Out of hardship, happiness

Proof of our folly: passport and alien card.

"We're alike. I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn't swim the Channel. You're twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early; but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life."

- National Velvet

My husband said it was like salmon spawning: He needed to live in The Netherlands for a year in order to retain his Dutch citizenship. So we quit our jobs, stuffed suitcases to the gills and moved half-way around the world.

It was absolute craziness.

For despite my husband's newly updated passport and job, he couldn't find a crack in the Dutch society to skitter through and thrive there. Having lived outside the country, he wasn't eligible for the cheaper rents most of the Dutch paid, but neither did he make the salary of most ex-pats. Instead we struggled. Oh, how we struggled in that gray, gray world. We burned through more than $14,000 in savings in one year. I was so lonely I'd sometimes spend a whole day not speaking but a few words to another soul:

The checker at the grocery store: Een tasje? (A bag?)

Me: Nay, dankje. (No, thanks.)

We ate pots of beans and spent the weekends window shopping. Dining out meant dropping some coins into machine for a kroket. We kissed our travel-plans goodbye when we realized that we could barely afford the train ticket needed to cross town for the Dunkin' Donuts I was homesick for. And every month we bled red and were forced to withdraw money from our savings account to make ends meet.

Yet, joy was able to pierce this sad fog I lived in. I felt it when I spotted my shadow for the first time in weeks, and when I fell asleep to the scratches and coos of pigeons roosting on the attic roof. It left a small, permanent smile in the corners of my mouth when I became pregnant.

But then one day the savings account was empty: Our race had been run, lost and left us breathless. So we repacked our suitcases, turned in the key to our apartment and flew home. Poorer in our wallets, but richer in experience.

I think today's economic crisis is a time to take great leaps of folly (on a national and family scale) -- and for cooking beans. So while a pot of pintos simmers on your stove, let some new ideas simmer in your head. Here are two worthy of thought: The advantages of renting and The era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.

These brothy beans are delicious straight out of the pot.

A pot of beans

Adapted from instructions by chef Rick Bayless.

2 cups of dried beans
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons bacon fat
Enough water to cover the beans by about four inches

Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cover, leaving the lid cracked. You want the beans to barely bubble, so just a whisper of steam should escape from the lid. Keep an eye on them, adding water when needed. (You should have about an inch of water above the plumped beans.) Simmer until beans are soft, maybe two, four, six hours depending on how old the beans are. About a half-hour before they're done, add salt to taste.

Oh, I forgot to mention that you must sort through the dry beans, discarding any pebbles or moldy beans. Then give them a quick wash and follow the recipe.

Inspired by this week's pot of black-eyed peas and Sunday Scribbling's writing prompt: Listen up, this is important!

Fill me up

Threadless T-shirt design by Jeff Sapulettey.

Today I woke to an automated phone call from the school informing me of a two-hour delayed start because of the snow. So the kids and I celebrated with pumpkin pancakes (which I'm crazy about), and now I've corralled them all upstairs for the next 30 minutes so I can write.

I gotta write; it's my passion. Just like my neighbor Pat's got a thing for birds, and my toddler's drawn to destruction, writing feeds my spirit. The act of stringing sentences into coherent paragraphs keeps me chugging all day long.

Some passions inspire us for months, such as my daughter's desire to live life as a musical, singing her way through most conversations. (Which, incidentally, drives one of her brother's into his own fit of passion.) Other love affairs burn through us in minutes, like the hour my bigger kids spent running from drain spout to drain spout, filling buckets and then pouring them out in a wheelbarrow. Their short-lived mania didn't make a bit of sense to me, but it didn't need to. Our passions don't need explanation; either another person gets them, or they don't. But they do need to seize us by the heart and send us careening through our world. Our loves need to leave us gasping for air, panting for more, more!

So every now and then I'll share some of my passions with you. You'll find them in the right-hand column under the tag line: What I'm loving. But now I've gotta run. Apparently, the pancakes are no longer taking the edge off hunger, and the kids are yelling (passionately) that my time is up.

The bird lady

"Red-tailed Hawk on Arm" courtesy of Jim Frazier.

Pat stood in her yard and glared at the sky. Clutching her drink, she gestured at a small spot high in a tree more than a half-block away. The ice rattled in her glass and she took a long drag on her cigarette.

The spot was a Red-tailed Hawk, a fierce predator of the dozens of sparrows, finches, doves and quail that visited her yard. She loved these birds, their daily visits to her feeders, the splashing they made in the pan of water she put out for them.

"And then this drip came along," she spat out. "I called animal control, but they said he was doing exactly what God meant for him to do. Well, he's not going to do it in my yard. I wish I had a BB gun. But I can't shoot him because he's protected."

I met Pat just a month ago, though I'd been walking past her home daily for more than a year. My footsteps would startle dozens of birds, busy stealing seed from the feeder just a few feet from her front door. The cloud of feathers and the excited fluttering of wings always caught my eye. And I would wonder why anyone would put a feeder so close to the front door, wouldn't it make the walkway a mess of seeds and shit?

Pat's a short woman with pointed nose, eyes that have yet to smile, and long, gray hair that she pulls into a loose nest on top of her head. The morning after our introduction, she hurried to her fence to catch me as I walked past. She was anxious, agitated, because the hawk had killed a dove and was eating it in her yard. There were feathers everywhere, she said.

I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling, from lecturing her for creating the situation she now loathed. I can't understand her passion, but I can appreciate its intensity, the way it defines her. I listened to her struggle with the sorrow and guilt she felt because her joy in the birds brought about one's death.

