Growing Up

My small herd of offspring has shown remarkable signs of growth this week and I'm trying to process everything.

The Princess lost her first tooth. It should have come out months ago as there are big teeth coming up behind it but she seemed nervous about letting it go and refused to help it along. I think she though it was going to hurt. It fell out quite by surprise in last night's bath but the new teeth are pretty much in place, so no goofy gap-toothed photos to share, darn it. When we told her to make sure and tuck the tooth under her pillow she informed us that she didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy which rather bummed me out. Seeing my look of disappointment (or possibly realizing she was losing a chance for free money) she decided to put the tooth under her pillow anyway.

MonkeyBoy has been taking a class called A Guide to Democracy through the new eastside Village Homeschool Resource Center. This wan't his first choice but when it turned out to be the only offering for kids in his age group I asked to him to just try the first class and he was hooked. The teacher is fantastic and my boy, who has always claimed that "history is stupid" is now loving learning about how our country works. As part of his final project, he was required to attend a City Council meeting which neither of us were excited about.

We finally got it together to attend yesterday's meeting and what a surprise! My boy paid close attention, asked me a lot of questions, took lots of notes and, not surprisingly, drew some fabulous portraits of the council members. We sat through the entire two hours of topics which ranged from beekeeping to sewer systems and found it far more entertaining than we'd imagined possible. When we left, my boy was thrilled. He couldn't believe that he sat through the whole thing and actually followed most of what was going on. I was also pleasantly surprised at his maturity.

And here's the thing that's getting me slightly ferklempt today: The Dark Lord is now enrolled at Portland Community College. He's taking his placement test tonight which will determine his fall classes and he plans on taking a weekly non-credit guitar class over the summer. My boy is starting college! How crazy is that?

Picnic Perfect

Picnic season is here in the Pacific Northwest and I couldn't be happier! We've been making the most of sunny days with lots of outdoor meals. I love to pick up little containers of delicious things at the New Seasons deli but that adds up pretty quickly so I'm trying to keep that to a minimum (though their smoky/peppery fromage fort is a new addiction).

When we packed up to celebrate my husband's birthday last weekend, we had so much good food: bread, lentil salad, cheeses, carrot salad, crackers, chips, fresh fruit and a few different spreads and dips (also a fabulous cake--more on that soon). This wildly diverse feast had no particular theme--it ranged from Tex-Mex to Mediterranean and it was all good.

The recipe I want to share with you today is always a huge hit. I was given this recipe years ago by a lovely homeschooling mom who has since, sadly, returned to Texas where this dish is apparently quite common. The recipe she shared for Cowboy Caviar is made with black eyed peas, avocado, tomato, and other tasty additions, along with a liberal splash of Louisiana style hot sauce and the resulting mixture is about the best thing you could ever put on a corn chip. This stuff is crazy good and a snap to make. I hope you'll try a batch soon, ideally on a picnic blanket beneath the shade of old trees on a sunny day. The recipe is here--enjoy!

A Happy Birthday

Today my sweetie turned 45--he likes to say he's hit the halfway point but I'm not sure how he knows that. It's been a good day. We spent many hours at Blue Lake Park which included time out on the lake in a paddleboat, a generous picnic, a birthday cake, and a little napping time in the shade of the grand old trees.
Later there was ice cream and a dusk amble through Jamison Square and Tanner Springs parks.
The birthday boy--man-- is now happily painting. I think it's been a good day for him. That's what I hoped for, anyway. He's been working so hard lately with lots of weekends spent in the office so I wanted to make sure today was a relaxed day full of good things.

Where I've been.....

The last month or so has been a challenging one around my house and I have felt emotionally drained often enough that I've had a hard time writing anything of substance. I hope that's OK and I hope my few regular readers haven't totally lost interest.

