Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Of Sharks and Otters
Reading Rituals
On Marriage Today
Monday, June 29, 2009
Beverages for When You Can't Eat
For Miss T, who is having two root canals tomorrow--
Orange Creamsicle Smoothie
I love orange creamsicle! I made an easy version for Mama and Goo—orange soda frozen in a slushie cup and then poured over vanilla ice cream.
2 frozen orange juice bars
½ cups cold milk
1 cup vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt
¾ cup cold orange juice
Blend the juice bars, milk, ice cream and orange juice in a blender. Can substitute frozen orange juice for orange juice bars.
Alternate: Orange Freeze
From Eddie’s Sweet Shop in Woodhaven, where they filmed part of Brighton Beach Memoirs. Very tasty! And easier than the creamsicle smoothie.
2 scoops orange sherbet
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
seltzer
This is a recipe from Scholastic's Parent and Child magazine that the kiddos can actually have. And it's pretty good (6/07).
1 cup mango nectar
20 oz Canned Pineapple Chunks in Juice
Freeze pineapple chunks overnight. Defrost 10 minutes before blending with mango nectar. Serve.
Parent and Child Magazine (2 points; 3 servings)
Mango Lassi
The weekend after Mom’s spring visit, during which we had lassis at an Indian restaurant, we got fresh mangoes form the Costco and made these, which Martha had just featured in Everyday Food. Pretty tasty, and sweet enough with no additional sugar (summer 2004).
1 ripe mango
1 cup whole or lowfat plain yogurt
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup cold water
ice
Peel, pit, and coarsely chop 1 ripe mango (to yield about 1 cup fruit). In a blender, purée mango with yogurt, sugar, and cold water until smooth. Pour through a fine mesh sieve to remove pulp, if desired. Serve immediately over ice.
Everyday Food
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Goo’s Redwall Strawberry Cordial
Mama, Goo, and I made this delicious cordial one May night, inspired by the Redwall books and a website full of Redwallian recipes. It was amazing! It reminds me of those wonderful strawberry drinks of Chock-Full-O’Nuts.
2 lbs. strawberries
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup powdered sugar
¾ liter of plain seltzer
2 tablespoons water
1 pint heavy cream
Wash and slice strawberries. Heat strawberries on low flame in saucepan with ½ cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of water. When soft and rendering liquid, add the other ½ cup of sugar.
Strain strawberries over bowl, saving juice. Crush strawberries until only seeds and fibers left. Add to juice.
Cool juice. Add seltzer to strawberry juice to taste. Add cream to cordial to taste and texture. Sweeten with powdered sugar.
Refrigerate at least an hour or until chilled.
Serve with fresh whipped cream.
Mama, Goo, and me
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New York Chocolate Egg Cream
I became addicted to this in NYC and needed to be able to make my own when I moved to Chicago.
1 cup milk
¼ cup seltzer
2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
Squeeze syrup into glass, then add milk. Stir in seltzer.
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Miss V’s Homemade Chai
darjeeling tea
green cardamom pods
sugar
milk
Place tea and crushed green cardamom pods in water and boil gently on the stove. When well heated, add sugar and milk to taste. Serve.
Miss V
Hallelujah!
Ditto
Attention is the most concrete expression of love. What you pay attention to thrives. What you do not pay attention to withers and dies.
Quite simply, it bears repeating.
Happy for Solstice!
A Karat of Carrots
- Bring your own reusable bag or two for carrying all your goodies and helping out the earth (whoops, forgot)
- Bring small bills and a check as back up to make paying easier for you and the vendor (though, one vendor, when given the choice, preferred breaking a large bill to taking a check, so this tip is iffy.)
- Bring water to drink (we drank a full 20 oz of water between the 3 of us in under an hour)
- Don't forget the sunscreen if your market is in the afternoon or in a unshady spot--it's hot and bright out there (note: last year's sunscreen that has been in the car all year is not good anymore)
- Asks questions of the growers (I learned that "local" honey, often used to treat allergies, is relative, as beekeepers keep hives in several places--apparently, as long as it's within about 100 miles or so, it counts).
- Try something new (mmm, that maple walnut cookie. And of course, that carrot!)
- Have fun! (even if there isn't a truck to touch or a giant tooth every week)
Good Luck Tomorrow
Tidbits
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Scotland or Bust

I don’t know who “Vel” is but I like her recipe for shortbread that I found on allrecipes.com. It has a homey flavor because of the brown sugar. It’s one of my favorites. I usually half the recipe.
