Independence, Fear, Mothering and Writing

Please read this fabulous interview up on the Literary Mama site right now--Susan Ito's interview of Rachel Tzvia Back. Here's a taste of it:


[RTB] One of the things my siblings, who all are raising children here in America, envy is that the culture at large [in Israel] puts its greatest emphasis on family. Everything is structured to promote and sustain family life. Family time in Israel is sacred, while the culture in America doesn’t promote it. There is plenty of rhetoric but it doesn’t happen.

SI: I’m intrigued. Can you give a specific example of that?

RTB: In practical terms, there’s every expectation that everyone is home at 6:30 and they will have a meal together. You’re supposed to be in your family and in your community, both together. There are no sports practices or anything that anyone needs to attend at that family dinner hour. There is also less of this kind of obsessive structuring of time, like "playdates." Children in Israel are much more independent. I don’t need to take them anywhere. There’s a bus that takes them back and forth from school, and they’re completely independent. My six-year-old takes herself to and from the bus and to her afterschool activities. I don’t ever pick them up. These things do not seem to happen here in America.

SI: It’s ironic. There’s much more fear here, and yet the real danger is actually more present where you live.

RTB: It’s true. We really allow children much more independence. We step aside for a moment and everybody grows, and that’s the way it should be. They’re growing, you’re growing. Just yesterday, when I phoned Israel, my husband said: "Wonderful things happen when you go away." They stretch a little, when I am not there taking care of everything. He told me that my 11- and 6-year-old took a 90-minute train trip, which included a transfer, to visit their grandparents, on their own. They did great. The train was full of soldiers, and they had to stand half the way, but they were so proud of themselves and I was so proud of them, and glad for them.

self-promotion

Here's my latest column: The Reading-Aloud Years

better than spam

Somehow this summer I got on Virgin Train's email list. I never actually traveled by train in the UK, but I guess I was thinking about it and signed up for something that I've been too lazy to stop.

Today I was glad I'd been lazy, when this arrived in my inbox:



(Because, see, the train goes so fast...ah, never mind. You got it. I'm just glad to have TLOTR reduced to three panels.)

not an Oscar post

I missed the first half hour of the Oscar telecast, putting Nick to bed, so I missed George Clooney and the monologue and the gay cowboy montage. That is, I apparently missed the best part of the show. Though I did love the woman who thanked the academy for seating her next to George at the nominees' dinner.

Unlike Lizbeth I did actually enjoy Lily Tomlin and Maryl Streep, mostly because they were so obviously having fun, when so many of the presenters and recipients seemingly weren't. And we don't get to see Jon Stewart on The Daily Show since we don't have cable, so I enjoyed his snarkiness when he allowed it out.

But mainly I was annoyed by the ridiculous hypocrisy of the repeated "go see movies in the theatre" mantra. After all, even the academy voters now get to watch most of the films at home on DVD. The (desperate?) injunction was most obviously ridiculous when they showed the montage of clips from "epic" films (which weren't all epic by any stretch--The Sound of Music, epic?). Just as we were told these scenes wouldn't translate to TV, we were showed them all...on TV. Hmm.

crazy cake update

Remember how I said not to use the good vinegar in crazy cake? You certainly don't have to. But last night I made it with raspberry vinegar and valrhona cocoa powder, and oh, my is it tasty.

more places I've been...

And here are the countries I've visited. (10 countries; 4%.) "Visited" is a nice, ambiguous word, don't you think? I've lived in two of these countries, spent weeks in one or two more, and spent more than a day in several. Two of them I only stopped in long enough to shop. I do have a spoon from Iceland, bought at some strange hour of the night when the sun was out and our plane stopped over; I don't know if I actually have anything from Germany, but I know I spent several hours there when our ship was docked. Both those visits come from my big adventure, when our whole family (Mom, Dad, and four kids under 11; I was 8) traveled from Tokyo to the UK via the USSR in the days when it was the USSR. If I remember rightly, there was a ship from Yokohama to Nahodka, a train and then a plane to Moscow, another plane (?) to Leningrad (now Petersburg), then a ship that docked briefly in Bremerhaven before leaving us in England. After six weeks in England there was a plane to the US, which involved the Iceland stopover. After some time on the east coast there was a train across the states and then a ship from San Francisco back to Japan. I missed the end of third grade and the beginning of fourth, and it was all worth it. I still have the scrapbook, too!


create your own visited countries map

Friday Food #8: Pizza or Focaccia

I make my own pizza, and not because I'm too good for pizzeria pizza, though I am perhaps too cheap. Rather, as long as I've got an hour or two before I need to eat, I find this is easy and makes everyone happy. The recipe is adapted from my favorite source for bread recipes, No Need to Knead, by Suzanne Dunaway. Sadly, the book seems to be out of print. If you can find a copy, though, it's worth the price just to make the rosemary filoncino, which will make you the hit of any potluck and is ridiculously easy.

This same dough makes great pizzas and also makes the easiest focaccia I've ever done. For this one you need a food processor and maybe a gallon-sized ziplock bag. And yeast, flour, water and salt.

Basic Dough Ingredients:
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
4 –4 1/2 cups unbleached white or all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

In a container that pours easily, measure the water and sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir the yeast until it dissolves. Put the flour, olive oil, and salt in a food processor (use the metal blade). Blend for a few seconds, then add the yeast and water with the motor running, blending just until the dough begins to pull away from the sides. It will be sticky. Dip your fingers in a little olive oil and lift the dough from the food processor, shaping it into a ball. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm place for about an hour.

Oil two cookie sheets or jelly-roll pans. Divide the dough in two pieces and place one on each sheet. Gently push the dough away from the center, stretching it to fit the pan (or nearly so). The thicker the dough, the thicker your pizza crust or focaccia (and, of course, the smaller). Push it up around the edges to form a little "lip" at the edges. Do not knead, toss, or roll out the dough: handle it gently, and as little as possible. It will take some work to stretch it out, but be patient and gentle.

Also--for pizza, we like to make four individual ones rather than two big ones, and everyone gets to top their own. Use cake pans (8-9"), pie pans (ditto), or the bottom of a springform pan instead of cookie sheets or jellyroll pans. The smaller the pan, the thicker your crust will be.

Preheat your oven to 525° F.

If you're making pizza, top the crusts as desired with a thin layer of tomato sauce and whatever cheese and toppings you like. One of my favorites is caramelized onions with smoked mozarella (no tomato sauce with this one). I have to confess that I am not a purist about fresh mozarella for pizza--the shredded stuff in bags is easier for the kids to handle and makes something closer to pizzeria pizza, actually. But by all means use the good stuff if you like. These are not pizzas to load up the toppings on, though--they will get soggy. Choose one or two, no more than three. Another reason to make four small ones rather than two big ones, if you have a hard time limiting yourself on toppings.

Place the topped pizza on the two lowest racks of the oven and turn it up to 550°F. Bake for 7-10 minutes, rotating the pizzas halfway through the baking time. (It may take longer—watch until the cheese is bubbling & beginning to brown.)

Dunaway says if the top is browned but the bottom still seems a bit underdone you can put the pizza pan on a burner turned up high and move it around until steam stops rising, or until the bottom seems brown. I have done this once or twice, and it does work, but I am also willing to eat slightly floppy pizza or to turn the heat down a bit towards the end so the top doesn't burn. I also have a pizza stone that just lives in my oven, and putting the pans on the stone does seem to help crisp the bottom crust up a little bit.

Immediately after removing the pizza from the oven brush exposed crust with olive oil. You'll thank me later.

If you're making focaccia, brush the dough with a little olive oil after you've stretched it into the pan, then top the breads with (easiest) chopped rosemary and kosher salt, or caramelized onions, or shredded mozarella and parmesan, or whatever other focaccia topping you like. Bake as above. Brushing with olive oil after the breads are baked is still a good idea.

For arugula focaccia, simply brush the crust with olive oil before baking. Immediately on removing it from the oven, brush with a little more olive oil, then sprinkle fresh arugula over it all.

To start it the night before, put the dough in a big ziplock bag and let it rise in the fridge. It can stay there a day or two. Take it out a couple of hours before you want to use it so it can come to room temperature.

apparently I'm related to Ira Glass

From today's Writer's Almanac:

Ira Glass said, "There are people who are fundamentally lazy, who only get anything done because they put themselves under dreadful deadline pressure. Those people are all my brothers."

where I've been

create your own visited states map


I included states I've only driven through, though I may have missed one or two of them. I wasn't going to, and then I realized that I'd spent the night in many of them, visited a hospital in one, and certainly looked out the window and taken pictures; I figure that counts as a visit.

I had forgotten Ohio, but looking at the map made it clear I'd obviously been through,since I drove from Massachusetts to Wisconsin once (don't ask!) .

