drizzle! So it might as well be actual Fall, because we've been practicing all Summer.

We still managed to get in some beach time while the getting was good, and I really do love where we live. It's beautiful here even when it's gray, which is a hard trick to pull off in most parts of the world.

As soon as the weather turned cold, we all promptly got colds. Matteas had the worst of it, and one night requested "not soup, just broth" for dinner. I caramelized some vegetables, threw in some sprigs of thyme, some garlic and a pinch of cayenne(he likes it spicy) and simmered the whole thing with some organic beef stock. He drank every drop and was a noticeably happier boy afterwards. I realize that I'm turning my children into food snobs, but it's hard not to enjoy how much pleasure a bowl of well-made broth gave my sniffling little boy. Plus it was actually good for him, not sodium-laden bilge water from a can.

And since we seem to be moving into a stretch of weather that requires a slightly more substantial breakfast, I thought now would be a good time to share my World Famous Pancakes. Maybe not WORLD famous, but famous enough among the people who have had breakfast at my house. It is my most requested recipe which I find funny, because there are only four ingredients. And they are gluten free, provided you use certified gluten-free oats. Which I don't, because Jack isn't that sensitive. I started making pancakes this way out of necessity when we found out Jack couldn't eat wheat, but now I do it out of preference. These pancakes are light enough to still eat like pancakes, but also have a delightfully satisfying chew and pack enough fiber that they won't leave you feeling like you ate a big brick of sugary starch for breakfast. They are divine. Jack likes his with butter and brown sugar, while my favorite topping is cherry preserves and sour cream. They freeze beautifully, so make a whole batch and have a pancake breakfast ready in your freezer.

Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes

Makes about 12 5-inch pancakes

4 cups oats(not quick-cooking)

4 cups buttermilk

6 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

The night before, combine the oats and buttermilk in a bowl. Stir until all the oats are saturated, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, beat the eggs with the baking soda and then stir the egg mixture into the oats. Cook on a non-stick surface over medium-high heat. The batter is a little sloppy, so I recommend keeping the pancakes small, about five inches across. You're welcome.

All Within the Range

2010-08-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

Because you are all lovely, caring people, you're probably wondering how Jack is doing. The short answer is: better. The longer answer is a little more involved. We started with our general provider, who gave us a referral to see a neurologist at Children's. The best thing I can say about the woman we saw was that she really, really liked Jack. She congratulated me on my superior powers of observation and pointed out that if Jack was in a different kind of household with a different kind of mother, he'd probably be put on heavy drugs for ADD. She was very sweet and attentive and kept saying things like "Clearly, he's fabulous!" She genuinely liked him and that was all very heart-warming, but not very useful from a medical standpoint. The good news is that Jack consistently aced all the neurological tests and his chart states "perfect upon examination." So nothing wrong with his brain. The conclusion of Kindly Neurologist was "You're a fantastic mother, keep doing what you're doing and come back in four months. And by the way that will be $237.00 please." My next move was to take him to Dr. White, my lovely chiropractor. It was abundantly clear after x-rays that Jack's neck was grossly out of alignment and in such a way that Dr. White assured me it was affecting blood flow to his brain. Jack has received two adjustments to his spine, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that his spine is now in perfect alignment, and on our third visit Dr. White said that Jack didn't need a third adjustment because he was still holding perfect alignment. The other good news is that Jack's headaches seem to be less frequent and, when they do come, less intense. We are always able to nip them in the bud and avoid the vomiting stage. The bad news is that he still gets headaches. I'm grateful that for the time being they stay headaches and don't progress to full-on migraines. Dr. White suggested a blood allergy test to look for foods that might bother Jack, as allergies can be common migraine triggers. We are learning more and more about how to manage his situation, and were even able to take a two-hour road trip to Lake Wenatchee for a little vacation thanks to the miracle that is Dramamine. I'm not normally a big fan of giving my kids medicine for every little ache and pain, but I am a huge fan of being able to drive for a couple of hours with no one vomiting. Another tool we discovered(thanks to Anna) is something called Migrastick, which is a little vial of essential peppermint and lavender oils. When Jack feels the first signs of a headache(which he is getting better and better at recognizing) we dab a little oil on his forehead, temples, and the back of his neck. Usually, ten minutes later he feels fine. If not, we break out some chewable ibuprofen and carry on with our day. I'm trying to train him to feed and water himself more independently, and all in all things are improving. I feel like I need to catch my breath a little before we seek out further treatment, which will most likely be with a naturopath. I received so many e-mails full of concern and recommendations, and I'm so grateful for all of them. Thank you all for caring about my son, I deeply appreciate it. And speaking of appreciation, I had a rather tragic invitation to appreciate my life a lot more than I have been recently. It's embarrassing how easily I can lose my perspective, and the depth of awfulness sometimes required for me to get my head back on straight. For a while there I felt like I was in a storm of difficulties, trying to manage Jack's migraines and allergies while keeping Jack and Matteas from killing each other, all while feeling misunderstood by my husband. It was not a good time. And then Kayleigh blew into town and we had an amazing two weeks together, full of food and conversation and insight. I realized how important it is for me to make space for myself, to take a break from the daily grind and do things that feed my soul. I also realized I need to spend more time talking to my husband and less time talking about him. The night before we went on vacation I finally came clean to him about something I've been upset about for years. Literally, years. It's really not that juicy in terms of content, but the principle was that I didn't trust him with my wounds and it was driving a wedge between us. It was a small wedge at first, and the space it drove between us was so small I thought I could overlook it but the more I overlooked it the more the space grew, until one day I looked up and saw that the small space had become a large chasm and that I needed to make a choice: keep drifting, or reach for my husband. I chose to reach, and he met me with open arms. I thanked him by getting snot all over the shoulder of his black t-shirt on account of all the blubbering that ensued, but he didn't mind. He just held me while I blubbered and whispered really nice things to me, and I realized what a fool I'd been not to let him comfort me a long time ago. He would have if I'd asked, but I refused to ask. Life had to push me to a really dark place before I would admit I was in pain. So now we are quite in love, Jack is doing much better, Matteas is his charming self(and he's now three years old) and we are working on our master bedroom and reading C.S. Lewis together out loud. All this goodness was thrown into sharp relief by a visit to the park the other night, just the boys and me while Aaron was out. Two little boys were at the playground, 5 and 2, and they immediately befriended Jack and Matteas. Their dad and their grandma were with them, who seemed like kindly, if odd, people. Turns out they were very odd, and very sad. The grandma, not bothering to make the usual playground small talk, launched into a detailed account of her son's nasty divorce which is apparently being driven by his hateful wife who detests him and abuses her children. She blurted all this out while the kids were playing right next to us, and I was torn between trying to be kind to her and protecting my kids from someone else's tragedy. When it was time to go, Jack volunteered to give the dad our phone number so we could meet again. "Oh," I said, "we come here all the time so I'm sure we'll see you guys again." I made a mental note to avoid the park on Wednesday nights, which is apparently the one weeknight Hateful Wife grants her soon-to-be-ex-husband custody of his own children. We headed home and I put the boys in the bath, and fed them watermelon while the warm water soaked the dust from the park off their skin. I told Jack that next time he meets a kid he likes at the park, he needs to ask me if it's okay to exchange phone numbers before volunteering that option. He asked me why, and the best I could do was to say that there are some friends that we make a part of our lives, friends we have over for dinner and plan vacations with, and then there are friends that are just park friends. He didn't really understand, and it suddenly hit me that we are rapidly getting to the part of the show when I will have to explain Harsh Realities to him, to teach him about things I don't want him to know. He was only a year and a half when Karoly shot himself, wasn't born yet when my oldest sister left her five boys. He hasn't had to process any deep personal tragedies yet, and I was overcome with a wave of gratitude that, for all my complaining, my struggles are really all within the range of normal. I may struggle in my relationship with my husband, but if I struggle it's in order to have a better marriage. The boys might drive me crazy with their fighting, but they can only drive me crazy because I am here being their mom every day, not just Wednesday nights. We struggle still, but generally it's in a thriving kind of way, and whatever else may happen I know we will at least struggle together.

