Microblog Monday: Honey Gone Nuts Granola

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I have been stress eating.

The house needs to be packed up, but we can't pack it up much more because we're living in it.  Students are still having crises.  Our summer vacation plans, meager as they were, have been blown up bit by bit by other commitments: to family reunions, to orientation at my son's new school, to work responsibilities that have cropped up in the middle of July and August that require me to be there when I thought I'd get a week off.  My commute, long though it may be now, when shortened will no longer take me past the fields of horses and cows and alpacas I've grown to love. It's been a long, long time since we took more than a few days' vacation, and it's starting to wear on me.

Mel posted about craving this morning, about how it's not about the food we want but about the experience connected to the food that we're trying to recreate.  In my case, though, I disagree: I think it's purely chemical. Sometimes I crave chocolate cake, and in my more desperate endorphin-seeking moments I make chocolate mug cake.  It's not beautiful, but it serves the purpose.

I've also, oddly, been craving granola.  I used to make cranberry ginger granola, mostly in the winter for Christmas, but two years ago my blogger friend Ilene opened her store Hippie Chick Granola Co., and I rarely bother to make my own any more, because hers was even better, even if I did have to ship it from North Carolina.  Besides, I like supporting a small woman-owned business. And I wanted to order some the other night, but Ilene was in Raleigh pitching to Shark Tank, and even if she were at her ovens in Oak Island, I couldn't get it fast enough.

Kimberly, the baker at my beloved coffee shop (she takes orders) also makes fabulous granola (come to think of it, Ilene and Kimberly would get along very well). Truth be told, I hardly ever buy coffee at the coffee shop; Kimberly also makes the best scones and cake and yeast doughnuts that don't come out of my oven. They sell their granola with yogurt and fresh fruit in a cup that is just the right size to stick in my cupholder so I can eat as I drive to work.  Sadly, this breakfast of the gods costs $4, so it's not an everyday occurrence.

So I bit the bullet, went to the grocery store, channeled Ilene and Kimberly, and hoped for the best.  Both of them taught me (by taste, more than anything else) that salt is key. And that you should dial back on the oats. And that you shouldn't oversweeten your granola.  And that olive oil makes for a light, crispy, even nuttier crunch.

Though I'm sure that I'll still be buying Kimberly's and Ilene's granola, because they are far more talented bakers than I could ever hope to be, the results were satisfactory.  I've been snacking on it since it came out of the oven, and this morning, I heaped it over greek yogurt and apricots, and drove to work with my own container in the cupholder, admiring the fields of buttercups where horses grazed, trying to let the knots in my shoulders go.

Salted Honey Gone Nuts Granola

1 c. hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1 c. almonds, slivered
1 c. cashews, coarsely chopped
1 c. unsweetened coconut flakes
2 c. oats
generous grind of sea salt (yes, you really need sea salt)
4 1/2 T. olive oil
3 T. honey (or 1 1/2 - 2 T. agave for your vegans out there or people watching your g.i.)

Preheat oven to 350.  Prepare a metal sheet pan by lining it with aluminum foil, lightly oiled.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together with your hands.  Add the honey and oil, toss well to coat.

Pour onto prepared baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned, and cool for a while on the pan, until your self-restraint has evaporated and you must eat some.

The Quick-Change, and Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

I have a long-standing history of overcommitment.

Though my early childhood schedule of piano, flute and dance lessons doesn't hold a candle to the insane co-curricular schedule of some of my children's peers, I was definitely always busy.  And as I grew older, I held on to those commitments by choice, adding new ones that fit my interests.

It didn't pose a problem until things came to a head in the eighth grade, when my choral concert directly conflicted with my dance school's dress rehearsal for its biennial recital.  You'd probably think that given this kind of conflict, one would simply skip the dress rehearsal for the show, but generalizations don't account for my dance teacher, who was certain the world revolved around her recital (and to be honest, in my town, she was right).

I had a solo in the choral concert.  Not just a piece with choral backup, but my own piece.  Which probably made skipping that concert potentially easier, but also harder at the same time.  Sure, they could take my name out of the program.  But voluntarily giving up the spotlight I'd worked so hard to earn?  Not so much.

So I plotted, with the support of my parents, to attempt attendance at both.  Dance the first number at the dress rehearsal, hop in the car, drive to the concert and sing, get back in the car, return to the dress rehearsal for the remainder of the evening.

This plan was made more challenging by the fact that my school was about twenty minutes away from where I lived.  And I had to change from a tutu and tights to civvies and back to a skimpy little jazz number.  While the car was in motion.  No small feat for a self-conscious pre-adolescent.

I remember, clearly, sitting in the back seat, all limbs and tuille, trying to angle myself into the next costume with my seat belt on, while my eight year old brother looked on in amusement.  I'd done "quick changes" before--that was a standard in dance school once you got old enough to be in several numbers per show--but doing it in motion was something entirely different, something more than a little nausea-inducing.  Mastering the art of the quick-change, my dance teacher would tell us, meant understanding that we could do it all.

Body memory goes deep; every time since then when I've found myself racing from one overlapping commitment to another, I've been right back there in the back seat of our ancient tank-like Mercedes, my father gunning the engine through the dense neighborhoods of suburban New Jersey, my mother gripping the door handle and worrying out loud.  Occasionally, when I've re-experienced this feeling, the stakes felt high: when my son was born, for example, leaving work on time meant that I only just barely got home in time to feed him, and being stuck behind a slow-moving truck meant a meltdown at home in my absence, and a thirty-minute pumping session at home at the end of a long day, before I could sit down for dinner, if there was time to eat at all.  Other times, the stakes were less high, when I double-booked myself at meetings of community organizations, or made promises to two different groups of people, knowing that I could technically get it all done.  Still, sometimes, the quick-change works less well than others.

I'm much less overcommitted these days; working full time with a commute makes it impossible to promise my time to much of anything else after hours back home, if I still want to see my family.  I've had to come to terms with that, and it's been at the front and center of some of my conversations after the election, since one of the things I gave up to work full time was my position on the school board.  I gave up my committee chair position at our fellowship.  (I tried to give up the Friends of the Library Board, too, but they refused to take my name off of their executive board roster, so I've decided to take my son to meetings in the future, which would work well for everyone.)  There have been less-satisfying sacrifices, like my favorite yoga class.  But the most important thing is that I no longer pretend to have it all.  The quick-change approach to life is fairly unsatisfying; you're always thinking about the next place you need to be; and, as I learned that one spring, it just isn't practical to put on a leotard in a moving vehicle.

It's been over a year now since Anne-Marie Slaughter's article on "Why Women Can't Have It All" went viral, and it doesn't feel like very much has changed out there.  I still get the feeling people wonder why I'm not doing everything I used to do.  And it's astounding to me that we'd never most likely never ask that question of a man.

I hope not to overschedule my kids, not just because they "deserve to be kids for as long as possible," but because they need to learn that it's OK to make choices.  That adults shouldn't be overscheduled, either.  That's it's not a healthy way of life.  Sure, we are in a rush to get out the door in the mornings; I'm not sure how else to do it, short of getting everyone up at 4:30 a.m.  But there are also days with Legos, and books, and stickers, and a long walk through downtown, with no destination in mind.

Do you do your own quick-change?

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
One way we try to buy a few extra minutes in the morning before my kids do their own not-so-quick change from PJs to clothes is by throwing breakfast in the blender.  Usually, there's some version of mango or strawberry-banana smoothies; this weekend, I figured I'd try a pumpkin pie smoothie on them for a change.  My son turned up his nose, and my picky daughter licked the glass clean.  This could also work as a dessert.

1 banana, peeled and frozen (they are sweeter that way)
3/4 c. pumpkin puree
1 container Greek yogurt (honey, vanilla, or plain)
2/3 c. milk
splash orange juice
1/2 t. cinnamon (or to taste)
1/2 t. ginger (or to taste; I added more as I went)
1/4 t. nutmeg

Toss everything in the blender and whirl until smooth.  Pour into a fancy glass, preferably with a fancy umbrella, which will make your breakfast feel leisurely even if you really don't have time to dally, and serve.