(Edited to add: seen on Raising Weg and Republic of Heaven.)

The Happiest Wives - New York Times

(Thanks to Laura for the link.) The Happiest Wives - New York Times:

From a report on a recent study of 5000 married couples:

"Having an affectionate and understanding husband was by far the most important predictor of a woman's satisfaction with her marriage.
(what a shock!)

But it turns out that an equal division of labor didn't make husbands more affectionate or wives more fulfilled. The wives working outside the home reported less satisfaction with their husbands and their marriages than did the stay-at-home wives. And among those with outside jobs, the happiest wives, regardless of the family's overall income, were the ones whose husbands brought in at least two-thirds of the money."

OK, is there any chance that this was the most common arrangement anyway, and that there were simply more happy wives in this largest group?

Even if not, Tierney raises but then fairly quickly dismissed the sensible suggestion that it's hard to be a "social pioneer." But really, it is. It's hard to have people assume the mom does the pickups when in your house it's the dad. Hard not to be the one who does the pediatrician appointments if you always expected you would. Hard to want to cook the dinners and not have time to do it. And equally, hard to have to cook the dinners, do the pediatrician visits, do the pickups, and not have the training or the role models for it.

I'd say I'm fairly happy (I know I whine a lot, but really). I bring in most of the family income. Would it make me happier to bring in less of it? Sure it would: it would allow me to slack off every now and then. But, as Laura notes, the "two high earning model is too difficult to maintain." When we both worked full time, that was rough. No time for cooking, for cleaning, for just sitting around with the kids--what kind of life is that?

seesaws and sandals

It's the first day of Lent and I haven't decided what, if anything, to give up. I'm not inclined to fast in any significant way this year, for some reason. I would like to let some things go, but most of them don't feel optional right now. Grading? Chauffeur duty? Housecleaning? (Oh, yeah, already gave that up...)

I like the idea of discipline, spiritual or otherwise. It's good for me to think about what to do, and when, and why, instead of just going through the motions. Practice is another useful word in this regard; too often we just do, especially as adults. We don't think (or I don't, much) about practice, about repetition, about improvement. Even in writing, I focus much more on product than process/practice, despite my training as a writing teacher. The blog may be process of a sort--but is it practice? Is it a discipline?

Lent interests me as spiritual practice because it feels so counter-intuitive. It's the time of year things are springing back into life, the world is reawakening, hope rekindles--and yet the church says, ignore that (for a moment, for forty days) and focus on what's going on within, on the tension between yes and no, on the in-betweenness, the not-yetness, of so much of our lives. Now that I think about it, though, maybe it is precisely the right season for that, as we seesaw between cold and warmth, sweaters and sandals. Focusing on the seesaw, not the sandals, might be just the way to go.

lazy blogging

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

I'm just happy I made the team

Well, I didn't finish my knitting olympics project. Like Bode Miller, I've got a DNF after my name. I tried, but I ran out of yarn and my LYS says it'll be in the middle of this week. So I made a start, and it's a gorgeous scarf (or will be when it's done). Now I'm just hoping I finish it before the cold weather disappears.

On the other hand, I did finish another object, a purse that I made out of some of the recycled sari yarn my mom gave me for Christmas. I even finished it during the closing ceremonies, so it sort of counts, right?

And I taught both kids to knit. This is really to me the most amazing part. Nick has not only (sort of) learned to knit (his work is still a little hole-y), he has also started a yarn stash. The other day when I went by the Yarn Lounge for more yarn, and inspiration, he ended up buying a skein of this (brushed, not kid), for when he gets better at knitting. He wants to make himself a pillow out of it.

It's good to have goals.

Friday Food #7: Proper English Scones

Like Caroline, I could just eat breakfast all the time. I do a lot of breakfast baking on the weekends, but I'm also often up for an eggs-and-potatoes meal (mm, maybe tonight!), or pancakes, or oatmeal, which is what I eat every morning.

I got this recipe from The Rose Tea shop in Oxford, which Becca recommended to me. I ate them for tea, not breakfast, and they were amazing. Mine aren't the same, because I'm not buying organic flour and I'm not serving them with fabulous tea and I'm measuring by volume instead of weight--but they are still pretty good. And they don't take very long. No special equipment, either, though I use a food processor because I'm lazy.

Proper English Scones

Ingredients:

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbl baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 cup granulated sugar (same as 3 tbl, if you don't have a 1/8 cup measure)

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

3/4 cup milk

1 egg for the egg wash

Preheat the oven to 350; spray a cookie sheet or put baking parchment or silpat on it.

Put the dry ingredients into your food processor or into a big bowl. Cut the butter into small cubes, then mix it into the dry ingredients with a pastry fork, two knives, or even your fingers (the Rose prefers this method), or pulse the processor until the butter is in pea-sized bits. Add in the milk, either (again) pulsing quickly in the processor until the dough begins to come together, or stirring it in by hand.

Scatter some flour on your (clean) counter or a board and dump the crumbly, not-really-doughy dough out onto it. Pat or roll the dough into some semblance of a circle about an inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter (or my trusty green chili can) cut into circles. Bring the scraps together and pat them out again to cut a few more circles; you should end up with about twelve.

Place the scones on the prepared pan. Beat the egg gently and brush some egg on the top of each scone. Or, don't. They will still taste fine but they will not be as glossy when they come out. Bake for about 20 minutes, until palely golden.

You could use cream instead of milk, but I've made these successfully with 1% milk, even, so don't sweat it.

February birthdays

I've always known a lot of people with February birthdays, including two who shared mine (one no longer living), and two the day after. My dear friend Wendy follows me by about a week. Susan says she wants virtual nothing today, so I'm trying to oblige.










empty space, for you, Wendy! Happy happy.

oh dear

(Edited to add: This is in honor of Edward Gorey's birthday, which Sam reminds me is today...)

I found this quiz on a knitting blog I hadn't read before, and I had to take it. In 10th grade my friend Caroline & I were obsessed with Edward Gorey. I think she may have had a poster of the Gashlycrumb Tinies up on her wall. Many many years later I directed a summer research project on Gorey with a fabulous student; I keep waiting for her to publish something from it, but she's holding back. In any event, I'm not sure I agree with this result--but then again, knowing how most of these little stories go, this may be one of the better results.


You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little

anti-social, and may want to start gaining

new social skills by making prank phone

calls.


What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

Happy Birthday, Erma!

Here's a role model for our times:

It's the birthday of columnist and humorist Erma Bombeck, (books by this author) born in Dayton, Ohio (1927). She got a job at the Dayton Journal-Herald writing obituaries and features for the women's page, but when she married a sportswriter there she chose to quit her job and stay home with the kids. She spent a decade as a fulltime mother, and then in 1964 she decided she had to start writing again or she would go crazy. She said, "I was thirty-seven, too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair."

Within a few years, she was one of the most popular humor columnists in America. She went on to publish many books, including Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession (1983) and Family: The Ties That Bind ... and Gag! (1987).

She wrote, "My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?"

(From the Writer's Almanac, which tells me it's also Chuck Palahniuk's birthday, but I have nothing to say about that.)

Lilian's technology meme

1. Do you remember when you saw your first computer? When did you actually use one? What about having your own? Do you own a laptop? (PC or Mac?) Have you gone wireless at home yet?
My dad bought a computer some time in the 80s, I think. It was an Osborne portable--looked like a sewing machine, and was just about as heavy. I bought my first computer when I was in grad school, after we got married, so that would be sometime after 1987. I had an electronic typewriter before that. I did use the mainframe in college to word-process and laser-print my thesis, so at one time I was reasonably proficient with dot commands! (points for anyone else who remembers them...)

I now have a mac laptop that belongs to the U and a mac desktop that's ours. And yes, we went wireless a few years ago and could never go back.

2. When did you first go online and/or use email? Who did you email back then? How did the internet change your life? When did you discover blogging? What about your home internet connection - is it dial-up, DLS, cable?
I got my first email account when I got this job in the fall of 1994. I joined a listserv and emailed friends who were still in grad school. At first I had to go to the computer center, then I got a laptop and had to unplug my phone to get online in my office. The internet changed my life in two ways: one, the listserv connected me to others in my field right away, when I was feeling a little isolated in my first job. I was asked to review books and articles based solely on my listserv postings. It was pretty empowering. Second, I was able to keep in touch with people without the phone. Since I'm not much of a phone person (see below) this was terrific--I love to write, but people don't answer letters. They do, however (sometimes) answer emails.

Like Kate, I think I discovered blogging through my small online writing group. And then Literary Mama came along and encouraged me to blog as well. And here I am, almost three years later, still chugging along despite what The Financial Times thinks.