The big drama in our family has revolved around The Dark Lord and high school. He made his own decision to stop homeschooling and enroll in a public high school as a freshman last year. He got off to a great start, made lots of friends, found an after school drawing club that he loved and things went well during his freshman year. This second year, however, has been much more challenging and he's lost a lot of his enthusiasm. What was a positive experience has turned to drudgery with no end in sight. There have been meetings with the principal which were encouraging but not truly helpful. There have been meetings with the vice-principal which were downright awful due to her annoying combination of condescension and chirpiness. I've been to conferences, talked with teachers, talked with other parents, made phone calls, read books---it's not unlike many years ago when some big shift in his development took place and I was desperate to talk to others, find answers, and help him transition.

When I talked with family members about his struggles I was told either that my expectations for him were too high or that he'd just need to tough out his high school years. Is it really too much to expect a formerly self-directed child to enjoy learning? Is there any more reason to expect him to tolerate a learning environment that fails to meet his needs? Or am I coddling him when I look for alternatives and try and help him sift through his options? This is the kind of stuff I've been struggling with lately, along with my son's obvious ambivalence about his situation. He's had a hard time weighing the options and making decisions about next year and the whole thing has been very stressful, most especially for him.

One option we'd hoped to have was enrolling him in PCC's Gateway to College program which is a dual credit program allowing kids to earn their high school diplomas taking college classes. Brilliant. The program focuses heavily on academic readiness and support so kids who haven't been terribly successful in school get what they need to do well. It's a great program and sadly, not available to us due to the school district in which we live.

As it turns out, Gateway isn't the only dual credit program out there and we began to look into the Early College Academy run through a statewide charter school. In the lower grades, it's an online curriculum not unlike Oregon Connections Academy which was a disaster for my kids. But the early college program, like Gateway, allows kids to earn simultaneous high school and college credit. With a little planning, my boy could have both his high school diploma and an associate's degree by the time he's 20. And the college tuition? Free. Early College Academy doesn't have the built in support piece in quite the same way, but they tell me that he will have a counselor who will meet with him as necessary to help him develop his organizational skills and help him plan and meet his goals. He feels like this is enough and is ready to make the switch.

Starting in September he'll be taking two classes at Portland Community College and his load will increase after that if things go well. He'll have a little breathing room and hopefully the ability to refocus on his goals. Plus, at PCC he can take classes like this, so he's pretty excited and so are his parents.

Next up: figuring out what to do with MonkeyBoy who has lost all interest in high school for next year. I'll keep you posted.....

A Perfect Weekend

We've had one of those abrupt Portland springtime shifts from cool rain to high temperatures and sunny skies virtually overnight. On Friday, Day 1 of this lovely weather spell, I sat outside with a bunch of sun starved mamas and soaked up as much as I could. Saturday and Sunday weren't much different though we changed locations a few times. We visited both Peninsula Park and Blue Lake as well as spent quite a few hours in the garden, listening to the plants grow.We took my new picnic basket (thanks, Mom!) out for a spin, ate quite a bit of ice cream, and spent lots of time outside. I finished a sweater, started a pair of socks quite a few times before deciding that I'm just not up to a Cookie A sock right now, and have moved on to less taxing things like embroidery and simple sock design. I am happy to report that I have shifted from pasty winter white to the deep brown I consider my true skin color. Apart from a truly disappointing meal, it was about as perfect as a weekend gets. Here's hoping for a summer full of similar weekends.

Cake, Anyone?

Epicurious just posted thirty top-rated cake recipes. Coconut layer cake? Rum Scented Marble Cake? They all look good, but could anything beat Persian Love Cake? Oh, my!

Chocolate Financiers

Usually when I make meals to take to friends in need, I stick with the tried and true and rarely branch out. But this particular friend, in addition to needing a meal high in iron, also sticks to a gluten free diet. The beef stew was an obvious choice, as was the spinach salad but what about dessert?

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen ages ago. In the weird circularity that it The Interwebz, she pulled the recipe from Gluten Free Girl who pulled it from David Lebovitz. With all those links, I'm not even going to type up the recipe as you should have no trouble looking it up.

And you should. These tasty little bites are worth all of the 5 or 6 minutes you'll spend in prep time. Seriously--these are a snap to make, involving little more than almond meal, cocoa, sugar, butter, and eggs. Almond meal is usually on the shelves at Trader Joe's, but you can also throw blanched almonds in the food processor and make your own.