We Laughed, We Cried, We Learned a Valuable Lesson

2010-08-20T16:21:00.001-07:00

I knew today was not going to go well. I knew this because Matteas woke up early, and by "early" I mean that he got less than 12 hours of sleep. I always feel torn about how to handle these days; do I lower expectations to avoid potential meltdowns, carry on as normal, bribe the boys into good behavior? Originally, I planned on laying low. But then I realized we were out of food. Really out. I used our last few pieces of bread to make toast for breakfast and had since been periodically throwing granola bars and string cheese at the boys whenever they made hungry noises, but then I got hungry too and the wilted half-carton of arugula did little to fill me up. The boys were fighting a lot and I debated whether it was the type of day that would be improved by an outing or if temperaments were so out of whack that we should not take ourselves out in public. I chose to risk an outing. I chose wrong. Our library books were due back, so I proposed a plan to the boys: hit the library, then PCC. Normally, they are excited about doing both of these things. It took us half an hour of whining and general bad behavior to make it to the car with everyone appropriately diapered and shod, but I foolishly pressed on. We got to the library and were greeted by the sound of 35 children's voices singing some idiotic rhyme led by the voice of a woman who clearly didn't like children. I picked out a few books for the boys while they checked out the fish in the giant tank, then I looked away for two seconds and looked up to see Matteas climbing over the back of a chair, a chair where the woman who clearly didn't like children had hung her jacket. He was climbing over the chair to get to the free-standing little puppet stage. So he could climb on it. I ran over to him, but the woman who now did not like my children specifically beat me to it. "No, no, NO," she said, motioning to Matteas to get off the chair, "the puppet stage is CLOSED." I grabbed Matteas and slunk over to the checkout, where I scanned our books and made haste out of the library. On the drive to PCC, it occurred to me that maybe trying to buy groceries would be a poor choice, so I proposed an alternate plan: we would splurge on prepared food, then head to the beach. The boys agreed it was a fine plan, and said they hoped it would be our turn to use the car cart at PCC(side note: why the f**k does PCC only have one of those carts? Worst idea EVER). I said that maybe it would be our turn, maybe not. We pull into the parking lot and lo! there's the car cart unattended! Score! The boys and I hustle over to it, but immediately Matteas starts whining for a baby cart. I have a rule about the baby carts: we only use them when Dad comes shopping with us. Two toddlers running around the grocery store with their own carts in opposite directions does not make for a productive shopping experience. I remind Matteas of this rule, then tell him that if he wants to go to the beach I need him to get in the car cart and help me drive. He obeys, but with a lot of whining. We hoof it over to the hot food section and I'm pleased to find a Mexican casserole type thing made with beef and cheese and corn tortillas, so I get a sample cup to let Jack try it. He loves it, but Matteas refuses to try it. He whines, loudly, about three more things in the next ten seconds. I tell him if he doesn't stop whining, we can't go to the beach. He pitches a full-on fit, so I grab our empty cart and head for the door. Jack knows we're not going to the beach now, so both boys are wailing as loud as they possibly can and everyone is staring at me. I don't even bother smiling in apology, I fix my eyes on the door and try not to look like I'm kidnapping the screaming children in my cart. We buckle in and head for home, the wailing now punctuated with cries of despair. Jack declares that this is the worst day ever, and then he lets me have it, the toddler equivalent of an F-bomb: "I hate you!" As soon as it says it, I realize my mistake. Well, actually, there are several of them. When Jack tells me that he hates me, it stings. And pisses me off, which tells me two things: I take parenting too personally, and also that it is way too important to me to have my kids like me. It's not my job to get them to like me, it's my job to teach them not to behave like hooligans in public places. We get home and I drag my still-weeping children into our cluttered, foodless house. I deposit Matteas in his bed, leave Jack in the living room, and then heave myself onto my bed to ponder what it is I could have done to incite the wrath of God so that He would punish me with such awful children. I run back over my life's offenses, and the words of the gym teacher from Mean Girls come to mind. He's trying to scare a room full of teenagers into celibacy: "If you have sex you WILL get pregnant and you WILL die." So maybe that's where I went wrong. But something in me says that there is, actually, something bigger that I missed, something important. I realize that I have failed to instill in them a sense of respect for others, the knowledge that they are not the only people in the library or the grocery store, that they need to consider what impact their behavior will have on the people around them. I gather the boys and have a talk with them. I explain that we all have jobs, even kids. Right now their jobs aren't super big, but it's still important that they do them well. When it comes to food, our whole family works together: Dad makes money to buy food with, Mom shops for it and cooks it, and the boys need to be well-behaved while Mom does the shopping. I ask them what kind of family they want to be, one that helps each other or one that doesn't care about each other, and they instantly say they want to be a helping kind of family. I tell them that we are going to try again, that I know they can do their job if they try hard, and that if they don't there will be severe consequences when we get home(besides still not having any food). They look relieved that I appear to be in charge again, and quietly climb into their car seats. At Trader Joe's(no way was I going back to PCC today) they are quiet and cooperative. A few things catch their eye, but I explain we're not shopping for those things today. I manage to fill the cart with the basics, plus a few exotic yogurts. I splurge on a bottle of all-purpose cleaner that smells like the woods because I will want to wash the counter tops with it, and people smile at my children and give them stickers. A lovely British woman waiting in line behind us chats with Matteas, and he informs her(correctly) that his birthday is "about August fourteenf." I had no idea he knew when his birthday was, and for a brief moment I see my son not as the wretched instrument of torture he has been to me all morning, but as a stranger might: tan, blond, charming. I realize that I need to create more opportunities for Matteas to be his best self, and more opportunities for me to notice him that way. When we get home, I tell the boys that I need help carrying in the groceries. I normally carry them all in myself because I can do it faster and also the bread won't be all squished, but we've already covered the negative consequences of bad behavior today and I want to shift the focus to the positive effects of good behavior. I hand Jack a bag full of light stuff and give Matteas the mini watermelon I bought, and they trudge happily up the stairs and into the house. I thank them for their help and commend their performance at Trader Joe's, and tell them we are going to make a chore chart so we can keep track of all the ways they contribute to our family. Jack immediately proposes that he and Matteas can share the job of putting the chickens away: Matteas can use the broom to herd the chickens into their coop and then Jack can close the door. I tell him I think that's a great idea, and start thinking about how long I need to wait before showing my face in PCC again.

Peaceful, but working like hell

2010-08-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Shannon, Kayleigh and me

I haven't been here much lately. That's because August became a Festival of Amazing Women, and I cooked a lot of food and read a lot of books and had a lot of conversations. It was during this Festival that I realized that my life would be much better if I could manage the everyday the same way I manage childbirth: peaceful, but working like hell to give birth to something. I have so much to say I don't even really know where to start, so for now I'm going to take the boys blackberry picking because we all need to get out of the house. Sometime later I'll make some tea, and try to straighten out all the womanly wisdom I've been absorbing for the past three weeks. Because I really can't keep it to myself.

Just to Clarify

2010-07-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

So I've been getting a lot of phone calls from people I haven't heard from in a long time. They say they called just to say hello, but eventually they all get around to saying the same thing: "so I read your blog the other day, and..." So I thought I should clarify a few things. -when I wrote this post, I was in what is quite possibly the Worst Funk I've Ever Been In. Some people think it wasn't the best idea for me to publicly share what was in that post. I have no regrets, but I did want to share the context: I was feeling overwhelmed and under-equipped. I don't feel like that on a regular basis. Several things in my life converged simultaneously, and the stress got the better of me. I think my anxiety over Jack's migraines was a huge factor. That post was not representative of how I feel about my life as a whole, it was representative of how I felt about things on that particular day. It was my Emotional Self speaking, not my Reasoning Self. I knew, even as I wrote that post, that I would eventually get to a different place, but I wasn't there yet. -Aaron and I fight, I just don't usually post details about it on my blog. We are amazingly civil when we fight. This is mostly because of Aaron, who never raises his voice even a little. We have been married for five years and have never once yelled at each other or called the other person names. We try to focus on the issue at hand, and for the most part we succeed in avoiding any kind of attack on the person. Maybe I shared things that some people thought were Too Much Information, but I still don't regret it. The fight happened whether I publicized it or not(plus I did leave out some juicy bits). The reason why I chose to share my Funk was twofold: catharsis was a selfish reason; community was the other. I think community is the saving grace of motherhood. Without it I would be lonely and crazy. I can't count the number times another mom has shared with me about difficulties and challenges and I have found myself nodding in agreement and resonating with sympathy. It's important to know that it's hard for everyone, not just you. -Just because my children drive me nuts sometimes doesn't mean I don't love them. I love my children more than my own life. They also drive me nuts a good deal of the time. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. I think it is also important- crucial even- for other mothers to know this. It's par for the course. They are both my greatest source of joy and my greatest source of frustation. I don't tell them that they frustrate me(though I'm sure they can tell), I tell them they are my treasures. In the end, treasure is more important. -Everything I write on my blog is true. The wedding cake, the poop, the messy house, the organic garden, the romantic dates with my husband, the art projects, the flooded basement; in short, the Good, the Bad and the Funky. It's all my life. I know some people use their blog as a place to focus on the positive, and for the most part that's what I like to do. But that's not all there is, and I find it frustrating when people say things like "Children are such a blessing," without balancing that statement with the crustier realities of parenting. I certainly don't want to focus on the hard parts, but I think it's crazy-making to act like they aren't there. Children are a blessing. A blessing that will make you laugh, cry, gag, rejoice, despair and hope, sometimes in the span of fifteen minutes. Also, they will poop and throw up a lot. It is 11:20 and I am still in my pajamas. I'm going to change into some real clothes, put some banana bread in the oven, then go shampoo the rug downstairs which has developed a strong moldy odor since the Flood. We'll let the chickens out and probably do some gardening. At some point there will be some book reading on a blanket outside. Along the way there will certainly be some naughtiness, some fighting, some discipline and some hugging. In short, there will be real life.

...and now for something completely different

2010-07-25T13:02:00.001-07:00

Thank you all for your support over my little nervous breakdown. I wake up almost every day feeling happy just because, and it distresses me when that doesn't happen. I was venting to my cousin Kayleigh the other day about all the sources of stress in my life, and she said " The Dalai Lama would say that those things have something to teach you." So I said to my nervous breakdown, "Breakdown, you are my teacher. What do I need to learn?" The conversation is ongoing. It was tricky that I was going through all that emotional turmoil at a time when my husband was otherwise engaged(he was the best man in Trevor and Melissa's wedding) so he didn't have a lot of time or attention to give me. The drive home from the wedding last night was over an hour, so we finally had a chance to connect and have a real conversation. I realize I don't talk to him enough, and also that I'm not very good at speaking his language. We have very different communication styles, and so many times when I'm satisfied that I've successfully communicated specific things to him Aaron will later inform me that he had a completely different interpretation than what I intended. I sometimes find it frustrating that being in a relationship with someone can be so much work, that it's not enough to simply be in love with each other. A mistake I have repeatedly made is to hold Aaron responsible for meeting all of my needs, rather than discerning which needs are actually best met by him and which needs could be met elsewhere. Also, it's miraculous what some time away from your children can do for your relationship with them. Most days I do actually enjoy being with my kids, but sometimes a mama needs a break. My sister took them overnight, then my cousin took over all day yesterday so I could make wedding cake like a total maniac. I'll be you're all wondering how that went. It all worked out in the end, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments when I let loose a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush. Some things that surprised me: -how very, very long it takes to properly frost a cake -how tricky it can be not to use too much sugar -how relaxing it was to transport all thirty pounds of it I would totally do it again. Which is good, because I've already signed myself up for two more weddings. The part I was the most apprehensive about was driving it 62 miles to Gig Harbor, but that part went just fine aside from the fact that I had to periodically remind myself to relax the death grip I had on the steering wheel. I wanted to make extra sure that nothing would slide around, so I used some of that rubber stuff you put under an area rug to keep it from sliding around and duct taped it to shallow boxes. The cakes didn't budge, not even when I missed the street the church was on and had to turn around on a narrow road. Next time I think I'll save myself some time and just line my trunk with my yoga mat. I got there several hours later than I planned. As in 20 minutes before the ceremony started. Everything took so much longer than I thought it would, then I hit terrible traffic on the drive down. I wore shorts and a tank top, certain that if I arrived dressed for the wedding I would get frosting all over myself. The church where the wedding was held was a huge compound, and there were multiple buildings to choose from. I saw signs that said "Fellowship Hall" and parked in the closest spot I could find. I grabbed the bottom tier and made haste into the building, where there were dozens of people milling about and some tables with flowers on them. Naturally I assumed this was where the reception would be, so I made my way to the back of the room where there appeared to be a kitchen and asked the nearest lady if I could do cake set up in there. "You're bringing the cake?" she asked. "Um, yes," I replied, thinking that much was obvious. "Are you here for the memorial?" she asked. "This is a memorial?" I asked, mortified. "Yes. You probably want the reception hall on the other side of the church." So yeah. I waltzed into a memorial in an outfit I would garden in, bearing a cake for a wedding celebration. That's just how classy I am. I thought I couldn't be any more embarrassed, but then I walked by a mirror and saw a streak of frosting about ten inches wide across my chest. So in review, I walked into a memorial horribly underdressed and asked if I could set up a cake I'd just smeared across my boobs. I did manage to get the cake finished and had just enough time to rush to the bathroom, throw on a dress and some lipstick and make it to the sanctuary about 25 seconds before Melissa walked down the aisle. I don't know why I wasn't more concerned about this project. I thought it be easy, but apparently the term "piece of cake" was coined in referrence to a single piece of cake, not 186 pieces of cake. I don't know if you can tell from these pictures, but the lilies have a very faint pink shimmer to them. The sash on Melissa's dress was the same color. Melissa requested Nutella filling. In taste tests, it proved to be overwhelmingly sweet but the flavor was great, so I whipped Nutella with cream cheese and chopped toasted pecans. A one-to-one ratio of jars of Nutella to bricks of cream cheese was just about perfect; it also made the Nutella silkier and less gooey, so it was a little easier to spread without getting the crumbs all excited.