Conversations and a cure

"Conversation" courtesy of bensonkua.

Most conversations with my kids are an exchange of words aimed at keeping the family unit humming along. I'm talking about communication currency, a little give and take, and the table gets set, the laundry gets folded, and everyone goes to the library. But sometimes, there's a hiccup in the family action that allows for an actual conversation with one of my kids, and a chance for me to peer into their growing minds.

Such an opportunity came last night. I'd curled up on the couch, nursing the baby and a new cold, when another son snuggled next to me to renew a conversation about his lack of friends and the dilemma it will cause at his next birthday. And as I listened, I began to pick up a few eggcorns, a linguistic term for when a person substitutes a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. For example, for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes. Here are a few of my 7-year-olds':

"When we play tag, they run around like bunnies being chased by a dog. They're just custling around."

"Their eyes just burgled out when they saw my lunch, and I said, 'Noooooo, this is not a hot pepper.' "

When my son's schoolmates aren't "burgling" or "custling," they're recreating scenes from the video games they play. And since my kids' computer time is limited to a half-hour each week, they just don't share their peers' obsessions, though they know how to talk-the-talk.

"Daniel didn't go to school because he caught Wiiitis," my son told his dad.

"What? What's Wiiitis?"

"I don't know. Probably when you hurt your arm or your leg."

"How do you know he got Wiiitis?"

"His mom said so."

Apparently, the cure for Wiiitis is a couple ibuprofen and a day off from school. The cure for my cold? Chicken soup and pizza bread. Here's my comfort food when I'm sick:

Chicken soup

+

Pizza bread

In the bowl:

Lipton chicken noodle soup

+

On the side:

pizza bread

Pizza bread recipe

serves 12

1 loaf of sourdough bread, sliced lengthwise.
1 large can of tomato paste
4 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 small can of black olives, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

Mix tomato paste, cheese, onions, black olives and olive oil. Spread over bread. Bake at 350-degrees until bubbly. Feel free to modify ... like cheddar? Add more cheese. Doesn't seem squishy enough? Add a bit more oil.

A fish out of water

"Swim day" courtesy of smohundro.

Usually, my exercise is a solitary walk with my sleeping toddler, but a few months ago I started swimming, and immediately felt out of my element. There's a good mix of people who spend their lunch hour swimming laps at the university pool: The strong, young swimmers whose arms slice through the water like knives, the old professors whose bodies can't take anymore joint-jarring jogs, and then there's me. During one session, I was flanked by two men who created giant waves that tossed me like drift wood and left me gulping water. Another time, I shared a lane with a woman whose strong, smooth strokes ended in a beautiful underwater flip turn. When I tried it, I ended up thoroughly irrigating my sinuses with chlorine.

I admire the vigor of those college students, but my inspiration comes from the skinny, old women, with their basketball bellies, curved shoulders and raisin skin. The other day one of them asked me to save her lane while she dashed back into the locker to shower. Upon her return, she adjusted her bathing cap, eased herself into the water and thanked me.

"It's another beautiful day!" she beamed, and swam away.

Chivalry

"Through a world turned upside down" courtesy of sandcastlematt.

I know of a modern-day knight
who every day gets up and fights
exhaust-spewing dragons,
of mincemeat they'd make him,
were it not for his quick steed, the bike.

My husband's round-trip commute: 9.5 miles.

The time it took him to rescue me when I locked myself and the baby and a cart-full of groceries out of the minivan: 15 minutes.

Level of his annoyance on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being extremely irritated: 2

His favorite piece of gear: Dinotte road light 200L-AA-S and battery charger.

The price: $160

My favorite piece: The balaclava.

The price: $15


Photo courtesy of Libby.

Why we won't buy a second car: For God, king and country, of course.

Just horsin' around

A site for everything you never wanted to know about "The Black Stallion."

There are horse-girls who plait the hair of their My Little Ponys and trot about the playground. There are horse-women who shovel manure and tame Mustangs. I'm not one of them. The nearest I've ever come to understanding this infatuation was when I raced through the Black Stallion series as a girl. The closest I've come to comprehending this love as an adult is when I make Santa Anita Race Track beef stew.

A race track throws together the blue-collar and the blue-blood. When I slice leeks and cut potatoes, I like to imagine the classy and the common savoring the same stew as the horses thunder by. (For an illustration of this, check out this clip from "My Fair Lady.") Anyway, who can say naaaaay to a steaming bowl of equality?

Santa Anita Race Track beef stew

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King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking's maple cornmeal biscuits

In the bowl:

Santa Anita Race Track beef stew

On the side:

KAF Whole Grain Baking's maple cornmeal biscuits

Clipped from a newspaper by my grandma; the notes are hers.

The explorer

Sam!

I like to wander
around my brain and find things,
he said, sleepily.

A short catalog of things he was searching for at bedtime:

• Do you believe in magic?
• How do birds fly with such tiny bones?
• Do trees have brains?

An inventory of his pockets:

1. Small spiral notebook.
2. Stub of a pencil, sharp.
3. Padlock.
4. Lego pieces.
5. Various rocks containing tiny crystals.

What he's reading:

• The fantasy series "The Secrets of Droon" by Tony Abbott.
• "The Knight's Castle" by Edward Eager.
• The graphic novel "Benjamin Franklin, An American Genius" by Kay Melchisedech Olson.

Steal my heart

Chocolate pancakes + whipped cream = A decadent breakfast.

I hope your Valentine's Day was just as sweet!