2 cups butter
1 cup brown sugar
5 cups sifted flour
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in flour and knead by hand until dough comes together. At first the dough will seem dry and crumbly but don’t give up, keep mixing. Roll out the dough to ¼” thickness and cut with cookie cutters or press dough into shortbread molds (be sure to lightly grease mold and sprinkle with sugar). Place cookies 2” apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8-12 minutes in the preheated oven, depending on the size of your cookies. Do not let them brown. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks. (Note: If you use a ceramic pan, turn the oven down to 325F and bake for 30 minutes).
Friday, June 26, 2009
Oh, Happy Days!
the search for contentment in its many forms — economic, emotional, physical, spiritual — and the stories of those striving to come to terms with the lives they lead
- On the limits of control, including the author's mother's childhood in a Nazi concentration camp
- On knowledge and nerves, and why you're more nervous about what you don't know
- Simplifying life, which I blogged about here
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: A Couple of Newbies
Partying with a Penguin Pinata
Chocolate Rolls
A recipe from Gale Gand, on Food Network. It’s the only recipe of hers that I’ve really gotten to work. These are tasty, especially with orange extract, but sticky. I cut them in logs but rolled them into balls not “Tootsie” roll shapes, but they do taste a lot like Tootsie Rolls.
1 ½ cups chocolate chips, melted
½ cup corn syrup
¾ teaspoon warm water
½ teaspoon orange extract (can use other flavors; I think I used 1 teaspoon)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and cover. Let it sit overnight to firm up. Roll into logs and cut into 1 inch sections. Wrap in decorative foil and papers.
Gale Gand, “Sweet Dreams”
Almost Sick
In THE Paper
- Sunday Beans: I love beans, as you know, and was excited to pick up this recipe for Cuban pintos. Just reading the article was wonderful.
- Vegetable Pies: Hmmmm, vegetarian pies to use up your extra produce. Wish there was a greens pie in the list, as I have lots of greens.
- Simple Syrup @ Bitten: check out the comments for lots of great syrup recipes and uses (including a great shrub recipe with fruit juice, vinegar, and seltzer).
- Chocolate Pudding @ Bitten. First, see Bittman's tofu pudding recipe. Then the dairy follow-up, which seems to diss Bittman's tofu. The best part? A comment (not mine): "I find it so odd how defensive people become about their dairy, eggs, and meat when faced with a delicious, animal-less alternative. That you feel confident that cream and eggs will “beat out tofu anytime” makes you sound a bit threatened…by tofu. Heh heh."
- 10 ingredients for a week
- Food and your brain
- I've been thinking on the idea of "variable reinforcement," mentioned in an article on food competition, where people continue to behave in certain ways even though the rewards are unpredictable or intermittent. Hmmm, wonder if it works with kids?
- The idea that growing up is all about forgetting comes up in the article on novelist Jodi Picoult. I think it's interesting that people tend to remember their most vivid experiences, which, in early childhood, are oftentimes unspleasant. But I've been trying to remember my earliest memories and several of them are not perfect happiness (being dropped on my head in preschool; losing my colored Easter eggs under the car; being picked up late at school, you know, the standard ones). Is this because I was happy most of the time, with only bits of unhappiness, which seems to be the oppostite of the time after early childhood, when people begin to worry and stress and then remember more vividly their most happy experiences? I'm not sure.
- I'm still pondering the post I just read by Judith Warner about insults moms receive. I think the issue might be that there aren't more insults for moms now (or versus dad) but that moms today, being more insecure and less confident and more competitive than before (perhaps) give them more weight.
- "Call no man happy until he is dead" and other musings on the afterlife and happiness (plus comments).
No "Please," Thank You
Happy Birthday, Mama!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Neverland
Gotta Love Gail
Rocking and Rolling Stones
Space Travel
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sleeping Like a Baby
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Freezing in June

Philhellenism

Raise the Red Lantern
Goodbye, Toys?
Tidbits
A Day in the Life
Fresh Strawberry Pie
1-1/2 quarts fresh strawberries
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 nine-inch baked pastry shell
- Cap strawberries; reserve half of the best ones. Mash the other half and add sugar and cornstarch which have been mixed together. Cook 5 or 6 minutes until clear and thick. Stir in lemon juice. Cool.
