Rise Up: Two New Loaves

I keep trying new breads, mainly for my bread machine. The two below are good, especially the first one, which is similar to Molasses Oatmeal Bread and very good. I'm trying it today with honey because I ran out of maple syrup. Next time, molasses (and perhaps some whole wheat flour)!

Maple Oatmeal Bread

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1/3 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 cups bread flour

3/4 cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon gluten

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Place all ingredients in bread machine pan according to manufacturer's instructions. Set crust on dark and program for basic. Press Start (do not use delay timer). If dough is too stiff, dribble with some water.

When baking ends, remove from pan and place on rack. Let cool before slicing.

Sour Cream Bread

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon water

1 cup sour cream

3 1/2 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

2 teaspoons gluten

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast.

Place all ingredients in pan according to order in manufacturer's instructions, with water and sour cream first, adding dry ingredients on top. Set crust on medium and program for Basic. Press Start (to not use delay timer).

When baking ends, remove from pan and place on rack. Let cool before slicing.

Beth Hensperger, The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook

Thinking of You

Sending love to Mama Teacher and family, whose Grumpy Gramps is heading home to Oregon after a month-long visit.

Making Whoopie

It was date night here at the Hungry household. And it was a great one, in no small part because of whoopie.

Whoopie pies, that is.

Mama Teacher has been vacationing in Maine and I was watching her house. She brought back some tasty whoopie pies, a specialty of her home state (one of two, the other being Indiana). Yum! But even though she brought the kids' favorites--chocolate and strawberry--I horded the pies and took them on date night.

Which was almost rained out. We've had lines of severe thunderstorms today and one of them hit just as we were about to leave. So we waited for a break, only to get caught in the parking lot of our first stop. We sat in the car sharing one each of the delicious pies--like cake, but cookie-shaped, with that sweet frosting, but not too sweet, or shortening-laden--while we watched the torrential downpour. Then the sun came out, in the midst of it all, and there was not one but two rainbows, a bright inner one and a lighter outer one, fully arching over town. Gorgeous. Miraculous. Only the second time I've seen a double rainbow (the first time being over our neighborhood when I was a kid and dad was taking home a friend from a sleepover). The first time for Mama. We got mediocre pictures of the parking lot and the two rainbows, but it was lovely. And the pies were great (the book is too--thanks so much, Mama Teacher!).

We ran errands and made some fun stops, including the hardware store, where we saw a groundhog outside. My lucky day. Rainbows and groundhogs. It sounds like it should be a song from "The Muppet Show!" We got hardware to secure our new bookcases to the wall so they don't tump over, a shower curtain rod because we don't have one, and a storage unit to put behind the toilet downstairs, plus other hardware store stuff. Then we were off to the fancy food market, walking every aisle and choosing things we can't get at the regular store, like bacon chocolate! For Mama. And some fresh black mission figs for me to try. Then we got a snack from the steam table (two new bean salads: edamame succotash and a four bean salad, both with mirin and vinegar and red onion, etc) and just sat talking until we closed the store.

Outside was a star, the first we'd noticed through all the crazy, dramatic, picturesque (mind you, that would be Turner, not Constable) skies. I sang "Star light, star bright . . . " and Mama asked what I wished. It occurred to me that she didn't know I don't wish anymore. Not on stars or hay bales or birthday candles. Not from some morbid, fatalistic, pessimistic position about the futility of wishing, but because I think I have everything I could want and anything I could wish for would mainly be superfluous. Or hubris, because who wants to be jinxed? Sometimes, I'm more superstitious than I thought. Or, as Mama pointed out, too well-educated in the Greek myths! Regardless, I didn't wish on the star, only thanked it for everything, like the rainbows and the groundhogs, Mama and the kids, the whoopie pies and friends.

The Boy Who Came Before Dinner

The doorbell rang. 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday. Too late for Fed Ex; no UPS on Saturdays. And that cable guy had already talked to us. Who could it be?

I saw a blonde head bobbing up and down on our front step. Ahh, the neighbor boy. Let's call him Video Gamer. "Can Sis and Bud play?"

Sure. And I invited him in. Sis and Bud were excited by their visitor and immediately started trying to entice him with toys, games, and kung fu demonstrations. He only asked, "Don't you have any video games?"

Video Gamer is 5 1/2 but has an 18-year old brother, so has grown up playing bigger-kid games. He likes video games, computer games, handheld games, whatever digital games, Nintendo, X Box, Wii, Playstation, (goodness, have I even gotten those correct?). He spotted that Sis and Bud had been playing on PBSkids.com and went over immediately--to change the website for different games! I interrupted to say we only played PBS games (figuring he wasn't looking for Starfall.com or Nickjr.com either!). Could Sis and Bud go to his house to play games? Soon, though, they settled into a game of chase and then some shadow play in the bedroom with some of the flashlight sets Sis and Bud got for their birthday.