3. Do you remember your first VCR? What about a video camera (there were some bulky ones back in the 80s and 90s) and home videos?
Hmm, no, I don't. I don't think we had a VCR until after moving to Richmond, though, in the mid90s. Mark's mom had a video camera in the late 80s and we have some video of Mariah as a baby thanks to her. We also used to check out a huge bulky camera from the media resource center occasionally to take video of the kids. We never do it anymore. My parents donated their outmoded video camera to us sometime in the mid to late 90s (maybe around when Nick was born?) and we used it some, but then let the batteries run down and never charged it again. It's still gathering dust in the living room. We are terrible parents, clearly.

4. When did you switch from VCR to DVD? How did it change your video viewing experience? Do you use TiVo or any such "contraption" to tape TV shows? Do you use Netflix or some other internet-based DVD "renting" service?
We were late adopters for DVD; I think we bought our first one only about three years ago, and we still have a VCR hooked up to our TV as well. I'd love to have TiVo, but we don't have cable, so it seems pointless. We do have netflix, though, which is great--though I still maintain a blockbuster membership for last-minute rentals.


5. What about music? Did you enjoy listening favorite music in Long Plays or did you prefer cassete tapes? When did you buy your fist CD player and switched to CDs? Did you abandon them (and turned to dowloaded music) for MP3 players or Ipods or do you still buy CDs?
I remember eight tracks! Though I never had one myself, as I didn't have a car until after they'd already gone out of style. I still have LPs as well, though I'm sad about how many I gave away years ago. We bought a CD player in about 1990 or 1991, I'm guessing--all I remember is that it broke and we returned it, with our lone CD still stuck in it. (Bonnie Raitt...) Mariah has an iPod shuffle and we burn CDs from iTunes now more often than buying physical CDs.

6. Do you own and use a cell phone? Do you think it's useful or just annoying?
(Did you always have a telephone in your house growing up? Did you have a phone in your own room?)
Ha! We bought a cellphone last fall (2004) when Mariah started high school. Mark doesn't carry one. It's useful, occasionally, and everyone else's are annoying! Mariah's pretty much the only person who calls me on it (oh, and other carpool parents, occasionally), and I mostly only call home on it. Not much of a phone person, again.

We had a telephone in our house, though I went to boarding school and had only one phone per dorm. Phones in dorm rooms in college were a great innovation, even though they were pre-answering machine/voicemail... I never had a phone in my room that I remember, though Mariah does now (on our line, though, not her own line).


7. When did you first buy a digital camera? What kind was it (3.2, 4.0, 5.0 mega-pixels or better)? Did you start taking more pictures or were you a photo afficionado before then? What about a digital video camera?
I think our digital camera is pretty low-end. We bought our first one when Mariah was in 7th or 8th grade, so two or three years ago, and yes, we did start taking more pictures then. Previously we'd gotten all our photos on disk or online, though, so we'd been sharing them online for a while before we got the camera. No digital video camera, though. (See above on bad parents.)


8. What about televisions? Have you already embraced the new technologies, such as HDTV, plasma, and flat screen? (On the other hand, you wouldn't remember black & white TVs, would you?)
Of course I remember black and white TV! And Soupy Sales! When we lived in Tokyo in the 60s we had a b&w and we had a live-in maid who had a color TV--my younger siblings used to go hang out with her and watch it.

We now have a plasma TV, to our great astonishment. The idea is that it's less obtrusive. And the picture is pretty good, too. We've had it about a year, I think.

OK, if you're on Lilian's blogroll and you still haven't done this, take a stab at it. Easy blogging...

Friday Food #6: Crazy Cake

In honor of yesterday's cakes, I decided not to post a dinner recipe today but a cake. This one came, originally, from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book, though there's also a version of it in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. Peg (we've always been close) calls it Cockeyed Cake, and the Moosewood Collective calls it six-minute cake, but we always called it crazy cake when Mom made it for us, so that's what I call it, too.

This is not a cake that turns out of the pan. Rather, serve it from the pan and then enjoy the fudgy scrapings. I remember fighting over them with my brothers.

I've made a few changes to the Bracken version, mostly to try to make it chocolatier. I have to confess, it's not the most chocolate-y chocolate cake every made. But it's quick, and I always have the ingredients. Just don't use the good vinegar.

Preheat oven to 350, and spray or butter a 9x13 pan. (Yes, I doubled the original version. It doesn't take any longer to make it, and there will be cake the next day.)

Now, sift these dry ingredients into your cake pan. That's right, directly into the cake pan. Crazy, right?

3 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt (I don't think I have ever put this in, but Peg does)
1 tbl. espresso power (optional, but good)


Once the dry ingredients are all in the pan, make three holes in them. Get out the following wet ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tbl. vinegar (cider or plain white)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups cold water

Pour the oil into one hole, the vinegar into another, and the vanilla into the third. Then pour the water over the whole thing, and stir with a fork until everything is one somewhat pale brown color (don't worry, it gets darker as it bakes). Peg says you'll feel like you're making mud pies. Make sure you go around the corners a couple of times and get all the baking soda mixed in nicely.

Stir in 3/4 cup chocolate chips. (Or don't, but it will be much better if you do.)

Bake for half an hour, until dark and fudgy looking. The top will spring back when the cake is done; it might take a few extra minutes.

Best with vanilla ice cream, but just fine as is.

cakewalk

I don't feel like this today.

They started arriving yesterday. This one, and then more in my email. Photographs and clip art and e-cards and pictures.

Then this one, and this one (from the instigator).

I can't possibly show you all of them. Every time I come back to the computer there are more. But here's a representative sampling.












There's also a recipe or two in my mailbox, and promises of RL cake later. Thank you, thank you!

I'm actually spending much of the day home with a sick kid (Nick woke up at 4:30 going "ow, ow" about his throat), but dropping by for more cake every now and then will lighten that up.

I should have whined about my birthday years ago!

Hallmark, Valentine's, and things like that

Like Mamacita, we used to say Valentine's Day wasn't important, that we didn't really need to celebrate it. And we thought it was true. My birthday falls soon after (yes, tomorrow), so it really seemed unfair to be demanding gifts for Valentine's.

And yet. It is nice to have a small something, just because. And, there's the whole elementary-school-Valentine-thing. If the kids are making a big deal of it, maybe that's enough, but maybe we want to put our own stamp on it, too.

So yesterday we had a Valentine's Day celebration the likes of which I don't think we've ever done before. I came home early-ish from work and found Mark wrapping a gift --he had something for everyone all ready. We'd actually bought Mariah's gift together, but he'd taken on Nick's gift on his own. And mine. I had little godiva chocolate boxes for everyone, and a promise of a gift for him. And then when it turned out the late-afternoon run to Mariah's school was going to be a little earlier than we'd thought, Mark took that on while I picked up Nick from his after-school class and then hit the grocery store for a few things. So we sat down together to shrimp with pasta, artichokes, brownies, and ice cream. The pasta was overdone and the brownies underdone, but the kids insisted that they liked them that way.

That is, not only did no one complain about the meal, they liked the substandard fare I put in front of them.

Well, ok, so it wasn't so terribly substandard, but I've got to say, I prefer my angel hair pasta al dente, and it really really wasn't. The underdone brownies, though, were fine with ice cream.

So, to sum up: apparently I can cook a meal for the whole family that no one will object to if (1) I mess up a few dishes, and say so and/or (2) there are presents and/or chocolate on the table.

Valentine's Miscellany

We did not make valentines this year. Nick got a spin-art set for Christmas, and we talked about making spin-art valentines, but in the end we took the easy way out. So his classmates will be receiving Incredibles valentines today. Dibs on Elastigirl for me.

A good friend passed me a valentine note on my way out from the drop-off this morning. Made my day, really. The unexpected card is so much sweeter than the obligatory one. But see above. They really are obligatory in elementary school.

I have had a crush on Stephen Stills's voice (but really, only his voice) for thirty years. I heard "Teach Your Children" on the oldies station on the way in and sung along the whole way, even though it's nowhere near my favorite CSNY song. I'm aware that this confirms my status as a big dork. I can live with that.

I had to renew my driver's license today and I steeled myself for the long wait. I had a book, a pen, and my reading glasses, and I was ready to finish the book and start taking notes for class tomorrow. Instead, I was in and out in fifteen minutes, including waiting for my picture. Which does, remarkably, look like me.

I'm feeling the love.

not a recipe

One of my favorite indulgences a few years back, when I was driving Mariah to piano lessons about twenty minutes from campus, was to stop at Starbucks on the way for a snack. I know, I know, corporate blah-blah, but they have these incredibly yummy maple-oat-nut scones. They are huge and rich and probably not at all proper-English-scones*, but I loved them. So much that I gained a few pounds that year. I blame the scones.

