O Holy Night: Darkness and Light

The church was always dim for the late Mass prelude on Christmas Eve.  Red candles burned in glass lanterns surrounded by pine boughs along the windows, the sanctuary lit only by small warm overhead lights.  We would take a seat towards the front, where we could see, though there was little to see; just to hear.  The organ always played first, a voluntary that started with a single note trill, a call out of the darkness.  There was something about the dimness that made the music even more magical, and I always found myself a little disappointed when they turned up the house lights to begin the service, looking forward to the moment when they'd turn them off again and hand out candles for "Silent Night."

And maybe that dimness, that acknowledgement of the darkness, is why I've always loved the winter solstice.

On a whim, I decided to go to my yoga teacher's solstice workshop, to mark the passing of the the darkest days, to find my body on the mat again.  She runs a class like this one every year, a candlelit affair with live kirtan and lots of savasana.  It's the sort of thing that feels luxurious when you have children at home and cookies to be baked and email to respond to and a thousand other reasons you can't go.

In truth, it had been a long time since I made time for a yoga class in general.  I let life get in the way; I don't get home in time for the evening class; I prioritize time with my children; I tell myself that it's better to get a run in on the weekends and burn some calories than to go sit still and reconnect with myself. None of these are very good excuses.  I could make time if I tried hard enough.

I  signed up online at the very last minute, and drove in the dark past home a different way than I usually go, along back county roads, past farms and small neighborhoods outlined in the pinpricks of Christmas lights.

I was early, not overly so, but enough to make small talk with others who had come for class, women who asked me warmly where I'd been, how my kids were, how work was; who told me that it was good to see me again. It was like coming home, almost, to people who didn't judge me for leaving. Which made it even funnier that when I parted the curtain to enter the studio and set up my mat, my teacher's face appeared on the other side.  "You can't come in," she said, smiling.  "Seriously?" I responded, worried that she was taunting me for missing class for so long.  "Yes, seriously!" she said, face still laughing, pulling the curtains closed behind her.  I returned to the bright chatter, waiting for her to tell us to come in, wondering what could be waiting on the other side.

When she finally called us over to begin the class, she explained that she wanted us to enter the space of darkness together, in silence, without our mats (she had set up mats for us already, across the entire floor to allow us to move as we needed to), to come with nothing.  And as we walked in together, I knew that she'd been right, to let us mark this solemnly, with the absence of sound and light.

We sat, cross-legged, as she asked us to imagine going into a dark forest, the trees closing in overheard, the scent of pine and soil and moss thick in the air, grounding ourselves through the earth. We were called deeper and deeper into the darkness, she said, deeper to the core of the forest, but without any fear; instead, she invited us to embrace the darkness, to become part of it, to dissolve into it.

When we celebrate the solstice, we celebrate the end of darkness, the beginning of longer days, the reemergence of life, victory over death.  But like those Christmas Eve preludes long ago, when I sat next to my father drinking in the candlelight and music, there's something about the darkness that is important and beautiful, too.  I revel in the quiet, in the dimness, just as I did when I was a child.  Sometimes, after everyone goes to bed, I'll turn off every light except for the Christmas tree, which glows in the corner.

Because without embracing the darkness, without becoming it ourselves, without going deep into the unknown, we can't see the stars.

Filters, Bliss, and Gluten-Free Snickerdoodles

It's always been interesting to me to watch the world awaken again after the Christmas to New Years week.  In my line of work, students tend to be relatively silent, either experiencing the satisfaction of a semester completed, or beginning to work through the stages of denial that surround a less than successful term.  There's a period of just-being that happens at the end of December, which I really enjoy before all hell breaks loose.  Where I am work now, students don't take exams until after the break, but I feel a similar escalation in tension, and the email is definitely beginning to build up again.  Which is why I'm even more glad that I was able to get to yoga class several times during the holiday week, even if I was responding to email more often than I might have liked.

My teacher spent a lot of time talking about the koshas, which are, in Vedantic philosophy, more or less like filters of experience.  The ones we end up focusing on most in class are the annamaya kosha, or the physical body; the pranamayakosha, or the energy-body; and anandamaya kosha, or what I can translate only as the "bliss body." 

When we practice yoga, sometimes we filter the experience through our physical body: we're tight in our left hamstring, or maybe we're a little wobbly in our balance poses.  We feel our weaknesses, or even our strengths.  If we're being attentive to the lived experience of our bodies, sometimes we can tell what we need next.  Do we need to move through vinyasa?  Or rest in child's pose?

If we can rise out of the physical body experience, sometimes we can be attentive to the pranamayakosha.  Where does the energy go? The breath?  Can we visualize its movement up and out of ourselves, connecting to something larger?

And finally, if we can let go of even this, we experience anandamayakosha, which is experience in its rawest form.  We don't get caught up in what hurts, or what's tight.  We don't overprocess it.  We just breathe, and be.

My teacher likens this to discovering vegetables after growing up eating them from a can.  I know exactly what she means; though my father grew a garden, and we ate from it in the summer, canned peas, canned beets, even canned asparagus were part of my childhood.  And the first time I tasted a roasted beet, or shelled my own peas, or bit into a raw asparagus spear, I was shocked to discover how flavorful and delicious it was.  So it goes with the filters of the body and the mind.  If we can experience things in their raw, pure form, without the canning and processing, we're bound to experience them with a depth and dimension that we never imagined.

On the other hand, sometimes things are better processed.  My yoga teacher happens to have a fondness for Del Monte creamed corn, which is about as non-organic as she gets, I imagine; for me, it's whipped cream from a can (true confessions: one of the valuable skills my son learned this week was spraying whipped cream directly onto his tongue).  And it's OK to process; we are human after all, and we were built with bodies that experience the world this way.  To deny that would be to deny our humanity.

But it's important, every once in a while, to get rid of the filters, to just be there.  The new year can be a time for removing obstacles, but also seeing the obstacles that stand in the way of our access to bliss.  Which is not to say that you have to eat plain lettuce, by the way.

What are your filters?  What stands in the way of your experience of bliss?

Gluten-Free Snickerdoodles
Food historians tell us that small cakes or biscuits with snickerdoodle-type ingredients date back to ancient Roman times. Joy of Cooking attributes the cookie to Germany, suggesting that though they added more spices and dried fruit, the name is a corruption of the German word schneckennudeln, a type of cinnamon dusted sweet roll. These are minimally adapted from Elana's Pantry; her snickerdoodles aren't exactly raw, but they do let you experience the heady cinnamon in a way uncluttered by processed white sugar.  If your body is crying uncle like mine has been, these are a good not-too-terrible sweet treat.

2 c. almond flour
1/8 t. kosher salt
1/8 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 c. virgin coconut oil (or butter)

2 T. honey
1/3 c. coconut sugar for rolling
2 1/2 t. cinnamon for rolling

Preheat oven to 350, and line baking sheets with parchment.

In a food processor, combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.  Pulse in the coconut oil and honey.