Chocolate pancakes
recipe torn from the pages of an old Sunset magazine

Makes 8 pancakes; 4 servings

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 cup milk
About 3 tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

sweetened whipped cream
sliced strawberries (original recipe calls for raspberries or bananas)

In a bowl, stir sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add flour and mix. In a small bowl, beat egg with milk, oil and vanilla. Add egg mixture and chocolate chips to flour mixture, stir until evenly moistened. Spoon onto griddle. When finished, top with whipped cream and strawberries.

Primordial soup

Finch painting courtesy of merwing✿little dear.

My fingers paused on the keyboard and my eyes darted to a flash of feathers. Just beyond the computer and on the other side of the window pane, were a half-dozen playful finches chattering and fluttering as the stole seed. These birds, small enough to cup in my hand, are symbols of the genius of Darwin.

The world commemorated Charles Darwin's 200th birthday this week with town celebrations, a one-man show, and a wealth of diverse news articles highlighting the peculiarities of this man's life. What I found fascinating in this flood of information was how Darwin balanced his professional and private life. He seamlessly merged his insatiable scientific curiosity with the demands of his family. Darwin's specimens were found in the family vegetable garden, his laboratory included a sandbox and swing, and his children helped him with his experiments. But his pragmatic approach to his work didn't develop in response to parenting. As a young man collecting and studying animals and plants on the HMS Beagle, he regularly ate the specimens he collected.

"Young Tortoises make capital soup — otherwise the meat is but, to my taste, indifferent food." -- Charles Darwin, October 9, 1835.

It's fitting to honor the man who contributed so much insight into our primordial soup with a pot of my own. But not just any recipe would do. I wanted a soup that tasted of that balance Darwin achieved and I'm trying to strike: a soup infused with the flavor of the garden, loved by children, quick to make, yet could evolve into a more complexly flavored dish.

You'll find that recipe below. And while the potatoes bake, why not celebrate Valentine's Day by listening to a beautiful story of love within the Darwin family. It can be found here.

Baked potato soup
+
toppings

Vintage poster
courtesy of atomicjeep.


In the bowl:

Cottey College's baked potato soup,
courtesy of one of its alumna, my sister Kyna Moser.

On top:

Anything you'd put on a baked potato,
such as cheddar cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, chives ...

Baked potato soup

Serves 4

6 ounces butter
2/3 cup half-and-half
1 1/3 cups milk
2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup flour
3 1/3 cups vegetable broth
pepper
4 baked potatoes, peeled and cubed

Melt butter. Stir in flour until smooth and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add broth while whisking. Add milk and half-and-half. Broth will thicken. Add potatoes and heat thoroughly. Serve.

This is a rich soup, but can be easily modified without harm. In lieu of milk and half-and-half, I've used powdered milk and water. I've eliminated the salt and used chicken bouillon as my broth. I've sauteed onions, celery and carrots in the butter, and added clams and clam juice to make clam chowder. You get the idea.

Collisions

"Bubble Love" by jurvetson.

The other day my daughter walked into the kitchen as I washed dishes and announced:

"I've started puberty."

"Oh?" I said, pulling hands out of soapy water.

"I have hair growing under my arms," she explained.

"Oooh. Well, congratulations!"

This girl is terribly excited about growing up. On her last birthday, she received the American Girl's "The Care and Keeping of You," and read it cover to cover. She discovered "It's Perfectly Normal" on the bookshelf and spirited it away to her room to study the pictures in private. "The Period Book" still sits on the shelf, but I bet it'll disappear soon, now that she's taking sex-ed at school.

"Mom, what's AIDS? Capital A-I-D-S," she asked, as I snuggled with her in bed last night.

"It stands for Acquired Immune Definicency Syndrome," I said. "It's a sickness that attacks you're immune system so your body has a hard time fighting off other illnesses."

"Will I get it?"

"Probably not if you use a condom," I said, then explained what a condom was and how it worked.

"Eeeeew. Gross!" she said. "I bet it's uncomfortable for the woman. Can they break?"

"Naw, they're actually pretty strong."

And I told her the story of how, when I was a little older than she is now, my brother and I found condoms in my dad's dresser drawer. We blew them up like balloons and tossed them through the air, our hands slick with lubricant.

"They never popped," I said.

We giggled, and our laughter floated up and bounced against the older memory.

Hurried haiku

Ivan!

Silky smiles smirk,
as he giggles, runs. With brush,
I chase happy hair.

Life as hard as rocks

"Rocks in still life, early morning" by cobalt123.

Nowadays, I'm nervous. My friend lost her home, my brother-in-law lost his job, and I know we're just a stone's throw away from their situations. Trying to keep my jittery nerves in check isn't easy. I plumb websites like The Simple Dollar for tips on frugal living. I listen to public radio's Marketplace regularly for its excellent economic news. I'm trying to beef up my resume after 10 years of mommyhood. And I cook more soup.

"Worries go down better with soup." -- A Jewish proverb.

Do you remember the story "Stone Soup"? The gist of it is this: Once upon a time some tired soldiers straggled home to a village empty-handed, in a land destroyed by war. They were hungry, but the villagers didn't think they had food to share, and slammed their doors. The soldiers pulled out a big pot, filled it with water and put it on a fire to boil. Then they added a large stone to the pot. The villagers peeked out of their doors.

"What kind of soup is that?" they asked.

"Stone soup. You can have some when it's ready," said a soldier, "though it would taste better if we had an onion or two."

"Well, I have that," grumbled one old woman, coming out with a shriveled onion and tossing it into the pot.

And so, one vegetable at a time, the villagers added food to the pot, and everyone feasted.