I was nervous about smearing the Nutella filling with white frosting, so I piped a ring of frosting around the cake before I filled it. It worked great, and I didn't have any trouble with the filling mixing with the frosting.

I read so many recipes for Swiss Buttercream, but I kept coming back to Deb's. Hers uses slightly less butter than others, and then I cut the amount of butter even further(but just a smidge). The quantity which worked best for my mixer was eight egg whites, two cups of sugar, six cubes of butter and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Also, I found I preferred to use half salted butter and half unsalted to keep the flavor lighter. When I do this again, I'm going to borrow my sister's Kitchenaid because I think mine hates me now for all the work I made it do and next time might go better if I can make twice the frosting in half the time. Each batch takes about half an hour to make with all the double-boiling and prolonged whipping. I made four batches that morning. That's two hours just for frosting, y'all. And 24 cubes of butter, in case you weren't adding it up. I'm amazed that I can add at all anymore, after all the calculating this project required.

For all my careful leveling, the cake still leaned just a bit. I used small dowels in the bottom two layers, but now I think I might need to buy those plastic pillar things. I might ask the next person I make a cake for to pay me in craft store gift certificates, because I also think I need a cake lifter.

The cake itself was also from Deb, and frankly I don't know why I ever bothered looking elsewhere. For some time now I've had this irrational aversion to adding any kind of flavoring besides vanilla to chocolate cake, and I realize now how foolish that was of me. Deb's recipe calls for coffee and cinnamon, and I used fresh hot French press coffee in mine.

To die for. I don't even like cake, and I loved this. Ina Garten is always saying that coffee in chocolate recipes makes the chocolate taste even more like chocolate, but somehow I always expected it to come out tasting like a mocha. It doesn't. It adds a lovely depth and keeps the cake from being too sweet. And the touch of cinnamon with the Nutella filling...there weren't so much as crumbs left. I didn't even get my own piece, but my brother Damien shared a few bites of his with me.

This morning as Aaron and I were having coffee on the couch, I looked at him and said "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I want some cake." I have about five pounds of that Nutella cream cheese mixture in my fridge and I've been curious to see how it tastes with yellow cake.

Broadcasting Live From the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul

2010-07-22T09:55:00.001-07:00

This is what the boys did yesterday while I was washing wedding cake dishes. I knew they had the hose on and I could see them from the window above the sink, but somehow I forgot to look at them. They flooded the patio, which flooded the basement. With gallons and gallons and gallons of water. They came running up the stairs, muddy and breathless and reported "there's water in the house! Lots of water!!!"

Indeed.

I stood there for a minute and tried to summon a can-do attitude, but the most productive response I could muster was to sit down on the only dry spot I could find and sob.

This morning Matteas peed the bed and when I put him in the tub to clean up he pooped in the bath water. I feel like this is a metaphor for my life right now; work, more work, and then while I'm trying to do the work someone shits on it.

I never wanted to have kids, and I knew it. But then I had a few by accident and I thought that I grew up and got over myself, but here I am five years later still seething with resentment. I would like to insert some touching anecdote here about getting to the end of a hard day and kissing the boys goodnight, about feeling a soft cheek against mine and the voice of a little boy whispering about how I'm the best mom in the whole world, how all the blood and sweat and tears are so worth it. But I don't feel that way. I feel like it is hard and shitty and thankless, and then the little darlings flood the basement.

Also, this morning Jack announced that he does not love me. I know that he's five years old, that all kids say that to their parents at some point, that I should not take it personally. But I do because it is a mean thing to say and if it is really true then there's not much point to what I do all day. Parenting is not modelled on capitalism, and this is part of what is wrong with it. If you work hard at something, you should be rewarded. Maybe not with a huge paycheck, but at this point I'd settle for job satisfaction. Instead I work my ass off for a group of people who, far from appreciating my efforts, tend to resist and resent them. Jack refused to eat breakfast this morning, which means he is setting himself up for a migraine later. I can play scientist all I want and take notes on his behavior and various reactions to all kinds of situations and factors, I can discover all there is to know about migraines and Jack's particular chemistry, but when it comes down to it I cannot force him to comply with any remedies. This is infuriating. Especially today, because I scored an appointment with a neurologist at Children's due to a cancellation, without which he'd have to wait until late September to be seen. He doesn't care because he's not in pain at the moment, and I resent that he is only motivated by incentive or by consequence; why can't he be good simply because it's the right thing to do?

To add insult to injury, Aaron and I do not agree on the reality of Jack's migraines. Aaron knows he gets them and how much medicine to give him if it happens, but he doesn't take my word for it when it comes to triggers. Jack can't handle a lot of stimulation or prolonged activities; we can't go to the park after three hours at school without going home for a snack first. I've tried it. The result is always the same. The other night Aaron took the boys out for pizza and then to a movie. Jack got a headache when they got home. I think Aaron wants Jack to be a normal kid who can do normal things, but he isn't and he can't. Aaron's failure to accept this fact makes me feel crazy, because I work really hard to manage Jack and figure him out, then Aaron disregards what I say. This means he thinks that I am either a) stupid or b) wrong, and both conclusions are distasteful. Also, he will be mad that I wrote that. I should probably care about the fact that Aaron will be mad, but right now I don't because I am tired of repeating and repeating and repeating myself and not being heard.

I feel like the guy in Greek mythology whose damnation involves rolling a heavy boulder up a steep hill over and over, but every time he nears the top the boulder magically appears at the bottom of the hill again. He never gets to the top, but he has to keep trying again and again. I find it cruel that parenting is so psychologically torturous; how am I supposed to raise healthy, happy kids when they're driving me fucking bonkers?

A friend on Facebook was in distress the other day, and someone posted a comment to her which read "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." I want to punch people who say that. If you really believe in God, then you're not the one handling things anyway. And how is that supposed to be consoling anyway? All it really says is that your feelings aren't valid: if it happened, you can handle it.

Now I get to go spend a couple of hours in the car so I can talk to someone about Jack's migraines while he dorks out and makes noises like a baby so that the doctor and I can't hear each other. But first I have to find Jack and make him put pants on against his will, which he will probably really appreciate. After the appointment I will call Aaron and tell him what the doctor said, and he will believe her because she is a doctor. She might be a mom as well, but that's not the important part.

