St Johns + Art

Our homeschool group had the pleasure of a guided tour of the St Johns + Art exhibition by its organizer today. It was a lovely, foggy autumn day, the kind that makes the changing leaves pop as if the trees had all been wired for electricity. Forty different storefronts had art pieces ranging from embroidery to ceramics--so much to look at but sadly very little photographed well through glass so I'm mostly just sharing images from our walk. If you're in Portland you should get on up to St Johns right away as this is the last week of the exhibit.

Sick of It

I was going to share with you a pretty post about lots of recently finished projects and upcoming plans. But my brain's been hijacked today and the following is what happens when you come to a blog whose focus is everything that comes through my head.

I've been reading T R Reid's eye opening book The Healing of America this week in which he details how numerous countries around the world established effective, affordable universal health care systems which make our current setup laughable. Except it's not funny. It's life and death.

And this morning's episode on OPB's Think Out Loud addressed the issue of a mandate as part of health care reform. How, exactly, does a mandate make health care affordable? It seems to me that it's a big old gift, wrapped up in a bow, to the very same for profit insurance companies that have made such a debacle of health care in this country.

Today I read that the health insurance industry can't support the proposed changes. Well boo hoo! How many other businesses have folded in our current economy? Let 'em fold. Then maybe we can start over with a real health care system designed to keep Americans healthy, not make corporate executives even richer.

There are so many ways we can make this work. Medicare for all. Private doctors paid through a public system. Private (but not for-profit) insurers paying doctors. Reid's book opened my eyes to so many ways of getting to what we really need: a health care system that puts people before profits, allows doctors to practice freely (without massive medical school debts and frightfully expensive malpractice insurance), and alleviates the fear of medical bankruptcy that haunts all of us, both uninsured families and those whose coverage is sparse and/or may be terminated at the whim of an insurance company employee.

I hope you'll read Reid's book and then write a letter, call a congressperson, make a stink in some way or another. We need to be loud and clear about real health care reform--it really is about life and death.

Next steps:

If you can't get your hands on Reid's excellent (and very readable) book, this video from Mad as Hell Doctors does a great job of explaining why health care is so insanely expensive in this country. Also--not to be missed-- Keith Olbermann's hour long Special Comment last week on the subject of health care. Here's the transcript if streaming video isn't an option.

Is our system in the US really so bad? Why yes it is. Take a look at this interactive map and see just how poorly we compare to numerous other countries.

Even if you're insured, you may not be once you actually need to use the insurance you've paid for. Googling 'health insurance horror stories" turns up pages and pages of results like this one and this one and this one. Of course Michael Moore's film Sicko (which, ironically, arrived in its cheerful red Netflix envelope the day I came home from an overnight visit to the emergency room without insurance) is another strong indictment of for profit health insurance in the US.

Now what?

Unless you've got a better idea (and please share it if you do) please consider working hard to support a public option in upcoming health care reform. It's the only way to cut into the insurance companies' stranglehold. Write letters, sign petitions, donate money, make a fuss because nothing the Obama administration has proposed to tackle comes close to this in terms of improving the economy and making American citizens healthier and more secure.

Mas o Menos

I recently retired my trusty old 6 quart crockpot. The earth toned workhorse, embellished with 1970's era herb illustrations, was a hand-me-down when I got it well over a decade ago. It made countless batches, of chili, white bean soup, and tomato sauce. Admittedly, it looked a little homely sitting on my counter but I saw no reason to replace it until a recent discussion with a friend who started talking about lead in old crockpot glazes. I wrote to the manufacturer a number of times and was never able to get a definitive answer regarding the safety of my trusty old crockpot so, with only a little regret, it has been replaced by a guaranteed lead free slow cooker which is very spiffy as it comes with interchangable, nesting stoneware cooking vessels in three different sizes which makes this thing suitable for anything from a small pot of slow cooked morning oatmeal to a vat of chili for a crowd. How cool is that? Of course it's a little spare looking without the groovy 70's color scheme but I can trade that for lead free glazes any day.