During the Great Depression, people placed a large, porous rock in the bottom of their soup pots. On days when they had food, they believed the stone absorbed some of the flavor from the soup. On days when there was no food, they boiled the stone, releasing flavors and making a weak broth. Nowadays, there are groups of friends who make soup together, always with a small stone at the bottom of the pot. The person who finds the stone at the bottom of her bowl plans the next soup gathering.

"A soup like this is not the work of one man.
It is the result of a constantly refined tradition.
There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup."
Willa Cather, "Death Comes for the Archbishop"

As I poured over cookbooks for tasty bowls of soup, a plan simmered. As I counted the people lining up at the doors of a neighborhood church to receive free groceries, a plan simmered. As I thought about that fable of cooperation amid scarcity, a plan simmered. As I reminded myself how fortunate I was to have a steady income, a warm home and a pot of soup on the stove, a plan simmered.

And now it's ready to share:

Firstly, I'm going to cook more soup. Sometimes I'll take a picture of the soup and share the recipe with you. Secondly, I'm going to buy twice the ingredients needed for my soups in order to regularly donate half of it to the church down the street.

Soothing. Simple. Sustenance. Sharing. Stone soup.

Florentine white bean
+
polenta

In the bowl:

Food Made Fast: Soup’s Florentine white bean

On the side:

The Barefoot Contessa Family Style’s rosemary polenta

Excerpted from Food Made Fast: Soup by Georgeanne Brennan

Serves 4

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 ounces pancetta or bacon, chopped

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1 tbsp. tomato paste

4 cups chicken broth

2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups spinach, chopped

salt and pepper

2 tbsp. parsley, minced

rind from Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (suggested by The Splendid Table’s Lynne Rossetto Kasper.)

Fry bacon until lightly browned. Add onion and carrots, and saute until soft. Add garlic and oregano and cook for a few more minutes. Stir in tomato paste, add broth and beans and bring to boil. Lower heat, toss in the Parmesan rind (loaded with umami) and simmer. Add the spinach shortly before serving and cook until it is wilted but still bright green. Season to taste with salt and pepper and ladle into your bowl. And don’t forget to fish out the Parmesan rind and set it aside for your next soup!

Hungry bellies

Children line up for free soup and bread during the Depression.

At 8:50 every Wednesday morning, people bundled against the cold and burdened by their belongings form two lines along Fourth Street. One line is a group of neighborhood children cocooned in their coats and carrying backpacks heavy with homework. The other is made up of adults standing outside a movie theater-turned-mega-church.

"What are they waiting for?" my daughter asked.

"Food."

"You mean, like communion?"

"No, just food. They're hungry."

The New York Times reported this week that despite the recession, the number of people on welfare rolls remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years. Eighteen states cut their welfare rolls, even as more people received food stamps. (Nevada wasn't among those. It actually added people to its program last year. For a state-by-state comparison, click here.)

"This clashing trend," the Times reported, "suggests a safety net at odds with itself. The program’s structure — fixed federal financing, despite caseload size — may discourage states from helping more people because the states bear all of the increased costs."

To help cash-strapped states deal with the needy, Congress is considering subsidizing the welfare rolls. The economic stimulus bills pending in Congress would provide matching grants to states with increased caseloads.

While politicians debate and bureaucrats react, more hungry people are lining up on Fourth Street. Outside the doors of Sparks Christian Fellowship, more than 100 people gather for their two grocery bags of non-perishable food they're eligible to receive six times a year. Across the street, Greenbrae Elementary School also gives away food. More than two-thirds of the students receive free lunches, and some of those children eat breakfast and dinner there, too.

These are today's soup lines, and they're in my neighborhood.

Cake confession

The Levy children celebrate their sin-free souls.

Saturday we celebrated the kids' First Reconciliation with a sinfully delicious chocolate cake topped with gobs of gooey marshmallow frosting.

The cake recipe, originally published in Gourmet magazine, is Epicurious.com's most popular recipe, receiving more than 1,000 reviews. The frosting recipe, also from Gourmet, was one I had made before with great success.

But, apparently, the devil was in the details. The middle of my cake fell during baking, (perhaps because I didn't make an altitude adjustment). And my mixture of egg whites, sugar and corn syrup refused to whip itself into a mountain of fluff.

An emergency trip to the store for a jar of marshmallow creme saved the cake, and I don't think even God would've tasted the difference!

Jesus in a tortilla*

Yesterday, my three older kids and I attended a retreat for children preparing to make their First Reconciliation. By volunteering to shepherd five second-graders through the sessions, I enjoyed an hour of knitting and eavesdropping.

Below is a snippet of a conversation between a boy and his teacher, who was explaining the story of the Lost Sheep. She asked if any of the kids had ever been lost, and the boy piped up that he once had been lost in a grocery store.

"How did you feel when you were lost?" she asked.

"Scared."

"Who found you?"

"Nobody. I found my mom."

The teacher went on to explain how the story is a parable: We are the lost sheep and the Good Shepherd is Jesus. We become lost from Jesus when we sin, she said.

"How do we find our way back to Jesus?" she asked.

The same small boy raised his hand.

"I would run up and down the aisles looking for him."

* Based on the alleged siting of Jesus Christ's face in a tortilla in 1977. For more information about the Shrine of the Miracle Tortilla, click here.

"Winter" by Sam

Today I'm featuring a poem written by my 7-year-old son Sam. It was found in the bottom of his backpack among the wad of crumpled school work.

"Fiore D'inverno" by Shock2006

Winter looks like hot cookies.
Winter tastes like hot chocolate.
Winter smells like cookies.
Winter feels like a rainy day.
Winter sounds like soft pillows.