One Day, I Will Figure This Out

2010-07-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that Jack was ever that tiny. He was five days old in that picture, and weighed just a few ounces over five pounds. He was slow to gain, and the hospital almost made us stay another day because he wasn't putting on weight the way he was supposed to. He became jaundiced and had to spend a night under the lights, the blindfold covering half his tiny face. It really was the best of times and the worst of times; I was so in love with this tiny, tiny person, but it was scary to be in charge of caring for him. He couldn't do anything for himself and he was so very needy. I felt fiercely protective of him, and determinedly pumped bottles of breast milk in the middle of the night for months and months. He was small and needed the very best calories; I could sleep later. Five years later and a lot is still the same; I am so in love with Jack, but it's scary to be in charge of caring for him. He's not tiny anymore. He weighs 55 pounds and is tall, muscular and fast. He draws and sings constantly, works hard to overcome his many fears, bravely accepts his wheat allergies and tries new foods. He has grown so much and in so many ways. But something is wrong. Recently, Jack has been getting migraines. A lot of migraines. From the time he had the vocabulary to articulate it, he has frequently complained about his forehead hurting. He loses his appetite, the pain gets worse, and then the vomiting starts. After a good night's sleep he wakes up feeling much better and then eats like a horse. This used to happen two or three times a year. In June I noticed it was happening more often, so I started writing it on the calendar every time he got a migraine. We have a routine now. When he complains that his forehead hurts, I give him Tylenol and Motrin simultaneously, make him drink water and then have him lie down in a dark, quiet spot. This is usually enough to pull him back from the brink, and after a 30 minute rest he's good to go. Most of the time we can avoid getting to the vomiting stage. With the last migraine, we weren't so lucky. It was 91 degrees and, despite my best efforts, I think his body couldn't stay hydrated. We were at his grandma's and it was late, so when he told me that his forehead hurt I decided we should just head home. I didn't have any medicine with me, so I hoped he would just fall asleep in the car. Three blocks away from grandma's, he threw up. That's what the bucket in my back seat is for. After a good purge, we made it home without further incident. He was asleep, so I put him to bed without waking him up to take any pain medication. At 2:30 a.m. he came into my room crying, saying his forehead still hurt. He'd never woken up in pain before. I gave him his usual cocktail and some water, then got in bed beside him and massaged his scalp. I thought back to how many times I'd written "migraine" on the calendar and realized that this was his fifth migraine in a month. I lay next to him in the dark, unable to do much but be with him while we both waited for the medicine to work. It usually takes about 20 minutes, which can feel like an eternity when your child is suffering. Plus, 2:30 in the morning is a Worrisome Time, the time of night when everything is menacing and this is not just a headache and what his wrong with my son I'm his mother I should know why can't I figure this out and HOLY SHIT if anything happens to this kid I will want to die. I hate caring about another person this much. The next morning I make an appointment with his doctor. In the exam room, Jack is chipper and talkative. He likes being the center of attention, and his doctor is a really nice guy. I go over Jack's migraine history, explaining that he had episodes of vomiting without apparent illness from the time he was about two. I think he had his first migraine the day we went to buy a Christmas tree, and he puked all over Aaron at Azteca. The next morning he was fine, and we didn't think much of it. Kids puke all the time, right? Now that I know what his migraines look like, I realize that's what was going on. I tell the doctor about our current management plan, how I make sure Jack has something to eat and drink at least every two hours throughout the day. As soon as I say it out loud, I know it sounds odd. Every two hours? What is he, an infant? Clearly, no. So why do I still have to feed him like one? I go on, explaining that we avoid things like big, loud parties or crowded places; we can't stay at the beach too long on a sunny day because it's too bright for Jack; he gets carsick easily; I never leave the house without food and drink in the car; if we take a trip, the first thing I pack is the bottle of chewable Tylenol and Motrin; his babysitters know to give him a glass of water every hour. I know this is not standard issue care for most five year-olds, but hearing myself say it out loud to another person really underlines it for me. Jack was difficult to care for from day one. He didn't nurse, cried inconsolably for months, was unhappy in new situations. All babies are work, but I didn't realize how much more work Jack was until my sister told me "Your one baby is more work than all five of my children put together." So I guess it didn't seem that odd to me, this frequent feeding and watering and having of medicine and buckets. Jack is high-maintenance; it's just how he rolls. But this has gotten to the point where it is not okay, is past being explained by saying things like "he was early, lots of early babies have colic." I realize that Jack has a very, very narrow range of being in which he thrives and if anything comes along to tip the balance, it triggers a migraine. The doctor asks me if Aaron or I have ever had migraines. I tell him never once in either of our lives. He tells me that it's unusual for a person to have chronic migraines without at least one parent having them in their history. He also tells me that it's extremely rare to see chronic migraines in a child under the age of seven. He gives Jack a bunch of little tests; close your eyes and touch your nose, balance on one foot, raise your eyebrows, squeeze my hand. Jack does them all perfectly, and I breathe a sigh of relief when the doctor says that all his neurological functions look good. I cross Brain Cancer off my list of worries. The doctor tells me that I'm doing a great job, and to keep doing everything we're doing; treat migraines as they come, and do our best to avoid the things that trigger them. We will see a neurologist and discuss preventative treatment. This makes me nervous because a lot of prophylactic migraine treatment involves anti-depressants. They are given in lower doses than they would be for the treatment of depression, but I question the wisdom of putting such powerful drugs into the body of a child who clearly has a sensitive system. I want to know why he keeps getting migraines, not just suppress them.

For now, we wait. We haven't seen the neurologist yet, so I'm doing what I normally do and trying not to get too worried before I know what it is I should be worried about. When I feel like I might start freaking out, I make muffins. Wheat-free, dairy-free raspberry muffins. They are warm and soft and yielding, and for fifteen minutes I am comforted. Then I go back to worrying, because I can't make muffins all day.

One day I will figure out how to manage this whole parenting thing, how to balance the fear of what could be wrong with the faith that everything will turn out alright, but I'm not there yet. I struggle not to resent my attachment to my kids, these little people who can bring moments of such joy to my life but who make daily living so messy, so loud, so fraught with sibling rivalry and screaming and general unpleasantness and threats of penile violence in public. After I kiss the boys good night, I survey the day's damage to the house and begin the never-ending work of picking up the living room. I scoop the blocks into a basket, put the books back on the shelf. I pick my purse up off the floor and hear the rattle of pills inside, the medicine I almost always carry. It reminds me that I need to put a clean bucket in the car before we go anywhere this weekend. Because for now, that's our normal.

Dairy Free: An Experiment- Day 1

2010-07-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

Don't be fooled by the picture; it is NOT 'so delicious.' There's no fat in it, which I feel totally defeats the purpose of using coconut milk in the first place. I have decided- for the time being- to try removing all dairy from my diet. I am not excited about this. I am excited about the possibility of feeling better, but it's one of those things where the destination, not the journey, will be the fun part. I've been ignoring my body. Or at least, whatever it is my body is trying to tell me. I must be ignoring it because it seems to feel the need to say whatever it is trying to say with increasing volume, and what was once a delicate whisper of a suggestion has grown into a full-on screaming tantrum. It started in my left hand, just my thumb. Sometimes it would feel a little stiff or like it was about to cramp, and a few times while I was pregnant it actually did and I had to use my right hand to unfold my left. Then I noticed that it was occasionally difficult to grip something very tightly with my left thumb, but I only really noticed it if I was trying to open a really stubborn jar. I continued to ignore the stiffness, figuring it was a lot to ask for every single part of a body to function perfectly all the time. Recently, my right hand has started playing the 'sore and stiff' game as well. When my ability to hold a chef's knife is compromised, that is pretty much when I start paying attention. I started googling "stiffness in thumb joint" and discovered that I am most likely developing arthritis. It runs in my family and I often use my hands a lot without giving them a break. The prescribed treatment is to take ibuprofen. I started googling natural remedies. It was at this point that I started to see my body and my symptoms as a whole organism, not separate parts with separate problems. I never ran the marathon. Not even the half. I couldn't run more than eight miles without severe pain in my left knee, pain that wouldn't back off even after I'd quit running. I tried buying the pain a new pair of shoes, but it didn't like them. I tried taking the pain to physical therapy, but the pain wasn't really into it. So I stopped running, and the pain went away except for a slight ache that is still with me. Then I noticed, on what appears at first glance to be totally unrelated, that my tongue becomes easily irritated. A few bites of citrus or strong vinegar, and parts of my tongue would feel inflamed. At night when I'd brush my teeth, one or two taste buds would sometimes bleed. I may or may not have arthritis. What I have got is a body that is in an inflammatory state. I could take ibuprofen, but that would really only be suppressing the symptom. I'm more interested in addressing whatever it is that's causing this inflammatory reaction. I've started taking joint supplements, fish oil, and cherry juice. Fish oil and cherries have both been shown to be powerful anti-inflammatories, and while it's a little early to say I think they're helping. My tongue can handle citrus and doesn't bleed when I brush my teeth. My hands feel less sore. I also noticed improvement after I ate a lot of strawberry shortcake with extra strawberries. As it turns out, strawberries can be very helpful for arthritis. All dark berries actually, except for cranberries. Which is fine because I think I like all the other berries better anyway. So now, the dairy-free experiment. Dairy can greatly exacerbate arthritis. Of all the foods I could give up, I think dairy is the hardest. It is how I start my day, a splash of half and half in my French press coffee. Later, I'll put a nub of butter in my steel cut oatmeal. I love a nice tall glass of cold milk. I find something about the weight of a cube of butter in my hand deeply reassuring. I love cheese, the way it can be toothsome and chewy when eaten cold or go all soft and lovely when melted. I could go on, but it might get depressing so I should probably do what I'm always telling Jack: focus on what you can have. What I can have is steak with chimichurri. If you've never had chimichurri, you really should try it. A mixture of fresh herbs, garlic, vinegar and oil, it smells like zesty freshly-cut grass. It tastes somewhat better than zesty freshly-cut grass. I'm guessing. I've been increasingly intrigued by the idea of raw sauces, and when it's hot out and we're cooking primarily from the grill this is the perfect thing. I love red meat in just about any form, but sometimes a juicy steak can feel a little heavy on a hot day; chimichurri lightens it right up, adding an unexpected freshness to an otherwise rich meal. I plan on putting it on everything from now on, and think it would be a fantastic garnish for some huevos rancheros. Argentinians apparently use the stuff like ketchup, so I feel totally validated in this decision. Jack and Matteas both loved it, and kept asking for "more steak with hummus, please." This was a small miracle because Matteas has never once eaten steak. Jack has long been a proper carnivore and a fairly adventurous eater, but I thought the raw garlic and herbiness of the sauce might be too much even for him. Truthfully, the raw garlic was a bit much for me. I think I'll try roasting the garlic first next time which I'm sure violates authentic Argentinian rules, but I'm not a huge fan of tasting my dinner the morning after I've eaten it. It was totally worth it though, and we made an experience out of it. Aaron had seen the recipe for it in my most recent Cook's Illustrated and decided we really should have it for dinner. We all headed to Central Market and the boys were thrilled that we let them each have a "baby cart," something I only allow them to do when Aaron and I are both present(if you ever want to be a walking birth control add, take two kids to a large supermarket by yourself, give them each a baby cart and then watch them run in two different directions, much to the chagrin of the other shoppers' ankles). Chimichurri 1 large handful cilantro 1 large handful flat-leaf(Italian) parsley 2-3 sprigs fresh oregano 3 cloves garlic, chopped Pinch red pepper flakes 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp honey A few grinds of black pepper 3 TB red wine vinegar 1/4 good quality olive oil Toss everything but the oil into a food processor or blender. Blend until very finely chopped, then drizzle in the olive oil while with the machine running. The flavors improve with age, so try to make it at least an hour before you plan on eating. The honey is not a traditional ingredient, but I liked it. Play with whatever herbs you like, it's not an exact science. Try using basil in place of cilantro to drizzle over grilled chicken, or adding a little rosemary to go with some lamb kabobs. So that fondant lily tutorial I promised will have to wait. I will get to it because the wedding I'm making them for is on the 24th, but until then I'm going to drink cherry juice, rest my hands, and dream of half and half.

Let Them Eat Cake That Tastes Good

2010-07-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. Probably something along the lines of "Good grief woman, don't you do anything anymore besides make miniature wedding cakes?!" I do. But I've discovered something I didn't realize about myself: I love making wedding cake. This comes as something of a shock to me, because I'm not that crazy about cake. It's now clear to me that this is because I've had a lot of bad cake in my life, mostly of the "puffed Crisco and sugar-flavored-fluffy sponge" variety. At some point, someone thought it would be a great idea to make wedding cakes visually stunning at the cost of making them almost completely flavorless. I believe this trend has led a lot of people to mistakenly believe they hate cake. This has to stop. Even if it means that I put everything else in my life on hold to devote my energies to becoming a one-woman revolution, I will bring back tasty wedding cake. The dilemma: three dots...

...or one? I like both.