In a shallow bowl for rolling the cookies, combined the coconut sugar and cinnamon until well mixed.

Roll the dough into balls by tablespoonfulls and briefly dip the balls in a small bowl of water before rolling them in coconut sugar and cinnamon mixture to coat.  (If the dough is too sticky, refrigerate for half an hour.)

Place the cookies onto the prepared baking sheets and press gently to flatten them just a bit.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until beginning to turn golden.  Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet to make sure they're firming up, and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cleaning Out Closets, and Zaletti

Every once in a while, I get on a cleaning jag. Like the one that led me to throw out my books, only a little less drastic.

I think, in some respects, it's reactionary behavior: I am actively resisting becoming my mother.

You see, my mother has lived in the same house since she was two years old. Her two brothers moved out, got married, and eventually sold the place to her and to my father. It was easy. And my mother tends to travel by the path of least resistance.

While the house has undergone renovations over the years, parts of it still live in the 1950s, or 60s, or 70s. Though my mother is not exactly a hoarder, she comes close: things have accumulated in the attic, and since my father's death almost 11 years ago, they've also accumulated in every room of the three bedroom house. You can barely walk into the room where I slept for the first 17 years of my life; piles of clothes form an obstacle course to the furniture. In the back room over the garage, a thin film of dust covers almost everything. I fear that some day it will become my responsibility to clean out this house, and in the meantime, I try to keep my own accumulation at bay.

I was hoping to get up to her attic during the break to throw away old dresses I discovered at Thanksgiving (things I wore before I hit double digits) while I was looking for old books, but the timing hasn't seemed to work out. And I need the space to do this on my terms, without my mother looking on and fretting about it. I know that throwing things away is difficult for her, in this house where she has spent her entire life.

The problem with a house full of this stuff that one has gathered through the decades is that at some point, you begin to store things in a haphazard way that makes it virtually impossible to access both the things you want to use and the things you want to get rid of. The only way to clean out is to make things even more chaotic, to empty everything out of the space and look at it, and start over, storing things in ways that make sense.  It's a daunting task, even if the rewards involve finding the gems we'd forgotten we had.  You have to be fully prepared for this kind of deep cleaning.  It's not something to be undertaken lightly.

My yoga teacher says that we are like mini-versions of this problem.  We hold on to so much baggage--not all of it excess--but when it all becomes jumbled together, we become cluttered, too.  Which is the point of a meditative yoga practice.  To take out all the clutter, put it all under a microscope, and without judging ourselves, get rid of what we don't need. But also to know that in the process, things will get messy.  You don't reach bliss without slogging through a little mud.

If you've read this blog for at least a year, you know that I don't make New Year's resolutions, because I think it's too arbitrary; I think that if we really want to make change, we need to be ready, and a new calendar doesn't necessarily mean we're ready for large-scale renovation.  But even if I don't decide to do anything drastic, I do find myself cleaning out a little at this time of year.  Maybe it's my way of trying to start with a cleaner slate.

Are you ready to clean out a closet or two?  Or do you need some time to prepare for the clutter and chaos that cleaning will entail?



Zaletti
These were an experiment this year, a sort of clean-out-your-closet cookie. I'm not sure they'll become one of my staples, but I'm grateful for the impetus to make space.

1 c. currants
1/4 c. dark rum
1 c. + 2 T. stone ground cornmeal
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 t. salt1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
4 egg yolks
1/2 c. sugar
6 T. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
zest of 2 lemon
1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
1 t. - 1 T. lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Soak the currants in the rum for at least 15 minutes, until plump.

Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt and baking powder in medium bowl and set aside.

Using a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until the mixture becomes pale yellow.  Add the butter and lemon zest, beating until smooth.  Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.  The dough should be firm; if it's too dry, add some of the rum from the currants, and if it's too wet, add a little flour.

Drain the currants and stir them into the dough, reserving the rum for another use.

Divide the dough into two balls. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into two 2" square logs about 10 inches long.  Cut each log into 1/2" thick slices, and gently press each cookie into a diamond shape.

Place the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake until golden, about 15-20 minutes.  Remove the cookies and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Sire together confectioners' sugar and lemon juice (1 t. at a time) until you have a thin (but not runny) glaze.  Drizzle glaze over the cooled cookies and allow it to solidify before storing.

Light in the Darkness, and Doodh Peda (Indian Sweets)

"Your first night driving home in the dark," my boss commented, nodding towards the window as I gathered my things to leave work.

I said something dismissive about having driven home in the dark before, because I've spent a few late evenings at events on campus, but as I crested the mountain in the middle of my drive, in the pitch black, tensely hunched over the wheel as I scanned the road ahead for deer, I realized he was right, in a way; this darkness felt different than it had just three weeks ago.  More permanent.  Or at the very least, more sustained.  I could sense winter coming.  There would be snow in these mountains.

Diwali, the five day Hindu festival popularly known as the "festival of lights" and the first in a two month series of  light-filled holidays from various traditions, began on Sunday this year.  The festival celebrates the victory of light over dark, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance, honoring of the return of Hindu god Rama and his wife Sita to their kingdom after years of exile.  During Diwali, celebrants clean the house and light small clay lamps filled with oil to make the goddess Lakshmi (of prosperity) and Ganesh (remover of obstacles) feel welcome, and there are lots of sweets shared with friends.

More importantly, perhaps, the holiday celebrates awareness of the inner light, the light of higher knowledge dispelling all ignorance, the awakening that brings compassion, awareness of the oneness of all things, and eventually, ananda (which my yoga teacher translates as "bliss").

While of course the parallels between the celebrations and the daylight hours depend on the hemisphere in which you live, there's something to be said for looking inward when the light outside wanes.  I've written here before about the practice of pratyahara, withdrawing from the senses, in order to better focus our inner awareness; though I haven't been to my beloved yoga teacher's studio in a while to practice there, I suspect that's what they're preparing to do this month and next.

So as I headed into the valley, I turned off the radio, slowed down, lowered my high beams, and listened.

The silence was wonder-ful.

Happy Diwali; wishing you all the light of andanda.  Enjoy the darkness.

Doodh Pedas
I love Indian sweets because they're so different from our cloying candy.   These are pretty easy to make, and the "dough" is fun to play with, whether you have kids or not.  Next time I might even add a drop or two of rosewater, just for the heady sent .

1¾ c. powdered milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 T. butter
6 green cardamom pods, peeled and seeds crushed to fine powder
small pinch of saffron, dissolved in 2 T. warm water or milk
small pinch of salt
nuts (cashews, almonds, pistachios etc)

Microwave the butter in a deep bowl for 20-30 seconds until just melted. Add the milk powder and condensed milk and stir well until you no longer see any lumps.

Microwave the mixture again for 1 minute. Mix well again, and microwave once more for 1 minute.

Add the cardamom, salt, and saffron, and mix well. Microwave for one more minute.