Elusive heat

"Simplicity" by suvodeb.

Once upon a time there was woman who woke one morning and couldn't get warm.

She drank two cups of coffee. But she was still cold. She drank a cup of black tea. But she was still cold. Outside snow fell. Inside, her cold fingers tapped on the keyboard, and she shivered thinking of the laps she'd committed to swim at noon.

"How shall I convince myself to stick a toe in the water?" she asked.

Then she remembered a small cafe called the Aroma Club that served hot chocolate spiked with chili. The drink was sinfully thick and surprisingly spicy, with each sip making love to her mouth and leaving a slow burn in her throat. For weeks afterward, she tried to recreate the experience.

She melted an entire Lindt chili chocolate bar in milk. But it was much too bland.

She bought a box of Ibarra's "genuine Mexican chocolate" from the Latino market down the street. But it was much too sweet.

She became a cooking chemist, combining cinnamon and chili and coriander with cocoa. But it was much too spicy.

However, the woman wouldn't despair. Instead, she packed her swimsuit, goggles and a promise. And when she finished her laps, she cranked up the heat in her car and drove across town to the cafe where, she knew, they got it just right.

Unraveled

I hauled myself out of bed, pulled on my purple bathrobe and walked right into one of my sons.

"Mom, what's for brefkist?" he asked.

"God, I don't know. Give me a few minutes to wake up."

In the bathroom, I pried the retainer from my teeth, brushed them and popped a thyroid pill. My kids' belly thoughts dominate their mornings -- and their evenings, for that matter. It's the first question asked as they shuffle into the kitchen, rubbing eyes and squinting in the light. It's the last question posed as I tuck them in at night.

"What's for brefkist?"

"God, I don't know. We just ate dinner."

Then from each bed come three different belly prayers:

"Can we have Dutch baby? We haven't had that in a loooong time."

"Please, don't make oatmeal again."

I toss kisses on their foreheads and head for the door, eager to close it, to put to sleep the mama part of me, even for just a few hours.

"Can we have pancakes with chocolate chips?"

"We'll see."

But this morning's request that I serve as short-order cook was unraveling the young day. My mutterings turned to lecturing as I made my coffee. The lectures rose in pitch as I banged a pot onto the stove and measured out the oatmeal. And before I could catch myself, I was yelling at everyone and threatening to go on strike over packing lunches.

In desperation, I grabbed my knitting bag and headed for the couch with a warning that people needed to leave me alone. After five minutes of purling and knitting my husband ventured into the room.

"I'm trying to find my good mood," I said.

And after five rows, I did.

Inspirations

Photo courtesy of i:tzharr.

Dragon puffs of warm air rose from our mouths this morning as I walked my children to school. The cold, gray days of January have returned after a false spring, and I kicked mulch over the moss phlox that had been tricked into opening a few pink blooms.

"Go back to sleep," I tell it.

I'm mentally hibernating this winter -- stoking ideas, dreaming up possibilities, weighing changes. Some of my mood is triggered by the recession as I watch the corner gas station shutter its windows, and the food line lengthen outside the neighborhood church. My husband tinkers with our budget in order to squirrel away a few more dollars against a pay-cut. I buy more beans, and imagine squeezing freelance writing into my child-dominated days.

But my hibernating also comes from discovering silver threads of age in my hair, of the strand of fear that twisted itself around my excitement while sledding, of the stiffness I feel when I climb out of bed in the morning. Given family genetics and age, my life may well be half-lived, and this realization has me seeking inspiration from late bloomers like Cezanne, whose greatest work came late, and Mark Twain, who published "Huckleberry Finn" at forty-nine.

But it's not just the dead and famous who inspire me. During my holiday hiatus from this blog, I found things online that warmed my imagination -- whether with beauty, irreverence or plain yumminess -- some of them created, not for money or fame, but for the sheer joy of creating.

Here's what's got me happily hibernating:

You Won't Remember This Either.
My toddler's fascination with dogs.
Indecent Haiku.
Pumpkin pancakes recipe.
This Joy Ride: poetry+photos+inspiration.
These wine glasses featured in a video of the Wall Street Journal's wine columnists.
Late Bloomers.
The Indian Magic crabapples we planted this winter.
The hat worn by Aretha Franklin during the Inauguration. Oh yeah!

Poetry and pineapples

As Barack Obama sat down to the traditional Inaugural Luncheon, I arranged rings of pineapple in caramelized brown sugar and wrote a limerick to our new leader. I hope you do something to make this day special.

On this wintr'y day I bake
a sweet inaugural cake,
to celebrate a new prez,
a black man, no lez!
Of hist'ry, I happ'ly partake.

Here is the recipe from "Chez Panisse Fruit," with my modifications: Melt 4 tablespoons butter with 3/4 cup brown sugar in a cast-iron skillet. When the mixture starts to caramelize, turning a darker shade of brown, remove from heat and let cool. Arrange slices of pineapple rings evenly in the bottom of the pan and place a maraschino cherry in the center of each ring. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350-degrees.

To make the cake batter, sift 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. In a large mixing bowl, cream 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter and 1 cup white sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add 2 egg yolks, one at a time. Gradually add the dry ingredients and 1/2 cup whole milk in stages.

In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar. Beat until the whites form firm peaks. Fold the whites into the batter in two batches. Pour the batter over the topping in the skillet and bake until the top is slightly brown and the cake pulls away, about 50 to 60 minutes. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a serving plate. Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Ouch!