This effort was with chocolate cake; the bride I'm working with thinks she might want chocolate, so I wanted to make sure I could frost it properly without the chocolate showing through. I used a thin layer of butter and powdered sugar frosting and it sealed beautifully. I used Deb's Swiss Buttercream again, which is dynamite when paired with chocolate. I also took the extra step of dipping my frosting spatula in hot water to make the frosting extra-smooth; I was concerned how this would work out considering the egg-white base of the frosting. Nothing says "frosting failure" like scrambled eggs on top of a cake. But it worked. I'm currently without my favorite frosting spatula, which would allow me to make a much smoother surface with hardly any marks or lines. I left it at the last birthday party I baked for, but we will be reunited soon. We have work to do, that spatula and I.

I've decided that this cake revolution must happen. There's a rash of people getting married through the Summer and early Fall, and I've offered to make their wedding cakes for free. I'm serious about this. I figure I'll do them pro bono for the first couple of months until I really get the hang of it, and after my skills are honed to Wedding Cake Ninja perfection I'll put myself out there as a genuine business. And not just weddings; birthdays, retirement cakes, basically any occasion that calls for a cake. I will make it and it will be both lovely and tasty. And then I'll have to start a separate blog because I know you don't want to read about wedding cake all the time. But indulge me for the next little while, and if you have need of a cake I'd be honored to bake it for you free of charge. All you have to do is tell me what you want, and then let me take a zillion pictures of the finished product.

So, now the voting part: I want to have a name for my little cake business, but I can't decide between Let Them Eat Cake and The Occasional Cake. I like both. Which do you like?

Fireworks

2010-07-05T10:36:00.001-07:00

It never fails to amuse me, the way the Fourth of July turns grown men into giggling children. I'm not sure who had a better time: the kids watching the fireworks, or the men-turned-boys who were lighting them off. A family favorite are always the paratroopers- there's something kind of magical about seeing a little plastic Army guy come sailing gently out of the sky attached to a patriotically colored parachute. The boys love trying to catch them as they fall, then we cut the strings off the Army guys and they play with them for weeks.

I love how much power Matteas brings to his Pop-Its game. So focused.

We had an Asian-influenced meal which felt kind of odd to me, so I balanced it out with something ultra-American: strawberry-rhubarb pie. I've only attempted pie crust from scratch a few times and it never goes well, but I really wanted Jack to have pie that he could eat which meant making it myself, or paying $8 for a wheat-free crust from PCC. Spelt flour makes for a slightly crunchier crust than traditional wheat flour, but it was still satisfyingly flaky. Totally worth it.

It is amazing to me how different our two boys are. Jack was terribly afraid of all fireworks- even sparklers- until last year. Last year he consented to sit outside to watch, but declined to hold even one single sparkler. Meanwhile, Matteas couldn't get enough firepower. Every time the boys lit off something big and loud, Matteas would sing "Wheeeee!" the whole time and as soon as it was over he'd grin and say "Let's do ANOTHER one!"

Poor Jack got a migraine and nearly missed the show altogether. I convinced him to fall asleep for a bit and promised I'd wake him up for fireworks. I'm so glad he did, because he woke up pain-free and with a ravenous appetite. After lots of good food and putting on several layers of warmth, he was ready to go. I think it was the best Fourth ever. Including the one on my brother's boat seven years ago when Aaron kissed me during the fireworks.

I love Jack's lips. He's holding a sparkler in each hand, adding "double-fisting" to the growing list of things he's no longer afraid of.

Even though it came out blurry, I love this picture of Matteas. Poor baby is still kind of sick(it's 11:00 a.m. and he's still sleeping) but with a little help from Motrin he powered through the festivities like a champ. He's had a fever and a stuffy nose for the last three days. Saturday night he slept for 14 hours. Hopefully he's on the upswing now.

Even For Me

2010-07-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

I always swore I'd never work with fondant. It's nothing more than glue made out of sugar, and in spite of the fact that it can be worked into a marble-smooth finish I'd always been turned off by the taste. So when a friend asked me to make the cake for her upcoming wedding, I said I'd be happy to but that I refuse to use fondant.

I also said I had no experience with wedding cake. Cake, yes, but mostly of the birthday, single-tier variety. Not wedding cake. No multiple tiers, no sugared flowers cascading down the side of a Corinthian-pillared masterpiece. The plan, then, was to make a small cake for cutting, making two tiers, and then a big sheet cake for serving. Easy.

But then I got to thinking about how to decorate it, and after relative success with the architectural bits of Nick and Jaime's cake(which involved things like cardboard layers under each cake, dowels under each layer to support the layer above it, and a large wooden dowel down the middle to keep the whole thing stable) decided I could possibly take on more than I initially thought.

The funny thing is, I've always hated cake. Mostly, I still do. But lately I've been obsessed with bastardizing the recipe for pineapple upside-down cake, one of the few cakes I will actually make and lust after. However, the sticky brown-sugar-and-butter goo that makes pineapple upside-down cake so luscious is not at all suited to wedding cake construction. So I omitted the fruit and the brown-sugar-and-butter-goo and found myself with a nice, not-too-sweet buttermilk cake.

It was nice.

But then I added coconut oil in place of half the butter, and it got even nicer. Generally, you can get two kinds of coconut oil; the kind that neither smells nor tastes of coconut, and the kind that does. For cake, I like the kind that does. It flavors the cake but not in an overpowering kind of way, and has the added benefit of making the cake a little more dense at room temperature. Which is a good quality for a cake to have if you plan on building a small town out of it.

With a good cake recipe in hand, I moved onto the frosting. The final result has yet to be determined, but for this trial run I used Deb's Swiss Buttercream. The instant I tasted it, I had flashbacks of my cousin's wedding. I was only 11, but I swear the frosting on that cake was a Swiss Buttercream. I remember thinking it was the best frosting I'd ever had, and try as I might I had never found its equal. Until now. It is heavenly. Light and buttery, not too sweet, not too airy, just a hint of saltiness and a ribbon of vanilla woven into its silkiness; plus, it's shiny like satin. It is officially my new favorite frosting, a beautiful compliment to a cake that's made without a lot of sugar.

With good cake and good frosting, all I had left was decoration. The bride will most likely be carrying calla lilies, and after seeing a whole bunch of really pretty pictures of fondant calla lilies I decided they can't be that hard to make.

They aren't.

Turns out, they're ridiculously easy.

In fact, I could probably do it in my sleep.

So I went ahead and made a whole bunch of them, thenpainted the stamens gold, which is a little out of control even for me. But hey, it's wedding cake.

Or in this case, Friday morning cake.

Now I have to go tend to all the things I neglected during all that cake business, like feeding my children and rescuing the living room from the layers of child resdue which have taken it over. But when I come back, I'll have an actual cake recipe and a fondant tutorial.

AWOL

2010-06-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy-good, jam-packed kind of a week. I spent a good portion of it working on that cake; baking it, wrapping it in obscene amounts of plastic wrap, freezing it, transporting it, constructing it, frosting it, watching the frosting melt off of it, sticking it in the fridge and telling the frosting to think about what it had done, and finally, carrying all 20 lbs. of it to the table without tripping so that lovely couple up there could cut it. Nick and Jaime eloped and never had a wedding reception, so on Saturday we had a down-home barbecue and all-around love fest to celebrate. The next day I made another cake because there was a birthday and frankly, I can't help myself. For now, I'm going to go lie in the sun while my kids play with the hose and work really hard at doing nothing strenuous.

At the Market

2010-06-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

photo by Jack

I love the Edmonds Farmer's Market. When I was pregnant with Jack I dreamed about doing all kinds of cozy things with him like raking leaves in the fall, building a snowman in the winter, and going to the Farmer's Market in the Spring. I get antsy every April, waiting for the first Saturday in May when the market opens. Last year Jack made it to the Farmer's Market once. There were dogs there. Panic ensued. And that was the end of my Farmer's Market dreams.

As a parent, I feel that the most important thing I can do is teach my children to feel love. The second most important thing is to teach them how to relate to the world; how to get things from the inside out, and how and what to get from the outside in. Jack has a lot of fears and a lot of concerns, and his fear often holds him back. Sometimes it's a concrete fear, other times it's more vague. Over the years I've learned that he often worries about where he will fit in, and that his primary concern is that he doesn't know what to do in certain situations. Often times, he won't even tell me what his concerns are and sometimes he honestly doesn't know, so I've taken special pains to help him communicate what he's thinking, what he's worried about, and what we can do about it.

This morning over breakfast we discussed the Farmer's Market, and I asked him if he wanted to go with me. He said no. I told him that he didn't have to, but that I had a few ideas that he might like. He said he'd listen. I told him about all the beautiful fruits and vegetables we'd see, about the kind lady who makes the amazing kettle corn, the buckets and buckets of bright flowers. I said there'd be a lot to see, good things to eat, new foods to try, and that maybe he'd like to come along and be my photographer. I said that there would probably be a few dogs there, but they would all be on leashes and I promised I wouldn't let any of the dogs get close. If we found ourselves too near a dog, we could simply walk the other way.

He said yes. He found it particularly thrilling when I showed him the zoom feature on our camera; he could get a close-up picture of a dog while standing a comfortable distance away, examine the object of his fear without leaving his comfort zone. He was totally stoked.

photo by Jack

The first tomatoes of the season, picked yesterday.

Matteas really enjoyed his post-shopping snack of fresh berries.

Home Improvement: The Entryway

2010-06-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Before...

After. I feel more peaceful just looking at it. I haven't loaded the wine rack with all the shoes yet, nor have I sorted through and put away the large pile of backpacks and backs that used to be on the bench. But I have thought about buying more orchids. I bought that one at Trader Joe's and painted the pot silver.

Also, I've decided that I want to start putting mirrors everywhere; I love the way they open up a space and the reflected light makes it so much brighter. Sorry for the weird gap between the before pictures, Blogger is being weird and not letting me format my pictures.

Feeling Existential

2010-06-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

I read about a study once that said change of any kind can get you out of a rut. If you are depressed about your job, even the small act of putting a lamp in a different spot can help your brain shift out of a mental ditch and onto the highway of ideas. I find it interesting that it is the principle of the thing, not the thing in itself, which matters. The end-goal might be to find a better job, but making a change, any kind of change, can start you on the path to productivity and possibilities. Brains are cool. The theory goes that if your brain recognizes that you have the power to change one thing, you probably have the power to change all kinds of other things.