Mariah isn't taking piano lessons any more and so I don't drive by that Starbucks too often. Or at all, in fact. There are others, of course (there is always another Starbucks just around the corner, isn't there?) but I have stopped stopping in for the scone.

I do buy coffee from the little coffee shop on campus that sells Starbucks coffee but is not a Starbucks franchise, but that's another story. They have only little bitty scones--blueberry and cinnamon--and they are just not the same.

So on Saturday I pulled out Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and found a recipe for oat scones. I didn't add nuts, or maple syrup for that matter, but they were nonetheless remarkably like the Starbucks ones. Not so pillowy or big, because I cut them out using my little round biscuit cutter (in a former life it was a can of green chiles, and it is just the right size), but just as tasty.

I liked them so much I almost made them again Sunday morning, but reason prevailed. Later in the day I made Nigella's granola instead. I'm sensing a little bit of a trend. Mmmm, breakfast.

*I have a recipe for proper-English-scones, too, that I got here, thanks to Becca's recommendation last year.

snow and the olympics

We had snow last night, but we're not going to have a snow day tomorrow. That was painfully clear to Nick from the moment he woke up and looked out the window. "Oh, no!" was the first thing out of his mouth, despite the prospect of pretty white snow to play in today. The roads were clear, and that means school.

I feel his pain. We're at that stage in February when I just think we need a day or two off. He'll get his, next week (and he had one Friday, actually, which was a teacher conference day) but we go straight through until early March. February's a short month but a long psychic slog, if you ask me: it's time for the grey skies to clear and the weather to warm up, but they won't. And if they won't do that, they could at least snow hard, and make winter worth having.

We're having a lot more TV than usual in our house since the Olympics started. We liked the flaming skaters in the opening ceremonies, and the throw-triple-axel. And I have started my piece for the knitting olympics at least six times. So yes, it is a challenge, and no, I'm not giving up yet.

Yarn Harlot: Needles Raised

The Knitting Olympics start today. I'll be there, trying my first lace pattern (a scarf, I'm not crazy); and, if time permits, wrist warmers, too. (Baby steps: I've never done a thumb before.) If I can do this, mittens may be next! Yarn Harlot: Needles Raised

Friday Food #5: Chilaquiles

I think I'm actually making the chicken/edamame dish tonight, but here's one I invented recently that worked out well. In some ways you might as well be eating seven-layer dip with chips, but the fact that you serve it out of a casserole makes it feel healthier.

Chilaquiles

Ingredients

1 bag good tortilla chips
1-2 cups salsa (or see below)
2 cans organic refried beans
1 lb. Mexican cheese (queso fresco or queso blanco, I think. Jack cheese would also be fine). Slice or shred the cheese. This was a lot of cheese to use, and I think it would have been fine with less, but the block I had was one pound so I just sliced it all up.

Layer the ingredients two or three times in a casserole dish, starting with a little salsa under some chips and ending with cheese. Bake, covered, for about 30 minutes at 350, then uncovered for another 10-15 (long enough to brown the cheese on top). You can raise the temp a bit at the end to brown faster. You can serve this with sour cream, guacamole, and/or additional salsa on top if you like.

Salsa:

I made this because I didn't have any salsa in the house, and it was pretty good!

1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1-2 tsp garlic
small amount cooking oil
1 can (14.5 oz.) no-salt tomatoes
1 small can ortega chilis, chopped


Chop the onion and bell pepper and saute in the cooking oil with the garlic until fragrant and tender, but not brown. Chop the tomatoes (a food processor or blender is great, because you want them pretty smooth) and add them and the chilis. Cook 10-15 minutes, until the flavors meld.

A dash of cumin or cayenne wouldn't hurt in the salsa, either, but of course you may already have a salsa you like This one is quite sweet because of the bell pepper--my kids don't much like spicy food so that was ok with me. Nonetheless, I have to confess that Nick didn't like this much at all, but his friend who was over for dinner that night asked for seconds and then pestered his mother to get the recipe. So I felt vindicated.

stuff I don't really want to talk about

OK, Becca's post on Caitlin Flanagan and the Rainbow Party review was so great that I have to say something, even though I really don't want to. I don't want to because I think the book is sensationalist and pornographic and, umm, ridiculous, and I don't really want it to get any publicity. I'm on a fabulous listserv for discussing children's lit and we "talked" about it there for a while--or other people did, as I hadn't read it, and won't--and I thought that was it.

But the more I thought about Caitlin Flanagan and her insistence that yes, these parties really are happening, or something like them is, or something else bad really is, I just flashed back on the mid-80s and the pre-school abuse stories. Does it strike anyone else that this panic is a lot like that one? That this is middle class parents worried about their own parenting, or lack thereof, and especially worried about how to think about children and sexuality, and projecting all those fears and anxieties onto someone else? Of course it's harder with teenagers, because--well, because they're teenagers, so probably sexuality is entering the picture in a lot more overt way than it was when they were toddlers, but in many ways the rest of it seems much the same.

Which is why I'm waiting for Jim Kincaid to chime in on this one, because this is the kind of thing he's really smart about.

I'm not sure how I feel about this

Lately I don't feel as if I have enough time to write. There's just too much else going on right now, though I know that writing, like exercise, will make me feel better. (See here for a much more thoughtful post on this.)

Another thing I don't have much time for is reading poetry, but I subscribed to the e-mail version of Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" a while ago, and it pops up in my inbox (or, lately, my junk mail filter, but that's another whole issue) and poetry presents itself to me every now and then.

Today, according to Keillor, is Elizabeth Bishop's birthday. I studied Bishop in a grad school survey class; I'm hardly an expert, but I've always liked her work. One year I taught some of her poems in a first year course.

One of my favorite of her poems is "One Art," which begins: "The art of losing isn't hard to master." It's a poignant, beautifully wrought little poem; a modified villanelle that retrieves its rhyme words, obsessively, as it comments on losing larger and greater things.

So here's what I learned from Keillor this morning: "She worked on her poem "One Art" for more than fifteen years, keeping it tacked up on her wall so that she could rearrange the lines again and again until she got it right."

She did get it right. Fifteen years, though! I'm definitely still in the minor leagues.

Thanks for reading, I guess

I check my stats occasionally to see what topics seem to be bringing more readers, but I can rarely figure it out. Other than tragedy (the Harvey murders) and feminism (I made it into one of the carnivals of the feminists) I can't see a pattern.

But clearly some folks are looking for homework help. Recently these searches came up:

nick hornsby about a boy analysis

Tangerine test questions by Edward Bloor

teacher resource - 'Private Peaceful' M. Morpurgo

Niobe myth

edamame scarf

OK, so the last one probably wasn't homework help. I am curious about it, though!

Motherhood and Solitude

Susan has lots to say about them here: ReadingWritingLiving: More on Motherhood, Solitude and Writing

I struggle with this myself. My kids whine and lament when I leave (for business! I have to go!) but I know they'll be fine. Mark, after all, handles the home duties most of the time anyway. But more than two or three days and we all get a little antsy, a little off-kilter. Maybe we just need practice. Because we all (houseful of introverts) need that solitude, too.

edited to add: I wrote a column about this once. For me I think the issue is not quite so much solitude as it is the lightening of responsibility. They're related, but not entirely the same. I can only use solitude itself in pretty small doses--a few hours here and there, and then I start to get antsy and lonely and play too much online sudoku. But knowing I don't have something to do for someone else the next minute, the next hour, the next day, is a rare sort of freedom that I truly treasure. It was in short supply this weekend--I had blocked off Saturday to get things done for me and instead ended up driving someone or another somewhere much of the day, or doing laundry, or moving furniture. All necessary stuff, but not for me, and not what I wanted. It's times like that, when I am overwhelmed with the neediness of the world around me (even my small world), that I wonder if I should take up running. Bad knees, lousy breath control, bunions, and all. There must be a middle ground, though, right?

Friday Food #4: Superbowl Chili

There's no real reason to call this Superbowl Chili except I've made it for a superbowl party once or twice and will again on Sunday. The original had chicken, and I'll include that version below, but I usually make it this way now, veggie-friendly. I actually came in second in a chili cook-off with this once, and won a waiver of the parent association dues at Mariah's school that year. Score!