Jane Eyre, Feminism, the Gothic, and Cardamom Scones

I was eleven.  My aunt and uncle, in a moment of uncharacteristic attentiveness to my interests, had bought me a copy of Jane Eyre for my birthday; the 500-and-some-page Illustrated Junior Library edition, it boasted a full color hard cover and plastic dust jacket.  Though I remember my mother saying something about the fact that I was probably a bit too young for Jane Eyre, there was something special about that book from the beginning, about the thickness of the pages, the tantalizing illustration on the cover, its sheer weightiness.  My first real literature, perhaps.  And though I struggled a bit with the tangled language and the length of the sentences, I soon fell in love with its heroine, just as I'd fallen in love with Louisa May Alcott, Girl of Old Boston, even before I read Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables after that.  Jane Eyre is one of the few non-children's books I've read multiple times in my life, some assigned, and some not.

A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of the book's 1847 publication, the Huffington Post featured what amounted to "lessons we can learn from Jane Eyre."  I found the piece a little Pollyannish : one of the author's takeaways is "Be Positive!" as if Victorian heroines had any choice but contentment with their lot, or at least the forced moral fortitude to embrace it as a "lesson."  After all, Helen Burns tells Jane that "it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear."  Still, it brought back fond memories of reading the book and identifying with Jane, as I identified with Alcott's Jo March: a plain, outspoken young woman who lived both completely in the world and completely apart from it.   To this day, there's something about the name I find powerful; it was on my short list of names for our daughter.

There's the proto-feminism, of course; as she leaves Thornfield, knowing that a relationship with Rochester would mean the loss of her self-respect, Jane (and, by extension, Brontë) offers some thoughts about independence which I think are relevant even now: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”  While I think that oversimplifies things (do we respect ourselves for being "unsustained"? or is there something respectable about knowing how to lean on others, too? what lessons do we teach our children about finding balance between independence and interdependence?), I confess, it's a principle by which I've lived most of my life. 

And then there's the fact that Brontë gets Romanticism right for me: though I wouldn't consider myself a sucker for Romantic novels of the Victorian period, I wept through the death of Jane's friend Helen from consumption, wondering whether one got consumption now, and whether I should be wary of catching it. I remember, too, wishing for a champion like Miss Temple, and resolving to have tea in my chambers for students, should I ever end up teaching in a boarding school--a resolve which was later re-kindled by my crush on Professor Keating of Dead Poet's Society.

I was also drawn to the Gothic aspects of the novel, especially the powerful shadow-figure of Bertha Mason, and feeling sorry for her, even long before I read Wide Sargasso Sea, which attributes Rochester's rejection and her subsequent descent into madness to her (literal) "dark" Creole heritage.  Jane defends her without knowing, in her first weeks at Thornfield, musing that women "suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation"; they are, quite literally, trapped.  Bram Stoker was born the month after Jane Eyre was published, and dressing my son as Dracula this year for Halloween, I found myself thinking about the madwomen in the attic, about how Halloween enables us to plumb our own darker sides, to play with the shadows within us.  As he moved from house to house, I watched my son begin to walk differently, cape billowing behind him, fangs brilliant against the ghostly face I'd painted; he was absolutely getting into the character, in a way he hadn't done in Halloweens past.

What are the books you've read again and again?  Which literary characters have spoken to you over the years?  Did you channel your inner madwoman for Halloween?  What are your thoughts on the balance between independence and interdependence?

Cardamom Scones with Cranberries
Miss Temple offered Jane and Helen seed cake during their first visit to her chambers.  While these aren't exactly cake, I suspect that they're more like what Miss Temple had in her room, given the conditions at Lowood school, and the cardamom pods count as seeds in my book.  Enjoy them warm out of the oven on a dark night or cloudy morning,with a cup of tea.

3 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
3/4 t. cardamom pods (or, if you must, 1/2 t. ground cardamom)
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 c. plain Greek yogurt
1/2 c. sugar (I used evaporated cane)
2 eggs
additional sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Peel the cardamom pods and grind the seeds with a mortar and pestle (or use a very small knife and carefully chop until you have powder).  Stir the cardamom into the flour mixture.

Cut the butter in with a pastry blender or two knives until small crumbs form.  Add yogurt, sugar, and one egg, and mix (you can use your fingers).  At this point you can also add anything else you want (candied ginger, cranberries, raisins, chocolate chips).

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts (you can also use an ice cream scoop to get rough 1/3 c. balls); place the dough on the parchment.

Whisk the other egg and brush over the dough.  Sprinkle with additional sugar.

Bake 25 minutes, or until pleasantly golden brown.  Serve warm.

Advice, and Double Dark Chocolate Beet Muffins

Yesterday, my friend Kathy hosted her monthly Time Warp Tuesday blog hop.  I missed the hop, but I loved the theme for this month, which was Advice.


I tend to give a lot of advice, I suspect, not even under the guise of opinion; I probably offer it up as fact.  Though I was trained in advising, and when I'm working with students I'm careful not to give advice so much as facilitate their own inner dialogue, there are plenty of times outside of my professional duties when I offer up my own ideas about someone else's dilemmas.

I ask for advice a lot, too, but I don't take advice very well; more often than not I am--even subconsciously--looking for verification of an opinion I've already arrived at, and would like confirmation of my choice.

But the tables were turned on me a bit this week, on Sunday, when I was sitting with my son for a while before he went to sleep.

"I'm nervous about my first day," I confided.

"It's OK, Mom," he told me, "I was nervous about my first day of school, too."

"You were?" I asked, both amused and genuinely surprised.  "But you looked so confident when you waved good bye to me on the bus.  What were you most nervous about?  Meeting new people?  Having someone ask you something you didn't know the answer to?"

"Yes, not knowing the answer," he agreed. 

"Well, that's what I'm most afraid of," I said.  "That I won't know the things they want me to know."

"Well," he said, thoughtfully, "just remember, that if they ask you something you don't know, it's OK to tell them you don't know, and then ask them questions, so they can help you out."

Wow, I thought. Pretty fabulous advice for a six year old.  Better, even, than "eat your vegetables so you can grow up big and strong."

I followed his advice, and told my new boss what he'd told me that night.  "How old did you say he was?" she asked.

"Six," I said.

"He is wise beyond his years," she marveled.

Yes, I agreed.  Except when he really does act like a six year old, and thinks that poop jokes are the funniest thing ever.  And I couldn't be more grateful for both elements.
 

Double Dark Chocolate Beet Muffins

Eat your vegetables and grow up big and strong.  I made these with our CSA share to take to the Cape for the week we spent before my first day, and I told everyone right up front that they were made with beets.  That didn't seem to matter, and they were gone in less than two days.

1 c. beet puree (use about 3 good-sized beets; see below)
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

1/4 c. ground flax seed
1/2 c. Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips
1/4 c. butter

2/3 c. Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 c. buttermilk
1 t. vanilla extract

1 T. espresso powder

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wrap beets in foil. Place on a baking sheet; bake until beets are slightly soft to the touch, 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on their size. Cool beets in packets, then rub off skins under cold running water (use a paring knife for tough spots).  Puree one at a time until you get 1 c. (you can set aside the unpureed parts, if there are any, for a salad).  Cool completely.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a 12-cup muffin tin; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flax until well combined.  Stir in the half cup chocolate chips; set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt the other 2/3 cup chocolate chips and butter over very low heat.  Stir to combine and set aside to cool until lukewarm.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, brown sugar, beet puree, buttermilk, vanilla and melted chocolate.  Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined. Don’t overmix. Immediately spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.  The batter will almost completely fill the cups.