Your result will be like a mini-brownie, but with a chewy texture and rich, nutty flavor. They're fairly sturdy and should travel well, but none of mine have made it too far as everyone here has hoovered them down immediately. I had to sneak out the batch for my friend under high security.

As for the name--financiers--does anyone out there have any idea where this comes from? I picture serious men in pinstripe suits heading off to the bank, but that just seems so wrong for these tasty treats.

Dairy Magic

I recently had the opportunity to take a class called Dairy Magic from Chris at Lost Arts Kitchen in which a small group of students met in her home kitchen to learn the secrets of making yogurt, mozzarella, and cream cheese. Classes at Lost Arts Kitchen focus on teaching basic cooking skills to those looking to incorporate slow food traditions into modern life.

I've made mozzarella before but my results aren't always consistent. I haven't made yogurt but I know homemade is delicious. And home made cream cheese sounded absolutely heavenly. I got a few friends together and we all signed up to spend an evening in the kitchen.

Chris gave us a general introduction to the properties of different types of milks and talked about different specialty supplies. Then we began heating milk, straining, scooping, pouring, and tasting. I enjoyed the class immensely but my favorite part was, unsurprisingly, the part at the end where we got to sample our fresh mozzarella on Chris' still-warm-from-the-oven bread with a selection of tasty chutneys. I brought home a stack of recipes, and samples of each thing we made. The cream cheese was absolutely heavenly on Tastebud bagels the next morning.

I've already ordered one of the recommended books and will begin tracking down the culture for the cream cheese soon as that is something I particularly want to make again, perhaps for this year's Shavuot blintzes.

I can't wait to see what's up next on the class schedule for Lost Arts kitchen. I really enjoyed my first ever cooking class and hope to return soon.

It's Here

Image by sarihuella via Flickr

It's been fascinating to track the spread of swine flu. On the one hand, you have the hysterical alarmists and on the other, those who insist it's nothing to worry about and unlikely most people will come in contact with the disease or be in danger. I tend to side with the latter, mostly because I know the former are providing quite the windfall for the makers of Tamiflu.

Except....if one happens to spend 12 hours a week in close contact with recent arrivals from Mexico who live, work, and visit with other even more recently arrived friends and family from Mexico. Or, say, if one happens to have an autoimmune disease, making it harder to fight off invading microbes.

Of course it was only a matter of time until the disease made it to Portland. Our first probable case was reported today and I'm sure others will follow soon. I've asked all my students to wash their hands before coming into the classroom. We've gone thorough most of a big bottle of hand sanitizer this week and the students are alert to the slightest sneeze or sniffle. I sent one kid home who looked awful, and I'm a little worried about another who was sick two days last week, then came to class on Thursday and apparently had a relapse over the weekend. I'm hoping he's better soon and that no one picked up anything late last week. I'm having my kids wash their hands frequently--my own are raw from regular scrubbing. I'm upping my Vitamin D and following other suggestions from Dr Mercola, and other than that, just hoping for the best.

Stay healthy, everyone!

In Which Melisa Comes Out as an Omnivore

There have been a few changes in my kitchen of late. I've written recently about my changing body and my increasing need for protein. I have been madly craving meat in recent months much as I did through two of my pregnancies. I'm pretty sure it's all about the protein and meat is doing the trick.

Vegetarians, I love you, and I'm glad to have you here. But this might be a good time for you to go elsewhere because this post is going to be flesh-heavy. But come back soon, OK? I promise the meat posts will be few and far between.

Anyone still here?

Good.

There are only two beef dishes I know how to make and I'm rather burned out on one of them (brisket) which leaves me with my second specialty: beef stew. I recently scored a lovely enameled cast iron Dutch oven which goes from stovetop to oven to table and this purchase was responsible for a sudden glut of beef stew.
I first started making beef stew many years ago during my second pregnancy. Julia Child's recipe in The Way to Cook was so very good that I've never really bothered looking for another. The key? Most of a bottle of red wine. That and tomato puree make for tender meat in a very flavorful sauce.