Vintage postcard of "winter sports near Reno, Nevada."

We took our family sledding at the foot of Mount Rose this past weekend. Again and again, we hiked up the hill, and screamed and whooped our way down it. Our sleds careened into willows, bounced over berms and sent us flying. Some quick thinking kept one son from hitting a tree, and some quick steering kept another from crashing into a giant snowball, but our list of injuries is evidence of how hard we played:

One bruised elbow.
One fat lip.
Two welts on two cheeks.
Some bruised ribs.
One sore neck.
Two bonked heads.

If you dare to challenge the mountains on your own sleds, I suggest you bring a can of Sterno and the ingredients for s'mores. They're delicious in the snow.

Smoking

"Ignition 2" courtesy of Tambako the Jaguar.

The flue was open, the newspaper crumpled, the firewood angled just so, but there was no match. Not one. I rummaged through the junk drawer, rifled through the jar of coins and rubber bands, peered into the bottom of the bag of charcoal. No match.

"What the hell," I mumbled under my breath.

I twisted a piece of newspaper into a small stick, laid it on the electric stove and waited as it smoldered, filled the room with smoke, then finally burst into flame. Carrying the burning paper, I quickly walked from the kitchen to the fireplace and lit the kindling. The kids ran around opening windows to let the smoke escape into the cold winter night, giggling with shock and delight.

"Don't ever, ever, under any circumstances, do what I just did," I told them as we snuggled around the crackling fire and toasted marshmallows.

All that's left of that night is the lingering smell of a campfire in our living room and some ashes, but my mind has stayed clouded and smokey. How, I asked my husband, do I air out my brain after a month crammed with parties and packages and (at the tail-end) puking? How do I spark smoldering ideas? As usual, his response came as an emailed link to a great little video on ideas and a warning that it was "nothing the kids should watch."

So I watched it one night and it worked. Thinking about smoking ideas like brain crack reminded me of my long winter in Moscow, Idaho in 1993. I was working for the Daily News, living in a converted chicken coop and playing with fire. On most Friday nights you'd find me sitting on a bar stool in John's Alley, flirting with the Nez Perce bartender and tucking away Heinekens in honor of my long-distance and half-Dutch boyfriend (who may as well have been half a world instead of half a state away).

I closed the bar with the bartender one night and brought him home to my coop. He leaned against the wall and I sat on top of my furnace and we talked until he leaned down and kissed me. As our mouths touched and my fingers reached up into his hair I wondered and weighed the moment: Was this worth losing what I loved? His mouth opened and he tasted of ashes and smoke, of passions burning and dying. I pulled away and sent him home.

Then I brushed my teeth.

Which got me thinking about another fire, older and fainter, that burned in our trailer's potbelly stove when I was a girl. My dad made the hottest, most raging fires in that stove hoping, perhaps, that waves of heat would lap the edges of the room I shared with my two sisters. But our bedroom never thawed though the stove's metal glowed red as an ember.

So there I was at the frozen end of the trailer, shivering as I slipped into my flannel nightgown, teeth chattering as I brushed them. Then I'd sprint down the hall to the potbelly stove. I'd scooch as close to that glowing wall as I could and let the heat burn into my skin. Still cold, I'd sandwich myself in heat by inching my body between burning stove and radiating wall until my mom would tell me to step back because my nightgown was smoking.

"Don't do that," she told me.

But later I noticed that her own nightgown was toasted brown.

Hot heads

Bento art courtesy of Sakurako Kitsa.

One of my sons was feeling puny.

"I don't think I should go to school," he said.

"Hmmm," I replied. "How about you get dressed and eat some breakfast, and then we'll see how you feel."

In between spoonfuls of cereal he took his temperature four times; the last one read 102-degrees. He thrust the digital display in my face and announced he had a fever.

"Hmmm," I said, and pointed out that each time a different number came up. "You're going to have to go to school."

His response was five minutes of wailing -- the last three from his bedroom -- and then a return to the kitchen and a request that I take his temperature. I held the thermometer to his temple and after the requisite number of beeps it displayed 101-degrees.

"I'm sick," he said, beaming.

"Hmmm," I said, digging around in the medicine box and unearthing another thermometer. "Let's try this one."

The suggestion triggered more howls, but (with protest) he opened his mouth and I slipped the thermometer under his tongue. More waiting, more beeps and then a reading of 99.4.

"Again," he pleaded.

98.9.

"Let's try the other one."

99.6.

"One more time."

99.2.

"You changed it!" he shouted. "You promised I could stay home and now you changed the thermometer so it's different!"

He screamed and stomped. I snapped lids and slammed cupboards.

"Enough!" I roared. "You're going to school because I don't want you to stay home! We've taken your temperature ten-fucking-times and you're not sick! Now get your jacket on!"

Ten minutes later I pulled up to school and he hopped out, face wiped free of tears. As he headed for the playground, he turned and blew me a kiss. I sent one back and hollered that if he felt crummy to go the nurse and she could take his temperature.

Guaranteed

Photo courtesy of Ana oMeLeTe

Catching a cold is one of the few things I can count on during the month of December. So while I sit on the couch with my cup of lemon-honey tea and box of tissue, I'm sending you elsewhere.

To chuckle: If You Give the Federal Government $700 Billion is a delightful parody of that insipid mouse-and-cookie book.

To change your habits: Polar bears aren't the only ones feeling climate change according to the National Arbor Day Foundation's New Garden Zone Map.

To chuck your Christmas cookie-making plans: The sweets in the comic strip Questionable Content are loaded with more than just chocolate chips.