Place muffin pan in a preheated 375 oven and bake for 18-20 minutes. Muffins are done when they spring back when touched lightly in the center (or when a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean). Cool muffins for 10 minutes in pan then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Going Back, Moving Forward: Spanish Hot Chocolate

It was strange to land in LA and find the landscape so familiar; I found myself re-mapping the city in my head, block by block, freeway by freeway, backseat driving before the second day was through.

On the first morning, since the kids were up way before anything was open, we drove to Venice Beach, and walked along the deserted boardwalk.  I couldn't help thinking about my first landing in LA almost 20 years ago, and the drive to the beach through the darkness, so I could put my feet in the Pacific Ocean, feeling like I'd just discovered another continent.  Pulling our sweatshirts against the wind, my son and I watched the early skateboarders and talked about homelessness in warmer climates.

Later we drove across town, past my old grocery store, past the alley where I was mugged at gunpoint, past my old apartment building where I lived next to a rockabilly couple on one side and a drag queen on the other and upstairs from a large Russian Orthodox Jewish family, past (and later, into) the bakery where I drowned my graduate school sorrows and celebrated triumphs with the best white chocolate raspberry cake on the planet.  We wandered around the Fairfax farmer's market, which had gotten a facelift thanks to the new upscale shopping center that colonized it.  We parked at the LaBrea Tar Pits--where I'd never been, despite the fact that I'd lived just blocks away--and marveled at bubbling asphalt.

We spent a day at the zoo with an old friend--the one I credit with responsibility for my return to the East Coast--and had a drink with an old boyfriend, who drove across town through rush hour traffic and walked to the end of the Santa Monica Pier in the wintry wind for the meager reward of a margarita and a quick conversation.  We drove to Long Beach to hang out at the aquarium with our old neighbor, who was thrilled to see the kids again and to be hug-bombed by familiar arms and faces.  And on the last day we drove through the rain up the PCH, stood on the beach in a break of sunlight and collected Pacific Ocean water at Leo Carillo beach, wandered back along the canyons on Mullholland Highway, and ate a huge brunch at Canter's deli.

We're back in the land of snow and hot cocoa now.  But I haven't entirely left LA, like I had last time. For everything people say about not being able to go back, it was easier to be there than I thought; actually, it felt oddly like I was tying up a loose end in my past, or bringing closure by returning as a different version of myself.  Maybe I'd let enough time pass so that the city didn't have such emotional power over me any more: I'd gotten a different doctoral degree, had a family, put down roots.

The more I thought about it, the more I think I've decided it's possible to go back somewhere (or even to look backwards) while also moving forward ... in fact, sometimes I think it's almost necessary to keep those pieces of our past intact, to remind us of where we've been so we can remember where we want to go, or at least appreciate where we are.

Happy New Year to you all.  Look forward to the year ahead.  Make plans.  Aspire.  But don't forget to touch base, once in a while, with the former yous.  Because they're no less you than you are now.

Spanish Hot Chocolate
I saw an advertisement in LA for "rich hot chocolate" and was a little disappointed with what I got because I think I was imagining this drink instead.  Another remnant from my past; this hot chocolate is the sort you dip churros into on brisk mornings in the cafes of Madrid.  Anything else that claims it's "drinking chocolate"?  Isn't.

1.25 oz. dark chocolate (60% or more)
1 c. milk
2 t. corn starch (less for thinner, more for thicker chocolate)
2 t. sugar (or to taste)

Pour half of the milk into a small saucepan and add the chocolate.  Melt over medium-low heat.

In the meantime, dissolve corn starch into the rest of the milk.  (Make sure it's fully dissolved, or you'll get lumps.)

Slowly add the milk and corn starch to the melted chocolate mixture.  Whisk in sugar.  Continue to whisk for about 5 minutes, or until the hot chocolate thickens.  Strain into a mug and drink ... or dip ... or eat in small mouthfuls with a spoon.

Comfort Me With Apples

Autumns of my childhood are inextricably linked to apples.

Every year, my father would run an apple picking trip for the kids in his urban high school; they'd drive their tricked-out cars to the northernmost points in New Jersey, where they parked them under the trees among the apples that had already fallen, now fermenting on the ground.  And they'd do what most people do in an apple orchard: climb trees.  It was the one time every year when I was given permission to climb trees, too, and I remember grabbing hold of the branches, finding a sturdy limb high in a tree heavy with fruit, and resting against the trunk, sinking my teeth into one I'd just picked.  I learned early about varieties of apples: that they didn't just come in two colors, but in all shades of red and pink and yellow and green, some wish a base color and a blush, some with shiny skin.  Some were round, and some were shaped like hearts, with bumps and ridges at the bottom.  And the variety of tastes!  To my undeveloped palate, the sweet crisp McIntosh were the perfect apples, but I learned to love Jonagold and Honeycrisp and Gala and Pink Lady, and as I got older, I discovered the Winesap.

We would pick bushels of apples--more fruit than I thought we could use--but my parents would store them int the stall shower of our basement, where it was dark and cool like a root cellar, and somehow they disappeared into my father's apple spiced apple compote, or into our lunchboxes, or--though more rarely--into a pie.

When I worked in the university, I took my students apple picking a few times, loading them onto a bus, and giving them photocopied sheets about apple varieties, encouraging them to taste them, to notice how amazing an apple could be.  Now that I look back at it, those early days in the orchard were my first exposure to eating locally, knowing where your food comes from, and to the incredible range of varietals--and those bus trips were my attempt to pass on my love for fresh food.

On Wednesday the kids had off from school, and I suggested meeting some of I'.s friends at a local orchard.  We went on a hayride, picked more apples than any of us think we could possibly use, and tasted the difference between Macoun and Cortland and Winesap.  Because the signs are clearly posted telling us not to, we didn't exactly climb trees.  But the kids climbed all over the playground afterwards, looking out across the valley onto the beautiful expanse of autumn in our county.  And then we came home, and S. made pie for breakfast.

Grammy L's Apple Pie
S. loves this pie; it's his grandmother's recipe.  I am a stubborn pie snob, and I prefer my pie, but this one is a lot faster, involves no rolling of crust, and I'm not going to turn down homemade pie, especially if I don't have to make it.

1 stick margarine
2 c. flour
6 T. sugar
7 medium apples, grated
1 T. sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400F.

Crumble margarine, flour, and sugar together.  Press 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of a pie pan.  Set aside the other 1/3.

Combine the apples with sugar and cinnamon.  Top with the remaining crumb crust and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Bake about 40 minutes, or until the filling bubbles.

Perfect Moment Monday: Simple Birthdays and Strawberry Muffins

Perfect Moment Monday is a monthly blog hop/writing prompt, sponsored by Lavender Luz at Write Mind Open Heart, about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between. On the last Monday of each month we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join.

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When my son was old enough to start attending birthday parties, I was a little bit appalled at the kinds of birthday parties being thrown for the preschool and kindergarten aged set.  I felt lucky when he didn't complain about a party-in-the-park that turned into a big-playdate-at-our-house due to rain one year, and when he asked, at age four, for an "adults-only" celebration.  Last year, we celebrated more traditionally with a space-themed party at our house, but, type A person that I am, I spent months planning and preparing.

When we asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, he told us that he only wanted one person at his party: a little girl who has been his friend and constant companion since he was a toddler.

We love A.  She has the impish grin of an elf, but the seriousness and thoughtfulness of a much older child.  She insists on wearing dresses, but also on climbing trees.  They met when my son went to Montessori school, in the Toddler House, where they spent hours together, since both sets of parents were working full time.  When they moved up to the Primary level, they went to separate classrooms, and were thrilled when those classrooms had to be combined due to some downsizing at the school.  The teachers joked that they were inseparable.  I. and A. talked about getting married, about buying a house at the beach, about how many cars and campers and tractor trailers they were going to have.  It was sweet.  And yet, maybe a little too sweet?