I've been in kind of a domestic rut lately. Not depressed, but discouraged by the necessity of the mundane. I'd love to spend all my time cooking gourmet meals, planting organic vegetables and hiking through the woods with my children, but I have to stop and sweep the floor, put away the laundry, load the dishwasher. I've been applying the change principle with fairly good success; one improvement inspires another. I used to keep the microwave on top of my hutch, but decided it might be better to use that space for more storage(which is scarce in my kitchen). The microwave was relocated to the countertop which made me realize how filthy it was, so I cleaned it and then painted some crates for the top of the hutch. You may notice I ran out of paint, but I'm choosing to think it creates a charming vintage look rather than an unfinished one. I'm not sure how I'll end up using my new storage space, but I sure am excited about the possibilities.

For my next trick, I'm going to turn our beautiful(and largely unused) wine rack into a shoe rack for the entryway. I bought the orchid in the first picture to go on top of the rack because my other plan is to turn everyday ordinary spots into little altars of beauty. The shoe rack certainly doesn't need to have an orchid on it to function, but I don't think it will mind the sprucing up.

June 6th, 1970

2010-06-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

My parents' wedding day.

My parents' original toasting glasses from their wedding.

A few weeks ago, my Dad mentioned to me that he'd like to surprise my Mom with a party for their 40th wedding anniversary. His idea was to renew their vows, then have a nice meal. I called my sister Briana and we started planning. We thought we could have the ceremony in my parents' backyard, but the morning of the party it was pouring rain. Briana offered to host the party at her house, which turned out to be the perfect thing. Briana's house is huge and beautiful and difficult to fill with furniture, which worked in our favor since we had 40 chairs, four banquet tables and about 35 bodies to accommodate. Briana's mother-in-law made the cake and my niece Briana made the cake topper, a replica of the log cabin my Dad built with little dolls of my parents in front. My brothers Kevin and Sandor played Pachelbel for the procession, each grandchild carrying a long-stemmed white rose to put in a vase before Damien gave my Mom away. The priest who officiated was Father Deo Gratias(Latin for "Thanks be to God"). The whole thing came off pretty much flawlessly, and it was all I could do not to high-five Briana the whole time. I put together a wedding scrapbook for my parents, who were 18 and 23 when they got married. Knowing what lay ahead over the course of the next 40 years, it was hard not to weep when I saw my parents' young faces. I was glad no one could tell that 18 year-old bride what suffering lay ahead; that she would bury three of her children; a third of her children would divorce; one would be born with an auto-immune disease. What was so beautiful about their anniversary was that they know now all the struggles that would come their way but the joy outweighs the sorrow, they still love each other, still say "I do."

These Are the Days...

2010-05-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

...when the evening is warm enough to eat dinner outside with friends...

...when the stove takes a back seat to the grill...

...when shoes are an afterthought or not even a thought at all...

...when half a watermelon is a legitimate lunch...

...when all growing things are coming to life and making their way into Spring. We spend more time outdoors than in, the boys lugging watering cans around to "help" with the watering of our ever-expanding garden, sitting on our picnic blanket with a cool glass of lemonade, watching the chickens hunt for bugs, and generally doing their best to get as filthy as they possibly can before bed. I have been reveling in the simplicity and fullness of our days; putting the boys to bed each night after a good scrub in the bath; watching two brothers become best friends; being amazed anew at the way seeds+dirt+water+sunshine=food; looking up from my work in the garden, feeling my hands in the soil and the sun on my face, seeing the boys running around the yard with the chickens, hearing Aaron's work van pull into the driveway just before dinner and thinking to myself, this is the life.

Catch Up

2010-05-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Life has been really full lately, and I haven't had time to keep up with my blog. I've noticed that once the weather warms up I find it more and more difficult to find myself in this space, as I'm too busy moderating fights over the hose, cutting up watermelon and trying to find a way to keep too much dirt from making its way into the house. The other day, the boys were begging me for some kind of art project. While on Whidbey for Easter, I picked up a gorgeous set of vintage linen hemstitched napkins(did I mention them already?), and wanted some napkin rings to go with them. I'm not sure why, but lots of people seem to find napkin rings a serious source of inspiration to commit really atrocious crimes of visual torture: chunky beads, gratuitous amounts of ceramic, enough metal to cover half the actual napkin. This must stop. They're just napkin rings, they don't have to make such a heavy statement. I'd love to own a beautiful silver set someday, but for now these wooden ones I picked up for $1.99 for four will do just fine. They were a great project for little hands who lack the patience for precision.

While the days have been sunny and mild, Jack seems to think the weather has been positively equatorial. One glimpse of sunlight, regardless of the temperature, and he refuses to wear a shirt.

Proof positive of Briana's accusation that I paint everything robin's egg blue.

After a lot of observation, I've come to the conclusion that Jack's skin can tolerate a little spelt. Not too much, but we seem to be able to get away with a spelt-dominated meal once or twice a week without angering his eczema. I cannot describe the joy this brings me, as I've been itching for the chance to use my new-to-me ravioli maker I bought for under $5 at a thrift store.

I think the pizza cutter method I used at Thanksgiving is actually faster, but the aesthetic pleasure I get from those zig-zag edges is totally worth the extra time. I filled these with mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh herbs. The boys both preferred plain mozzarella-filled. I will write a post soon on the joys of fresh pasta; not just the flavor, but the tactile joy and family involvement too. It really is fun for the whole family.

And in less picturesque news, I've been obsessed with Rubens. I loathed them as a child, but somehow I've recently developed a serious and relentless hankering for sauerkraut. Must be the 1/8 German in me.

I'm still attempting to pare down our belongings, and did a pretty good job with the toys. I decided I was going to have to be totally ruthless, and I was. The only toys in the boys' room are building blocks and vehicles. Everything else, no matter how cute or interesting, went into a storage bin and was put away for later use or donation. I've already noticed a reduction in living room clutter and am satisfied that I've reduced their playthings to a quantity they can reasonably put away on their own. Also, I vow to never ever give a child another present with multiple pieces. I will give books, art supplies or a toy that comes as a single piece, like a doll or a truck. Puzzles are dead to me, card games anger me and I hold a special place of loathing in my heart for any kind of "kit." I realize there is educational value in things like that, but right now it's more than we can use or manage. I'm still searching for my dream storage cupboard which I will hopefully discover before the start of the school year. I do want the boys to have things like puzzles and card games and "kits,"(I can't even type the word without quotation marks, so deep is my disdain)but not until we have a system for taking care of those things. Which mostly means having a place to store them where they can be easily accessed by me but not the boys.

Marathon Update: The date is closing in fast(June 26th), and I'm not ready. As soon as I began increasing my mileage two months ago, I developed knee trouble. I've never had any knee injuries or problems before, but any running over six miles brings excruciating pain. I talked to my chiropractor about it and after examining my legs he informed me that I have ridiculously tight IT bands. The IT band is a strip of connective tissue which runs from the top of the hip down the outside of the thigh to the top outside of the knee. Increasing your mileage and/or muscle mass can cause the body to store calcium deposits in this band, making it thick and tight. This puts strain on the knee cap, as it doesn't have the elasticity it needs to track properly. The solution is to use a foam roller to break down the calcium deposits and make the IT band soft again. The foam roller goes on the floor, and I lie on top of it on my side and slowly roll up and down it. It sounds easy enough, but the sensation is something like rolling on shards of broken glass(calcium deposits are hard). Realistically, I'm thinking I might have to settle for the half marathon this June and aim for a full later in the year.

Now I need to find pants for one kid, food for both of them, and track down whatever is making my bathroom smell really funky.

Orkin Schmorkin

2010-05-04T13:38:00.001-07:00

Ever since we moved here, we've had trouble with ants. In the summertime I'd see one or two scurrying across the dining room floor, and if I left any crumbs on the counter from lunch I could be sure to see a few more in the kitchen. Ants are probably one of the less offensive leggy-crawly things I know of, but I'm not really a fan of any kind of bug in my house unless it's in a glass jar. So the ants were bugging me. I suspected that they were living somewhere in our rotting sun room, and had high hopes that after it was torn down the ant problem would die down. No such luck. I was right about them living in the rotting sun room, specifically, in a rotting beam, but after the demolition was over the ants felt displaced and decided to go looking for a new home- mine. I was not cool with this. I was really tired of sweeping the dining room floor and then having half of my dust pile get up and crawl away. Now that spring is in full swing, the boys and I have begun planting. My beds aren't ready yet, so I planned on doing some container gardening. I found one of our old ugly containers which I'd more or less neglected last year, and was not shocked to discover it had been taken over by grass. I decided to dump it out and salvage the potting soil from the bottom. Guess what I found when I dumped the container over? Ants. Hundreds and hundreds of them. "Gotcha, f***ers," I said. But very quietly under my breath, so the boys wouldn't hear me. I wasn't sure how to handle ridding myself of the ants, so I popped them back into the container while I plotted their demise. I didn't want to use any spray(it's really nasty stuff), so I decided it would be best if I simply transplanted them to our local woods. I hefted the container into the wheelbarrow and the boys and I trotted it down the street to the walking path, which was when I realized anew the disadvantage to being the family photographer. Jack is very safety-conscious, so he insisted that he and Matteas both hold my hand despite the fact that my hands were plenty occupied with large handfuls of wheelbarrow handle. We were, after all, walking down the actual street. Safety first. So there we were, the three of us trudging down the street in our galoshes(yes, even me) with a magenta wheelbarrow containing a ginormous planter full of vagrant ants, me walking slightly crouched to accommodate the hand of the boy clinging to either side of me. We found a nice rotten stump for them in a woodsy spot and unceremoniously dumped the ants on the ground, then went for a hike through the woods. I find myself learning the same lesson over and over during our Pacific Northwest Springs: go out while it's sunny, because five minutes later it could be hailing. I ran at the gym last night because it was so cold and windy, then this morning was sunny and beautiful. Now the clouds have rolled in and the wind's picked up, so I'm putting the kettle on and feeling really pleased about our morning hike and our eco-friendly ant disposal.

When I Wasn't Busy Vomiting...

2010-05-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

In spite of the fact that I was under the weather for the majority of our trip, we did manage to pack a lot in. Our first night in Long Beach we grilled cheeseburgers for dinner, then headed to the beach.

Matteast, meet the Pacific Ocean.

Aaron and Jack played a game where they'd walk out as far as they could into the surf, then run screaming(Jack did most of this) back toward shore when a big wave rolled in. I don't think Jack would have gone for this six months ago. He struggles with fear, but in the last year I've been blown away by how hard he works to, as he puts it, "choose courage."