Allow the mixture to cool a bit, and dump it onto a piece of waxed paper or parchment. Cover with another sheet of waxed paper or parchment, and roll the dough into a 1/2" thick round. Cut with a cookie cutter or into whatever shape you like, and press nuts into the center. (The dough, as it cools, becomes lots of fun for children to play with.) Cool completely.

On Living Well, and Arroz con leche

When I was in graduate school--the second time around--I took a Philosophy of Education course in which we were assigned Aristotle's Ethics.  I remembered hating Aristotle from some other course, so I wasn't looking forward to revisiting it, but in my re-reading I was drawn to the concept of eudaimonia, which--often mistranslated as "happiness"--really means "doing and living well."  As I was boxing up some books to take to my new office the other day, I took Ethics off the shelf and began to thumb through it fondly, realizing, with some small degree of horror, that I ended up loving philosophy after all, and thinking that perhaps I hadn't had enough life experience to fully appreciate Aristotle when I read his work the first time.

Skimming my marginalia, I was surprised to notice how much Ethics reminded me of my study of yoga, how much living well was bound up with the activity of right intention, which Aristotle calls "virtue" (but which isn't exactly virtue as we tend to use the term now).  Most of us think of happiness as a state of consciousness, something internal, and even passive.  But the way Aristotle describes it, eudaimonia involves real, messy, being and doing in the world--even if slightly limited by the fact that his is a state-backed model of the good life.  Eudaimonia comes of habit (according to Aristotle), like the "practice" of yoga texts. Even considering right action in yoga discourages attachment to outcomes, where for Aristotle the means are oriented to the end through the process of rational thought, there are striking parallels between Ethics and the Gita.*

My yoga attendance these days has been sporadic at best; I don't get home early enough for the Thursday night class I used to take, and I try to spend my weekends being available to my kids instead of commuting to Frenchtown where other people are trying to breathe through vinyasa.  I brought my mat and yoga pants to work today, hoping to escape for an hour during lunch, which I ended up eating (in the form of an apple and a granola bar) at my desk, trying to manage a situation that was stubbornly resisting management.  Given the sort day I've been having, I felt deflated.  On the other hand, what I was doing was sort of along the lines of right intention.  It just didn't have a very physical dimension.

What we know about anatomy suggests that the mind-body connection isn't a connection at all, but is really one in the same thing: essentially, two nerves connect our bodies to our brains.  Body is mind, and mind is body--even for Aristotle, in a way.  My daughter reminds me of this constantly, (still) learning by touching everything, expressing herself (despite her advanced verbal skills) by jumping up and down or rolling around on the floor.  I could practice yoga on my own, but my best practice is in sangha, in community.  Which makes sense to me, after all; if living well is practicing right intention, then it follows that the practice of yoga, which is also about living the best life by cultivating a space for right action, entails not abstracting oneself from the world, but figuring out how to immerse oneself in all of its dimensions.  Doing yoga all the time.


Remember that Mary Oliver poem, "Rice"?

I don't want you to just sit at the table.
I don't want you just to eat, and be content.
I want you to walk into the fields
Where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.
I want you to stand there,
far from the white tablecloth.
I want you to fill your hands with mud,
like a blessing.

Don't just sit at the table; fill your hands with mud.  Get down and dirty, out in the field. That's happiness.

*(Philosophy PhDs and yoga experts: go ahead, tell me where I got it wrong.)

Arroz con leche
This is a simple dessert from my childhood, which I find myself craving when the weather finally takes a turn towards fall.


4 c. milk (of your choice)
1/2 c. short-grain rice
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 t. dried orange peel
pinch salt
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 T. butter (optional)
1 t. vanilla 

Add the milk, rice, cinnamon stick, orange or lemon peel and salt to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Immediately reduce heat to very low and simmer, stirring often and scraping bottom, for about 45 minutes.

Add the raisins and sugar and simmer for another 15 minutes. Stir often to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla. Adjust sugar to taste and serve hot or cold, sprinkling the top with some ground cinnamon.

The Quantification of the Self, and Eggplant Curry

I was given a FitBit, courtesy of Best Buy, for running the BlogHer 5K this year.  Lest you call me a hypocrite, let me be clear: I would have run the 5K even without the promise of swag. I was going to get out for some exercise that morning anyway, and put my re-sprained ankle to its first test.  But the FitBit did make getting out of bed at 5:30 a little easier.  And I've been wearing it ever since.  Somewhere, the leadership team of FitBit (which, by the way, has only one woman on it) is rubbing their hands together, cackling, "EXcellent."

True confessions: this isn't the first time I've owned one.  My first FitBit is probably buried somewhere in the Technology Drawer (which is a fancy name for the tangled mess of thumb drives, chargers, and connective wires necessary for all of our electronic devices -- the futuristic version of my mother's Junk Drawer).  My husband and I each had one, gifts from his company, which we wore religiously; he and I competed to climb the most stairs, to walk the most steps, and to grow the tallest flower on the tiny FitBit screen.  Come to think of it, I don't think he was competing with me.  But at the time, that was irrelevant.

One day, I guess I forgot to put it back on.  Or maybe I got frustrated and fired it.  So did my husband.  And you know how it goes.  Miss a day, miss two days, and your FitBit dies a quiet death in the Technology Drawer.

This time, I'm the only one with the device, and I thought perhaps it wouldn't hold such power over me.  But I check it, tap it, intentionally take the stairs even when I'm wearing less sensible shoes, partly because I know it's counting.  And I know that I am not alone in this behavior.

We quantify ourselves in countless ways.  If you don't have a FitBit, you have an iPhone app that tracks exercise and nutrition.  Or you look at your blog stats.  Or your grades in school.  Or the number of Twitter followers you have.  Or the number of Facebook friends you've accumulated.  Or shares of your social media posts.  If you're feeling lazy, you let Klout do it for you, and though you complain about how irrelevant Klout is, you check it anyway when it sends you email about your declining score.  There is, I discovered, even a Quantified Self movement and global conference: people out there dedicated to the cause of defining ourselves by the numbers (the Measured Me site is a notable example, in which the subject is quantifying even his happiness).  Assessment is the watchword of educational institutions.  We are all counting, and accounted for, especially in a competitive environment.

I was a qualitative researcher in grad school.  I did my time in quantitative fields: an English major, I still managed to get through Calc II and Linear Algebra; I aced programming and discrete structures; I passed my quantitative methods courses with flying colors.  But I always felt like there was more to the issues than numbers, and I was relieved to discover that I could still write a respectable (in fact, award-winning!) dissertation without statistics.

It's like achieving balance in the kitchen.  Baking is a quantitative pursuit.  You can fool around with amounts of fat and flour and sugar and leavening agent, but if you fool around too much, you will guarantee yourself some flat, or mushy, or otherwise undesirable cupcakes.  So, provided you like cupcakes, quantitative work in the kitchen is important.  But if you eat only cupcakes, you're going to get sick.  Cooking things like curry or soup or stir fry, on the other hand, is qualitative.  You add some of this, and some of that, and sub in something else that you prefer, you taste it off, and voila! you have dinner.  Which is, in the end, probably better for you than cupcakes.  Unless you're Julia Child, and you're making a roux or a souffle, in which case, you're counting, but you might as well add more butter and call it a day.