I wouldn't say that we tried to dissuade him from his "party for two," but we gave him every opportunity to renege on the decision. I worried about what her parents would think.  What about your other friends? we asked several times over the next month.  What about the boys?  Every time, he shook his head.  No, he'd say, firmly, I just want to have A. over.  Finally, he became annoyed, and said, in that unmistakeable teenager-y voice, "Mom, haven't you been listening to me?"

Well, I had.  But I hadn't.

I.'s birthday would be early in his first year in a new school, in a class full of people he didn't know.  Of course he wouldn't feel comfortable inviting any of those new people to a party.  And maybe he felt like he just wanted something quiet, and familiar: the companionship of a friend whom he hadn't seen since camp ended, and whom he wouldn't see again for many months.

We agreed, and I offered to take them out to tea, at a local place that does high tea the English way, with small sandwiches, scones, and small desserts.  I'd taken I. before, just the two of us, and he enjoyed the attention, the multiple courses, and feeling grown up; he swilled decaf fruit tea like a pro.  He set about designing an invitation immediately, which I didn't even get to see before he sealed it up and sent it off.  (I still don't know what it said, though A.'s parents assure us that it was entirely appropriate.)

I.'s birthday was a perfect fall day: warm but not hot, breezy without the chill.  A. arrived at mid-day, dressed in blue flowers, and I chauffered them both downtown in the MegaWagon.  We ordered one prince and one princess tea, and they chatted and giggled over banana-nutella sandwiches and strawberries and scones while I tried to eat my salad as inconspicuously as possible.  The staff came out with a candle-adorned cupcake in the middle of generous plates of desserts, and sang happy birthday, as I. beamed, and his companion looked on, grinning broadly.

When tea was over, they went browsing at the adjacent shop that sells all things porcelain, and conspiratorially ran ahead of me back to the wagon.  It was hard going on the way back, since I'd drunk an entire pot of tea by myself, and I made the usual adult groaning noises, which they thought were extremely funny.  Finally, about three quarters of the way back, they decided to pull the wagon together up the hill to our house.

And as I walked behind them, feeling the warm autumn sun on my face, I thought about the beauty of uncomplicated friendships, of the completeness of children's love, and felt grateful both that I. has a friend like A., and that he recognizes what a gem she is.  I felt glad that he didn't feel the need to have a big party in order to feel celebrated, and lucky to have a little boy who has already figured out what's really important.  At one point, I was struck by how perfect it was, watching them walk together, and I snapped this picture with my camera phone,  I hoped that they would always remember that first friendship, and remember how it's easier to pull a really large wagon when you're both holding on to the handle, bodies close together, talking, laughing, wondering about the world, and not paying attention to how heavy it is.

It's a lesson we would all do well to learn.

Happy birthday, I.  May they all be as perfect as this moment.


Strawberry Muffins
These healthy muffins are perfect for a lunchbox, a snack container, or children's tea.  Or maybe for you, to share with a friend.

1 c. regular flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
6 T. unrefined sugar or 1/4 c. agave nectar
1/2 t. salt
3 T. baking powder
1 egg or 1 flax egg (1 T. flaxseed + 3 T. water, mixed and let stand)
1 c. milk of your choice (or 3/4 c. + 2 T. milk of your choice if using agave)
3 T. grapeseed oil (melted coconut or canola will also work)
1 c. frozen strawberries, chopped into blueberry-sized chunks

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Separately mix together wet ingredients.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients.  Stir with a wooden spoon until just moistened ... do NOT overmix!  Add the strawberries and stir gently until just combined.

Pour into 12 muffin cups and bake 12 minutes at 400 (or 13-14 minutes at 375 if using agave).

Neighborhoods, Normal, and Doodlesnaps

Life around here has been pretty bizarre lately, and it's left me craving order in my little corner of the universe.

When I was growing up, I had only a few friends in our neighborhood.  The daughter of teachers, I went to school in the town where my mom taught: during the school year, we were up before the crack of dawn and out the door before the neighbor children were awake, and we'd arrive home just in time to start homework and dinner or go to piano lessons or dance lessons or choir practice.  At school, I spent the hours before and after the bell in my mother's classroom, making chalk dust from erasers and collating and stapling dittos.  We had weekends after church and errands were done, and I often spent those precious hours across the street with the two friends that my parents would let me go see on a whim.

And so, despite the ambitious, career-oriented woman that I was, I dreamed of becoming the kind of mother who was known for the freshly baked cookies she always had for visiting friends, who seemed to host the all of the neighborhood kids after school.  I'm not sure why this was my version of normal, but it was.  (In my fantasy, of course, I'd conveniently left out the part about getting home from work at 6.)

The funny thing is that as much as I've loved my neighbors, and as kid-friendly our street is, I've always felt a little bit out of the parenting loop in our neighborhood.  When I was working full time, I got home too late for playdates, and on the weekends people seemed to scatter for family commitments; now that I'm home, it seems like no one is out during the day.  I'd been wondering if the network of stay at home parents I always imagined was just that: imagined.

So I was pleasantly surprised when we were invited to a barbecue this weekend at the house where I. catches his bus in the morning.

We had a perfect day for it: warm, sunny, breezy.  There were plenty of things to nibble on, and a big bounce house for the kids.  The adults sat and drank beer and talked, watching the kids play, soaking in the early fall weather, venturing out past the fenced in yard to play horseshoes.

The hours passed, and somehow it was decided that people would be  camping out in the back yard that night, and by 8pm there were three tents pitched just a few feet away from our house, children playing flashlight tag, reveling in the darkness while their fathers ate Doritos and played cards on the back deck.  And I realized that this was it: this was what I had wanted all of those long years ago, the neighborhood children congregating in my back yard.  And yet, different, because this isn't ever what I'd imagined it would be.  A different sort of normal.

N. and I slept inside, because she would never sleep outside, and woke in the morning to admire the three pods in the semi-dark, wondering when their residents would wake.  And when they did, I made the kids hot cocoa and doodlesnaps, hoping that they'd remember, and come back.

Doodlesnaps
Doodlesnaps are a cross between a muffin and a pancake in 9x9 pan form.  You'll want to eat them warm, because they deteriorate pretty quickly.  Luckily, even though we make them infrequently, that's never much of a problem around here.

2 c. flour (half whole wheat or oat or a combination of flours is fine)
1 c. sugar (or 2/3 c. agave, just reduce the milk by 1/4 c. and decrease oven temp by 25 degrees)
1 egg
1 c. milk (any kind of milk will do)
1 T. oil
4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
cinnamon
brown sugar (or turbinado sugar)
margarine/butter

Preheat oven to 325.  Mix everything together and pour into a greased and floured 9x9 pan.  Sprinkle as generously as you like with brown sugar and cinnamon, and dot with a pea-sized bit of margarine/butter every inch or so.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, with moist crumbs.  Let cool for 5-10 minutes, and enjoy.

A Half Baked Breakfast: Cinnamon Buns

Mornings in my house usually go like this: N. wakes up at five thirty and stands with her nose hung over the gate at her door, shrilling "MOM!  momEEE!  MOM!  momEEEE!  mooOOOOoom!"  This means: "come get me out of this prison, please don't change my diaper because I hate that, and give me my sippy cup of milk STAT."  So I roll out of bed, oblige her (except for the diaper part, because as we all know I am the Cruelest Mom in the Universe), and begin to make breakfast while I get lunch together for my son to take to school or camp.

I. comes down at around six, and climbs up onto the kitchen stool with a surly scowl.  If I have, by some bizarre chance, not yet poured a glass of milk for him, because I was oh, I don't know ... doing TEN other things? he snarls, "Where's My MILK?"

Yep, I just can't wait to wake him up for high school.

I dish out whatever fruit we happen to have on hand (N. demanding "Tay? Tay?" meaning "Excuse me?  Put the fruit on my TRAY!  NOW!") while I'm finishing up lunch preparation, and then I. is on his own to find the rest of his breakfast, because I'm on N.-meal-supervision duty.  Though I often need to run through the list of options, usually, he's pretty good about this: he rummages through the cabinets to find cereal or granola bars, is capable of toasting himself a waffle, climbs up on top of the stools to reach condiments while giving me heart palpitations, and has even, on rare occasions, made French toast with minimal assistance.