Those of you reading this who manage just fine without yet another kitchen device might wonder what all the fuss is about. What's wrong with a soup pot and a stove? Nothing. Nothing at all, assuming one is home to watch over the soup pot. But there is something truly wonderful in being able to throw dinner together in the morning and walk away, knowing that a tasty meal will be waiting at the end of the day. Or to set up a pot of oatmeal at bedtime and know that there will be a warm, slow cooked breakfast, even on busy mornings.

I used to only use it during the week when I work from 6-9 pm but in recent years I've found the slow cooker to be quite versatile as well as providing a depth of flavor that I really enjoy. I've written about using it for tomato sauce. Chutney works just as well. And recently I've found that slow cooking chicken necks for 15 or more hours makes a fantastic chicken broth. A slow cooker uses less energy than stovetop cooking, it's nearly impossible to burn properly prepared food, and it doesn't heat up the kitchen. What's not to like?

I wanted to share with you the maiden voyage meal as it was delicious. I'd had an itch to try making a Cuban style arroz con pollo but was set on using only what I had on hand which meant chicken breasts, leftover rice, and lots of CSA bell peppers. None of the recipes I looked at quite fit the bill so I just went freestyle and what I came up with was a keeper. If 4/5 of this family like a dish, I am doing well and that was how this was received. The trick was pureeing all those Vitamin C filled peppers along with tomatoes in the blender. My kids won't touch peppers if they know they're there but don't have refined enough palates to recognize them by taste alone. I'm calling it Mas o Menos Arroz con Pollo as I doubt it would be recognized as such by an actual Cuban person but I'm OK with that because it's good stuff!

Printable recipe

My lovely children were dispersed yesterday, the boys to the mountains and my youngest with friends which meant that my husband and I had some unscheduled time alone together on a beautiful, crisp fall day. I almost forgot to bring my camera but I am so glad he reminded me to tuck it in my bag. Sometimes I think I've already taken all the good pictures I ever will, and then the same old street I've walked 100 times surprises me with its colors.

What a treat to spend a fine, relaxed day off with the one I love best.

Power Bars

Two of my kids and I are not big breaskfast eaters so the mornings when we have to zip out the door for a day of classes can be a little hairy. Thus, I am always on the lookout for healthy, nourishing take along snacks to provide a boost.

I made these last night after searching through internet recipes. I found lots of interesting ones but most were either scary (corn syrup? powdered milk?) or contained expensive, esoteric ingredients like agave syrup and stevia powder. I'm sure you could use those and these would be tasty but plain old honey suited my tastes just fine. There's lots of good stuff here, and room to play around with ingredients. The key for my family is to use the food processor to reduce the offensive elements (cashews, pumkin seeds, and walnuts) along with dried fruit to a barely noticeable paste. Mixed in with oats, peanut butter, and honey, you can hardly tell how nutrient dense these bars are. You can even add some protein powder of your choice (I used a yucky excessively vanilla flavored whey powder my doctor wants me to use in smoothies but it's much less noticeable here).

Let me know what you think of these and if you have a favorite to go type recipe for busy mornings.

Printable recipe

Brownie With A Twist

This one wouldn't let me be. We recently discovered a little coffee house on NE Alberta which has lovely baked goods including a cardamom-pistachio-sea salt brownie that I sampled with no small amount of suspicion given all the extra ingredients. Of course after my first bite I was hooked. These things are crazy good and I couldn't stop thinking about them.

I finally decided to make my own version last night and am happy with the results. I started with the Baked brownie as a base, removed the espresso powder, added cardamom, sea salt, and pistachios and used a larger pan in the hopes of getting a slightly less moist brownie. My results were quite good. I am still looking for the chewy but not dry element, but that just gives me reason to keep experimenting! I think the ingredient that should prove challenging is the pistachios. I wanted roasted and unsalted and, ideally, shelled. I got the first two but ended up shelling my own which wasn't a big deal.

Give these a try and let me know what you think.

Link to Printable Recipe

Elderberry Syrup

Now that I have a 17 day break with holidays coming up, I expect to share some tasty new food finds with you but first, I wanted to let you know about my recent experience making my own anti-flu medicine because I am just so thrilled to be able to make a proven antiviral flu remedy for a mere fraction of the cost of the commercially prepared variety.