The bottom line is: we need both qualitative and quantitative measures of the self.  While some measurement is important, we are not merely the sum of numbers on a FitBit, or our social media reach, or grades, or the salary we make.  It's easy to forget that, given the emphasis we place on quantifying success (see Arianna Huffington's conference on the Third Metric).  But every once in a while, it might do us good to fire the FitBit.  Even if it means that occasionally, we end up taking the elevator.

Do you quantify yourself?  What are your reactions to the Quantified Self movement?

Eggplant Curry
Play around with this.  The second time I made it, I tossed in two handfuls of green beans instead of one of the peppers.  Add a few more tomatoes.  Vary the salt.  Whatever you do, enjoy it.

3 Japanese eggplants cut into rounds or 1 medium eggplant, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, diced
4-5 medium Roma tomatoes, diced
2 T. coconut oil
1 t. cumin seeds
2 T, ginger, grated
1/8 t. turmeric powder
3/4 t. garam masala
salt to taste
1 c. coconut milk

Heat oil in a heavy stock pot. Add cumin seeds; when the seeds begin to crackle, add onion and saute until it is transparent.  Add ginger, turmeric powder and garam masala and stir for a few seconds.

Add tomatoes and stir and allow to cook until soft and mushy.

Add peppers, eggplant, and salt to taste and mix well.  Cover and allow the bell pepper and eggplant to cook on medium low heat, checking regularly to stir, making sure that there is enough liquid in the bottom of the pan, and adding a splash of water if it's too dry.

When the vegetables are soft, add coconut milk, a little at a time, and stir gently over low heat (do not boil).

Serve with rice. Or whatever strikes your fancy.

Supposed Tos, and Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans

I don't generally sign up for inspirational email.  In fact, I don't generally opt in to anything that will come regularly to my inbox which doesn't have direct relevance for me professionally.  But a while ago, a friend introduced me to TUT's Note from the Universe.  They were different enough, quirky enough that my interest was piqued.  And I subscribed.  Now, I'm often surprised at how apropos the messages are.  This was my message the other day:

No more "supposed tos," OK, Justine?

You're not supposed to work harder, look better, sleep less, sell more, run faster, talk slower, be happier, stay longer, leave earlier, cook, clean, negotiate, settle, start, stop, move, try, win, shake, rattle or roll.

Other people made all that up.

    The Universe 

How many times do I make this my mantra?  I should blog more.  I should be happier.  I should be posting beautiful new photographs of food every day.  But how realistic is that, given that I now commute for almost two hours, that I do laundry every night, that I sometimes bring work home, that I'm trying to comment often on friends' blogs, that I have two children that need my attention?

It's not.

I'm not another blogger.  I'm not another working parent.  I'm not another runner or yogini.  And right now I'm not capable of coming up with new photogenic recipes.  Publishing fabulously deep blog posts every day, or even several times a week.  Leaving earlier.

Other people made that all up.

So what am I doing listening to other people?  To popular media, to Sheryl Sandberg, to other bloggers, to the more critical voices from my past?  Who don't have any basis for their claims on my behavior, my appearance, my anything?

I ran into someone we know from town today at the car show, and she was talking about her artwork winning an award at an art show.  Immediately, I caught myself.  Well, she's an artist.  She actually works at her craft.  You don't work at yours.  So how do you ever expect to win an award or get published?

Those voices get internalized pretty deeply, so that at some level, we forget that they are other people's voices, and start to think that they're our own.  Maybe, eventually, they become our own.

Realism.  This is my life the way it is right now.  All I can do is trust that I'm doing things the best way I can do them ... which is the way I've done them--at least in my own opinion--my whole life.  And remind myself when I can that there's nothing else I'm supposed to be doing, and nohow else I'm supposed to be.  Except who, and what, and where I am.

Do you have "supposed tos"?  Where did they come from?  How do you tune them out?

Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans
This is what I did with the beans and potatoes from last weeks' CSA share.  It wasn't fancy, but it was dinner.  And if you put enough garlic and salt on pretty much anything, you'll be OK.

1.5 lb. baby potatoes
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
1 quart green beans, trimmed and halved

Preheat the oven to 450F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place it in the oven to preheat.

Toss potatoes with 1 T. olive oil, then season with salt and pepper; transfer potatoes to preheated baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes.

Toss the green beans with garlic, season with more salt and pepper. Add to the baking sheet with the potatoes.

Roast for 10 more minutes.

Protected

When I was little, there were umbrellas.  Mostly I remember my father's black umbrella, the black one with the faux leather handle that smelled like his car.  My mother must have had one, maybe light blue. And there were extras, of course, in case your assigned umbrella couldn't be found.

I must have had a rain jacket, too, though I also remember my mother saying something about how plastic rain jackets just make you sweaty, so perhaps not.  I know I pined away for a shiny purple jacket and matching boots, like the ones that Robyn Kelleher wore.  Still, even if I had said boots and jacket, I was taught that you carried an umbrella when the forecast called for rain; we weren't like those people we saw running or even walking down the street, their white Keds oozing water at every step.  Rain smelled like fear: you could get sick, being out in the elements, getting your head wet.  So, like our parents, we protected ourselves, joined the ranks of umbrella-wielding adults.  My brother, conformist that he is, even asked for a new one last Christmas.

I don't know when it started, but some time ago I began to bend this rule, little by little, letting myself be rained on.  For a while, I carried the umbrella, but I resisted opening it in a light drizzle, as long as I was wearing something I didn't care much about.  Soon, I was throwing caution to the wind when the forecast was uncertain: sometimes I'd carry the umbrella, sometimes not.  Sometimes, I'd leave it behind on purpose, as long as it wasn't currently raining when I left the house or my car.  And finally, I began to walk--and later, even run--in the rain, knowing full well that I was going to get wet.  It was an act of resistance, or perhaps even defiance, this refusing the protection of my umbrella.

***

On Friday, at around noon, the skies began to darken, and from my window, I could see spots where the raindrops had started to pattern the pavement.  I shoved the umbrella into my bag before I locked the door to leave for my meeting; I was wearing the newly-tailored suit and a pair of heels, and I didn't want to take chances, especially given that I knew it was supposed to pour.

I was thankful for the umbrella later, when I found myself navigating the monsoon from my office to the parking garage.  I stepped gingerly around puddles, trying to hold my suit up out of the wet mess, knowing that it was probably fruitless.

Driving north towards the CSA pickup and home, I mentally rehearsed the week's share.  Eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, peppers, scallions, beets ... and beans.  Which, if I wanted them, I would have to pick myself, in the rain, which continued to fall steadily.

There were few places to park in the field that weren't riddled with mud holes, and by the time I turned off the car, I was having doubts about the beans.  I left my umbrella behind, on purpose.  It would be a quick trip.