Yesterday, when I asked him what else he was going to have for breakfast after he finished his bowl of canteloupe, he looked me square in the eye, crossed his arms, and whined dramatically, "MOM, there is NOTHING here to EAT.  I'm BORED with this food."

I laughed, told him that we had all kinds of things to eat, and he needed to choose one, and continued with the morning routine.  He grumped for about two minutes, and then poured himself a bowl of Life.

But because like my surrogate Jewish mothers I am very sensitive about the issue of having enough tasty things around the house for people to eat, it nagged at me all morning, until finally I decided to do something about it and make cinnamon buns.

My husband is the bread baker in our house, but it would probably never occur to him to make cinnamon buns, because for him, bread is a straightfoward if variable affair involving yeast, flour, water, salt, sweetener for yeast food, and heat.  It never would have occurred to me, either, except that I was going too slowly in the refrigerated dough section of our grocery store last week, saw cinnamon rolls there, and felt nostalgic for Talkeetna.

...

In 1996, the summer after my first year in graduate school, my father got it into his head that I should take a vacation.  I was living alone in LA at the time, and had been traveling up and down the West Coast to visit friends in Berkeley and San Diego, drinking in as much of the Pacific as I could, but I hadn't yet ventured too far north.  My father, in his infinite wisdom, declared that I should go to Alaska.  And, despite my insistent refusal, that he would pay for it.

It was settled.  I planned the entire trip online, in the still-early days of the internet, when first generation web pages were still the standard currency, before Twitter and Facebook, so everything was sight unseen.  I would fly to Anchorage, rent a car, drive to Seward, then backtrack north to Talkeetna, finishing in Wasilla (I had to laugh that I actually knew where Wasilla was during the last presidential campaign) and back in Anchorage.   I made reservations at B&Bs in town at all of these places, so I could walk where I needed to.  Except for Talkeetna, where there was no B&B in town.  And when I drove into Talkeetna in my rented compact, and parked at the Fairview Inn, where I'd reserved a private room, I started to worry.

You see, the Fairview was a bar.  Is a bar.  A historic bar, a lovely bar, perhaps, but a bar nonetheless.  In Alaska.  Where the town bar is just about the only entertainment in town at night.  If you've never slept in a room locked with a hook and eye closure above an Alaskan bar, well ... let's just say it's a unique experience.  You survey the situation.  You decide that it's in your best interest to get to know the locals before you go to bed.  You order a Diet Coke, because you don't dare order a beer.  You strike up a conversation with a mountain man and pilot who hands you his business card: it reads--I kid you not, look him up--Trigger Twigg.  You notice that people carry weapons instead of handbags.  You retire early, and you carefully lock your little hook and eye closure, inspecting the door frame, which is ... historic.

I spent most of the night sitting up in my bed, listening to the raucous laughter downstairs, wondering if one of the locals might, in their excitement, come beat down my door.

I survived, but the next morning I moved to the Talkeetna Roadhouse.  I'd originally been hesitant to go there because it was more like a hostel, with multiple bunks, but it was the only other option in town, and for a woman traveling alone, it seemed like a better choice.  It turned out that the bunk room was empty anyway, so I got my privacy.  I bolted the door that night, slept like a baby, and in the morning, I woke up to the incredible smell of baking cinnamon buns.  I think I wept for pure joy when I arrived downstairs.

I curled up on the couch with a book from their chockfull built ins, and dug into a dinner plate-sized fresh cinnamon bun with a vat of coffee to wash it down.  It was, quite possibly, the second best breakfast I'd ever eaten.

...

I set to work during N's always-too-short afternoon nap, mixing the ingredients for the dough, setting it to rise, making the filling.  By then N. was awake, and I peeked at the dough, which wasn't rising.  I realized I'd set it on the cold countertop, which wasn't warm from the sun as it usually is, and moved it closer to the stove.  After a little while longer I decided I couldn't wait, and attempted to roll out dough while she pulled on my leg: "SEE? SEE? roll, roll.  Roll, roll."
They smelled fabulous while they were baking.   They looked fabulous when they were done.  And smeared with icing?   I was determined that my son, too, would weep for joy when he arrived downstairs for breakfast.

Unfortunately, this morning, he decided that he didn't want cinnamon buns, either.  Madness, I tell you.

Can't win then all, I guess.  More for me.  Here's looking at you, Talkeetna.  I still remember you fondly.  Maybe if you read this, you'll send me your recipe for cinnamon buns.  I promise I'll guard it with my life.

What was the best breakfast you ever ate?

Cinnamon Buns
Adapted from here.  I halved the recipe and it still made eight ... though I suppose if you want to make them Alaskan size, like the Talkeetna Roadhouse did, you could get twelve from the full recipe.  Or eight, but that might be a little crazy.

1 package dry yeast
3/4 c. warm milk
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/3 c. butter, softened
1 t. salt
2 eggs
4 c. flour

1 c. packed brown sugar
2 1/2 T. cinnamon
1/3 c. butter, melted

8 T. butter
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. cream cheese
1/2 t. vanilla
1/8 t. salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl. Add sugar, butter, salt, eggs and flour. Mix well.

Knead the dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour, and adding flour a little at a time if the dough is too sticky. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place (not the countertop, like I did!) about 1 hour or until the dough had doubled in size. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, until it is approximately 21 inches long by 16 inches wide and 1/4-inch thick.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Spread the melted butter over the surface of the dough, then sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture evenly over the surface. Working carefully from the long edge, roll the dough down to the bottom edge. Cut the dough into 1 3/4-inch slices, and place on parchment on baking sheet (or in a baking pan if you don't like your rolls "free form"). Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown.

To make icing: While the rolls are baking, combine 8 T. butter with cream cheese. Beat well with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt, and beat again until the mixture becomes spreadable.  When the rolls are cooled, spread with icing.

You can keep these in the refrigerator and warm them up the next day in the microwave for about 15 seconds.

You Can't Go Home Again: (Not) Irish Soda Bread

Maybe it's because I live passionately.  Because when I put myself into something, I give 200%, so when it's over, it's like I've created a black hole.  Maybe it's because I am an emotional person.

Whatever it is, I have left some cities on bad terms.

In the middle of graduate school, it was LA.  I was the first in my class to take my comprehensive exams.  I prepared for them for months, nun-like in my devotion.  The day arrived; it went horribly.  I had three professors on my committee: an older conservative male writing his magnum opus, a recently tenured modernist powerhouse male, and a young feminist.  They used me as a pawn to have an argument about what was important in literature, and I didn't perform.  The end came, and I waited outside, in tears.  The feminist came out and told me that they passed me "in spite of" my performance, because they knew I was ready to advance.  I, on the other hand, knew I was ready to leave.  I haven't been back in over twelve years.

More recently, my last position.  A bad situation, after twelve years of earning accolades.  To this day, I have only driven back to that city once, and then, to its outskirts.

Until the other day.

I had occasion to go back to the city today, to campus, for a meeting.  Some consulting work, you might say.

It's a weird thing, to go back to a place like that, where you've left on bad terms.  You feel a strange longing for its familiarity; you know its secrets, its shortcuts, its back alleys.  You look for the things that have changed in your absence, surprised that it could go on without you, wishing it had all stayed the same.  And yet, at the same time, you are thankful for the emotional distance, and you still feel a little sick in the pit of your stomach, finding yourself back there.  You feel relief, passing through, knowing that this is just a visit, not a forever-stay; that this place is no longer yours.  That you know where you don't belong, and that you have somewhere else to go.  Maybe you feel defiance.  With any luck, you feel peace.