Elderberries grow on tall, spindly bushes and the tiny dark blue-black berries develop in clusters after the feathery flower fade. Elderberry bushes are apparently quite easy to grow so I will be looking to add one to my garden soon as elderberries are extremely nutritious, rich in antioxidants, an known to stimulate the immune system in response to flu viruses. As the H1N1 hysteria grows (along with the pressure to subject our children to a virtually untested vaccine) you can bet I want something safe and free of side effects to give my family when we head into crowded synagogues and classrooms later this month.


Elderberry syrup, as it turns out, is super easy to make. The only hard part is finding your berries. Here in the Portland metro area Morning Shade Farm has a row of u-pick elderberry bushes. It took about 10 minutes to fill our buckets with snipped berry clusters. The only fiddly bit is coaxing the berries off the stems. After that, a quick rinse, a bit of a simer, some straining, adding honey, and bottling. That's it! Seriously. Instead of paying $9-12 for a 4 ounce bottle of Sambucol, I have nearly a quart of the stuff which cost about $2, plus another 4 batches worth of berries in the freezer. How cool is that?

The recipe I used came from Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal which is the source of The Dreaded Tonic, our standard homemade cold remedy. I made a double batch of the elderberry syrup by gently simmering 2 cups of washed elderberries in 4 C water for 45 minutes. I let things cool a bit and then strained the juice through a fine mesh strainer, mashing all the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. I then mixed in about a cup and a half of honey and poured into a 1 liter ez cap bottle (I buy mine here). I will keep this refrigerated. The great part is that, unlike the tonic, this stuff is good. Really good. Like pour it on your pancakes or drink straight from the bottle good. I only used about half the suggested quantity of honey and it's still sweet and fruity and ever so delicious. I won't have any trouble getting my kids to take their daily dose. That would 2T/day for big kids and adults and 1 T/day for younger ones as a preventative measure and twice that amount to reduce severity if someone falls ill with the flu. Because of the honey I wouldn't give this to babies.

One thing I learned as I did a little research: under no circumstances should you substitute red elderberries which are quite toxic. And don't eat your black elderberries raw--they can cause stomach upset.

I understand that the hard part here is finding the elderberries. But they are out there--ask around. And if you can't find fresh, you could make this with dried elderberries purchased online though I don't know how the cost would compare to commercially made. I figure that using my u-pick berries I can make close to 5 quarts of this stuff for under $10 which might be an incentive to plant a bush in your garden. I hope you are able to try this and that we all stay healthy this fall.

Edited 9/9/09: I just learned that you can buy dried elderberries from The Herbalist and it's still very cost effective at $2.33/ounce. You only need 1/2 cup of berries to make 4 C of syrup so making your own is still a huge savings.

Slow

I have been reading about slow roasted tomatoes for years and I don't know why it took me so long to jump on the train with all the cool kids, but I am here now! Let me tell you, these things are a revelation. Everything good about tomatoes is magnified in the slow roasting approach, turning a perfectly serviceable Roma into a thing of brilliance. Think of the depth of flavor in a good quality tomato paste, but sweeter, and with the added fragrance of your favorite olive oil and a little magic thrown in. I'm told you can use these with pasta, salads, eggs, and as appetizers but so far I find that eating them as is works pretty well, too.

If you start googling recipes, you'll find that the directions are all over the map. Use cherry tomatoes. No--paste tomatoes. Place skin side up. No--skin side down. Roast for anywhere from 3 to 12 hours at temperatures ranging from 175 to 300 degrees. Herbs and garlic cloves are essential for seasoning. Or you can skip those. My guess is that all of these approaches work just fine.

What I did was drizzle two sheet pans with a lovely, fragrant olive oil and then slice a whole bunch of Roma tomatoes lengthwise, cutting out the little stem thingy as I went along. I rubbed the cut side of each tomato half in the olive oil, flipped it over, and lined it up with all the others until the pan was full. I gave each pan a light sprinkle of kosher salt and popped them in the oven at 175 degrees and came back 12 hours later. Once cool, I peeled the skins off each tomato half and then popped them into freezer bags to save for winter although I confess I ate more than a few during that process.