But when I got to the CSA distribution center, I realized that the zucchini and eggplant were already gone (that's what I get for working and agreeing to an hour commute, I guess).  And there are only so many carrots one family can eat.

Fleetingly, I considered the umbrella.  I'll just be a minute, I thought.  And I need my hands for other things: one to pick, one to hold the bag.

Plastic bag perched atop my head, I slogged up the hill to the far field, where the bean plants sagged under the weight of the storm and the ripe beans.  As I began working my way down the row, lifting the leaves gently and tugging at the fruit, lifting and tugging again, I felt the back of my shirt start to glue itself to my skin.  Then my shorts, to my thighs.  The mud had already made its way over the top of my shoes, and was working itself into the soles of my feet.  Bent, head toward the ground, I felt the rain trickling down my hair and neck, and tasted it running into my mouth, wiped it away from my eyes.  My body began to melt away into the earth and sky; there were only the bean plants, and the rain.

In some ways, giving up the umbrella was like giving up protection.  But in other ways, it was giving up the boundary, giving up fear.  It was only water.  I'd dry off.

Have you ever tried to protect yourself, only later realizing that the very thing protecting you was preventing you from being present, or from feeling something that changed you?  And do you use umbrellas, or are you a "run between the drops" kind of person?

"She Likes to Let Them Go"

She couldn't have been more than 5, dressed in a white t-shirt and short ruffled pink skirt, shiny black hair pulled back into a pink hair ribbon.  Her round, brown face smiled broadly, clutching her yellow balloon, which bobbed and weaved in the wind like a kickboxer.

As I waited for her mother to load her plastic bags full of groceries into the trunk and passenger seat of the car, which was driven by an older white man,  I wondered idly if this was an unmarked taxi service, whether such a thing existed in our town.  I felt a little sorry for them, I guess, making bold assumptions about where they lived, about why they didn't have a car to get to the grocery store.  I might have wondered whether the little girl was going to get the balloon into the car by herself, why her mother didn't jump to help her.

By Andrei Niemimäki from Turku, Finland (Balloon)
[CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

They were about to climb into the back seat, leaving an opening for me to get into my own car, when suddenly: whoosh! off it went.

"Oh," I said in sympathy.  I'd seen this before, readied myself to offer some words of comfort, to support the mother as she tried to calm her child. I fully expected the little girl to cry.  Or at least to make a startled, unhappy sound, or to frown.  But she gazed up at the balloon, now careening dizzily off into the atmosphere, her round face smiling, shining, white teeth showing.  She waved to the sky, jumped a little, enough to bounce the skirt, and said, "bye BYE!"

The driver and I must have looked surprised, looking at the balloon, now easily a half mile away, and then back at the girl, because her mother confided, strangely apologetic, "she likes to let them go."

"Well, that's unusual," said the driver, putting the last bag into the passenger seat.

"Wow, look at it go," I said, impressed at the speed of the balloon in the wind.

"Where is it?" asked the mother.  I pointed to the yellow speck in the sky.  She shook her head, smiling, and closed the door behind her as she ducked into the back seat.

The little girl pressed her face to the car window now, still smiling, as it pulled away.

She likes to let them go, I thought.  What a useful thing to learn as a five year old, isn't it?  To know how to let go of the beautiful things, the things you love, and let them fly free, wherever the wind will take them.  To let go of the difficult things, the things that want to go somewhere else, the things that are really just a burden, or that will tie you down if you have to hold onto them.  The things that don't last.  The yellow balloons of the world.

My children got balloons at the ice cream parlor tonight.  I looped one around my daughter's wrist, advising her to "be careful with it, now, hang on tight."  I watched her play with it, wiggling it around with delight -- "look! the balloon is dancing!" she told us -- and knew that I shouldn't have said anything at all.  That maybe the balloon would fly away, or pop, and she'd be upset.  Maybe more upset because I told her to be careful with it.  Environmental and emotional considerations of flown balloons aside, maybe it's not too early to help her learn, too, to let go sometimes, or at least to not fear the letting go, to know that almost everything is ephemeral, except the beautiful things we can't touch anyway.  That there are some things we simply can't -- or shouldn't -- hold onto.  Maybe we know this as children, and it's only as adults that we begin to fear the separation.  Maybe we know too much.

Or maybe we forget.

Do you have a hard time letting go?  How tightly do you hold on to your yellow balloon?

On (Not) Giving Enough, and Yukon Gold Potato Soup

Today was Commitment Sunday at our fellowship.  Like many religious organizations, my church collects pledges from its members in order to fund the church's operation for the coming year, and in the past few years, we've taken one of our Sunday services to celebrate the gifts we give and receive from the community and to commit ourselves to supporting the church for the coming year.

I don't generally get emotional at Sunday services, but I was a teary mess by the end of the sermon, which was given by a friend of mine.  She described her grandparents as people who were "master givers," people who actively looked for ways to make a difference, who always knew exactly how to intervene or contribute, who were beyond generous.  They were the people who would show up your door to do the laundry and feed your cats and cook meals when you were sick, the people who would shower you with leftovers and the fresh produce from their gardens, the people who would take care of people they never even met.

She described herself as a "practicing giver," someone who was more able to give when it was easy, but harder when giftees were not exactly good, or patient, receivers.  She also described herself as a "practicing receiver," someone who is getting better at appreciating the gifts, even when they don't really fit, or when they don't exactly seem like gifts at all (the unexpected honest criticism, the cast-offs), both because she recognizes that people need to give in order to feel in control of the uncontrollable, and because sometimes those gifts really do end up being useful in the end.

It so happens that I see my friend, as I do many of the other people in my fellowship, closer to a "master" giver than a "practicing" one, unless we're talking about "practice" in the yoga sense of the word.  She's the kind of person who wouldn't think twice about offering to watch my children if I suddenly found myself in need of help.  She's the kind of person who would drop by with a casserole without being asked, who asks after the things you think everyone's forgotten about, who looks after other people, listening carefully and fully, sometimes between the lines of what's actually being said.  She radiates beauty, inside and out.  As she spoke, I thought about the gifts she's given me over the years, and felt, as I've often felt, humbled.  I've often said that when I want to grow up, I want to be more like her; it's completely true.

The truth is, the fellowship is full of people who give, and who love, with abandon.  They give selflessly of their time, their talents, their money.  They commit hours to the nonprofit that works to reduce poverty in our area, donating food and outreach time and mentoring time.  They commit hours to the nonprofit that shelters homeless families in church congregations.  They commit hours to Habitat for Humanity, or countless other social justice programs and initiatives.  They teach our religious education program, run church committees, bake every Sunday for coffee hour, do major construction and renovation on the church and grounds, tend to the spiritual needs of the membership.  They listen and act seemingly without boundaries.  I have more role models for giving than I've ever wanted, all sitting in one building every Sunday morning.