I know I can't go home again to the places I've left.  Even if I left them on better terms, I am a different person, and they've changed, too.  And that's not a bad thing.  We've created ourselves anew.

The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread (with thanks to JeCaThRe for posting that link last year) would have us all make it the way it was always made, not the way the grocery stores make it for St. Patrick's Day.  There were no eggs or sugar or raisins or baking powder in those breads.  They were brown breads, made with everyday ingredients.

But the damage has been done, and most people now think of Irish Soda Bread as that sweet cake-like bread with the raisins that you get at the bakery in March, even if it's actually Spotted Dog or Railway Cake that they're eating.

You can't go home again.  We can't turn back the clock and pretend that the name of this bread hasn't been co-opted.  But if we don't want to make plain brown bread, we can come to some middle ground, and make peace.

This isn't really Spotted Dog or Railway Cake, because it doesn't have sugar and eggs and all of the other things that make it more like cake; it may have raisins, but at least it's closer to what they had in mind over at the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread.  Hopefully my Irish friends will forgive me.

Have you ever left a city on bad terms?  Have you gone back?  Where do you fall on the Irish Soda Bread debate?

(Not) Irish Soda Bread

3 cups (12 oz) of white flour
1 cup (4 oz) of wheat flour
1 1/3 c. buttermilk (pour in a bit at a time until the dough is moist)
1 t. of salt
1 1/2 t. baking soda*
3/4 c. raisins
 * if you are cheating and using baking powder, I found that 3/4 t. baking soda and 3/4 T. baking powder will also work

Soak the raisins in warm water for 5-10 minutes; drain well.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Sift all of the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix well to combine.  Add raisins and mix to coat.

Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. Place on floured surface and lightly knead (too much allows the gas to escape).  Shape into a round flat shape, place on parchment, and cut a cross in the top of the dough.

Bake for 45-55 minutes.  Your bread will be done when it sounds hollow if you tap it on the bottom.  Cool and serve with a generous slather of butter!

A Love Letter: Raspberry Streusel Muffins

Valentine's Day is probably one of those political things that you shouldn't post about if you want to make all of your readers happy.  Because while some people have great relationships, some people are struggling with their significant others, and others have joined in solidarity at the Black Hearts Party.  Then there's the great Valentines Day retail machine: according to the National Retail Federation, the average person celebrating the holiday will shell out $126.03.  Yikes.

I'll admit that we did our little Valentine's Day exchange this morning.  My son got a cookie pop shaped like a heart from me, and a box of Yodels from my husband (there's a longer story there about a Drake's truck on the highway, and curiosity about Yodels, which have never before made an appearance in this house, but I'll leave it at that).  I cut a heart shape into the middle of his avocado and cream cheese sandwich.  I sent him to school with his box of sticker puzzle valentines, and he will come home later, thrilled to show me what he got in return, and as he's pawing through them for the fifth time, we will probably have a discussion about gender norms and why not all girls like princesses and why not all boys like race cars.  We made our own valentines for each other (even for my daughter, who happily ripped hers to shreds), and sent my husband on his week-long business trip this week with an envelope full of handmade cards and a box of conversation hearts, to be opened on Valentines Day.  (I secretly hope that he stashed them in his pocket today and is munching on them surreptitiously during his very serious meetings.)

But as I've been doing all of this, I've been thinking, even more so than usual, that we shouldn't save our hugs and cards and wishes for Valentine's Day.  We should tell people we care about -- not just our significant others, if we have one, or our kids, if we have them, but everyone that we love -- what they mean to us every day.

I am the first one to admit that I'm not very good at this.  I don't make random phone calls to people.  There are several people who are on my list of people to whom I really owe a letter (you lovely ladies who live in Carmel, you know who you are!).  As life has gotten busier, sometimes I even forget to tell my husband I love him when he leaves for work in the morning.  I tell my kids I love them when I kiss them good night, but that's not the same as taking time out of our busy day to do something different, to stop the train barreling down the tracks for a minute.

People aren't around forever.  Friends come and go.  Parents age and die.  Kids grow up and move away.  Colleagues change jobs, get promoted, leave.  Students graduate.  Isn't part of why we're here to leave our beautiful, unique, messy handprints on the hearts of other human beings?  We crave connection with others, and most of us want to feel like we've made a difference in the world.  Why don't we spend more time acknowledging the ways we change each other?

And while we're at it, why don't we spend more time loving and taking care of ourselves with the tenderness and joy we deserve?  Because how can we properly express love for other people if we don't love ourselves?

Back in July, we had a bumper crop of raspberries.  On the advice of friends, I froze a bunch of them and stashed them for use in some undetermined future recipe, to be enjoyed in the middle of winter, when I needed to be reminded of summer days drenched in sunlight.  I finally dug them out this week, when the February weather has taken a turn for the cold and grey, and made these muffins for coffee hour at church.  I wondered what took me so long to use them; after all, we have so many, and more will come in the spring.

Here's my thought for today: do something nice for yourself.  And then tomorrow, when they least expect it, send a love letter to someone who really needs to know what they mean to you.  Maybe, if you're really feeling ambitious, you can make them muffins.

Raspberry Streusel Muffins

Streusel

1/3 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 c. brown sugar (or date sugar!)
1/8 t. salt
1/4 t. ground ginger
3 T. butter, cold (you can sub Earth Balance if you like)

Muffins

1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
3 T. coconut oil, melted/cooled (or butter)
3/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 1/4 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. frozen raspberries*
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a standard muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

In a small bowl, make the streusel. Stir together all dry ingredients, then cut the butter into small pieces and add to flour mixture. Rub in butter thoroughly until mixture is very fine and sandy. Pick up the streusel mixture and squeeze it in your hand to form small clumps, repeating until streusel appears to have a much coarser texture. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder and salt.  In a large bowl, stir together melted oil/butter, sugar and egg until well combined. Stir in half the flour mixture, followed by the buttermilk and vanilla extract. Stir in remaining flour mixture, mixing just until the dry ingredients are incorporated and no streaks of flour remain. Fold in raspberries (toss frozen berries in 2 tsp of flour to keep them from “bleeding” into the muffin batter).

Divide muffin batter evenly into prepared baking cups. Cups will be fairly full. Divide streusel mixture over the muffins (be generous, and don’t worry if some of the streusel doesn’t seem to “stick”)

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached.

Turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Cooled muffins can be stored in an airtight container.

Makes 12 muffins.

*Note: If using fresh berries, you may need to reduce the baking time by 1-2 minutes.

Resolutions for Breakfast: Overnight Steel Cut Oats with Pears and Cranberries

So I still haven't posted resolutions for this year.  Keiko had the fabulous idea to set micro-challenges in six focus areas, mapping out something that she could do every day for a month.  In my experience, it's this kind of commitment, not the grand, sweeping resolutions, that actually promote changes in habits and--therefore--in lifestyle.  I still working on my list of micro-challenges, but so since I don't have one for January, I was hoping Keiko wouldn't mind if I borrowed hers ... because imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

One of the characteristics of a successful resolution, I think, is that it's characterized not by deprivation, but contribution to your life.  Not "I'm going to lose 20 pounds," but "I'm going to be good to my body."  Because for each resolution like that, you can assign yourself a concrete task, like eating a healthy breakfast, for example.

Actually, quite a few people I know have resolved to eat breakfast this year.  I'm notoriously bad about this; though I feed my kids a healthy breakfast every morning, I tend to down a double latte made with almond milk and rationalize that I've eaten a handful of nuts and drunk a glass of milk.  Which is totally breakfast.  Um ... yeah.

The curious thing is that I really like breakfast foods.  I remember luxuriating over brunch when I lived in L.A., at the Kings Road Cafe or one of the places on Melrose whose names have since evaporated from my memory, feeling like I was epitomizing decadence.  There's something about breakfast that both fills you up and slows you down, putting you in a better frame of mind to face the day.