I make this on the stove top and then transfer to the oven for long, slow cooking, though a crock pot would also be an option. Either way, served with a green salad and some crusty bread, it's hard to come up with a simpler, more satisfying meal.

The recipe is here.

Cheery

Here's a little reversible tote bag I just made for a young friend's 8th birthday. It was given to her with a new sketchbook, colored pencils, and fine tipped pens. I'd envisioned her taking her supplies outside and drawing on a pleasant spring day.

Unfortunately there are no pleasant spring days on the horizon. It's chilly and rainy and we're stuck inside today instead of visiting the zoo as planned. The kids (we have 2 extra today) are making the best of it, having turned my dining room into a vast, complicated landscape of block cities populated by elves, tigers, dragons, and....teenagers!

Processing

I promised myself I'd lay off the glum posts, so I won't go into detail about my very hard morning. Kaddish and tears--that's about it. That and a wise rabbi who told me to go and do something good in my brother's memory.

I made a donation to the good folks at Growing Gardens and then put on my grubby clothes for a solo afternoon in the garden. Last weekend's glorious weather had sent me eagerly to more than one nursery in search of veggies, herbs, and flowers. Now that our unseasonal heat wave has passed, it seemed a good time to plant. We lost a lot of plants last winter so there are plenty of pots needing to be emptied of dead twigs and refilled with new life. There's so much cleaning and tidying to do. Our yard debris bin is stuffed full with a week to go before pickup so there are bags and piles of clippings and trimmings what need to be moved along.

I swept and shoveled and pulled and dug, and eventually got every little thing in some dirt: strawberries, rudbeckia, rue and motherwort, bok choi and cosmos, echinacea and geranium--all were liberated from their little nursery pots and tucked into soil, some in pots, others in the ground.

It felt good to work hard and I feel more or less back to normal, grateful for the gift of my garden.

For the next few months, I predict you'll be able to find me right about here:

My April

The sun finally came out around here and my thoughts turned to gardening. It's hard to get an early start here in Portland at least for the casual home gardener like myself who has no intention of mucking around with greenhouses and row covers. I just tend to wait out the rain until things look good and then I jump in with a few cool weather transplants and what I fondly refer to as sacrificial tomatoes. Planted in April, they're as likely to wither and sulk as they are to take off and grow beautifully, but some years we get lucky.

But here's the the thing. Inevitably my first serious foray into the garden happens in mid to late-April. And while I'm out there, pulling up bindweed, turning over garden beds, and whacking the hydrangeas back to something manageable, my mind inevitably wanders and I grow quite melancholy. This time of year, so ripe with possibility and optimism, is also terribly sad for me, as it's the very time of year when we lost my brother.

I've written here about my brother before but if you're a new reader the short story is that he took his own life 6 years ago at 33 years old. It's still hard for me to believe how long he's been gone and all that he missed. His son is a sweet, strapping young man with his father's wry sense of humor and love for animals.

When I first get out in the garden, I am always overcome with memories of him. Nothing reminds me of him like growing things. Somehow my brother got his hands on a copy of this book in his teens and from then on he was always growing something, always working proudly on his gardens. When we lived on a huge lot, he would come over and help us beat back the grass and weeds that seemed impenetrable. At that same house, he decided to build us some raised garden just because we hadn't gotten around to it yet. He was famous in his block for running out, post shower, in nothing but a towel, to remove an errant weed. And I'll never forget his excitement showing me the first blossom on his passionflower vine.

The day he died was one of those days when we finally accepted that it was spring and time to get moving in the garden. We headed off to the nursery that day and when we returned home with, among other things, a lovely Autumn Joy sedum, the creepy people from the sheriff's office were waiting for us to break the news.

[big long pause, lots of typing, deleting, re-typing, more deleting.....]


You know what? I don't know where I'm going with this, folks. I thought I had all these deep, weighty things to say about life and death and the changing of the seasons but the words aren't coming and I still can't make sense of what my brother went through, and what my family continues to struggle with. Another year and still no answers. You'd think we'd be used to it and stop asking why. Years pass, seasons change, and there's an ebb and a flow to the sadness as well. It's always worst just as things are bursting into bloom.