I hope I've convinced you that you need to go make these immediately. As in, RIGHT NOW. Seriously. GO. And then come back and tell me all about it.

Community Supported Agriculture...and carrots!

We've come to the decision that, while we've loved the CSA this year and the produce has been excellent, we don't plan to continue next year, mostly because we'd rather have more say in what we buy and when we cook. The CSA food has been delicious, but there's a lot of guilt if we don't do something with it immediately. And goign to the farmers market has come to seem like a crazy extravagance. But we really, really like visiting different farmers markets and being able to see what's in season and make out own decisions about what we'll cook and eat. The CSA has made us try a few new things, but it makes more sense to spend our money on things our family loves rather than bravely tolerating turnips. And it's not like won't still support local farmers next year--we'll just be supporting more of them.

I will miss the weekly surprise. What did we get? Ooooh! Purple peppers? Strawberries? Funny carrots?

I've seen lots of carrots with legs:



but this was the first time I'd seen a carrot that needed to pee!

Fallow

While I know that the last thing one is supposed to blog about is one's lack of blog posts, I just wanted to acknowledge how quiet it's been here.

If you are also a reader of Magpie Eats, you know there's been lots of activity there this summer. I've spent nearly every day in the kitchen, making jam, preparing fruit for the freezer or the dehydrator, or slow cooking tomato sauce for the coming winter. I am regularly making yogurt, cheese, and kombucha and have even given roasting my own coffee beans a go. You may or may not be interested in the details of my kitchen life but what really interests me is how that part of my life seems to be gaining in importance.

I haven't done much else in recent months. There's been surprisingly little knitting and I don't think I've touched the sewing machine since the rickrack sundress back in late June. My garden pretty much runs itself now and was doing beautifully until the evil heat wave struck. My once-thriving tomatoes are just sulking now.

What I am doing is reading, lots of reading, and I thought I'd share a couple of titles with you. I just finished Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of my Stuff by Fred Pearce in which the author traces his stuff (food, clothing, electronics, and more) back to its origins which are always far from home. It's rarely a pretty picture which is exactly why I am grateful Pearce did the digging and shared his findings. From the gold mines of South Africa to the prawn fisheries in the Bay of Bengal, our need for cheap stuff is filled by exploited workers and decimated ecosystems. I am sure we have all had our suspicions, but Pearce rips the lid off a host of social, environmental, and economic disasters and encourages us to take a good hard look. This book was a huge eye-opener for me, but surprisingly not all gloom and doom which made it that much more powerful.

I first learned about Sharon Astyk's Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front from Chris at Lost Arts Kitchen. I have tried to read other books on peak oil, the climate crisis, and economic meltdown but never finished. Usually I start out with the best of intentions and quickly end up putting the book aside and looking for something that will calm my racing heart and allow me to sleep. I have a pretty low threshold for confronting the coming disasters but Astyk's book, read in small bits, kept me reading and, more importantly, thinking. Somehow, even though she is unflinching in addressing the numerous enormous challenges ahead, she manages to present her information in a non-hysterical manner, making it possible for me to read and learn and not fling the book to the floor in a panic. That is no small thing, and I am grateful for her skill. For a taste of her writing, you can visit her blog.

I'll just add one more book, a work of fiction that sucked me in at page one and held me in its richly detailed world for days after I finished it. The Hungry Tide was my second Amitav Ghosh novel and it captivated me even more than the first. Ghosh describes the fascinating world of people who live by the tides in the Sundarbans. Politics, natural history, caste and identity, plus dolphins and tigers made this novel a page turner for me.

DIY Coffee

I love the crazy diversity of my neighborhood. Some of my neighbors like to drink enormous quantities of soda and then toss the cups in the street. Others drink beer while sitting in their parked cars, listening to 70's R&B. And then there are the east African families whose serious love of coffee necessitates home roasting. When I arrive home from work around 9:15, the air in my neighborhood is often heavy with the scent of coffee roasting in the tiny apartments scattered throughout Parkrose.