Chili Blanco

1 pound white beans (navy beans or great northerns are fine), rinsed
6-7 cups veggie stock
2 onions, chopped
1 tbl oil
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
7 oz can diced green chilis (you can add two if you like, and some jalapenos might be good if you like things spicier than I do)
2-3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less, according to taste)
1 cu sour cream
3 cu shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I have used 2 cu pepper jack and 1 regular, or all regular, depending on what was available)


Cook beans and stock for about 2 hours, or until the beans are tender. (Don’t presoak the beans.) When the beans are almost done, saute garlic and onions in oil until golden. Add onion, garlic, chilis, cumin, oregano, and cayenne to beans. Simmer 30 minutes longer. Add sour cream and cheese. Heat slowly, without boiling, until cheese is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I think I usually end up adding some extra water or stock at some point, and I’m never quite sure whether to cook the beans with the top on or off. The last time it was off, then I put it on during the last 30 minutes, after adding the onion & garlic, etc. If you start with shredded cheese—and chop the onion in the food processor—this is really really simple.


If you want to make it with chicken, use water (or, I suppose, chicken stock) instead of veggie stock, and put two chicken breast halves (with skin and bones) in with the beans at the start. When the beans are tender, remove the meat from the bones and shred it, then add it back in when you are adding the onions, etc. Either way is good.

Check this out

So now my sister's blogging (she has help, btw), and for you vegetarians out there--and, actually, anyone else who likes to eat and/or cook--they've got some great recipes up. She and Tony are two of the best cooks I know, so you're in for some good eating. I may even try that tofu stir-fry! (I've eaten it--it's fabulous.)

Four Things

Claudia didn't tag me with this, but I like it.



Four Jobs I've Had:
Ice cream scooper, restaurant cleaner, editorial assistant at a VERY small (two-person) specialty car magazine (don't ask!), breakfast waitress

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
My Neighbor Totoro, Toy Story, Endless Summer II, Midnight Run
Special bonus fifth movie, Groundhog Day. I don't think that counts, right, because 1) today is Groundhog Day and 2) watching it once is like watching it over and over.

Four Places I've lived:
Tokyo, Los Angeles, Connecticut, New York (state, not city)

Four Places I've Been on Vacation:
The Outer Banks of NC, Oregon coast/Washington coast (one vacation, camping), San Francisco, Montreal

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
ALDaily, google, Literary Mama, the library website on campus

Four Bloggers to Tag:
Ah, do it yourselves. Can't you tell I'm feeling lazy today?

Blog Book Tour: The Literary Mama Anthology

Today's my day on the Literary Mama Anthology blog book tour. I'm so excited! I've been involved with Literary Mama since the beginning, I think. I got involved in Amy Hudock's Books and Babies online writing group and website, and then when Literary Mama launched I was one of the original editors and columnists. So it's fabulous to see the site, and the anthology, doing so well.

If you haven't done so yet, check out the introduction to the anthology here. This serves as a rationale for the site as well, but particularly for the book. This represents some of the best of the best: pieces that continue to inspire, challenge, entertain, enlighten.

Of course everything in the book is still on the site, so why should you buy the book? One reason: reading in bed. Honestly, much as I love the internet, you can't curl up and read it wherever you want. (OK, Susan, I know you do, but not all of us are quite as addicted...or enabled!) So the luxury of reading these essays in the comfort of my own bed, or reading chair, with pen in hand (I always read with pen in hand...), without a screen in front of my face, is just lovely.

As are many of the essays, stories, and poems. What a joy to re-encounter "Packing the Car," for example. I don't always read the poetry on the site, but Andi and Amy have placed it so well among the other works that it's a joy to read it here. What a pleasure to find that "Analyzing Ben" still makes me laugh; that "Acts of Contrition" still has the power to move me. Throughout, the collection builds on itself, develops so many of the important things about motherhood: recognizing your children as part of yourself, as individuals in their own right, as inheritors of your own family story, as progenitors of their own.

I was going to give my review copy away, I must say, thinking, well, I can always read it all again on the site. But instead, I'm buying a couple of others for friends, so I can hang on to mine, mark it up, and read it in bed--again.

cookies

Did anyone else feel that Amanda Hesser threw down a gauntlet with her cookie recipes in last week's magazine? (Edited to include permalink; thanks, Jody!)

I made the "flat and chewy" ones, and I'm going to try "thick and gooey" today. [Edited to add: "thick and gooey" are tasty but not thick. Maybe because I didn't chill the dough long enough. Life's too short.] But I have a couple of complaints already. The "flat and chewy" were too salty: 1 tbs. kosher salt AND baking soda instead of powder. I liked the kosher salt, actually, but in future I might double the amount for baking soda and use powder instead, which is way less salty-tasting. And I think one could easily scant that TBS of salt. I have spent most of my adult life leaving the salt out of recipes entirely, actually. Mark has a condition that requires a low-sodium diet, and when I started cutting salt out of things I got fewer headaches. But lately I've been inching it back into things grain by grain. It does make things taste better, no question.

But, sifting the flour with the kosher salt? Is just dumb. The kosher salt just lies at the bottom of the sifter mocking you.

She also wants you to use a mixer fitted with a paddle. Well, I don't have one. The recipe worked with my ancient Hamilton Beach stand mixer, but I just wondered if I missed something.

Finally, it's really annoying to be told to preheat the oven in step one and then told to chill the cookie dough once it's put together. I'm just saying.

What to read to your kids

Claudia asked for read-aloud recommendations on the very day I found this article in The Guardian: Guardian Unlimited Books | Special Reports | What the top writers say every child should read:

While most of what's here is way too ambitious to read aloud to a five-year-old, I'm intrigued by Philip Pullman's choices. "He did nclude The Rime of the Ancient Mariner among his choices - recalling that it had been a 'mesmerising' experience when a 'wise and far-seeing teacher had, without explaining anything about it, read it aloud to my class when I was about seven'.

Pullman's list has at its heart fairytales, myths and legends as the great stimuli to children's imaginations. Another recommendation, which does not appear on his list, is Kipling's Just So Stories 'for the wonderful rhythms and rhymes and the muscular strength of the language. You don't understand everything as a child but you love the sound of it. Children respond very immediately to the musical rhythmic effects of language.'"

I have never really read poetry to my kids, other than Edward Lear and James Marshall's nonsense stuff. But why not? I'm also intrigued by the Kipling suggestion: I loved the Just-So Stories as a kid, and they seem entirely appropriate for a precocious five-year-old, but you may want to pre-read to check for occasional offensive stereotypes. Or just read them and then talk, which is something we've done a lot as well.

Read the whole piece, or just scroll to the bottom for the lists. Oh, and Rowling is right: Roald Dahl! (Though, again, some very questionable ideology here and there, like those happily-enslaved Oompah-Loompahs. Sigh.)

changes

Bored with the dots. Dots gone. Recipes in the sidebar.

Literary Mama blog book tour, coming Wednesday! Watch this space...

I think I'm in

Or maybe insane. I think I'm going to sign up for Stephanie's knitting olympics. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to knit, however. I have a bunch of lovely recycled silk yarn that I got for Christmas--maybe something with that? I've already got one project cast on, though, so I can't use that. And the other thing I'm thinking of making with that yarn is placemats, and I hate to think that they would be a challenge. Though they might, if finishing in 16 days is the goal. I certainly have enough yarn, which is key.

I also don't want to buy new yarn. I've got four or five skeins of this (in "Grand Canyon," which is a variegated red) in my stash, and two skeins each of this in blue and purple. And some of this in teal. I think I must have planned yet another funky scarf out of that, and then gotten bored with the whole funky scarf thing.

None of this is very exciting, though that cotton blend is probably enough for...something interesting, right? But what? Oh! I did just buy some really lovely wool/silk/cashmere (in "emporio," which is a rich purply brown) that I intended for a scarf. (I could only afford enough for a scarf.) But then again, a scarf is hardly a challenge. And I deliberately bought yarn that would look good knit up in stockinette (ie, it's variegated) because I wasn't planning to do anything complex with it.

So I'll have to think some more about this. But I definitely want to join Team Wales. I don't know if I have any Welsh ancestry, but Wales was our favorite place during our travels last summer. And the music is fabulous. So that's settled. First things first, right?

Friday Food #3: chicken/edamame stir-fry

This is really just edamame and rice, dressed up. It's basically an epicurious recipe (sigh. I'm so predictable) but I left out the scallions because my kids won't eat them so they just go limp and icky in the vegetable drawer. If you like them, scatter sliced ones on at the end.

4 tbl soy sauce (I use "lite" soy sauce in hopes that the lower sodium makes a difference)
1 tsp honey
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped coarsely
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized chunks or slices or whatever shape you like
2 cups frozen edamame (no pods)
4 tsp dark sesame oil
3-4 tsp minced fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced

as much rice as you need to feed 4 people; I make 1-1/2 to 2 cups. Brown rice is great, but I make sticky white rice in my rice cooker more often--it's quicker, and this is one of those last-minute dinners. It helps to buy jars of minced ginger and garlic, too, and to have an Asian market nearby selling dark sesame oil for a reasonable price. I'm just saying.