Goodbye to All That

I came across a great piece in my morning reading by novelist and academic Alison Lurie. In The day I threw away fashion, she writes lyrically about letting go of commonly held ideas of feminine beauty and the euphoria of being herself. It's a lovely little piece which made me want to cheer out loud. I hope you enjoy it.

Photo by Phyllis Rose

Bollywood Dal

Finally! My love of Bollywood films comes, with complete legitimacy, to Magpie Eats!

I can't even remember where I came across this link, but when I saw that Anil Kapoor was recently a guest on Martha Stewart's show, my curiosity got the best of me. Most of you will know Anil Kapoor as the slightly sleazy game show host in Slumdog Millionaire, but he's made over 100 Indian movies. He has an impressive mustache, very puffy hair, and a rather charming goofiness in the roles I've seen. I think my favorite Anil Kapoor movie must be Nayak which is a wild and occasionally surreal romp through the pitfalls of political power.

But Anil alongside Martha? Not to be missed! He shared his wife's recipe for a very rich dal and appeared to give Martha a run for her money.

Honestly, this isn't the best dal I've made. It's very rich, due to the addition of heavy cream, and the spicing was not as intriguing as I'd hoped. But it's my first recipe from a Bollywood mega-star so I how could I not write about it?

Welcome, Spring!

If you read my last blog post some two weeks ago, you'll know that between starting a new term at work and preparing for Passover, I've been running non-stop. That California vacation seems like months ago. No wonder things have been quiet here--though it's been hopping (relatively speaking) over at Magpie Eats!

Passover got off to a lovely start. We hosted my cranky relatives on the first night. They never stay past dessert to finish the seder, but I'm used to it now and it only drives me a little bit nuts. The Princess decided this was the year she'd learn The Four Questions to ask at the seder, which is kind of a big deal given that it involves singing in Hebrew. With MonkeyBoy's excellent assistance, she learned and snag beautifully and took the responsibility very seriously.

We spent the next two nights with friends, sharing another seder and a festive Shabbat meal complete with silly songs and much hilarity. It was a lovely few days of cooking and eating and talking and laughing and a great deal of wine so I spent the weekend mostly at home and mostly quiet which wasn't bad at all.

Now that things are slightly calmer, I'm gradually turning my thoughts towards the garden. I went out this morning during a sun break between the rain and the hail, and found that, while so much needs attention, thankfully there's a great deal happening despite my neglect.

We have bluebells all over:

The figs are just beginning to make leaf buds:

The peonies and rhubarb are up:

And the andromeda is covered in a froth of scented blossoms:

It was a long, hard winter and we lost quite a few things which we'd had for years, including the Meyer lemon trees that were a gift from my sweetie for our fifth wedding anniversary. Kind of bummed about that.

But the succulents seem to have mostly made it through and today's sun breaks were surely welcome:

It's supposed to start drying out soon and I'm hoping to spend lots of time on yardwork in the coming days. Welcome, Spring!

News to Me

I realize that Romesco Sauce is hardly new on the food scene, and it's one of those things I've been meaning to try for years--maybe even decades. I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to it. Now that I've made my first batch I feel terrible for all the time I've not had this punchy sauce in my life.

I was given the potato assignment for a Passover dinner with friends the other night. Normally I love my potatoes in pretty much any form but I wasn't feeling all that enthusiastic this time around. This may have had something to do with the potato disaster earlier in the week. I'd planned a big pot of simple steamed baby potatoes to serve at our seder. Seder meal planning can be a bit tricky as the pre-meal part can be quite long though we never know exactly how long. This means you want dishes which aren't fussy in terms of timing and heat. I'd thought the steamed potatoes would be a snap but things ran a bit long and next thing I knew people were asking if something was burning. The steaming water had boiled away, leaving my tiny new potatoes well cooked but with a distinctively smoky flavor.

Perhaps it was thoughts of that smokiness that got me thinking about how to mix up my potato assignment just a bit. They had to be simple, of course, for the kids. But a sauce alongside would allow the more adventurous of us to have some fun. Leafing through Martha Stewart's New Classics I came across a recipe for roasted potatoes with Romesco sauce that sounded perfect: smoky and nutty with just a little bite. Also it didn't include the bread which is part of many recipes--something to keep in mind at Passover (and when feeding the gluten-free).