- Add whole strawberries to the cooled mixture, save some for garnish. Pour into baked pie shell. Top with whipped cream and garnish with fresh whole strawberries (though, we like it even better with a dollop of sour cream!)
strawberry pamphlet
All Through the Night
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
First Check
Update Quickly
Bud Fell Down and Broke His Crown
Monday, June 22, 2009
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Garlic Scapes
The Cowgirl and the Little Drummer Boy
I Miss You
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Happy Father's Day!
Friday, June 19, 2009
First There is a Mountain
First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
The caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within.
Caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within.
before one begins Zen practice, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, as one is progressing through Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers , then, when one has mastered the practice, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
First, in our ordinary natural way of thinking, we look at a mountain and we see it as a mountain. Then, as we learn about Buddhist concepts, we realize that the "mountain" is a signifier created by people, but in reality, philosophically, the Universe is one, it is not made up of separate things, but OUR PERCEPTION makes it appear that way. Then, once we have absorbed these startling ideas, we can, paradoxically, go back to the normal way of viewing things, and see that "there is a mountain" there. While realizing that you can look at it the other way.
Let the Sun Shine In
It wasn't supposed to be pretty outside today, but after, what, 18 straight days of rain, including 2 1/2 inches just yesterday, and temperatures in the low 60s, today was an amazing change with sunshine, blue skies, and higher temperatures. Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Other Woman
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Lunch, Dinner ,and NPR
Scary Stories
IN THE NOVELS of Jodi Picoult, terrible things happen to children of middle-class parentage: they become terminally ill, or are maimed, gunned down, killed in accidents, molested, abducted, bullied, traumatized, stirred to violence. The assault on any individual family is typically mounted from angles multiple and unforeseen.
But the act of worry is almost a talisman now, a ritual that reminds me how fragile the moment, and how much to savor the now. Notice that all my worries are about my children. I’ve come to understand that that’s what parenting is — seeing the dangers of the world with newly sensitive eyes, pretending you can protect them, and giving thanks for all the things that don’t go wrong.
Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down
- old-fashioned oats
- a jar of jelly, any flavor
- chips, chocolate and other flavors (butterscotch, milk, white, one day PB)
- nut butter (use sunflower seed butter for nut allergies)
- dried fruit (raisins, craisins, apricots)
- cocoa
- one box cake mix and a jar of frosting (also, can have a brownie mix box)
- sprinkles, jimmies, colored sugars, and other decorations
- cupcake papers
- I'll add a can of pumpkin here, too, as Sis wants to try the book's Magical Pumpkin Cookies next.
- butter
- sugar (white, powdered, and brown)
- flour
- baking soda
- baking powder
- eggs
- milk
- butter/shortening (I usually only use butter)
- salt
- extracts (vanilla, almond)
- spices (cinnamon, nutmeg)
- cooking spray
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Big Night
Patience Is As Patience Does, or Lessons in Kindness
It simply means that when the ebb and sway of life carries us along, we can let go because we see all of it in a different way. . . . Non-attachment is the nature of life itself: it keeps going. Non-attachment allows us to love one another and life as it is regardless of whether we like it right now or not.
But even just beginning to understand that, I'm still not unattached.
Explain It To Me
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Escarole and Struggles
- curly kale--gonna just stir fry it
- a dozen eggs--hmm, what's a quintessential egg dish? an omelet?
- lettuce--this is the easy one but easiet to forget too
- kohlrabi--hmmm. stir fry? or eat raw with dip? I can try again next week.
- garlic scapes--I had thought about making hummus (no tahini, though; and the pesto has 1/2 cup of oil!) but will probably add them to the omelet. This will be in the next box, too.
- escarole--I made a soup tonight and will make another soup tomorrow night (see below). Again, we get more escarole this week.
- I'm not really good at identifying vegetables. Which you don't have to do at the grocery store because there are signs with the prices. I almost put lettuce in my soup today and ate the escarole straight up, which would not have been good.
- I don't really know which veggies will go bad first. I realize that the key to cooking our CSA share is using the most perishable produce first. But I don't know what that is. And I can't find a list online. Though, I'm learning. It's a steep learning curve, and expensive too.