We let I. choose his own breakfast (from a few different options), and he's been eating oatmeal every morning of late, studded with dried cranberries, sprinkled with cinnamon, and kissed with maple syrup.  I happened to have some steel cut oats in my pantry that have been begging to be used for a while, and decided that it would be nice to wake up to warm oatmeal and snow, which was predicted for this weekend.

I read about toasting the oats years ago in a Cooks Illustrated article given to me by a colleague, and I've done it that way ever since.  It makes a world of difference, and it only takes a few minutes.  A few more minutes of preparation, and you've got yourself a week's worth of breakfasts that you can customize to your taste.  So that whether you're running out the door, or getting everyone else out the door, or both, you can still do something good for yourself.

Overnight Steel Cut Oats

1 T. butter
1 c. steel cut oats
2 1/2 c. milk
2 c. water
1 large pear (or apple), diced
handful of dried cranberries (apricots, raisins ... even candied ginger bits!)
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 t. cardamom
2 T. brown sugar or agave
dash salt
Nuts (optional)

Melt butter in a small skillet over medium-low heat until just bubbling.  Add your oats and stir to toast, until the oats begin to turn light golden brown and smell like popcorn.  Be careful not to overtoast them!  They will change color quickly.

Put oats, along with the rest of the ingredients (except nuts), into an oven safe bowl or casserole dish that will fit into your crockpot with the lid on.  Wad up a bit of aluminum foil to put on the bottom of your crockpot, to lift it the bowl a bit off the main crock; this will prevent your crockpot from cracking.   Fill the crock with water until the water level more or less matches the same height as the cooking liquid inside the bowl.  Congratulate yourself on your bain-marie.  (You've essentially turned your crockpot into a double boiler.)

Set the temperature to low, and cook for about seven hours.  When you wake up, your kitchen will smell wonderful, your oats will be ready, and you won't have to spend an entire day scrubbing burned oats off the side of your crock.

Add oats and whatever other toppings you might like.  If you're doing this in a regular double boiler instead of a crockpot, you'll want to cook the oats for about 1 1/2 hours over a double boiler.

Occupy Halloween: Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

(with apologies to Stephanie, and others who have had their fill of pumpkins and are just too kind to say so ...)

Our street is Halloween Central.  The houses sport giant cobwebs, the walkways are lined with pumpkins, the trees filled with filmy ghosts hanging from the branches.  People drive from miles around to drop their kids off for trick or treating because the houses are closer together than in the surrounding townships (more candy bang for your walking buck). And most of the residents on the street take on this responsibility without too much complaint; even though it's pretty expensive to supply treats for over 300 kids (especially for folks like my ninety year old neighbors), it's something we've always done.  Very few people turn their lights out for Halloween.

Which makes it even more frustrating when this kindness is taken for granted.

Every year I have my "pet peeve" trick-or-treaters.  One year it was the two moms pushing babies in strollers up to people's doors (the babies couldn't have been more than a year old, if that, and were not walking), collecting candy "for the kids."   Ummmm, right.  Other years it's the kids who come to the door without even an attempt at a costume.

This year, two groups stuck out.  (Here, friends, is where I completely toss the teachings of my kind Buddhist friend from the other day about not being able to change others, but only my own perspective.  No, I'm not proud to say that.  I am going to try again tomorrow.)  The first, tweenaged twins, came to the door, and stood there, pillowcases open.  My husband, jokingly, opened the door and said, "Can I help you?"  To which one of the kids replied.  "Yeah, give me candy."  My mouth hit the floor.  "Seriously?" I said, frowning, storming up to the door.  "Take a hike.  That was really obnoxious.  How about 'please' and 'thank you' and 'trick or treat' and 'happy Halloween'?"  The kids looked at each other in disbelief, as if no one had ever said anything like this to them before.  My husband, who is more of a nice guy than I am, urged me to let it go; he was probably thinking he didn't want our house egged.  He gave them the candy and they walked away, snickering nervously.

A while later, the second group of offenders, a pre-teen boy and his father, rang the doorbell.  Both of them were holding sacks.  "Trick or treat," said the boy.  It was nearing the end of the night, and so I gave him a few pieces, instead of just the one we'd been handing out to each child.  As I turned away, the father held out his sack, too.  I looked at him quizzically.  Really? I thought.  "It's for my daughter," he said, gesturing towards a group on the sidewalk.  "She's right down there.  She's just tired."  "If she's tired," I said, "maybe she should go home.  I don't do parents collecting candy for their kids."  "Oh, all right," he said, turning away.  Did I mention he was dressed as a Jesuit monk?  The irony did not escape me, though perhaps it escaped him.

The evening got me thinking (and I realize some people will hate me for this, but I'm going to say it anyway): if people don't like the Occupy movements, they should look at what we're teaching kids, starting with Halloween.  I'm not advocating for socialism or communism, just human decency.  Teaching kids compassion.  Saying please and thank you.  Helping them to understand that the night is not about bankrupting neighboring towns just to amass a stockpile that's going to end up rotting your teeth anyway.  And you know, while we're at it, maybe we should Occupy Thanksgiving.  And Occupy Christmas.  And Occupy Hanukkah.  And every other holiday, and every other day of the year.  Because (again, completely disregarding what the monk told me about people being able to give only what they have) the reason we're in the mess we're in is that some people forgot the lessons they learned the first time they ever went trick or treating: how to be polite, and thankful, and know when you have enough and should go home for the night, and maybe even when you might be able to share with someone else.

Like these, for example.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

1/2 c. flour (or spelt flour, oat flour, etc.)
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/8 t. nutmeg
1/8 t. allspice
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 egg (or 1 T. ground flax stirred with 3 T. water until gelatinous)
3 T. brown sugar (or agave, though you may want to lower the oven temp by 25 degrees)
2 T. regular (white or turbinado) sugar
1/2 c. cooked, pureed pumpkin
2 T. nondairy milk
2 T. coconut oil (vegetable oil will do)
3/4 t. vanilla
for frosting: cream cheese mixed with a little agave or honey or maple syrup to make it spreadable, or use your favorite cream cheese frosting recipe

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients, then add in wet. Spread into an oiled 8×8 pan and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool fully before frosting.

Devotions: Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I've been terrible about posting lately.  It's funny; you'd think that I'd have more time, being a stay at home mom and all.  But life has had a funny way of catching me up in the current, and it's been moving pretty quickly.  I found myself nodding in agreement with Mel's recent posts about not being able to keep up: with Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds, blogging comments ... all of which I tend to put before my own writing.  Probably not ideal if you're aiming for regular writing practice, which was, once upon a time, the original purpose of this blog.

And then there's the job scene.  It turns out that I did, indeed, nail that interview.  I've had a tentative offer, and I'm going to talk with them about numbers tomorrow.  The down side is that the numbers are not good.  It's a grant, and they have a limited budget.  Like, $20K less than I was making limited.  And I'd need to pay for another child in day care (part of the craziness has been the search for, and interviews with, potential in-home day care providers), which makes the numbers look even worse.  And it's a grade lower, though that's a blow to my ego.  On the plus side, they are good people.  And it's an important project.  The question is whether it's the right decision for me.  I'm still not sure ... and am hoping I get some clarity, in a hurry.

In the meantime, one of our best friends was diagnosed with heart failure.  He is only a few years older than I am, and in incredible shape: runs half marathons without sweating, bikes miles and miles without a second thought, swims ... and is the energetic stay at home dad to two truly wonderful kids, aged 2 and 5.  It was such a shock to hear the news, and right now, it's hard to think of anything else.  Though today he's doing better, and his heart is beating on its own, there is still the possibility of a transplant, and even without that, the figuring out of what to do about help with the kids over these next few months.  Though this is going to sound ridiculous, part of me doesn't want to go back to work, so that I can help take care of his kids while he heals.  I've been watching my friends go through this, admiring their calm, level-headed strength, and wondering if I'd be capable of the same if I ever found myself where they are right now.