As I sat there and took stock of my own contributions, I was feeling like I just don't give enough.  And not in financial terms; actually, I was completely fine with our pledge.  That's the easy part.  But I was feeling like I could never measure up to givers (and gracious receivers) who were gathered around me.  It's true, I give time on the school board now.  I give time to my library board.  I give time to the church, on the committee that looks out for short-term concrete needs of our members, but I can count those hours on one hand, and even often on one finger, each week.   And on the other hand, I was feeling like I've been so focused on me these past almost-two years; it's not exactly, as my friend suggested in the "receiving" part of her sermon, that I feel I don't deserve gifts (of time, of people's attention and concern), but more that I feel others need and deserve more than I do.

Of course, this begs the question: would I ever be able to give "enough" by my own definition?  Do I feel this way because my standards for myself are too impossibly perfect?  Or because we can all always give more (As Dorothy Day put it: "No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to be done.")?  Do I just need more practice at being a good receiver?  Or is the problem that I'm measuring any of this at all, and the solution to simply stop measuring, to both give and receive to the depths of my ability, without reservation or self-judgement?

Who are the givers in your life?  How do you give?  Do you consider yourself a "practicing reciever"?

Yukon Gold Potato Soup
This is the sort of soup you can make on a moment's notice to bring to a friend who needs a meal, or to serve for a weeknight dinner.  It's simple, unfussy.  Enough in its uncomplicatedness.

8-12 cloves garlic, peeled
2 t. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled, 1/2" slices
1 rib celery, 1/2" slices
3 1/2 c. vegetable or chicken stock
1 1/2 lbs.Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and rinsed, not peeled, cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 t. thyme
1/2 t. rosemary
1/8 t. dried lavender
5 oz. container evaporated milk
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375.  Toss cloves of garlic with 2 t. olive oil, place in the center of a 12" square of foil, wrap and seal.  Roast about 1 hour or until tender.

Heat remaining olive oil in a medium stockpot on medium heat.  Add onion, carrots, and celery.  Cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook 8-10 minutes or until soft but not brown.

Add stock,  potatoes, thyme, rosemary, lavender, and roasted garlic and partially cover; bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer until potatotes are tender, about 20 minutes.  Blend soup together until smooth, add milk, and blend again.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Add more water for a thinner soup, or boil a bit more for thicker soup.

Perfect Moment Monday: the Gift

On the last Monday of each month, my lovely friend Lavender Luz at Write Mind Open Heart sponsors Perfect Moment Monday, a blog hop/writing prompt that offers an opportunity to notice and reflect on the "perfect moments" in our lives, rather than create them.  These moments can be ordinary, momentous, or somewhere in between.  Everyone is welcome to join.  

***

When I lived in California, once every few months I'd travel from LA to San Francisco to see friends and escape the sprawl for a while.  I often did the drive at night, to avoid traffic, and I have vivid memories of driving through the San Joaquin Valley feeling a little like I was hurtling through limbo, nothing but vast dark emptiness and flat farmland for miles in every direction.

One of those nights, when I was speeding through the darkness, something changed -- maybe I was driving in a new lane, or I'd noticed a new billboard ... who knows -- and I caught a glimpse of the sky.  I was stunned.  So stunned that I had to pull over, opening the sun roof of my little blue ford Escort.  Peter Gabriel was blasting, the cold air was rushing in.  I got out, despite the trucks thundering past, and gaped in wonder.  There must have been thousands, and thousands, of stars.  I stood there weeping at the side of the freeway, grateful beyond words that I'd been given such an unspeakably beautiful gift, an epiphany of belonging, a feeling of being held by the Universe, of being one of the stars.

photo credit: Jhenline, wikimedia commons

The other night, as I was driving back home from a meeting through a rural area of the county, something about the unfamiliar light from my husband's dashboard and the cold dark around me took me back to that night in the empty darkness between LA and San Francisco.  It wasn't about the stars, because we don't see nearly as many stars in NJ.  But really, neither was that moment in California.  It was, instead, about knowing who I was, and feeling I belonged.  I'd spent the night with intelligent, kind, thoughtful, generous women, and was thinking about them, thinking about how amazing they all are, and how lucky I'd been to be there with them.  And there in the dark, I had this thought: "this is who I am when I am my best self: a clever, kind, thoughtful, warm, funny, generous, loved and loveable person, who belongs with these other women."

I had to catch my breath; it was too beautiful for words.

If only we could all feel like this all the time.  It's a little like holding the stars, isn't it?  Maybe the most important thing is to notice it, and embrace the Universe right back, when we are lucky enough to find ourselves in the presence of that kind of a gift.

Re-boiled.

If you're a parent, you've heard the admonition that you're going to find yourself saying the same things to your children that your parents said to you.  It's hard not to.  After all, we are good students, and those lessons happen at an impressionable age.  And we see ourselves in our children, too, don't we?  Sometimes the resemblance is obvious, and sometimes less so; sometimes it's physical, and sometimes something much deeper than facial features.  Sometimes it's flattering, and there is great joy in those moments.  Sometimes, it's anything but.

Especially when we see the parts of ourselves that we struggle with (or against) emerge in our children.


My son is sort of a perfectionist.  He's been that way as long as I can remember, lining up his vehicles in lines that had to go just so, having a complete meltdown when he doesn't do something exactly right the first time.  His teacher, in a recent conference, said that she noticed this quick frustration (to the point of tears) and it worried her, to see it in a child so young.  We do the best we can to prevent this from becoming a life-long obstacle.  Being encouraging.  Telling him that practice is important.  Assuring him that the mistakes are part of the learning process, and that everyone learns at a difference pace.  

But of course, this is my nature, too.  Having things just so.  Doing everything exactly right.  Never disappointing anyone.  Making everyone happy.  Or if I'm pissing people off, doing so with full knowledge and confidence that it's my intention to do so.  And as much as I try to be reassuring, I confess that sometimes I also respond to the things that make me frustrated by expecting him to be perfect.  Why didn't you get those math problems right? You know the answers.  Why can't you bathe yourself faster?  You're a big boy, you don't need me to supervise you every minute.  And so on.  Just, of course, like my father.

I also see him react out of anger, snapping with a quick temper, rage flaring up and going off like fireworks.  Which is also the way I've reacted to bottled-up anger over the years.  Quiet, quiet, quiet, and then BANG.

It's a scary negotiation, those moments.  Because I step back and see myself with a lens that makes me uncomfortable.

The difference, though, is that I see it, and talk about it, and let him know that I'm not happy with the way I sometimes deal with anger, or disappointment, or frustration.  And we try to talk about how both of us can problem-solve better.  

A few years ago, Brene Brown wrote, in her series about imperfect parenting, about the fact that parenting is a journey that we have to walk with our kids, while also continuing to figure ourselves out.  And in some ways, having kids forces us to figure ourselves out, even if we thought we'd figured out everything already before we started family-building.  (Good for you, by the way, if you have managed to do this.)  We may want to forget about our own flaws, or our own self-work, but we can't focus on our kids without looking a little more deeply at ourselves, too.