- I don't know how to prep most of these vegetables: can you eat the stem? can you eat the leaves? I don't have to put them in my dishwasher, right? (this harkens back to a story about Southern women so stressed about gritty greens that they put them on the top rack of their dishwasher and run it through rinse. Now, for the life of me, I can't recall what book that's in).
- Every recipe starts with olive oil and garlic.
- Cooking new-to-me produce every night is rather stress producing, even if the recipes are simple.
- But I've liked almost everything.
Escarole and Bean Soup
1/4 lb White beans
5 c vegetable or chicken broth
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
1 onion, diced
2 c chopped escarole
Salt and pepper -- to taste
croutons, optional
SOAK THE BEANS OVERNIGHT IN WATER. Drain. Place beans in a pot, add broth, cover and cook over medium heat until beans are soft, about 30 minutes. (or use canned white beans if there isn't time to soak and cook...) Meanwhile, place another pot on the stove, add oil, place over medium heat, add garlic and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes, or until onions soften. Add the escarole and continue to cook until wilted, another 10 minutes. Add the beans and broth to the pot with the escarole. Add salt and pepper as desired, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve hot, with the addition of croutons if desired. serves 8
from our CSA people
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Garlic Escarole Soup with Rice
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 medium onions, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 cups stock
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 medium head escarole, washed and roughly chopped (about 5 cups)
1/2 cup Arborio rice (I just used pre-cooked white rice, as I had it on hand)
grated Parmesan cheese to taste
Heat oil in large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until caramelized. Reduce heat to low, add garlic, and cook for another 5 minutes.
Add stock and bring to a boil. Add the salt and rice and cook for 5 minutes.
Add escarole. Simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes, until rice and escarole are tender. Season to taste with salt. Serve with Parmesan cheese. (We didn't have cheese and so served it with a bit of lemon juice).
Johnna Albi and Catherine Walthers, Greens Glorious Greens! (adapted--they had chicken stock and shredded chicken, too)
Basement Update
Tonight's Dinner Discussion
Monday, June 15, 2009
A Weekend In Pictures
Way Behind
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Sleepover
Friday, June 12, 2009
When It Rains, It Pours
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Pick Up
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Diagonal Cut
Looking back at my childhood now from the vantage point of several decades, I can see that many of the important life lessons I learned from my father grew out of his passion for grasses. These life lessons weren’t transplanted as full-grown character traits, but rather they started as tiny seeds. Over a period of years — as my Dad spent time with me, as he shared his special interest and knowledge, and as he let me watch him live a genuine life — those tiny character seeds sprouted, took root and grew.
Some parents do it while playing and coaching sports. Some do it while painting and remodeling houses. Others do it while fishing, cooking, or changing the oil in their car. Still others do it while involving their children in a family-run business or through active involvement in a church, synagogue, or mosque.
The Other Three Rs
Savannah Fever: Warthogs and Wildebeests and and Zebras. Oh My!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The More Things Change . . .
More on George

Wednesday
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Kale
Emotion Movers
Good Morning
Monday, June 8, 2009
More Fairy Houses
In THE Paper
- "My Brief Life as a Woman"--NYTimes writer Dana Jennings continues to explore issues surrounding his fight against aggressive prostate cancer. Here, he experiences the unsettling effects of testosterone suppression: he is like a menopausal woman. And he doesn't like it much at all.
- Sexless Marriages--I think the heart of the article mainly is that it doesn't matter how much sex you have as long as you and your partner are on the same page.
- Healthier Pizzas--with recipe. MMMMmmm, whole wheat pizza dough.
- Kids and Money--I'm trying to teach the kids lessons about money that I'm not sure I have yet learned: budgeting, saving, delayed gratification, doing more with less, simplifying. On Saturday, they each got $5 to spend during an outing (a little more than a dollar for each year they are old, since $4 seemed silly). And we promptly let them spend more, or, more specifically, confused the rules by paying for food and some games. It's going to take more practice.
- More on strawberries--I need these because we're going picking soon, though our own planted strawberry seeds were attacked by squirrels and probably won't grow.
- Photographs of tragic events. Can you picture bodies falling from the WTC? Or starving children in Ethiopia? Or victims at concentration camps of the Holocaust? An exhibition explores photographs of barbaric, grotesque events and our own complicity in those events as we become immune to them through their depiction.