And in much more mundane news, our CSA continues to teach us to make do with what we're given.  As my son says (or rather, as his teacher taught him), "you get what you get, and you don't get upset."  It's been four weeks straight of not much else besides cucumbers and zucchini (and not even good produce, at that), and I've been trying to keep the menu interesting, with squash soup, zucchini frittata, calabacitas, zucchini crusted pizza, zuccanoes, zucchini pancakes (unlinked recipes coming soon) ... and these chocolate zucchini muffins.  They actually turned out quite well, and I froze them, and then ... well ... defrosted them and ate them.  Because they're, like, healthy.  Right?

In yoga this month, we were practicing Hanumanasana, which is basically a split.  Years ago, when I was taking regular dance classes, I could do splits; now, I am thankful for bolsters and blankets that my teacher surreptitiously places next to us as class is in session.  Hanumanasana teaches us to be completely open, but also to love where we're at instead of cursing ourselves for not getting it "right."  It symbolizes (and actually looks like) a leap of devotion, not necessarily to another, but possibly to ourselves, understanding that knowing deep love and knowing our highest selves is one in the same.  So much of where I am right now is mid-leap.  Perhaps that's the same for all of us?

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
 
2 eggs
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour or line 12 wells in a muffin tin. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil and buttermilk. Add in all of the dry ingredients, including spices. Mix thoroughly. Stir in zucchini. Fill the prepared wells about 3/4 of the way. Bake 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the center muffin comes out mostly clean.

Vegan Banana Bread

[PSA:] Did y'all know that it's International Blog Delurking Week? Knowing who my readers are gives me a chance to visit them and return the kindness.  There's just one day left, so please, delurk yourselves ... as Serenity puts it, please give me a "hi, there!" or "go to hell!" or "I've tried your recipes and you are a horrific cook!"  [end PSA.]

I started to write a lofty post about yoga class this week and Ganesha and overcoming obstacles, and honestly, it was taking me days, so I've abandoned that idea for now, and thought I'd just post something mundane, so no one starts wondering if I left the blogosphere to go into labor.

I feel strangely like I've been tying up loose ends lately, and letting go.  While I don't think I'm exactly nesting (the frenzy of baby-clothes-washing was more like a methodical weeding out of I.'s old clothes), I feel myself beginning to detach from the world.  This is true at work (more about that in my next post, perhaps), but also true at home: even the outreach group I coordinate at our fellowship is coming over this week to talk about our committee policy and catch up with each other before I disappear.  I'm expecting about twelve of them for coffee and dessert, so I decided to heat up the oven again.  (Actually, I'm sure they don't expect coffee and dessert, but it's the group of people who care for others when there are crises like deaths and illnesses in the family, and when happy events like births and adoptions make preparing dinner feel like an insurmountable task, so I feel like it's important to bake for them for a change, to let them know how much their work--their ministry--is appreciated.)  I decided on a banana bread and some coffeehouse hermits, and maybe some blondies, none of which put you back in that post-holiday gluttonous regretful stupor.

The thing I like about banana bread (besides the fact that it uses up old bananas that you've tossed in your freezer) is that it's so versatile; you can make it healthy or not so healthy, as the occasion demands.  I posted a banana bread recipe before here, but that one is essentially a bag of chocolate chips disguised as a banana bread.  This one is really more of a banana bread, and vegan, to boot. It's good for breakfast, or snack, or whenever you need to be able to eat with one hand.

Vegan Cinnamon Banana Bread

1 cup flour (I used half white, half whole-wheat; gluten free folks can use 1 c. Bob's gluten free flour and 1/2 t. agar agar or xanthan gum)
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon 

1/4 t. salt
3 overripe bananas, mashed
1/4 c. canola oil
1/3 c. agave nectar
1/3 c. unsweetened soy milk
2 t. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly oil an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom and sides of the loaf pan with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the baking flour with the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, xanthan gum and salt. In another bowl (or in your blender), whisk the bananas with the oil, agave nectar, soy milk and vanilla. Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the banana bread cool on a rack for 20 minutes before turning it out. Let cool completely before slicing.

Little Indulgences: Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

On Wednesday it was Ian's real birthday.  We went to Sonic (his request), gave him our present (a new bicycle helmet), and lit a candle on a single cupcake (two cakes in a week was one cake too many).  He was thrilled with the whole thing, and I think, felt pretty celebrated.

Our neighbors also gave him a gift, a book with a wind-up train that runs around a cardboard track built into the pages of the book itself.  It was a cute gift.  Ian's still making thank you cards (we do this with all of the gifts he gets ... little does he know what torturers we are), but when he saw one of the neighbors outside, I encouraged him to go say thank you and offer her a hug.  This neighbor is in her mid to late eighties, and still drives around and sweeps the street and has her nose in everyone's business: let's just say she's pretty active for her age.  She means well, but you sort of need to take what she says with a grain of salt (or several), because she has a lot to say; she's the sort of person who will continue her one-sided conversation long after you've turned your back and waved goodbye.

She accepted Ian's hug gratefully, and followed him back to our porch to chat, and suddenly, noticed my belly.

"Are you pregnant?" she asked, staring at my protruding belly.

"Yes, quite," I answered.

"Ohhhhh ... And when should we expect the baby?"

We?  "Late January, early February, we hope," I replied.  (Busybody though she is, she doesn't know about our losses, or my diagnosis of secondary infertility.)

"Oh, that'll be nice.  Are you excited?"  She looked at Ian, then at me.  "He's four?"  she said.  "You know, you shouldn't have waited so long to have another.  Now you'll have to start all over again."

I took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye, and said, evenly, "well, A., things don't always work out like you might want them to, now, do they."

She chewed her lip a little, thinking.  Then agreed, looking at me, almost surprised at the realization.  "You're right.  I guess you can't really plan that."

On the one hand, she's old.  And she says things without thinking.  On the other hand, this is another instance of how deeply ingrained the expectations are in our culture: expectations of motherhood, childrearing, women's roles.  We've come a long way, baby, but dammit, we still have a long, long way to go.  I wonder, why can't I tell her about our pregnancy loss?  About the frustrating diagnosis of secondary infertility, about being convinced I wasn't being treated for hypothyroidism and that it was messing with all of my hormones?

Keiko has a great post this week about self-nourishment.  She reminds us to take time for ourselves.  To allow ourselves little indulgences that renew us, allow us to keep going when the questions, the doctors' visits, the anxieties of the everyday make us feel like we've been kicked.  When I cook, I try to balance health with a little indulgence, because I cook to feed the body and soul.  This bread is a good example: it's not the healthiest thing in the world, but it's a nice occasional indulgence.  Most recently, I made it for our new friends from northern New England who have taken the plunge and moved to the mid-Atlantic (hi, C!). That time, I put in one less banana, thinking maybe I'd be left with less batter, but I think it made a difference in the moistness, so as strange as it sounds, do go with the five bananas recommended below.

This is my stepmother-in-law's recipe.  She's tweaked it a bunch over the years to make it healthier (my father in law complains bitterly about this), but I think it's just as good as the first time I tasted it.  The one thing you need to remember is to pull out some extra batter and make a muffin or three for yourself ... the down side of packing so many bananas in there is that the center takes a LONG time to cook.  Happy indulgence.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

1 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. mashed bananas (~5*)
2 1/2 c. flour (I use half whole wheat pastry flour)
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
chocolate chips (half a bag, maybe?  or more if you're feeling particularly indulgent)

Preheat oven to 375.  Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs and beat.  Add bananas and mix well.  Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl and add in two additions, mixing well.  Add chocolate chips and mix well.  Pour into greased and floured loaf pan.  Bake 45 minutes to an hour (I find that sometimes 1 hour 15 minutes is necessary).


* You can freeze bananas that are headed into overripe territory, right in their skins!  They make great banana bread or smoothies later on; all you need to do is run them under some hot water, and they will slip right out of their skins.  Note: while convenient, this is a messy affair, so be prepared.