After a particularly jubilant(read: lots of screaming) escape from a wave, they'd give each other knuckles. It was a casual gesture, but it kind of gave me goosebumps to see it because it marks the beginning of a new trend in Jack's relationship with is dad: one in which they can mutually acknowledge the other's manhood. I know he's only five, but every day Jack's desire to be more like his dad grows. It's the reason he wakes up at the crack of dawn every freaking day; "I'd sleep in Mom, but I have to see Dad in the morning."

After the sun went down it got a little chilly, so I loaned Matteas my hat.

Every day, Matteas would put on his boots and in spite of what else he was or was not wearing, declare himself ready to go to the beach.

Jack has been obsessed with Orcas lately. He drew one in the sand with his foot.

The boys shared a queen sized bed. It mostly worked out.

Here we see Jack discovering the "air pockets in my swim trunks" phenomenon. He thought the way the bubbles augmented the appearance of his own anatomy was absolutely fabulous.

"Matteas, look at my huge penis!!!" Gotta love boys. Which, luckily, I do.

I love this picture; it captures so well Matteas's exuberant little spirit.

Now and Then

2010-04-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, when Jack was just a few months old, Aaron asked me if I'd like to go to Oregon for the weekend. "When?" I asked. "Tomorrow," he replied. The next day, we packed up the car and drove down the coast, stopping in Long Beach for a night before heading into Oregon the next day. We had some beautiful weather for our trip, and we got ice cream cones at this little corner shop in Long Beach. Just before hitting the beach, Aaron took this picture of me and Jack.

Five years later, things look a little different. I'm really pleased that even though there is an additional child in this picture and I'm five years older, I'm thinner and have better hair now than I did back then. Also, I no longer appear to be 12 years-old, something I did until I was about 24 or so. This picture is actually one lamp post closer to the boardwalk than the picture above, but I couldn't remember at the time which lamp post we'd stopped at on that first trip. I'm not sure how I even remembered having my picture taken in front of a lamp post at all, seeing as how it was, well, a lamp post, and I can think of more memorable landmarks. Anyway, before we left Long Beach yesterday Aaron took this picture of the boys and I. It's one of the only pictures of me from our trip because I was in bed a lot of the time, which was a total pisser. We arrived Sunday evening and had a great dinner and a lovely beach walk before bed, but on Monday I came down with the stomach flu or food poisoning or something which caused me to vomit profusely for a six hour period. Tuesday morning found me feeling much better but a little on the weak side, and by Wednesday we had to check out and head home. The timing couldn't have been worse. I suppose it would have been worse to be sick on the drive, but the fact that I had a lovely bathroom and a king size bed all to myself was small consolation compared to the fact that I was missing vacation with my family. We'd all been looking forward to the trip, and after a whirlwind social month filled with visits from friends and birthday parties it sounded so good to take a few steps back and focus on just being a family. Aaron made sure the boys still had a fantastic time, but I feel kind of robbed. On Tuesday evening when I staggered out of my room for some gingerale, Aaron and the boys came in from one of the many exciting expeditions they went on.

"Hi Mom! Are you feeling better?" asked Jack, bounding over to hug me.

"Hi, love; yes I am feeling better, thanks. Sorry I got sick on our vacation."

"Oh that's okay, Dad and Matteas and I have been having a great time!"

The good news is, our little vacation did serve to inspire me with a new project. Our rental condo came fully furnished, including a full kitchen complete with dishes and silverware. We didn't bring much with us: clothes, food, one bag of books, a small box of markers and one gallon Ziploc full of matchbox cars. It was totally great. The boys, not having much to play with but each other, got along better than they typically do at home. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that Aaron and I were both there(well, mostly Aaron) but I feel pretty sure it also had a lot to do with something I'm determined to make a guiding principle in my life: there was just enough, nothing extra. The condo was modestly furnished and minimally decorated; most of the decoration was incorporated into the furniture itself, a bright red armchair bringing some color to the living room and the striped carpet providing some structure but also a bit of visual interest to the background. At home, we have way too much stuff. I've always known it, but at a time in our lives when we are very busy and time to relax is hard to come by, I feel convicted anew about simplifying our lives, weeding out all the extra and focusing on having and better-enjoying "just enough." I'm going to start with the toys, then systematically go through everything in the house and keep paring down until all departments can be easily managed.

Birthdays, Boys, and a Big Bowl of Disgusting

2010-04-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

I turned 27 on the 19th. There was a lovely party. I am now a firm believer, after throwing lots of parties the wrong way, that the right way to throw a party is to divide and conquer. Anna offered to make me a birthday dinner, and since we couldn't get a babysitter she brought the party to us. I spent the afternoon cleaning up in a rather relaxed fashion, since the house was already in pretty good shape from Tristan's party the week before(which deserves its own post). It was remarkably un-stressful to clean and set the table, then saunter off to my room to put on earrings and a skirt. I wore a shirt too, but I do that everyday so the skirt was really the remarkable bit. Anyway, the point is that in short order Albert and Anna arrived with an impressive array of food and wine and quickly got to work cooking in my nice clean kitchen. We drank some wine and ate some cheese, and eventually sat down in my nice clean dining room and ate an absolutely beautiful meal. So the lesson is this: have parties often to ride the "clean house" wave; have one person clean and someone else cook. So fanatastic.

I busted out my Williams-Sonoma hemstitched linen tablecloth for the occasion. You can't really tell from this picture, but it's the perfect shade of Tirzah-esque orangish-red. It went beautifully with my vintage linen hemstitched napkins I picked up on Whidbey Island over Easter.

This chicken was phenomenal. I trust Anna's food sensibilities enough to trust her to make my birthday dinner without so much as inquiring what's on the menu. I wish I was polite enough not to ask, but I didn't do it out of politeness, I did it out of solid trust. Anna did not disappoint. Just like its maker, the dinner was a parade of rich and wonderful flavors, with the perfect balance of sweet and savory. The chicken was roasted with green olives and whole dried prunes, bay leaves, herbs and garlic. It was an amazing combination, the prunes sweet and syrupy in a dark, earthy way and the bright tang of the olives singing out clear and briny.

Being fully aware of and sharing in my love of lettuce, Anna made a deliciously tart salad of red bib lettuce and radishes. She tossed it with red wine vinaigrette spiked with fresh garlic and finished it off with grated parmesan. It was a perfect salad all on its own, made even more so by providing such great balance to the rest of the meal. The binder was roasted red potatoes, which were so warm and comforting with the chicken.

Dessert was an apple tart and whipped cream, which was pretty much to die for. Anna made her own puff pastry. I had some for breakfast the next day with a pot of very strong French press. And now for something completely different....

Every couple of days, the boys and I got outside and hunt around under logs and rocks. If it's a good hunt, we come back inside with something like this. It's for the chicks, who act as if they've died and gone to heaven. Well, if heaven had bowls full of worms and termites. Which, in chicken heaven, it probably does. If anyone had told me ten years ago that I would be doing this sort of thing, I doubt I would have believed it. But I kind of love it; I get incredible satisfaction out of putting revolting-looking bugs to good use. I give the worms a little begrudgingly though, since I feel like I'm robbing my garden of them. I supposed our next project should be a worm bin....I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to the day when our chicks are big enough to go outside and do their own hunting. It's getting warmer, but they still don't have enough adult feathers to keep themselves warm enough. Soon.

The boys, on the other hand, stay plenty warm. I've changed all the flannel sheets for lighter-weight cotton, pants are rarely seen on the legs around here, and watermelon features prominently in our diet. I find that giving it to them in the bath saves me(and the dining room floor) a lot of grief. I prefer to eat mine with a drizzle of lime juice, but the boys are purists.

While Anna's birthday dinner was outstanding, Aaron still felt the need to take me on a date. My actual birthday fell on a Monday which is a terrible day for a party, so we partied on Friday and then Aaron took me out last night. We went to Purple. I ordered duck. I did not regret it. We also ordered tenderloin skewers and bacon-wrapped scallops. And creme brulee and sea salt caramels. We took a walk along Lake Washington and Aaron tried to talk me into going skinny dipping off the end of the dock. It was a lovely, mild spring evening and we were standing in the shadows. I briefly entertained the idea, but then I dipped my hand in the water and thought better of it; it may have reached 70 degrees that afternoon, but no one told the lake water.

Seeing as how it was early and we were already in Kirkland, we couldn't go home without making a stop at Trellis. I asked if they had tea, and the waiter brought me a black velvet case full of glass vials of tea for me to smell. I went with Earl Grey.

They scored major bonus points by bringing me a piping-hot mug. Aaron had a Manhattan, which was very tasty. We shared some lovely cheeses, and talked about fighting and making up. Aaron teased me about taking pictures of everything I eat. We talked about how happy we both are that we still like each other so much. Aaron gave me the cutest, tiniest mp3 player complete with fancy ear buds and an arm band so I can listen to music when I go running. I felt very loved and celebrated. And then we went home and slept really, really well.

Easter 2010

2010-04-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

We continued our Easter tradition of going to Whidbey Island with my cousin Kayleigh's family. A good time was had by all, despite a brief power outage which occurred just before putting dinner into the oven. Luckily we were having fish, so Aaron started the grill and we lit some candles and all was not lost. For the boys' baskets this year I tried a new project: felted wool eggs. I'm in love. Aaron doesn't find them quite as charming as I do, but Kayleigh liked them so much that she asked me if she could have the green one. Of course I said yes. I experimented with little treasures to go in the eggs, but in the end I decided the miniature rubber duck was more satisfying. Jack and Matteas were quite appreciative of their mama's crafty efforts. I got the instructions here and they worked perfectly, though I took the added step of tossing the eggs into a hot dryer. And then we had an egg hunt in the wind. No one seemed to mind although it did result in some eggs finding rather unusual hiding spots, having been blown way off course by surprise. I'm a huge fan of Jack's budding fashion sense. It's really more about practicality than anything else; if he wears pants or long sleeves, he complains that he's too hot. Also, he is constantly losing his socks so the boots come in handy a lot. I know I know, we're quickly becoming "that" homeschool family(next fall, anyway): organic vegetables, homemade hummus, chicks in the house and galoshes on the kids. We're going to do our best to stay hip. Matteas doesn't really remember Easter eggs from last year. Once he got wise to the fact that they were filled with candy, he quickly decided he was more than content with the eggs that were already in his basket and abandoned the field of possibility in favor of a Sure Thing. I put most of their candy away for later, but allowed them each a few small pieces. As always, I deeply regretted it. Sugar is like poison for Jack, and he quickly transforms into a completely different child than his usual self. Things got ugly. There were tears and, thankfully, an early bedtime. Next year I'll get more creative with the egg filling and avoid the jelly beans and the sugar crash. Now I must away to my filthy house which I'm trying to resurrect in time for a dinner party Friday night, and crossing my fingers that no one catches the stomach flu we were exposed to yesterday.