Mama was beside herself. What was he doing here? Who comes over and knocks on the door to play without advanced email negotiations between moms weeks in advance? What should we do with him? Did his folks know he was here?

I laughed, "Hon, this is how kids end up staying for dinner! Better not tell him we're having steak!" Seriously, though, this kind of neighborhood play is completely outside of Mama's realm of experience, growing up in a condo near an apartment complex in the heart of Queens, without neighborly kids running around. Kids just didn't venture out, alone, to play with others.

She finished dinner; I was on playdate duty. I tried to reassure her that this was normal in neighborhoods. Mercy, most of my childhood was spent rounding up various neighbors to play (there were 6-8 families with kids approximately my age), inside or outside, depending on the weather and whom I found, though there were two girls in particular whom I would look for first. I tried to remember some of our neighborhood guidelines, if only to assure Mama that it can work really well: no visits before 9 am or after 9 pm (or was that phone calls?); come in when it's dark (which the assures me that the first was our phone-call rule); not during dinner; let your mom know where you're going and if you change locales; not off the immediate street; you can eat there but check with Mom first about dinner; follow the house rules; the other adult is in charge; keep track of your own toys; clean up before you leave. I'm not sure that helped. So to ease Mama's mind, I snuck upstairs and turned on the monitor, so she could see just how harmless it was. And it was. Even though Video Gamer is a lot more worldly, definitely more rough and tough, significantly more pop culture and digital-world oriented, he is a sweet kid. And our neighbor.

So when he asked again if the kids could come over to play, I said yes, until dinner and sent them across the street, without me, while I watched and waved to his dad who was mowing the lawn. Mama was flabbergasted. I set the timer to remember to go get them, early, knowing that his mom and I would end up gabbing.

Which is exactly what we did. Video Gamer is a year ahead in school and so we talked about kindergarten transitions, her experiences and my concerns. She said that Video Gamer was always asking to come over to play; I said just send him along. Though, I told her that he thought our house, with its lack of video games, was lame. Then I finally rounded up Sis and Bud, who were enjoying playing with Video Gamer's pirate toys and admiring his large collection of Silly Bandz, and begged to be able to play again.

Of course. It was a very momentous occasion, our first drop-in by a neighbor kid, hopefully the beginning of many. Because that's the kind of suburban childhood we envision for our kids . . . . even if it feels a little strange at first.

License to Kill

My aim is deadly.

It can be The Economist, Parenting: The School Years, or Smithsonian (but oh, never my food magazines). On the back door, on the windowsill, on the back of the chair, and once even in midair.

Yes, we have flies. I'm the Lady of the Flies.

It started with a dirty diaper, in a bag, in our trash can, which unbeknownst to us, stuck to the can and attracted maggots. Fast forward a bit (I know, gross, but we don't check the bottoms of the cans each week after pick up) and add in our old, ill-fitting, doesn't-quite-close basement window. Next thing we noticed, we had flies in the kitchen each evening. And I would kill them pretty fast, usually with only one swat. But it kept happening.

Where were they coming from? Turns out, they had amassed in our basement, probably because it was cooler than the wretched outside, then flew through the lattice in the basement door, up through the basement, to the bright lights and tempting smells of the kitchen. No wonder they were such easy targets, all that flying after being locked in the basement for days.

We've sealed up the window and are waiting for a replacement, but the flies do still come in ones and twos, hopefully the last of the horde, managing to fly past the sticky scrolls and bowls of vinegar, straight to the sticky-table buffet in our kitchen. We'll be calling pest control if the new window doesn't work. We're not above bombing the basement.

But, to be Pollyanna-ish about it, my aim is even better than when we started, we've become puritannical about keeping the kitchen sticky-mess free, and we've purged our magazine collection!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream . . .

for Hale's Blue Boy Syrup!

Yep, on Saturday, Mama made us a dessert from her childhood, using her pink panda bear ice shaver. Let's call it a Thai snow cone or a Thai "ice cream" sundae (see Mama's favorite Thai food blog for a picture). You start with shaved ice, over which you pour a bit of Hale's Blue Boy syrup mali flavor (which we think is jasmine). Then drizzle some sweetened condensed milk. And you top it off with . . . . cooked corn. Or sweetened red beans (adzuki, which we have, but not yet cooked or sweetened).