I imagine these women, swathed in colorful cottons, carefully tending their beans in a cast iron skillet or perhaps some sort of fascinating bit of specialized equipment, passed down through families and carefully wrapped for the journey from Ethiopia to the US. What I never pictured was a hot air popcorn popper but, as it turns out, these silly things make decent one-batch coffee roasters.

Intrigued by this idea, I asked my friend Doreen for some green beans (which, because they are decaffeinated, are actually a light tan color before roasting). Doreen and her husband run ZBeanz, a local coffee roasting company whose coffee I love. While I was curious to try roasting my own coffee, I had no illusions that I'd produce anything brilliant and wisely bought a bag of their Sumatra decaf for backup.

You can read about popcorn popper coffee roasting all over the web, but I found this page at Coffee Geek to be particularly informative. After reading thoroughly I took the popper outside to avoid setting off smoke alarms. I put in about half a cup of beans, turned the thing on, and puttered around in the garden for 5 minutes or so while things warmed up. I was soon rewarded with a lovely aroma as the beans began to darken. I peered carefully into the popper to keep an eye on the darkening beans and soon noticed that along with the rich coffee smell I was also breathing in the less lovely aroma of melting plastic! When I realized the hood for the popper was starting to melt I unplugged things and decided the beans were dark enough.

I immediately heated water and ground the beans for my French press. The resulting coffee was good but not as full bodied as I would have liked. My 16 year old coffee loving son declared it "bland". And he was right. We both prefer a darker roast which was prevented by my early shutdown of the popper.

I may pursue this more, just because I love the idea of doing my own roasting. On the other hand, I don't love the idea of inhaling plastic fumes at all. Thank goodness I always no where to go for more excellent coffee!

More Food Preservation Fun

Back in June when I decided this was going to be The Year I Preserve Everything I bought a copy of The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving, mostly because I was taken by the "small batch" part. Small batches mean I don't need to haul out the gigantic, baby bath sized canning kettle and attempt to move it, full of water, from the sink to the stove. Small batch means not waiting an hour for the water to heat. Small batch means I can toss a few half pint jars in my stockpot and can without drama. Awesome.

Also, this book had lots of intriguing recipes beyond the usual Ball Blue Book staples , things like Thai Chile Sauce and Madras Pickled Eggplant. So far I've made the barely cooked strawberry jam and the lovely blueberry marmalade and been quite pleased. Recently after halving and pitting 22 pounds of Tilton apricots and running them through my dehydrator, I was looking through the book again and came across red pepper and apricot chutney. Home dried apricots are nothing short of amazing and I needed to figure out a way to prevent myself from endlessly snacking until they all disappeared in less time than it took to dry them. I'm happy to report that I still have most of my apricots after the clever idea of sealing them up using my friend's Food Saver. Somehow busting into one of those lumpy, vacuum packed bags is a lot more daunting than sneaking a few out of a plain old jar.
But luckily I held a couple of cups of dried apricots aside to make this chutney which has raisins, apples, sweet bell peppers, candied ginger, and onion to round out the flavors. I found it disappointingly cloying at first, so added in about half a head of chopped garlic, some mustard seeds, and a dash of turmeric which provided the perfect foil for all that sweetness and the resulting chutney is something I am flat out crazy for. I used some in the dressing for curried chicken salad and it was delicious. The author suggests pairing it with cheddar cheese, and what I am loving right now is a thin layer of this chutney along with some smoked turkey on a crusty roll. I just started a fresh batch of chevre and I'm thinking a thin smear of chutney and a thick splodge of chevre on a cracker might be about the finest thing ever.

Unlike my tomato chutney which takes forever to cook down, this took no more than 30 minutes so it's really not a huge production, making it the kind of project I like best. If you decide to give this a go, do let me know how it turns out. And while we're at it, what are your favorite summer preserving projects? Let me know in the comments--thanks!

Printable recipe here.