I made only a couple of changes. I used a kosher-for-Passover balsamic vinegar rather than sherry vinegar and even though I had the fresh mint called for in the recipe, I forgot to add it. Once I tasted the delicious sauce I didn't think mint would do anything positive for the overall flavor so I left it out.

The sauce was a huge hit. It perked up the simply roasted baby potatoes nicely. I can't wait to try it on grilled fish or chicken, alongside my basil aioli and a platter of grilled vegetables, and of course once Passover ends, spread on nice, crusty bread.

My version of the recipe is here. Let me know how you use it.

Pesach Brownies

The seders are over, but there's still plenty of time for Passover treats. Much as I adore it, even I can only eat so much matzoh crack (though I must say that this year's addition of coarse sea salt was brilliant).

I needed a quick dessert to share with friends last night and decided to look through a new cookbook I found the other day at the library: Jewish Holiday Cooking by Jayne Cohen. Its subtitle A Food Lover's Treasury of Classics and Improvisation pretty much says it all and I'm enjoying coming across the twists on classic dishes.

The Rich Fudge Brownies are lovely. Rather than a dense slab of heavy chocolate, these puff slightly in the oven and feel lighter than any Passover baked dish should. The cocoa flavor is deep and rich and the brown sugar provides a lovely moistness and depth of flavor but they aren't overpowering. I'll admit I'm not a huge brownie fan and I'm not sure these particular ones will make brownie lovers all that happy. But they worked for me. I guess we'll need to put these head to head with the Baked brownies to determine the new house champion.

You'll find the recipe here.

Back Home

Oh my! Did I really let the whole week fly by without writing?

What a grand vacation we had! Now that we're back in cold, rainy Portland it seems like ages ago that we visited the farmers market, ate bhel puri and visited the Hindi multiplex for a movie starring not one but two of my favorite heartthrobs, and visited both Golden Gate and Corona Heights parks in San Francisco. I took the photos below in The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, a lovely glass paned structure filled with all manner of exotic plants and intriguing foliage.

Even with all the activity, there was lots of time for cooking, eating, knitting, and catching up. With another visiting family, the house was full of kids but surprisingly calm. Our hosts were gracious and generous and saw to it that we had a fine vacation. The drive home was interminable and we arrived to chilly rain which is bothering more than it usually does. Bad news as it look like anything resembling pleasant weather is still weeks off. I'm having a hard time shaking off the vacation groove--re-entry is proving difficult--but I'm only hours away fomr a new term and Passover is fast approaching so it's time to get busy.

Food filled vacation and some tasty listening

I just got back into town after a lovely week away. The food was great, from asparagus fries to Oaxacan mole to a fabulous South Indian feast followed by heavenly cardamom rose ice cream. And those were just the meals eaten out! I had the good fortune to spend the week with two excellent cooks and together we ate all manner of delicious things from Hawaiian chicken to black bean soup. I visited a bustling Bay Area farmers market bursting with citrus fruits, strawberries, and all manner of produce that we can only dream of here in Oregon in March. And I made a return trip to a large Indian grocery where I stocked up on all manner of exotic provisions from lime pickle to Kashmiri chile powder. And my most exciting purchase? An idli steamer which will allow me to make these tasty dumplings in my own kitchen! More on that soon, I promise.

I haven't managed to make much more than green smoothies and toast since we returned late last night but I did want to alert my readers to something which I hope at least some of you will find interesting. My friend Liz is one of the hosts of The Yiddish Hour on our local community radio station. Most Sundays she plays a nice variety of music but tomorrow's show will be something different. Instead of music, she'll be looking at the intersection of food, sustainability, and Judaism. It should be a fascinating program for anyone interested in ethical food consumption. You can tune in to 90.7 fm (or stream live online) at 10 am on Sunday, March 29th or download the show at any point afterward here. This should be a fascinating program--I hope you'll tune in. More info on Liz's blog.