That's where Mama lost the kids. Sis loves sweetened condensed milk but was even leery of the syrup, which Bud liked. But they couldn't wrap their heads around corn in a dessert. Only Mama and I went the whole way. Though, I like the red beans better, which I know from past experience (went for Vietnamese ice cream with my high school buddy once; they eat the ice with the equivalent of almond dofu and lots of sweetened beans). So maybe I'll have to cook and sweeten those beans.

Which will just evoke the screams in this post's title.

Happy Anniversary!

to Aunt Banana and Uncle Soccer, celebrating two years wed!

. . . And Crumpets

I'm still using my sourdough starter regularly, about every two weeks, and am looking for other things to make besides a loaf of sourdough bread. On Saturday, it was a toss up between sourdough pizza crust and crumpets. The crumpets won! And they would've have been so good with your prizewinning marmalade, Lambeth!

Maybe pizza next week . . . .

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Sourdough Crumpets

1 cup unfed starter (When I feed my refrigerated starter and save out a cup, I wait 2 hours so that the unfed cup can come back to life, so to speak)

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Mix starter with sugar, salt, and soda. Whisk thoroughly and then wait for bubbles. Whisk again right before you cook them.

Heat skillet on stove. Make crumpets like pancakes (or, use 4" crumpet ring filled with 1/4" batter). Cook over low until tops are full of holes and then flip and continue cooking.

When crumpets are cooked, pop them in the toaster to brown and crisp. This is key. Serve with butter and jam.

King Arthur Flour website

Never On a Sunday

For once, we went out on Sunday instead of Saturday, our preferred family outing day, especially for big trips like going to the "dinosaur museum." Yep, we went into the city yesterday to see the Silk Road exhibition one more time and also to see the new "Race to the End of the World" exhibit on the South Pole expeditions. Plus, of course, dinosaurs and dioramas.

Why Sunday? Well, with kung fu class on Saturday, we wouldn't have gotten into the city until 11:30-12ish, which puts our visit square in the middle of the rush. At least going early on Sunday, we had it to ourselves for the first hour or so. Literally. There was only one other family anywhere near us in the Silk Road exhibition. And they had young twins too!

Then after a long and fun day in the city, we tacked on some things at the end: we went to our favorite local ice cream place and got kids' cups of strawberry, chocolate, sweet cream, and chocolate mint. And, still being "city kids," Bud and Sis had a good laugh watching two asleep barn cats, who looked just like our two cats. Yep, it was fun to watch cats sleep.

Heading home, I spotted a sign that I didn't expect to see, for one of our favorite barbecue joints. It has closed and relocated and expanded so many times we'd lost track, but here it was. And so we picked up dinner: ribs (alas, pork!), brisket, beans, greens, sweet potato fries, black-eyed peas and rice, and sweet tea that was so sweet that even I couldn't drink it.

We got home two plus hours after we'd intended which extended bedtime 'til almost 8:30. But it was a great day.

Except I kept thinking it was Saturday and was sorry to remember that today is Monday.

Homerou*

(*Please pardon my attempts to decline "Homer," not remembering which declension it is. I'm hoping here for the genitive singular, "Of Homer.")

Actually, you might not know that the kids and I have named my minivan "Homer." Because, you know, it's an Odyssey.

They like that story, with Odysseus, the Trojan Horse, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, Penelope, Poseidon. So it seemed fitting. Luckily, they weren't watching "Jungle Junction" at the time, or it might be an "Ellyvan."

Yesterday, they spent the afternoon washing Homer. Top to bottom, grill to bumper, over and over again. And we all got as wet as the van did. Though maybe not quite as clean, because Sis took to making mud pies at some point and Bud began playing with his flying disc and rolling around in the grass.

But Poseidon must nonetheless have been pleased because, contrary to popular belief, it did not rain right after we finished!

It Starts

School supplies at the store.

Clothes purchases for the first weeks of school.

Babysitter setting her last week for the second week of August.

It's mid-July and summer rapidly seems to be ending. Early. With school.

And I really was doing fine. Handling graduation and orientation, both theirs and Babysitter's, as well as could be expected. But it all hit me rather hard today, which was just a day of innocent and innocuous errands. Sure, I've had a mental tab of things running for weeks now: rearrange dental appointment for kids so as not to coincide with class, check on bus orientation RSVP, look into Girl Scout troop opportunities, order school spirit gear, put together photo album of kids with Babysitter as a going away present. But those have been pushed aside as we went to Texas and then celebrated birthdays.