A Long Overdue Mango Post

According to Mr Bittman, the recession has yet to boost home cooking but I can tell you that we are tightening our belts around here and visiting restaurants much less often. Which means it's up to me to keep us supplied with good food. I've been hitting lots of U-pick fields, farmers markets and farm stands looking for both inspiration and bargains and storing up lots of summer bounty for the dark days of winter. When I recently came across a great deal on some fine looking mangoes, I snapped them up without much of a plan. Only later did it occur to me to try and make a simple version of mango kulfi, the delicious Indian ice cream that's so lovely and refreshing on a hot day.
I knew that, like so many tasty Indian desserts, reduced milk was key. Also I knew there was no way I was going to stand over the stove to carefully cook down milk on (yet another) very hot day. I had on hand a can of evaporated milk purchased for possibly making fudge frosting for a cake but the birthday boy opted for mocha buttercream instead, which was fortuitous.

No printable recipe today, folks, as this is super easy. I won't pretend that it's authentic, but it worked for us. Empty a 12 ounce can of evaporated milk into the blender along with 3 large peeled mangoes cut into chunks, 1/3 cup of sugar, maybe half a teaspoon of rose water, and the crushed seeds from 5 or 6 cardamom pods. Whiz until smooth, and chill. When good and cold, transfer to an ice cream maker, and proceed as usual.

Now let's talk mangoes for just a moment. I had never eaten a mango in my life until I lived in Mexico in my early 20's. At one point during our stay in Cuernavaca, we suddenly noticed that the roadsides were littered in flat, hairy things. I thought they were some sort of weird Mexican lemming following an ancient signal to march to their death. Then I learned mango season had begun and everyone was gorging on this loveliest of fruit, often cut to look like a flower, impaled on a stick, and sprinkled with lime juice and chile. My first mango was a tentative, sticky, messy experience, but in no time I was in love. Mangoes are one of my very favorite fruits to this day, though I find it's not always easy to get good ones. I have much better luck in smaller ethnic markets than I do in our local natural food emporiums. Pop into any Vietnamese market and you are likely to find a box of mangoes at a very good price.

But what kind of mango? I've always been partial to the smaller yellow mangoes known as ataulfo, champagne, or Manila for eating fresh. I like their buttery texture and almost complete lack of hairy fiber. I tend to have good luck with finding nice ripe ones. I have more trouble catching the larger mangoes when they are best so I normally don't bother, but these Kent mangoes were selling for an unbeateable price so I am glad I took my chances. They were bursting with flavor and perfect for the kulfi I made. If you want to use the smaller yellow mangoes, use 5 or 6 for a batch of kulfi.
I am so tickled with this recipe. I am not sure how it differs from the real thing, but it works for me. I hope you'll give it a try. Of course it's a lovely way to end an Indian meal but I could eat it pretty much anytime.

Even when it's stupidly hot..

...you still need to eat. And not only sorbet. Sad, but true.

I had a mad craving for curried chicken salad yesterday and what I came up with was brilliant if I do say so myself: a lovely combo of creamy and cool, zippy, fruity, and crunchy with lots and lots of color.

I could have been deterred by the fact that despite my copious collection of Indian spices (seriously, you should see my freezer which is stuffed with things like curry leaves and mango powder and enough mustard seed to fill a small pillow) I had absolutely no curry powder in the house. But nothing was going to stop me from having my salad and nothing was going to force me out into the heat. I ended up making my own curry powder, and that may be why this salad was so lovely but then again, it would probably be just dandy with a good commercial brand of curry powder.

My other imrov move was using dried mangoes instead of fresh. Fresh woudl be delicious, I'm sure, but again, the heat. I stayed put and rehydrated some dried mangoes from Trader Joe's and they added the perfect bit of sweetness to the salad.

This was a huge hit at my house, enough so that I think I will be making it again very soon. There's really no end to this heat wave in sight, so I'm pretty happy to live on salads, smoothies, and sorbets.

Printable recipe here

Validation

Anyone reading this with kids has probably figured out by now that it's kind of a big waiting game. Once we get past the ever adorable baby/toddler stage and our kids begin to assert their own personalities, we realize that it's maybe not all going to be a piece of cake. Our kids argue and test and push and roll their eyes and swear they'll never make the choices their parents made--or is that just my kids?. They develop interests which their parents can't understand and begin speaking in a language almost incomprehensible to those of us who raise them. Sometimes it seems like they're just really far away and they simply cannot hear us. We might try to guide them but often as not, they insist on doing things their way. And we parents just have to sit back and wait to see how it all turns out.