Stir the honey and 2 tbl soy sauce together and pour over the cut-up chicken. Let it sit while you start the rice and toast the walnuts.

Toast the walnuts in a small frying pan on medium heat for about three minutes, shaking the pan or stirring frequently. Drizzle 2 tbl of soy sauce over them, stir until the walnuts are coated, and remove from the heat.

When you're almost ready to eat, heat the oil in a wok or large saute pan. Cook the chicken for about three minutes, stirring constantly. When it is done or almost so, add the garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant. Then add the edamame and stir to mix well. When the edamame are thawed, toss the walnuts in and stir again.

If you were really on the ball and cooked the rice earlier, you could stir that into the chicken/edamame mess now and call it fried rice. Or you can just serve the chicken/edamame mess on top of the rice (or next to it, if your kids are segregationists) and that's good, too.

My kids pick the walnuts out. But I still think they're worth putting in. Oh, and if we were vegetarians, I think this would be a place we'd use tempeh, which has a nice chewiness to it and would hold up well with the other flavors. But of course we're not, which is why Nick has to worry about who his guardians will be. Sigh.

Random

Stephanie does random Wednesdays, sometimes, but I'm (as so often) a day late, apparently.

There are many reasons I'm glad I'm not toilet training anyone right now. This is one.

My mother can't load my blog on her computer any more. Some kind of weird internet filters. I even changed a few of my links in the blogroll (sorry, Dr. B.!) to see if that was it, but it wasn't. So why doesn't her computer want her to read the blog? (My dad's computer allows her to, so she can still check in.)

I'm actually enjoying my upgrade. I like the little entourage notification in the bottom right corner that gives me a preview of incoming email. I'll probably get annoyed with it before long, though.

But I really like the new enhanced search. Google for my hard drive, how cool is that? Maybe I'll be able to find all those lost recipes now. Somehow TVG and I have a habit of exchanging recipes without putting the recipe name or the primary ingredient in the subject line. Sadly, however, spotlight appears not to want to search my entourage files, where many of these recipes reside. Hmm.

If 8:15 is too early in the morning for me and my students now, in the second week of classes, what will it be like in mid-February when we don't even have the excitement of the new term to keep us going?

Speaking of mid-February, I'm turning 45 then. I want to do something, take on some new activity, learn something, make a resolution...something to mark it. But what? Take up running? (Ha!) Learn to knit things with shape, or changing colors? Begin a book? (Oh, yeah, I've done that...maybe finish a book?) That said, I don't want to put too much pressure on. Maybe I'll just bake a cake.

Nick's thinking about things

Nick calls to me from his bedroom at about 9:45. He's been in bed for forty-five minutes. I go to talk to him.

"I'm thinking about my own mortality*," he says. "I think about what would happen if I went to sleep and didn't wake up."

"That's hard to think about," I say.

"Hard not to, you mean."


Doesn't miss a beat, this kid. So we chat for a while about what might make him feel better. We agree that I'll check on him in a few minutes and see how he's doing. When I come back he has new worries. What will happen if Mark and I die? Who will take care of him? Where will he go to school?

I'm a little worried about this one--should I let him know we've tried to take care of this for him? He's literally imagining waking up in the morning and needing new parents, pronto. He's thought about a few options.

"First I thought about the H---. But then I couldn't go to my same school. So then I thought about my other friends from school, but I couldn't go to the same church."

This surprises me. He's been asking not to go to church lately, after all. But I let it continue. Finally I suggest his actual guardians (well, theoretical, since the wills are...I know! I know!).

"Really?" he says. "Why not M--- or L---?" They're out, I answer, because they don't have kids.

"But...then I couldn't taste meat until I grew up and left! I'm afraid I wouldn't like their food! And, they'd really have their hands full with two other kids!"

(Ah, the food thing. Is it better to be worrying about that than the death of your parents? Are vegetarian guardians the worst thing he can imagine?)

We run through various other permutations: grandparents, friends, other relatives.

"The thing is, Mommy, if you left, SOMETHING would change. Maybe two or three or four things."

I don't point out that if I "left" (his euphemism for death, at this point) everything would change. I remind him instead that we're doing our best to stay. I give him another hug, tell him I love him, promise to check back in ten minutes. In less time than that, he's asleep.

So obviously there's still a lot to process. These are interesting conversations, ones that don't resolve easily. Heaven is not much comfort to the eight-year-old, who has pressing concerns in the here and now. Maybe not much to older folks, either.

We both slept well, though, and are greeting the morning with renewed energy.

I'm off to get this computer upgraded to OX 10.4.something. Wish me luck

*Yes, he really did say he was thinking about his mortality. In the midst of this conversation, I'm noting his excellent vocabulary with maternal pride.

new stuff

Here's my latest column:
Children's Lit Book Group: Why Not Cinderella?

Friday Food #2: creamy chicken soup

My kids don't like soup. I may have mentioned it before; I can't quite remember. I don't quite know what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with the promiscuous mingling of ingredients. My kids are strict segregationists when it comes to food, despite the best efforts of their progressive parents.

Still, they like this soup. Of course they do: it's rich and creamy! And yet I can kid myself that it's healthy, as I throw lots of vegetables into it. And you get a lot of bang for the small amount of cream in it, really you do. And with some nice bread or a salad you have a meal.

4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup shredded carrots (about 2 medium) (I minced the carrots and celery in the food processor; could have done the onion with them...In fact, should have, since complaints about onions in food are in direct proportion to the size of the bits)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
6 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
1 1/2 cups half and half (I used half 1% milk and 1/2 cream, as that's what I had in the house)
Dried thyme

2 boneless skinless chicken thighs
2 tbl sherry

1-1/2 cups penne pasta
1 cup frozen green beans, broken if they are whole (I buy these fancy frozen haricots verts but any green beans would do for this, I think. The original calls for sugar snap peas, which would also be delicious, I'm sure.)
1 cup frozen corn
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice


Melt 3 tbl butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add celery, carrots and onion. Cook until celery and onion are tender, about 5 minutes. Add flour and cook 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Gradually mix in chicken stock. Bring soup to simmer, stirring frequently. Add the pasta and cook until tender. Add half and half and a sprinkling of thyme and simmer 5 minutes.

While the soup simmers, brown the chicken thighs in the last tablespoon of butter. When the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the pan and deglaze the pan with the sherry. Shred or chop the cooked chicken and add it, the pan juices, and the frozen vegetables to the soup. Simmer until the vegetables are no longer frozen. Mix in lemon juice; season to taste with salt and pepper.

This feeds all four of us with some left over, even when Nick has two servings.

I adapted this from an epicurious recipe, by the way. Here's the original in case you want to compare.

why this is not a knitting blog

Because I keep knitting the same things over and over. I've made the clapotis three times, as I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before. And I've made a version of this spiral scarf at least three times, maybe four. I've lost count. (I've also lost the original pattern link; mine said to cast on 90 stitches.) I also made a clapotis-look-alike this fall.

Because I can only knit things that don't change color, or have any particular shape, or require complicated counting or holding stitches.

Because I am currently trying to finish my third (or fourth) version of said spiral scarf, and I have been casting it off for at least three days. Three days! I worked on it for over two hours yesterday and it's still not done! Granted, I'm doing it in a very fine mohair (oh, it's so lovely!) and I think I may possibly have increased it beyond 1440 stitches up to 2880. Is that possible? I'm not going to count...)

So, it's not a knitting blog. But sometimes I just have to share about my ridiculous knitting nonetheless.

And I must say, this yarn is so lovely, I might be tempted to do it again. Knitting this scarf is a little like those sudoku puzzles--predictable, even boring, but weirdly addictive.

why we love the books we love

I just finished Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones, and I'm trying to figure out why I found it so, well, charming. It's been around a while, so I'm apparently getting on the bandwagon late. But I think Jones has been rediscovered by kids (and adults) who have gone through the Potter books, and maybe the Narnia ones as well, and want something else. Jones has in common with Rowling the combination of fantasy and humor, which is key, I think, to the success of both. The thing is, I think Jones may really be more original: her book is, like Rowling's, about the education of a wizard who doesn't know he is one, but it came out in 1977. Now, there's no boarding school setting or parallel world (well, there is, but it's different) or unique wizard sports and sweets (as far as I know yet), so I'm not saying Rowling just lifted her story wholesale. Indeed, her genius is to have lifted from a variety of sources and genres and blended them into something greater than the whole. [edited to say, um, that's "greater than the parts," of course. Sigh.]