Now there is nothing big between us and school, with Babysitter's departure after 5 years here, a sad foretaste of anxiety for us all. I mean, Bud already dreads being separated in class and mentions it almost daily. And now he's taken to not letting go of Babysitter as she tries to leave each day. Mind you, I've been as normal and perky as possible; I'd like to think I'm not leaking stress. But I'm guessing I'm deluding myself.

Well, no delusions today, I'm kinda down about it all.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Actually, that's Stinky Thing 1 and Stinky Thing 2.

The kids have been playing skunks.

Yep, about the most powerful and fearsome thing they can imagine right now are skunks who can spray. But as they tell it, it's pretty powerful spray--it can paralyze snakes and other scary creatures. And so they have been crawling around the house after "Black Beastie of Thunder" and "the Queen of Lightning," our two cats, who don't like skunks or children much this afternoon.

I'm Mommy Skunk, anointed by the Stinky Things when I returned home from errands this afternoon. But apparently neither I nor the baby skunks can smell the stinkiness.

That's a relief, because it'd be ripe in here.

Congrats!

Goo has successfully passed his Master's thesis defense. Yay!!!!!

We Have a Winner!

Actually, Mama didn't place in the pie contest, but that was about all that wasn't winning about today's summer picnic.

Which we just got home from about an hour ago!

Yep, it was a late, late bedtime for the Hungry house.

But, oh, what a night!

There were clowns and stiltwalkers and balloon artists and caricaturists and face painters. And we interacted with them all. The kids even got to spin a ball on a stick with a friendly clown. Sis got a "bayoon" white bunny, while Bud got a dragon. Sis even had her hand painted with a white bunny . . . and a carrot on a finger on the other hand!!! They both sat still to have their caricatures done up as them in kung fu class.

We played games--skeeball, water pistol, bean bags, darts, spin the wheel, all sorts of games whose names I don't know. For prizes, such as glow bracelets and necklaces, rainbow lanyards, squishy balls, deelyboppers (you know, headbands with glittery antennae), sacks to carry it all in. We also got tickets. Skeeball was the best, both for fun and for tickets,, even if the kids mostly scored 10s and sometimes sent the ball flying outside of the game . . . . but we got 130+ tickets, enough to get Bud a stuffed rock guitar and Sis several small animals. And even a small quilted bag for me! There were even field games, like sack races and three-legged races and water balloon races. Sis and Bud participated in the egg hunt (more like an egg grab since they were scattered not hidden) and Bud won the whole thing, collecting 15 eggs (about 6 more than the next competitor)! He even got a little medal, which was great because he'd been so sad not to have won anything last year (mind you, he didn't compete but try explaining that to a then just 4 year old). Then they did tunnel races and each came in second in their heat and they were so happy to get ribbons, regardless of not winning first (Gommie, who does that sound like?).

And we ate and ate and ate. Chicken fingers. Pizza. Fried dough. Nachos. Popcorn. Pink and blue cotton candy. Even samples of the other contest pies! Plus plates of barbecue, including a delicious sweet corn pudding and baked beans with a hint of cumin. And we weren't even drinking!!

We headed back to the car almost three hours after their bedtime, playing air guitar and waving glow sticks, wishing on the stars and thanking the lucky ones.

Healing Happily

We're glad to report that Pop is recovering well from his skin cancer tumor removal on Monday. Take it easy, Pop!

Good Luck, Goo!

Goo defends his Master's thesis tomorrow and we wish him the best of luck!

What's in a Signature?

The kids have been practicing writing their names. For a year now, Bud has been "BUD" and Sis has been "SIS," with each having also designed a clever symbol interlacing their letters. Of course, you can't sign homework with a symbol and the kindergarten teachers want upper and lower case. So Bud is now "Bud" (often with backwards letters) and Sis is "Sis." Though, she prefers "sis" which she likes to make all curly, like magnets we have spelling out her name. It's odd to see them morph from ALL CAPS to a combo of Upper and Lower Case because I've been seeing them the way they were for so long.

Of course, my signature has morphed from carefully curly to completely illegible in 35 some-odd years. Though, always with either my middle initial or full middle name. Never just first and last. In fact, I saw my first and last in print recently and didn't think of it as me right away. Funny how caught up we get in our names. And our handwriting. Though, probably, each generation less so, I'm guessing. I mean, how much handwriting will Sis and Bud do after elementary school? I barely do any these days.

Which I became increasingly conscious of as I wrote out thank-you notes this morning. Writing up 4-5 little lines of text 14 times put a strain on my writing, which went from relatively neat to erratic. Funny, we used to write pages and pages at a time. A lost skill.