This is Getting Out of Control

2010-04-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

Aaron had a few things to take care of early this morning. When he came home, he came walking up the stairs with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. The loud peeping which accompanied him soon made it apparent why. "I told you I wanted six," he grinned. His new hobby is cruising feed stores to see what kind of chicks they have in. These are Delawares. They're younger than our Wyandottes so we have to keep them in separate crates for now, since older chicks will sometimes pick on younger ones. I love our dark chicks, but there is something extra cute about blond fuzziness. Both varieties are beautiful when they're full-grown, the Wyandottes being black with gray flecks and bright red combs, the Delawares white with black collars and red combs.

This is the smallest of our chicks. We'd be lucky not to lose any of our chicks before they reach adulthood, but I really dread the thought of having to bury one of these tiny balls of fluff. We're going to take excellent care of them and keep their crates clean, and cross our fingers that we get to keep them all.

Matteas is quite in love. He tells me stories about the chicks, the most common of which is "I will keep my baby chicks safe from monsters," and "I think dey want to go home," to which I respond that this is their new home, and then he says "Oh." We have this exchange several times a day.

The boys were downstairs when Aaron got home, so we took the new arrivals down to show them. Jack grinned from ear to ear and did some quiet calculating, then announced "That means we'll get six eggs a day!"

Next we're getting a goat.

Just kidding.

But maybe not. These days I can't be too sure what Aaron will come home with.

It Was Only a Matter of Time...

2010-04-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't think we were ready. Actually, I didn't think I was ready. But it's been so long since we had a newborn around here that I should have seen this coming. Maybe it's Spring, maybe it's my biological clock; I wanted something cute and fuzzy and small. Matteas will be three by the end of Summer, so I figured we could handle a little addition to our family. This is not an April Fool's post where I pretend to be pregnant. This is a post that just happens to be on April Fool's where I am not pretending to be pregnant, but I am excited to announce that we do, in fact, have some new arrivals in our house. Small, cute, chirpy new arrivals.

Matteas has to be coached while holding the chicks because they are so small yet so compelling to squeeze; even I have to restrain myself from loving them to death. We got three chicks to start and we already want more. They are not the smartest animals I've ever seen, but they're so cute that it only makes their cluelessness all the more endearing. They act as one flock, always eating, drinking and sleeping at the same time.

The best is when we feed them worms. Our book on keeping backyard chickens said that if you give chicks worms they will "act as if they are about to die of ecstasy." In my experience, this is true. The trick is to make sure that you deliver a worm for each chick at the same time, lest they tug-o'-war each other to death. When they each have a worm they're so excited they're not sure what to do first, so to be on the safe side they start running around in a frenzy. Next they turn circles at a very rapid pace, then, to make sure all their bases are covered, they poop in their water bowl. Once they've gone through that ritual, they usually retreat to separate corners of their crate to devour their respective worms in peace. I actually videotaped the worm frenzy yesterday but it's kind of a long video for blogger, so we'll see if it uploads successfully.

Right now they are busily pecking the bottom of their crate. They do this often, sometimes for long periods of time even though it never gets them anywhere. Like I said, not too bright. But so, so cute. I think they have a crush on Aaron. When he gets home from work and calls out to the boys, the chicks scurry over to the side of their crate nearest Aaron and crane their necks hopefully. I told Aaron I thought he made a cute Chicken Daddy, but then he forbade me from calling him that. Still, I think he likes them as much as I do. He changes their wood chips and cleans out their water dish attentively, and he had a distinct sparkle in his eye when he asked if they were old enough for us to let them out in the yard for a bit. We haven't yet, mostly because it's been muddy and a little on the chilly side for young chicks; they prefer sleeping in a huddled pile under the heat lamp Aaron got them. They boys are all excited for eggs, but they understand that we have to be patient and let our chicks grow up first.

I once saw a report on laying houses for industrial chickens, where most supermarket eggs come from. The chickens are never let out of their cages, which are small, crammed six hens to a cage. The chickens live off a corn diet and never have the joy(or health benefits) of being able to scratch in the dirt for bugs and worms. After having our own chicks for only a few days, I don't understand how egg farmers can stand to keep their chickens in such awful conditions. I get that they need to make a profit and that they probably don't think they're being cruel to their chickens, but after seeing how happy our chicks get over a few worms and some space to run around, commercial eggs make me sad. I'm not sure if our chicks will be mature enough to lay eggs before Fall(when they molt and stop laying for a while), but our first egg is bound to be a very exciting day indeed. Matteas will probably explode.

Hello, Self

2010-03-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is how I begin my day. I bought myself that pen ten years ago, when I first started journaling in earnest. Mostly I wrote about Aaron. I still write about Aaron, but now I write happier things. I used to journal at night, but I'm working on a project right now that involves journaling first thing in the morning. I wouldn't normally choose to write in the morning, but it's been very grounding to spend some time exploring my thoughts at the beginning of the day. It all started innocently enough. Kayleigh is taking a course in NYC aimed at learning how to become a health counselor over the phone. Kayleigh is already a health counselor, but a lot of New Yorkers don't have time to meet face-to-face so someone came up with the idea of doing it over the phone. She asked me if she could practice on me. Of course I said yes. So we made an official phone date and the morning she called I was all ready with my coffee and looking forward to picking up some good health tips. "We're going to start by building your Wellness Vision," she says. "What's that?" I ask. "Your Wellness Vision is how you see your healthiest self; I want you to describe yourself when you have become your healthiest self and tell me what that looks like. What do you do in the morning? How often do you exercise? How does your body feel? How you do feel about your life?" Kayleigh knows me. I can think of maybe two other people who know me as well as she does, and one of them is my husband. More importantly, Kayleigh loves me, so I feel comfortable answering probing questions from her. I start describing my Wellness Vision, and it includes things like waking up early to do yoga or journal, regular exercise, pursuing personal hobbies. Next, we talk about any gaps between my Wellness Vision and where I am right now so we can see what I need to work on to get there. I identify a couple of things I need to do, like get up earlier, recruit more support for childcare, make myself an exercise schedule. Then, the hard part: identifying what the challenges are to implementing those changes. In other words, being really honest about why I haven't done those things already. The answer kind of surprises me. I realize during our conversation that my life is filled with excuses: “I’d like to ______, but I don’t have the time; I want to ______, but I’m intimidated; I’ve always dreamed of being ______, but I don’t think it’s practical.” The thing that is holding me back from achieving my Wellness Vision is the same thing that is holding me back from being a better parent, a better wife, and a better person: I don’t take myself seriously as an adult. This is kind of a painful realization to have at the age of 26, two kids deep. It seems to me this is the sort of thing a person ought to have addressed before getting to this point, but it is something I have successfully ignored for a number of years. I’m a little embarrassed about this revelation, so I immediately try blaming it on someone else: my parents kept me from making mistakes so I never learned how to appropriately handle the consequences of my actions; Aaron got me pregnant before I had the chance to find out who I really was and experience the world; my kids take up so much of my time that there’s none left for me. All of these are lies. There might be some truth to them, but they are no longer relevant. Whatever my parents did or didn’t do for me, I am responsible for myself now, not them. Yes, Aaron was instrumental in the conception of my children, but I was there too. My kids do take up a lot of time, but I could get up earlier or make more productive choices about how to spend my time after they’re in bed. It’s tempting to blame my troubles on other people, but by making my problems someone else’s responsibility I remove any power I have to fix them. No responsibility, no power. Oh. Shit. “I hate parenting,” I tell Kayleigh. I’ve sent the boys downstairs to watch a Veggie Tales so I can vent about how frustrated I am without their hearing me. “They don’t listen to anything I say; they beat the crap out of each other when they fight and Matteas keeps breaking Jack’s glasses; Matteas doesn’t sleep through the night…” I go on like this for a while, and even I don’t want to listen to myself. But Kayleigh listens, and when I finally stop she says “Tirz, you don’t hate parenting; you just hate parenting ALL THE TIME.” She’s right. Between getting so absorbed in going wheat-free and not making time for any alone time, I do feel like I’m in Parent Mode constantly. I feel like a meal-maker mess-cleaner dish-washer bath-giver butt-wiper fight-settler robot. I know all those things are part of the work of parenting, but I need more in my day. I start indulging in little escapes in the form of frequently checking my e-mail and facebook, finding new blogs to read after I’ve already read my favorites, hoping every time the phone rings that it’s an actual adult who will have adult conversation with me. At night after the boys are in bed, I make myself a giant mug of tea and head downstairs to the TV. Even as I am watching it I’m thinking, this isn’t what I really want and it won’t feed me in a real way; it will just distract me for a while. I want to do more than just get through my life with distraction. I decide that I really need to take myself seriously, and register for the marathon. Next I turn my attention to my parenting, and think about what will make my kids take me seriously. I decide that I will not tell them what to do unless I’m standing close enough to touch them. This solves two problems: I never have to raise my voice, and I am poised and ready to enforce a consequence or offer guidance the instant I tell them to do something. I have to stop what I’m doing and go over to them a lot to employ this technique, but it is totally worth it. Most of the time, they do what I ask. If they don’t, I calmly escort them to their room. The situation doesn’t escalate, them ignoring me and my voice growing louder in direct proportion to the powerlessness I feel. It’s productive discipline, and it’s peaceful. With my parenting improved, the days go smoothly and at night when I put the boys to bed I’m satisfied that I’ve done a good job. Having avoided expending a lot of energy on non-productive encounters, I no longer feel drained, exhausted and guilty at the end of the day. I feel empowered, competent, and excited about my life. I don’t watch TV at night. I make myself a big mug of tea and read or sit with Aaron and talk. I choose things that feed me in a real way so that I am refreshed and ready to do it all again the next day. The best part is that I am not merely making it through, I'm growing. One day, I may even make it to full-on adulthood.