To challenge President-Elect Obama to appoint a secretary of agriculture who will address our nation's nutritional and environmental deficits, aka corn consumption, sign the petition sponsored by Food Democracy Now.

Kaleidoscope

Photo courtesy of Travels in Italy.

One of the things that first enchanted me about my husband was his foreignness. When I met him he was a wild-haired art major who had transferred to a university filled with tobacco-chewing cowboys. While dating we shared a joint filled with sweat-soaked marijuana that he had hidden in his shoe on a return flight from Amsterdam. And when we married he taught me how to say "I love you" in throat-scraping Dutch.

Our only daughter embodies not just our love for each other, but also our love of Holland, where she was conceived. We fill her with stories of a past she can't remember: How as a tiny seed inside of me, she made me so sick I puked into the Prinsengracht. How she grew and I became so heavy and awkward that I fell off the back of a bike while riding sidesaddle.

And although we live a world away from Amsterdam now, we help her create her own Dutch moments. Sometimes they are planned, like tonight's coming of Sinterklaas. Other's are serendipitous, split second shifts in reality and suddenly The Netherlands is in Nevada. Below my husband tells of one moment this morning when his daughter -- with eyes the color of the North Sea and hair as warm as a rare puddle of Dutch sunshine -- overslept.

I was going to walk her to school because she had an early choir practice at 8 a.m. I look at the clock at 7:25 and realize I haven't seen her around downstairs. I go up and sure enough she's still out cold. So I wake her up and she rushes through breakfast and chores. But it's two minutes to eight by the time we get going. She gets mad when she realizes I'm taking my bike (which usually means a 10-minute walk to school), because she was hoping we'd take the car so she wouldn't be too late. So I say, "C'mon, hop on," and get on my bike. She's hesitant at first, but she sits sidesaddle on the rack and we make it to school in record time.

Ik voelde me weer echt Hollands. Een leuk moment.

This time, my husband reassured me, she didn't fall off.

A winter's tale or how I fell in love

The results of a pogonip, or "ice fog." Photo courtesy of English-Word Information.

It was way past midnight and a thick, cold fog encircled us. Perhaps it was our first date or maybe our second, I can't remember now. What I can recall is the warmth of his hand through my glove as we walked down the street, and how ice crystals sparkled under streetlights. I breathed in the sharp air.

"We're in a pogonip," I said as clouds of my warm, moist breath froze in his mustache. He chewed a crystal and I laughed.

"Pogonip," he said, repeating the Indian word for ice fog, shaping lip and tongue around unfamiliar letters, owning them, owning me.

For more winter tales, go to Sunday Scribblings.

Seasonal SNAFU*

Illustration by Richard Scarry. Image courtesy of Mykl Roventine.

"Does this mean we'll only get two Christmas presents?" one son asked.

The family was sitting at the kitchen table, discussing ways to shift the focus away from the glorious pile of presents under the tree to a season of giving. Already, our children had agreed to choose from their own toys and books an item or two to give to a child who will not receive much, if anything, on Christmas morning. But now things were getting dicier: We wanted our kids to each pick a nonprofit group so that friends and family had a choice of giving a donation in lieu of a gift.

"Does this mean we'll only get two Christmas presents?" he asked again.

"I don't know if people will do this or not," I said.

Banking on Santa always pulling through, the kids made their selections and a family letter explaining our effort to chip away at the commercialization of Christmas was sent. Story finished, right? Hah! Our invitation to help shrink this season of excess was read by some as offensive and judgmental. Why, family asked, were we telling others how to give?

My first reaction was disbelief that we were being criticized for trying to teach our children charity and moderation. Then anger: Fuck you and fuck Christmas! I thought. I poured myself a glass of wine, grabbed a chunk of fudge, and hid in a bubble bath until the Buddha found me. Or, more accurately, words from "Buddhism for Mothers," by Sarah Napthali.

"Anger in fact paves the way for future difficulties. For starters, it's not good for our karma: every time we act angrily we increase the chance we'll act angrily again, conditioning ourselves to become belligerent."

I got out of the tub, dumped the wine down the sink and chocolate in the trash. The phone rang. It was one of my sisters, and I as shared my story, she shared what she was learning from the classic self-help book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie: That I had everything to gain from saying sorry, from seeing how our letter had hurt feelings, generated stress and forced others to defend themselves.

"Never begin by announcing 'I am going to prove so-and-so to you.' That's bad. That's tantamount to saying: 'I'm smarter than you are. I'm going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind,'" Carnegie wrote.

"Tomorrow, before asking anyone to put out a fire or buy your product or contribute to your favorite charity, why not pause and close your eyes and try to think the whole thing through from another person's point of view? Ask yourself: 'Why should he or she want to do it?' True, this will take time, but it will avoid making enemies and will get better results..."

I needed to say sorry -- not for trying to make do with less at Christmas (which I believe to be a worthwhile goal) -- but for our insistent invitation that others join us. So, still feeling bruised, I called and apologized.

"When you feel hurt but do not hurt the other, you are truly victorious," Buddha said.

And for the night, the true spirit of Christmas triumphed.

*Definition found here.

Corn people

Photo courtesy of boopsie.daisy. Photographer's work is available for sale at Etsy.

I've been gobbling up Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," but thought I'd take a break from my reading binge and share why I'm grateful for this good read.

The book begins by examining the conquest of corn and industrialization of the food chain. Pollan argues that we are walking, talking stalks of corn -- or more precisely, processed corn. How's this possible? Apparently, corn is incognito: It's in the syrup that sweetens soda and the wax that coats our apples. Corn feeds the steer, the chicken, the pig, the turkey, and even salmon.