Charmed Life is short, though it's the first of a long series (6 books, as far as I can tell). It gets the parents out of the way quickly, as such books often do, and focuses on a pair of siblings right from the start. In fact there are two pairs of siblings and part of the pleasure of the book is figuring out why some get along and some don't, what the differences in their relationships are. (I like sibling stories...) The beginning of it reminded me of the Lemony Snicket books (which, of course, came much later) in the casual way in which serious topics are broached and then discarded. Also like Roald Dahl in that--the parents are killed off right at the start, there's a brief recognition that this is sad, and then that's pretty much over with. Though I think the parents will continue to be important in this series, actually.

So what I'm trying to figure out now is: why do I like this book so much? And, why did the Rowling books become such a phenomenon, when this book and others like it (and just as "good" in some purely literary sense, if there is such a thing) did not?

I'll come back to this.

a theology of sleep!

Read the whole thing here:Sleep Therapy - Books & Culture.

"The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures, not the Creator. For it is God and God alone who 'neither slumbers nor sleeps.' Of course, the Creator has slept, another startling reminder of the radical humility he embraced in becoming incarnate. He took on a body that, like ours, was finite and contingent and needed sleep. To push ourselves to go without sleep is, in some sense, to deny our embodiment, to deny our fragile incarnations—and perhaps to deny the magnanimous poverty and self-emptying that went into his Incarnation."

thanks to Sam for the link

back to work

the first day of the semester, and I am still wondering how this whole 8:15 class thing is going to work out. Oh, your heart bleeds, I know, if you have a real job with real hours. So I'll stop whining.

This morning was fine because I didn't have to take Mariah to her bus--she's off for MLK day, of course, but we are--not. Some of my students seem to have decided to take the day off anyway; it'll be the end of the week before I really know who's in what class, etc. But we'll get there.

In the meantime I am reading the first of the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones, and wondering what took me so long? The more pre-Harry Potter fantasy I read, the less groundbreaking it seems. Sigh.

I should have a new column up soon. I'll link it here when it's up.

Friday Food: Tuna Casserole

OK, there wasn't a groundswell of interest in recipes, but here's one anyway. This is not Kelly's healthy tuna casserole, but neither is it the old can-of-soup variety. My kids would eat this every night if I would make it. Especially Nick.

Ingredients:
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk (skim is fine)
1 tsp mustard, optional

1 lb. pasta; shells or fusili seem to work best

1-2 cans tuna, packed in water (or, I suppose, oil, but I never buy that kind. Actually I buy the kind that has no salt added, too.)

1-2 cups frozen tiny baby peas. Or not so tiny ones, if you don't mind them. They seem kind of icky to me, but I like the little tiny ones. You don't need to thaw these.

2-3 cups shredded cheese of your choice. I usually use 2 cups of colby-jack and a cup or so of parmesan or romano, but it depends what I have in the house. Something that melts well is what you're going for, and since you're probably feeding kids, don't bother with really good cheese. I buy bags of shredded stuff and throw them in the freezer, then pull out whatever I have and use it. "Italian" blends work fine, as do "Mexican." Real cheese that you shred yourself is probably better.

breadcrumbs, optional


OK. So you have your ingredients. Turn your oven on to 350 or so (400 if you're in a hurry) and make sure you have a casserole dish that holds a pound of cooked pasta.

Put up a pan of water for the pasta. While you wait for it to boil, melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. Medium heat. When the butter's melted (don't let it burn!), whisk in the flour. When it collects into a sort of pasty mess at the bottom of your pan, add the milk and whisk madly to break up the clumps. (If you heated the milk beforehand this might go more smoothly, but if you just keep whisking it will work with cold milk out of the fridge.)

Keep whisking while you heat the milk to just below boiling. Turn the heat down a bit if you need to. The sauce will thicken up quite a bit. Whisk the mustard, if you're using it, in as it thickens. (I find it makes a big difference.)

If you already knew how to make a bechamel (aka white sauce, aka cream sauce) you could have skipped those last two paragraphs.

When the sauce has thickened take it off the heat. When the pasta water boils, duh, add the pasta and boil it until tender but not mushy. Drain the pasta and run cold water over it to stop it cooking.

Dump the pasta back in the pasta pan. Pour the sauce over it and mix it together. Then add the tuna (breaking it up in the can a bit before you dump it in) and the peas. Mix it all together so that the tuna and peas are evenly distributed.

Put half the pasta/sauce/tuna/peas mixture in the bottom of the casserole. Scatter half the cheese over it. Then the rest of the pasta, and the rest of the cheese. If you like, blanket the top with bread crumbs. Crushed up Ritz crackers or potato chips would be decadent and tasty. Pop the whole thing in the oven and bake until the top is golden and crusty. This will take 15-20 minutes at 400, up to half an hour at lower heat. Since everything was already cooked before it went in, all you really need to do is melt the cheese and brown the top, but if you have to go take a shower or something and need it to be in the oven longer, you might cover the casserole when you put it in, then take the top off and blast the heat up to 425 or so for the last few minutes.

This is, obviously, not haute cuisine. It's comfort food. You could probably leave the tuna out and add more cheese and call it mac-n-cheese, though there are contrary opinions on this one. (That article's from the NYTimes so you may not be able to read it all; the operative phrase is "vexatious infatuation with white sauce, a noxious paste of flour-thickened milk." So, you've been warned about the sauce. My kids like it. I do, too.) The white Moosewood cookbook, Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home, has a fancy version with cauliflower, onions, and tomatoes, but my kids won't eat that so why bother? This, they will eat.

[Edited to add: Masha, I don't cook in the mornings; it's all I can do to feed myself before leaving the house at 7 am, and this is just the kind of mindless thing I can do at 5 or 6 pm. But, if you wanted, you could certainly make this ahead and then put it in the fridge. It would just take about forty-five minutes, I think, to heat it up when you were ready to eat. But, really, I assume you know how to make something like this already...]

Delurking Day

I always feel as if I know all my readers, but maybe I don't! If you feel like it, de-lurk to tell me if you want recipes or if that would just be boring. I'm still not sure about it myself.

what we eat

Becca is tired of making food her kids won't eat. I'm with her on that. My kids are older, and my daughter, at least, has learned to keep her opinions to herself (and, apparently, to swallow food without tasting it), but my son, my son! Even if he likes the meal he finds something he doesn't like to complain about. Last night it was the lettuce. I made this weird, but weirdly delicious, pasta dish--that both kids have happily eaten before, I might add!--and he complained about the lettuce. "Could I just have a plain piece of lettuce and then the pasta and sausage?" Well, no. Because I'm putting it all together in one bowl so that the rest of us can eat it. And I'm mean like that. (BTW, if you make the dish, I use romaine, which is crunchy and doesn't get quite so wilt-y, and turkey italian sausage, so I can kid myself that it's healthy.)

He ate it, in the end, though he picked through his bowlful to eat as little lettuce as possible.

This happens, it seems, every day. And, though I love to cook, I do get tired of it. Especially when I remember that I will have to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. (Yes, Mark does cook, but I do more of it--mostly because I like to, so don't worry about my traditional housewifeliness or anything, please!)

I am thinking about posting one recipe a week here, things that we have liked, that are easy, that are (reasonably) healthy. And to see if I like writing up recipes, as it's something I've thought a lot about. We'll see if I actually do it. (I don't think the epicurious link actually counts.)

Tonight we are going to try Nigella's chicken nugget recipe, both because I'm still obsessed with Feast, and because--why not?

heresy

Mark and I went to see Narnia yesterday. We didn't have high expectations. Mark doesn't like fantasy at all, and I've really burned out on the book after teaching it so often. I used to love the Narnia books as a kid, but of late I've come around to Philip Pullman's way of thinking about them. (Note that his opinions are much more nuanced in this New Yorker article than in the more frequently cited Guardian piece from some years ago...) I was always sorry that Susan didn't get to go to heaven in The Last Battle (my sympathy for her probably has to something to do with the fact that I'm the Susan in my family, the second child and oldest daughter). I didn't catch on to the racism in The Horse and his Boy when I was a kid, but reading it to Mariah several years ago I began to want to edit it on the fly. And lately I'd been especially annoyed by the avuncular tone in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; for example, when Aslan announces that they have to hurry in order to defeat the witch before tea-time. Yeah, right.

Well, there's none of that in the film. When Father Christmas gives Lucy a dagger, he does indeed say that battles are ugly, but he doesn't add "when women fight," as he does in the novel. Susan gets to shoot an arrow in the battle, in fact. The opening of the film is terrific, and demonstrates one of the ways movies can and should depart from books, by showing us what can only be hinted at in print. Where Lewis gives us a sentence in which he notes that the children "were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids," the film shows us an air-raid, and then the children's mother crying as she puts them on the train. It also shows us what bombing looks like, something that gets echoed later in the battle scene.