Every once in a while, though, we get a glimpse of who they are becoming and, if we are lucky, we get to see the part we parents played in that transformation. I was blessed with one of those moments today and it brought tears to my eyes.

It happened, as these things so often do, in the car, while I was driving MonkeyBoy to the bank. He had finally saved up enough to buy his own computer and we were going to move his money into my account since I needed to do the ordering. I think I jokingly said something about how mean I was to make him make this purchase with his own money and then pointed out how lucky he was to be a kid. He could spend his money any way he wanted but we parents had so many things to pay for and often not a whole lot left over.

Then out of the blue, he said, "I think you guys totally made the right choice". I wasn't sure what he was referring to, but then he explained that he thought it really was great that one of his parents was always home, that he and his siblings never had to go to day care or school, and that they could be home schooled. He actually said these things were more important than money and he hoped to be able to raise his kids in a similar way.

We parents don't get to hear things like that all that often so you know I was paying attention!

Sometimes I look at my friends who seem to have it all: lovely homes and cars that aren't one breakdown away from the junk yard, money for vacations and beach homes and endless camps and classes for their kids. Oh, and health insurance. The Spouse and I traded those luxuries for time with our kids, more time than most American families ever get . There have been many, many times when we've questioned the wisdom of taking this route. We've explained this choice nearly every time the kids ask us why we can't take "real" vacations or eat out more often or any number of things that would be lovely but aren't really so hard to do without. I always figured that down the road, perhaps when they had kids of their own and were up against the kinds of choices we've had to make over the years, that hopefully then they might understand why we made the choices we did about money and time and work and family. But I was astonished and hugely gratified to find that my 14 year old already had it figured out.

Heat Wave

You've just got to love the weather forecasters here in Portland. We get a week's hysterical notice for any potentially dramatic weather. They've been carrying on about the coming heat wave for days but as far as I'm concerned, it's already here. I'm having a harder time with the heat this year than usual. All I want to eat is ice cream.

Unfortunately ice cream and I don't really get along. It's pretty hard on my stomach though I have been known to suffer for a good coffee ice cream. Gelato I can handle pretty well and I adore Coconut Bliss, but it's awfully spendy. Sorbet, however, goes down with no trouble at all. When I stand in front of the freezer case, there are so many tasty looking ice cream flavors and then, maybe, there's lemon sorbet. Yawn.

Luckily it's a snap to make my own sorbet. In the last few weeks we've had cherry, blueberry-banana, and nectarine, all based on the recipes in David Lebovitz' most excellent book The Perfect Scoop. Although his recipe for nectarine sorbet was simple enough, I made things even easier by cutting out one step. I opted not to cook the nectarines --I just threw everything in the blender, transferred the mixture to my trusty Donvier, and we had a lovely fresh nectarine sorbet in no time at all.

I might try this again and cook the nectarines just to see what happens, but I really love the way my raw version burts with super fresh nectarine flavor. I'm sure you'll want to have some of this tucked away in your freezer when the heat wave hits.

Printable recipe here.

16

Sixteen years ago today, Simon came into the world and I became a mother. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? But what a day--what a wild ride. I learned so much during my 24 hour labor: that birth plans mean nothing in a hospital (the nurses laughed at mine), that doctors mean nothing in a hospital (mine wasn't to be called until the nurses decided I was ready, which meant that my doctor very nearly missed the birth), that nothing really prepares you for labor (apart from pushing out a baby), that I was so much stronger than I ever imagined, and that time stops when a new baby arrives.

I'm still learning, every day, what it is to be a mother to this boy who's so nearly a man. His siblings will surely benefit from my trials and errors as I try to figure out how best to support him on his journey. I love the person he's always been and the one he's become: bright, observant, witty, and creative.

He's a typical teen full of sass and attitude, but every now and again he breaks out in unstoppable laughter and it's a sound that makes everyone smile. My wish for him is that he has countless opportunities for that delighted laugh to ring out.