How do scientists know we are "corn chips with legs," as one biologist put it? There's an isotope in corn that allows it to be tracked within our human tissue, much the same way scientists can determine the ancient diet of mummies using a piece of fingernail. But is the triumph of corn so terrible? Pollan believes it's to blame for America's growing waistline and our sickening environment.

A quarter century of government farm policies has encouraged the overproduction of this crop, and the industrialized food chain has made processed foods the cheapest in the supermarket. Corn-made calories can find our way into our bodies as a sugar, a starch or as a form of animal fat. "Very simply, we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots," Pollan writes.

Growing only corn has ruined the farmer's soil, the quality of local water, the biodiversity of the Midwest, and the health of all the creatures living downstream. Cheap corn created the feedlot, where steer are fattened up before slaughter. Surviving on corn diets, many suffer from bloat and develop ulcerated livers.

Given such sobering news, I'm going to propose a game of hide and seek. Spend a little time searching for the corn in the products you eat and use. Involve your kids, keep a running tally, write down the ones that really surprise you, and, finally, share what you've discovered. Click here for a printable list of corn aliases, courtesy of Corn Allergens.

"There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn," Pollan writes. "This goes for the nonfood items as well -- everything from the toothpaste and cosmetics to the disposable diapers, trash gas, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, and batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine that catches your eye by the checkout: corn."

The hunt is on!

A stranger in the neighborhood

Photo courtesy of meaduva.

Something streaks across the driveway. My eye catches a fleeting image of a man, a naked man, rounding the corner of my house and heading into the backyard. In the kitchen I freeze. Adrenaline races. Brain screams. Oh, God! I'm alone! The door is unlocked!

I crouch down and dart for the door, turn the lock, and skitter into the hallway where there are no windows. I grab the phone and dial.

"911. What is your emergency?"

"There's a naked man in my yard."

"What?"

"There's a naked man in my yard!"

"Do you know him?"

"No! No! He's naked!"

The dispatcher tells me police are coming. She asks me if I can still see him. I slip to a window. Peek out. He's there, in the corner, peering over the fence. He's got something red wrapped around him. He moves toward the house. I duck.

"He's coming closer to the house!"

The dispatcher keeps me on the line until I see a cop walk across my lawn and another slip around the back of the house. Minutes pass. I peer out a window and see police with a man, shirtless, wearing jeans, no shoes. There's a knock at the door.

"Is this the man you saw in your yard?"

"I think so, but he was naked."

"Well, he's wearing pants now."

"Wait! I had some clothes on the line. Let me see if they're still there."

In the backyard I can't find the jeans my sister loaned me. I am four months pregnant and have outgrown my clothes, so she was sharing her maternity pants, the kind with the elastic panel that replaces zipper and button. I tell the cop the pants are mine. He tells me to wait.

Inside, I pace. My heart quiets. I take deep breaths.

The cop returns and tells me a story. Apparently, the man and the high-school girl next door had been fooling around when the girl's father came home and discovered them in bed. The father started beating up the guy and so he fled, naked, into my yard.

"I've had plenty of calls for people running naked in public, but this is the first time it actually made sense," the officer said.

Did I want to press charges? I laugh and shake my head no. The jeans are returned, but I never wear them again.

Epilogue

Late this summer I spotted the girl in her own pair of maternity pants. She walked slowly down the street, heavy with the burden she carried. Holding her hand was a man. I didn't recognize him, but then again, he was wearing clothes.


Prompted by Sunday Scribblings' topic "stranger."

Anniversaries

Photo courtesy of *PaysImaginaire*

My youngest son and I have reached milestones.

Last November, he slipped into this world, the youngest of four, the final child, our grub. A year has brought metamorphosis: The squishy and portable baby has become an squawking, walking boy. About the same time our last larvae was born, I began blogging regularly, turning thoughts into words, sometimes poetically, sometimes awkwardly, but writing, all the same. This commitment has been a major accomplishment for I am as proud of my 69 posts as I am of my four children.

What does this second year bring for the two of us? For my son, I know it will bring an explosion of communication, and the deciphering and decoding of those first words will delight and confound us. (Curious about my own vocabulary, I entered my blog into Wordle, an online toy that created a word cloud out of my paragraphs, giving greater prominence to those words I use most frequently.) So, what does the new year hold for me? An exploration of fiction, a return to freelancing, and a continued commitment to this blog and to those who read it. Thank you for your interest, encouragement and love.

Tonight, my son and I celebrate our accomplishments by eating cake. And because we should all celebrate and eat cake more often than we do, I hope you raise a fork wherever you are on this earth and join us. Huzzah!

The perfect cup of cocoa

Photo courtesy of chatirygirl.

I have sipped my way to hot chocolate heaven and found the perfect steaming mug. During this quest I have sampled many a cup, and taken many a detour into foreign recipes that had me mixing egg into the chocolate milk, adding dollops of dulce de leche, creating instant mixes, and whirring scalding concoctions in my blender. And in the end I found it, a recipe that achieves the perfect balance of chocolate and sugar, and it's so damn easy you'll want to kiss me.

Pour some milk in a pot. Toss in a few handfuls of chocolate chips, more if you want a richer chocolate taste. Heat. When the chocolate begins to melt, whisk until your happy with the results.

While I may have found my perfect cup, I urge you to get a little cocoa crazy and try out some of the drinks I sampled in my mug madness. Recipes can be found at Rediscover Hot Chocolate. If you find one that's particularly delightful, please share it!