The other thing to remember about parenting is that as much as our children do resemble us, they are also, thankfully, their own people, subject to a different set of environmental conditions, and a different co-parent (or even in single-parent homes, different adult role models).  I know that there's hope for my son, because as much as he's a perfectionist, he's also, as my husband might be, perfectly happy with hastily written homework, or half-eaten sandwiches and crumbs on the counter, or pajamas on the floor.  And he's just as apt to walk away from a situation, or let his rage go, as he is to allow it to fester and scream.  Which are good reminders for me, too.

It's sort of like ribollita.  You start with bean soup.  And you cook it forever. And it's really good bean soup.  But then, you stop cooking it, and you throw in some bread, and you cook it all over again, and now it's heartier, and stronger, and more flavorful.  That goes for them, and for us.

I ate a soup like this in a small cafe in Kingston with a friend, at the end of a long weekend training program.  It wasn't quite ribollita, even though it was listed as such on the sandwich board (perfectionist that I am, I wasn't going to point out that they'd left out the beans and the bread).  But it was the sort of thing that had been cooked forever, which is sometimes exactly the kind of soup you want.

What traits did your parents have that you see in yourself?  If you have children, which of your traits, if any, do you see in them?  How has the "reboiling" changed you?

(not exactly) Ribollita

1 T. olive oil
4 stalks of celery, diced  
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 yellow onion, diced
4 sprigs rosemary (2 T. dried)
3 sprigs fresh thyme (2 t. dried)
1 c. white wine
4 yukon gold potatoes, 1/2" cubes
15 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes
15 oz. white beans (optional) 
5 c. vegetable stock 
1 c. water 

1 bunch of kale, stems removed, leaves chopped  

Heat oil in a large stock pot over medium heat.  Add garlic, onions and celery and saute until just fragrant and beginning to become translucent.  Add rosemary and thyme, and stir until fragrant, a minute or two.  Pour in white wine, and reduce heat to medium-low; cook until the vegetables are tender.

Add potatoes and season with fresh ground pepper and sea salt.  Stir to coat.  Add tomatoes, beans (optional), vegetable broth and water and simmer on medium-low heat for 2 1/2 hours (or however long you can stand it), stirring occasionally and adding extra seasoning or water if necessary.

Remove the sprigs of herbs if they haven't disintegrated by now.  Add kale and cook until just tender and wilted, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Enjoy with a crusty white bread and the rest of your bottle of wine.

The Crawlspace, and Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about what we do with the remnants of our past lives, and about some things my mother had saved from my childhood and deposited at my house just recently, which are now living on the top shelf of my bedroom closet.  It was interesting timing, because just a few weeks later, I found myself faced with the same question, this time from a much different perspective.

Generally, I'm pretty good at purging.  I hate all kinds of clutter.  (Originally I saved clothes from our son to prepare for another child, and more than once, teetering on the edge of madness during those years of pregnancy loss, I almost threw them all in the clothing donation bin, thinking that all hope was lost, that we'd never be able to use them after all.)  Now that I know we're done having children, for the most part, I give away the kids' clothes to other families who have younger children.  I've held on to one or two hand-made sweaters, for nostalgia, but the rest are gone.  The same thing with the baby gear.  Boppies, pillows, baby monitors, store-bought blankets (I can't bring myself to give away the ones that were handmade), even the crib: all of those things have been Freecycled or given to friends.

As N. has gotten older, the toys have started to go away, too ... some of them to other children, some of them to garage sales, some of them in the trash. 

We have a few toys from my husband's childhood: a plastic phone (the kind with the red handle and the dial ... you know, the kind that children will never recognize these days anyway as a phone), and a small music box radio that plays "My Name Is Michael" when you turn the knob.  When I asked him about these things, since N. no longer really wants to play with them, he mentioned that he wanted to save them.  I was surprised, since he's not a hoarder, either, but I figured I'd find storage for them.  And suddenly there were some things I wanted to save, too.  Because I love well-made wooden toys.  And besides, durable toys that won't rot in the basement are good to have around if someone with a smaller child comes to visit.

But that's not why I was saving them, really.  I think I was saving them for my grandchildren.

Of course, it's not that simple, is it.

When I found myself in the basement crawlspace the other day, putting toys in big Rubbermaid tub -- for the future, of course -- it seemed, on the one hand, like the most natural thing to do.  But on the other hand, it was completely awkward and unnerving.  I was pretending not to know that I could not take that future for granted.  I was pretending that my daughter and son would have children of their own, that they would grow up, get married, start families.  My heart knew differently.  My heart knew that it is entirely possible that my daughter, or my son, might have to go through what we went through, or worse.  My heart knew that lives take unpredictable paths.  That terrible things happen, and that, at the other extreme, people also make not-at-all-terrible-but-entirely-sensible decisions.

As I closed the lid on the tub, knowing I would reopen it again to squirrel more things away for this fairy tale future, I decided that it was OK to live "as if."  Because even despite what Buddhists teach about not being attached in this world, I think that it's only human to project ourselves into the future.  It's like the crawlspace of our minds.  We squirrel things away there, just in case.  As long as that projection doesn't consume us or hinder our ability to live mindfully in the present; as long as we have the stability of spirit to adapt when things don't turn out as we had imagined they might, knowing that ultimately nothing belongs to us; as long as cultivating compassion is our most important work -- imagining the future isn't inherently a bad thing.  In fact, it gives us hope.  Which I think is probably one of the best things the human race has going for it.

In the meantime, my daughter continues to consume great quantities of black beans.  Which, if you believe in practitioners of Chinese medicine, is probably as good an omen as any.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup
adapted from Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes

Practitioners of Eastern medicine, among others, have long associated black beans with fertility.  Pumpkin seeds are also supposed to increase fertility.  And even if you're not trying to have children, they're still just plain good for you.
1 T. olive oil
2 medium red bell peppers, seeded and roughly chopped

1 small onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 t. cumin
1 t. salt 

15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 1/4 c. pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
olive oil

5 c. water

2 T. tomato paste

1 t. garam masala

2 T. raw honey or agave

pepitas for serving

In a medium pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add peppers and onions, and saute until the onions are just beginning to become translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and saute for an additional 8 minutes or until the onions are beginning to caramelize.

Add cumin and salt, and stir for one minute.  Add black beans, pumpkin, tomato paste and water; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Stir in garam masala and honey, remove from heat.  Blend in batches until smooth (or use your fabulous immersion blender).  Garnish with pepitas for an added crunch.

Perfect Moment Monday: A Porch Swing, and Mulligatawny

On the last Monday of each month, my lovely friend Lavender Luz at Write Mind Open Heart sponsors Perfect Moment Monday, a blog hop/writing prompt that offers an opportunity to notice and reflect on the "perfect moments" in our lives, rather than create them.  These moments can be ordinary, momentous, or somewhere in between.  Everyone is welcome to join.  