As others have said, Lucy's entrance into Narnia is especially well done. She looks like a real kid, for one thing--snaggle-toothed and a little dough-faced. And when she and Tumnus first meet they scare each other in a way that feels completely believable. (Again, as others have said, Tumnus is one of the triumphs of the film. He's fabulous.) Tilda Swinton is terrifyingly beautiful and freakish all at once. The landscape is golden. (Why is New Zealand the location of choice for fantasy epics?)

I was sucked in throughout. While I can not help suspending disbelief when I read the novel--mostly because Lewis keeps reminding me that I'm reading a novel--I had no such problem with the film. In fact, I was weeping off and on throughout. (OK, I'm a little overwrought anyway, and I often weep at bad films, but this was different. Take my word.) I could quibble with a few things that I do like in the novel that the film left out--especially the food! (My favorite subject, of course!) But overall, I liked the film a lot, better (in fact) than I like the book.

Yes, that's the heresy: I think the film is better than the book.

Some other time I may want to talk about Christian allegory in general, and my opinions of Lewis's version of Christianity. I'm not crazy about it, to put it mildly--onward, Christian soliders, and all that. The film, contrary to my expectations, seems to me to downplay that angle, frankly. I may come up with some criticisms later. But it was exactly what I needed yesterday afternoon.

weird

I'm a little weirded out to be linked here (Jan. 6--I can't figure out how to link to a specific post). Folks, I'm going to try not to write about the Harvey killings any more. It's not my story, and, while I'm still overwhelmed by it, I have nothing to add. If you came here from bluecricket and were upset to find me nattering on about Nigella, sorry.

I'm going back to the kitchen now.

Feasting

I should really put Nigella's Feast over in the sidebar under books read [edited to add: done!], because it was the best book I got for Christmas, and the only one I've read cover to cover. She's such a fun writer.

I've also been cooking up a storm out of it. The New Year's day pork roast, which I made before New Year's, then the lentils, the breakfast banana ring and the banana pancakes, a big pasta, the biscotti...there may even be more, but that's enough, isn't it? Six recipes out of a new cookbook? (I made the banana ring twice already, too.)

I have been thinking about why it's so much fun to make these recipes. (Even when, as with the big pasta, they really aren't much to write home about.) There's something very inviting about the way Nigella presents herself and her cooking--nothing too elaborate or fussy, just home cooking.

The recipes are well presented, at least for people who already cook. I'm not sure how it works for truly novice cooks, as she tends to assume a lot. She assumes, for example, that you'll be comfortable substituting ingredients. Often she'll tell you about alternatives right there in a sidebar. With the banana breakfast ring, she reminds you that a half teaspooon of vinegar in a cup of milk makes an acceptable substitute for buttermilk--which was helpful to me as I had less buttermilk than I thought in the fridge! In a big encyclopedic cookbook like the Joy of Cooking or Fanny Farmer, there's a table of substitutions, but you need to check the index to find it and then see if the particular ingredient you don't have is actually listed. I like Nigella's way better, though of course if she didn't happen to think of an alternative you won't find it at all.

Becca's already talked about problems with some of the recipes, and I'm sure there are more, but I've still been finding the book out on the countertop more often than in the bookshelf over the last two weeks, and with mostly gratifying results. My winter cooking binge will have to slow down next week when classes start up again, so I'm taking advantage now.

too creepy

They've arrested two men in the killings, and now they're tying another victim to them as well. It's horrible, and yet something of a relief. I hope this is over.here's today's story

Nick is having a hard time with this. He was fine in school last week, but seemed kind of fragile yesterday (nothing too out of the ordinary, but shy and a little weepy when called on it). Today he just plain didn't want to go to school. I told him the killers had been arrested, and that helped a little, but when we got in the car he was weepy again, and so I sat with him for a little and comforted him. We tried to go to school but he so obviously didn't want to be there that I just picked up his homework and brought him home.

He keeps saying he doesn't know why he's crying, and we just keep hugging him. I told him I thought he must be sad about Stella and her family, and he said, yes, but he didn't know why that would make him not want to go to school. I reminded him that he first heard about it there, and he (quite reasonably) responded that then the kids who first heard about it at home might be afraid of their houses. And anyway, the family was killed in their house--but he's not afraid at home.

I know these things aren't rational, and he so desperately wants them to be.

Thanks, all you lovely readers who've sent me your good thoughts and the various links, by the way. I didn't link to the story last week--I just couldn't bear to. I didn't want the story in my cache, really. I've been hitting "clear history" every time I read more about it. But I am hoping that the arrest sticks, that the police are right, and that we pick up the pieces and move on. Slowly.

We do what we can

Mostly I just don't want yesterday's post sitting on top. While I know the family can't move on, and there are others feeling more grief than I, I need to return to a routine, to fake it for a while. I wondered as I went to pick Nick up at school today, "will I ever feel normal again?" I know I will.

Went to see Syriana today. Neither uplifting nor escapist, but complex and engaging enough to make me focus on something else for a while. It helped. It's a mess of a movie in a lot of ways, and besides being about the intertwining corruption of government and industry it's about how fathers fail their sons, I think. There are a lot of fathers in the film, some who try and some who don't, but all of them fail their sons, as far as I can tell, without exception. Mothers, with only one exception, are strikingly absent from this film's world.

sick to my stomach

I took Nick into school this morning and noticed, on our way in, clutches of parents talking, a few folks in suits I didn't know, and an air of anxiety. I took Nick to his classroom and retraced my steps. Passing a couple I know, I stopped. "What's going on? People seem...stricken," I said. I didn't know I thought that until the word came out.

They looked at me oddly. I wasn't sure what I saw in their eyes.

"Did you just get back into town?"

"No, but I don't read the paper, I don't watch the news."

A murder. A young family. Two kids, one in Nick's grade. The parents. All dead in their house on New Year's Day.

A group of parents stood in the auditorium. A detective spoke. A school board member (who has a child at the school). Several ministers, one the pastor at the church where the younger child went to day care. Another, a dear friend, husband of a teacher at Nick's school. A couple of counselors. After morning announcements, the principal joined us.

Nick didn't know. He heard it this morning from his teacher. He is spending the day in school as usual--they're "trying to keep the routine for the kids." But the third graders, who knew the older daughter, are being watched carefully this morning. "Grief counselors will circulate through the classrooms, pulling kids out in small groups to talk if they need to." They are doing a writing project, writing about, or to, the girl they knew, drawing pictures, remembering. He knew her, a little, knew the toystore the mom operated. What will he think? What will we say when he comes home? What will we tell Mariah, who already has trouble sleeping, imagining dangers we have never discussed? She will hear, I'm sure--this is not that big a town, and the kids at her school will have heard already. We lived in ignorance for two days, and I want to go back to that ignorance. I want not to know this. I want it not to be true.

a really, really bad mother

I've been blogging since the middle of 2003 and I have never once blogged about a child on a birthday before. For the record, we do celebrate their birthdays--perhaps so well that there's no time to write about it. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Anyway, I was glad to see this year wasn't an anomaly!

Happy Birthday

I am a terrible mother. No birthday post for Mariah, although she turned sixteen (gasp!) almost a week ago. Last Wednesday, to be precise. In my defense, we had six girls over to spend the night, and the following day in-laws arrived. So we had stuff to do.

Anyway, here's to Mariah, age sixteen. Smart, funny, talented, beautiful. We like her friends, we talk about books with her over dinner (tonight: "Should I read The Fountainhead?"), we like a lot of the same movies. She wears my clothes and doesn't return them. She advises me on what to wear (often, things she'd like to borrow...)

I was going to do Becca's five weird things about her, but after booby-trapping the doors every night (she keeps us safe) I couldn't come up with four more. She claims she and her friends are all weird kids who couldn't make it in "regular" high school, but they go to an art school and they all seem fine to me.

I called her "sweetie" the moment she was born, and endearments have come easily to me ever since, though never before. So, though it's belated, happy birthday, sweetie!

Happy New Year

I don't make new year's resolutions; they just make me feel inadequate. I can give something up for Lent--forty days is doable--but wholesale changes in behavior have never, for me, been tied to the calendar. So no resolutions here.

But here's what I want:

less time in doctor's offices for all of us, but especially Mark

more time with family and friends

progress on writing projects

a beach vacation

one week when we can look around and say, "there's no work to do on the house" (really I want more than a week, but I'm trying to be realistic)

more exercise

What was good about 2005? Not a whole lot in the world, I'm afraid. But here are a few things I enjoyed:

summer abroad

Mariah's friends

our friends

reconnecting with family

knitting

cooking and baking

my $5 espresso machine from the church yard sale

caring less about the things that give me stress. (I know this sounds like fatalism, or obscurantism, but right now it's working, so I'm saying it.)

I've got fresh bread out of the oven and I'm cooking some lentils because Nigella says they're good luck on New Year's. Right now, life is good.