But I'm passing it along, watching the kids carefully sign their names to each note. Some BUD some SIS, some sis, some Dub. That last one not because he can't spell his name, but because he had trouble squeezing in next to "Sis," so it went up the edge of the card. Other signatures were above the note! We can work on epistolary form later.

Besides, they've already mastered email! And could type their names long before they could write them . . . .

A New Outlook

Literally, a new view: we cleaned some of our downstairs windows last night! The grime, mixed with rain splatters and humidity, was creating a fortress of our usually light and airy downstairs. My, what a difference see-through windows make! I can't help stopping to look out and admire the outside, with no sticky fingerprints or cat prints in between. And it only took a few minutes each. Which should remind me that sometimes the little things, which make a huge difference, really are little.

Let Them Eat Pie

Mama has spent the evening baking pie. Yep, Mama. Not me. Mama. She's entering a pie contest at her office summer picnic. And she has to make it herself. Though, she's never really made pie before. Well, there was one time. A long time ago, when she was in Chicago and I was in NYC and we were in love. She was making a pie to take to a party: Toll House Pie. And she was quite a novice. Didn't put the pie on a cookie sheet. Didn't put foil on the crust edges until the last 15 minutes. Didn't recognize the sound of her smoke alarm when it went off because the pie had bubbled over and burned in her oven. I was on the phone the whole time (Ah, young love. When long distance minutes were expensive!) giving advice.

Well, this time I'm at the kitchen table, reading aloud my recipe for Buttermilk Pie to her. She chose this Southern staple because she figured almost everyone else would be doing a double-crust blueberry or cherry and we aren't such crust connoisseurs over here, which is why we went with a single-crust pie (the rules don't stipulate 2 crusts, thank heavens). And there are no dewberry bushes around to make that Texas treat.

After knowing each other for 16 years and being together for 13, she's picked up a thing or two about pie. And she did everything with aplomb and precision, from making her own crust last night and chilling it to rolling out dough between two layers of plastic wrap to crimping the edges to sprinkling only the pretty almonds to foiling the pie's edge before placing it on a foil-covered cookie sheet. It's prettier than any buttermilk pie I've ever made.

And we'll get to taste it too. She made two little pie-lets with leftover filling and dough so we'll get to try her contest entry in about 5 minutes. If it tastes as good as it looks, she's doing great. But then, she's been a winner in my book for a long time. Even with that first pie attempt.

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Buttermilk Pie

Frozen pie dough (or see my recipe for two crusts here)

6 tablespoons butter

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup sliced almonds or 1/2 cup currants

Preheat the oven to 350F. Fit the pie dough into a 9 inch pie pan. Crimp the edges to seal the pasty onto the pan. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool.

Combine the eggs, sugar, flour, the melted and cooled butter, vanilla extract, and salt in a large bowl and beat the ingredients with a whisk or electric mixer set at a moderate speed 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and uniform. Add the buttermilk and stir the ingredients thoroughly to blend it in well. Pour the filling into the pie crust. Sprinkle the nuts or currants on top. Bake 45 minutes or until the surface is golden brown and the center is set.

AMNY

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Toll House Pie

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

½ cup flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup chopped pecans

2 beaten eggs

2 sticks hot melted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients together. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake 45 minutes at 350°F. Top with Cool Whip when serving.

Flot-some and Jet-some

It was "Under the Sea" day today at the Hungry house. We started by reading David Wiesner's beautiful Flotsam. Well, reading isn't quite accurate because this is a book without words, pictorially exploring a boy's discovery of an old camera at the beach of a camera that has taken photos of other children around the world and this amazing and surprising underwater world. Usually we tear through books, focusing on the written narrative, but this book invites close looking and discussion (which is always easier during daytime reads than nighttime when the mommy-reader is ready for bedtime). And so we lingered over each picture, going back and forth to our favorite pages.

And then we went and painted our own watercolors of the ocean, both silly and surprising (just like Wiesner's book). First, Bud and Sis created octopi at play. Then I painted various crustaceans on an underwater playground. Then they did too. Then I painted a lighthouse at night, with stars glowing . . . in the sea! (Yep, sea stars!) Then they did too. Finally, I painted a coral reef fast-food restaurant.

Then they were off to something else. Sis wanted to be a sea turtle. So we strapped her cardboard box (yes, they each have much loved and very tattered boxes, which have been boats, cars, trains, tables, houses, rockets, you name it) to her back with a scarf and she was able to retreat into it just like a turtle. First, I was supposed to be an attacking shark, scaring her into her shell, but eventually I was the turtle mommy. Bud couldn't resist and soon strapped his box to his back as well. There we were running back and forth across the beach into the water to find something to eat.

If only there was a coral reef restaurant!