***

Though the days have been colder lately, sometimes bitterly so, I still try to get outside in the afternoons with N.  We haven't been to the park much lately, though, and I suspect that she misses the swing, which she tells me, jubilantly, is "like flying."

On a particularly raw day, we'd just gotten back from the grocery store, and I was going to head inside for the few minutes before I's bus made its appearance down the street, when to my surprise, N. stopped on the porch, demanding, "swing, mama": which meant, "come, sit on the porch swing."

"Really?" I said.  "Now?  N., you haven't wanted to sit on that swing in months."  I had some mulligatawny cooking inside, and I wanted to go check on it, really, to inhale the fragrant smell of curry and apple and leeks and coconut and feel warm again.

"Yes, yes ... SWING."

It was too cold to swing, really.  The thought of more cold air on my face made my body temperature drop another five degrees.  But she was adamant.  So I perched her on one end and sat down next to her gingerly, waiting for the creak and snap of the cold teak, bracing myself for the chill that would begin to seep through my seat.

We started slowly, and as she giggled, the swinging got a little more raucous.  My nose felt frosty.  I giggled, and she laughed, and I pushed the swing a little higher.  She laughed, and I laughed more.  Eventually, we were laughing at the laughing.  Has this ever happened to you?  The laughter spirals out of control, and soon you don't even know what's funny and what's not.  Because it's all funny.

And you know what?  The mulligatawny waited until we were done.

Mulligatawny with Chicken (or Chickpeas) and Apples
adapted from Arctic Garden Studio and The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook
Perfect for frosty February days.  You can veganize it if you like by simply substituting chick peas for the chicken.  I love the addition of the banana, which gives this version a different flavor dimension, unlike the version I've made before.

1 lb. boneless chicken, cut into bite-sized chunks (or 1-2 cans chick peas)
2 T. olive oil
2 carrots, diced small
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 medium onion, diced small
2 leeks, sliced thin, white and light green parts only
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, minced
1 T. curry powder
1  t. cumin
1/2 t. cinnamon
6 cloves
1 t. salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
8 c. chicken (or vegetable) stock
1 1/2 medium banana, very ripe and mashed well
1 c. long grain white or brown rice
1/4 c. unsweetened coconut
2 granny smith or other tart apple, diced medium
2 T. lemon juice
1 can coconut milk (I used light)

Toppings (optional)
chopped cilantro or parsley
1 cup yogurt
slivered almonds, toasted

Heat 1 T. oil over medium-high heat in a saute pan.  Add chicken and saute quickly until browned on the outside but not necessarily cooked on the inside. (If using chick peas, skip this step.)

Heat oil over medium heat in a large stock pot or dutch oven (at least 5 1/2 quart).  Add carrots, celery, onion, and leek. Saute, stirring often until onions are soft and translucent.  Add garlic and ginger and stir for a minute or two until fragrant.  Add spices and stir for one minute. Add stock, add banana, chicken (or chick peas) and rice.

Bring to a simmer, then turn down heat to medium low and simmer for about 30 minutes.  Add apples and coconut; simmer another 15 minutes. Turn heat down to low. Gradually stir in lemon juice and coconut milk; do not boil! Top with cilantro, yogurt, and almonds.

Change, and Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Each month, my good friend and fabulous blogger Kathy Benson, who writes (among other places!) at Bereaved and Blessed hosts a blog hop and writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday.   The Time Warp invites us to revisit an old post from our blog, and think about where we are now, how our thoughts about the post may have changed from its original writing.  This month, during the season of resolutions and goal-setting, Kathy directs us to find an old blog entry about change:

The new year is often a time for new beginnings and changes in our lives. Choose a post from your archives in which you wrote about change. Maybe you wrote about a change that you chose to make or one that happened without warning or intention. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since.

Read more: http://bereavedandblessed.com/2013/1/time-warp-tuesday-change/

From the very beginning this blog has been all about and my attempts to cope with change (half-baked is, by nature, something in process), but the one that its feeling most important for me these days is a post I'd written back in 2011, in which I submit my letter of resignation.

I had struggled for months, composing that letter in my head, as conditions became untenable for me at work.  I worried about what it would mean to give up a 12 year career, in which I had won accolades from my supervisors and earned the respect of literally hundreds of people.  I worried whether I'd ever be employed again.  Leaving my job was both a change I initiated and something that happened without much warning.

I chose this post because I've needed to remind myself, especially lately, about how proud I felt, taking that step into the unknown, risking my career to maintain my sanity and integrity.  As busy stay-at-home-parent life took over, and as the economy continued to lag, the job opportunities evaporated.  Now, nearly two years since my daughter was born, and over a year and a half since I left my job, I'm still not employed outside the home.  I've questioned my decision to resign more times than I can count.  I've questioned my credentials, my intelligence, the fabulousness of my resume, my network.  It's hard going some days.

But sometimes even when we initiate change, life takes us in directions that we didn't anticipate.  We create the catalyst, we set things in motion, but there's a world out there to contend with, much of which is beyond our control.  Our choice is to find acceptance, to be more like water, flowing with change, rather than trying to work against it.

And, like cooking sometimes, change is slow.  I need to keep reminding myself that worthwhile changes can take time. 

The first time I read through this recipe I was a little reluctant to try it.  After all, isn't the whole point of the slow cooker to minimize your cooking time, rather than requiring that you essentially cook something twice?

But for someone who doesn't eat all that much meat, I have to say: cooking the chicken this way made it practically melt in your mouth.  Slow and steady for the win.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
based on the original at tasty kitchen

9 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 T. coriander
1 T. cumin
1 t. kosher salt
1 c. yogurt
4 T. butter
 for the sauce
4 T. butter
1 large onion, peeled/diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. kosher salt
3 T. garam masala
2-3" piece fresh ginger, peeled/grated
4 c. crushed tomatoes
2 t. agave nectar
2 t. cornstarch
1-½ c. evaporated milk (or cream)
cilantro (optional for garnish)

Cut the chicken into 1" pieces, place them into a bowl, and sprinkle with with spices. Stir in the yogurt to coat the chicken thoroughly. Cover lightly and let sit for 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Melt 1 T. butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Brown the chicken in four batches, using one tablespoon of butter with each batch, and transfer the browned chicken to the slow cooker.

For the sauce, melt 4 T. butter over medium high heat. Add the onions, garlic, and salt, and stir. Saute until the onions just begin to brown around the edges.

Stir in the garam masala and ginger and cook about 1 minute before raising the heat to high and adding the crushed tomatoes and agave. Scrape the caramelized bits from the bottom of the pan, and bring to a boil. Pour the sauce into the slow-cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 5 hours, or until the chicken is so tender that it falls apart on your fork.

Use a fork or whisk to stir the cornstarch into the evaporated milk until smooth. Pour into the slow-cooker and stir gently until the color is even.  Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbly around the edges; the original recipe suggested that you re-cover the slow cooker, but I found it worked better without re-covering (perhaps because I used evaporated milk).

Serve with rice (tasty kitchen suggested rice with peas), and whatever else you like!