- Movies about food. I loved Tampopo, Babette's Feast, and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, to name a few. But I haven't wanted to see Super Size Me, Fast-Food Nation, or the new Food, Inc. I am completely in favor of food exposes, just like environmental ones (though I haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth. Yes, they've revoked my liberal credentials), but I just can't sit through a film and listen, for instance, to a woman describe the brutal death of her 2 year-old due to an E. Coli-tainted hamburger. But I won't be serving ground beef to the kids or taking them to the golden arches anytime soon.
- Pico Iyer's contemplation of the simpler life.
- The author writes about surviving his own murder and how it affects (and doesn't affect) him
- Ooooohhh, Bitten (but not Bittman) does chocolate cupcakes. From Maida Heatter.
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Bok Choi
Date Night
Kids Say the Darnedest Things
Why Blog?
Division of Play
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Hoping for the Best
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Greens, Greens, Greens
Good to Talk to You . . .
Making Cake and Eating It Too


Saturday, June 6, 2009
Fly Away Home
Saturday morning we released our butterflies. It was a beautiful, dry day, the first one in awhile. The first butterfly out of the tent stayed stuck to the plate with oranges so we let that one just hang out while we released the other ones. And most of them immediately took to the sky and darted around, including the one that Sis helped release. One did stay on my hand for a bit and then danced off. The butterfly on the orange was the last to leave. Apparently, they'll stay in the general vicinity for a few days but we haven't seen them since; too many beautiful flowering gardens to choose from, I imagine.
Friday, June 5, 2009
More Concerns
Thinking of Her
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Mommy Intuition
Let the Work Begin
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Come to My Garden
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Adventures in Cooking Our CSA Share: Week 1 List
- green star lettuce
- baby kale
- radishes
- salad turnips
- English greenhouse cucumbers
- scallions
- broccoli raab or baby spinach
- Asian greens mix of mix of kyona mizuna, hong vit (pink stem radish leaf), red komatsuna (dark maroon leaf), ho mi Z and green wave (spicy mustard greens) and corn mache.
- bok choi
- herb pots
Muse On Over
A Star is Born
Monday, June 1, 2009
In the Papers (Or, well, "THE" Paper and One Radio Show)
- On the most religious people receiving the most aggressive end-of-life care, see here.
- On the benefits of hospice here.
- A blog pointing to an article on the end-of-life talk (yes, I did mention this earlier.)
- And have I ever mentioned one of the best articles I've read on dying? Jane Gross on the death vigil in 2006. I feel like there was a "to-do" list with the article but I can't find it. Mama, can you?
- On a summer reading list of parental resources. I would add my favorite, Momma Zen. Note: there are lots of interesting titles in the comments section.
- On the possible demise of helicopter parenting here (and the post about it too). Haven't read it yet but really, really want to.
- Does having daughters make you more liberal? The post is about dads but my mom would say, yes, absolutely, having a daughter (especially a non-mainstream one like me, even early on, and because I was overweight), made her a feminist. Imagine what my being a lesbian has done!
- On gratitude and marriage here. I don't think I thank Mama often enough (and not because I think I need to manipulate her into doing things but because I am grateful for all she does. And manners are important even, or even especially, in a marriage).
- Thank goodness this isn't me and my mom. Even if I haven't sent the present yet.
- On the Alexander technique for back pain. Hmmm, must ask PT. When I go back after my hiatus.
- On judicial philosophies here.
- Yummy strawberries.
- Okay, so NPR isn't a paper, but I loved this piece on cooking with children because all other play can be boring by Nigella Lawson (one is audio, the other text).
- Laughter: check out her blog http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/laughter-as-a-parenting-tool/ and http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com
- http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/raising-a-biracial-child/
- Slow Parenting http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/what-is-slow-parenting/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15curi.html?ref=dining
- On flatbread: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/dining/22mini.html?ref=dining
- also article on sugar http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15sweet.html?ref=dining
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15united.html?ref=dining
- bitten on stew http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/to-counteract-heavy-meals-vegetable-stew/
- the thrifty dinner blog http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/saving-money-on-dinner/
- and parmesan cheese crackers http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E0D91730F937A35751C0A96F9C8B63&scp=2&sq=parmesan%20cheese%20crackers&st=cse
- Frugal living http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/business/economy/11cheap.html?scp=1&sq=frugal%20living&st=cse
- New top careers: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12lohr.html?em
- community organizing
- http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/in-defense-of-crybabies/#more-3249
- Chinese names http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html?pagewanted=1&hp