Colleen's Poison Jam

Ok, folks, you are in for a real treat today. I'm going to share a recipe for, quite simply, the best jam in the whole world. This summer I've already made strawberry jam, sour cherry jam, and lots of blueberry marmalade. They are all very, very good. But nothing touches Colleen's Poison Jam which I am sharing here with her permission.

The first thing you should know it that it isn't actually poison, but it's so good that you'd willingly eat it even if it were. Back in March we took a trip down south to visit Colleen and her lovely family in California. We had a wonderful week and when our departure day arrived, I was quite sad about leaving. Colleen had thoughtfully gotten up early, thrown together some fabulous scones, and served them with an array of tasty homemade jams. The apricot was absolutely divine and I was delighted when she pulled a couple of jars out of the freezer and gave them to me to take home.

It was a long drive and I thought about the jam tucked away under the seat quite a few times. After many hours, we got home and unpacked and went about the business of switching from vacation mode to real life mode and it was quite a few days before I thought about the jam again. When I went looking for it, it wasn't in the refrigerator where it belonged. Both jars were right where I left them under the seat in the van.

In my defense, I will say that the weather was very cool and rainy all week. It never could have heated up in the van. And jam is full of sugar, a natural preservative. When I brought the jars in, I told the kids in no uncertain terms not to touch the jam as it was surely spoiled. And then I proceeded to eat an entire jar myself in the pre-Passover rush to get all the bread out of the house. My kids eventually realized that I wasn't dying from the jam and they took care of the rest of it. And thus the (terribly unfair) name was born.

I'm sure many of you are shrieking in horror by now. But here's the thing. I would risk my life for this jam. It's that good. And there wasn't a thing in the world wrong with it despite all my husband's grim doomsday warnings.

I thought it must be terribly complicated to make such a lovely treat but in fact it's a snap. Really. Couldn't be easier. Apricots, sugar, lemon juice, a pat of butter, and a vanilla bean which is crucial to the heavenly flavor. The only thing I changed was the method of preservation. Instead of freezing, my jars have been water bath canned so they're safe for long car rides and forgetful gift recipients. It takes about half an hour to make a couple of pints of the loveliest apricot jam ever. Apricots are in all the farmers markets these days (at least in our area) so don't miss your chance!

Printable recipe here.

A Disjointed Catchall Post

So, yeah, I'm still alive, still cooking and knitting and HATING MY JOB, and pretty much the usual summer stuff really. Nothing terribly exciting, no great thoughts. I tried to write this long, tortured post about (of all things) getting older and dancing and Michael Jackson's death but guess what? It really didn't go anywhere for which you all can breathe a big, deep sigh of relief.

In and around stressing about my job, there's been a lot of canning and jam making and fruit picking and freezing--all good things we'll appreciate in mid winter when there's nothing but bland, mealy apples. Today alone I canned 12 jars of blueberry marmalade which is good stuff. And then there are the cherries. The cherries!

I've managed to make two sundresses for The Princess, one of which you see here.


I even sewed on some vintage rickrack (in a straight line!) from my bottomless collection of other people's discarded craft items. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and hoping sundress weather returns soon.

What else? I just glanced at my computer clock and noticed that--eek!--I am officially 44 which is pretty much cronehood, isn't it? That must be why I snapped up the high heeled dancing shoes and lime green sweater at the thrift shop today. There's only so much doomsday reading a girl can take before rebelling. Maybe I will grow up next year.

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

I woke up the other morning with blueberry breakfast cake on my mind. It probably had something to do with the more than 20 pounds of blueberries the kids and I picked at a lovely farm out in Canby. However, much as I liked the sound of it, I've never actually had blueberry breakfast cake so I had to come up with something that would live up to the name.

This cake has all kinds of things to get your day off to a good start. Yes, it's filled with those super healthy fruits, but there are also lots of whole grains and nuts to fuel your day. Lemon zest and cinnamon accent the berries beautifully.

I hope you'll give this one a try. I think it's the new summer breakfast of choice around here.

Printable recipe