enchiladas cha cha cha

I might be stretching terminology a smidge to call these enchiladas. They're not exactly traditional Mexican enchiladas; I grew up on the border, I know Mexican food and this ain't it. But it is traditional April toss-together-see-what-happens-hey!-that's-good-let's-see-if-I-can-do-that-again fare, which is the birth of most dishes in my standard cooking repertoire. So maybe enchilada casserole. Dang, but I love a good casserole. Enchilada-esque, anyhow.

I took pictures of the whole process. Well, no. I took pictures from the sauce on but I forgot to grab the camera when I whizzed up the sauce. And, you know, when you're talking enchiladas, it's all about the sauce.

So this is what I do. I blend up tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, garlic, and refried beans. Yes, refried beans. A whole can. I have never made refried beans that taste they way I think refried beans should taste. So canned it is. I favor the organic spicy pinto ones from Trader Joe's, if I can get them. My trips there are infrequent these days and half the time, they're out anyway. Now, for a lot of years, the sauce was just that. But because my husband really loves the squash enchiladas with peanut mole sauce at Chez Jose in Portland, I recently attempted to replicate what they've got going with that. So in the sauce you'll see in the following pictures, it's all the stuff I just mentioned, plus peanut butter and cocoa powder. It's really good. Trust me.

I spread some sauce on the bottom of my 9 x 13 casserole dish. I don't grease it otherwise.

I layer some more sauce on a small corn tortilla and spoon on steamed chunks of butternut squash.

Next up: black beans and not-cheese sauce. Oh, let's back up a minute. I suppose you could use some other cheesey creamy something here, but I cook up a pan of the nutritional yeast sauce I use for our Macaroni and Not Cheese (with peas, please). I bet google will direct you to a recipe for it if you're so inclined. It's basically a white sauce with nutritional yeast.

Roll it up and put it in the baking dish, seam side down.

I can fit 10 rolled up corn tortillas in my dish.

No worries if they don't all roll up smoothly. Corn tortillas tend to tear and crack and a lot of loose edges stick up. The rest of sauce will keep everything in place. I pour it all over and spread it out with a spoon.

Cover the whole thing with cheese. The cheese I had on hand was an aged goat cheese.

There might be a little boy in my house who thinks olives should be a part of any meal, but on top of an enchilada casserole? Absolutely. I sliced up some regular black olives, nothing fancy.

And then it goes into the oven and stays there until its brown and bubbly and looks done.

It can be a little too soft when it first comes out, so I try to let it cool for a bit before we cut it up and eat it. It is really super delicious. It sort of all smooshes together in a very creamy spicy filling delicious way. And as good as it is just made, it is even better the next day. Some foods really shine as leftovers, don't you think? Warmed up in the toaster oven and doused with a thick coating of crushed red chile peppers (okay, that part is just me). . . mmm.

nevermore

If we're the real life chatty sort, and the subject (or any related subject, I make sketchy tangential segues) has ever come up, then you probably already know how I feel about old Mister Heavy Breather himself, Garrison Keillor. Two words for you: Heebie Jeebies.

I can't even stomach his daily 1:30 (on my npr affiliate) Writer's Almanac spot without hearing the crusties stuck in his prominent nose hairs. Of course I don't know if he has sticky-outy nasal hairs and whether anything, crusty or not, is stuck in them, so before I'm accused of malicious slander, I'll say it's all a figment of my imagination and is just some sort of synaesthetic sound association, maybe like the way, when I'm tired, lying in bed waiting for sleep, unexpected cracks of sound flash a brilliant white behind my eyes.

But! I get his Writer's Almanac (be well, do good work, keep in touch) emailed to me and while I don't read every single one, I read and enjoy enough of them that I'll give credit where credit is due. Thanks, Creepy Not-So-Funny Public Radio Guy. I never laugh at your small town Minnesota comedy bits, but if not for you it wouldn't have occurred to me that today is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday.

So sometime today, maybe after the girl comes in from reading on her new corner look-out tower (because the lashed rope tree look-out spot plus the very high tree fort/platform were not enough high watching, noticing places for one wee yard, apparently) but before I clean up another puddle of boy pee from the suddenly-interested-in-using-the-potty little boy in the house, I will read some Poe selections out loud. My daughter and I will pick at least a few stanzas for memorization.

You might think that, at three, my boy is behind the power curve on the potty learning. And so be it. That's not the way we work around here. I shrug. As a lady well into her thirties now, I can't say that it's ever, in any of my memories, been a point of interest to anyone, when I started using the toilet. But every little milestone for little ones can be some kind of tiny tot Pulitzer prize. Because, clearly, it's a sign of future success and happiness that Junior started walking at 9 months. These little details can be so ridiculously weighted. I cheer along for my children as they reach new abilities, absolutely, but I think when you put them into perspective, they just aren't that important. The sum of my child's triumphs, the parameters of our parent/child relationship, exist far beyond such a small thing as peeing in the toilet.

So we are on the brink of saying goodbye soon to diapers and wipes. We traveled through, and look over our shoulder now, to remember Nursing. But we're still so close we can almost touch it, and sometimes he asks, but forgets momentarily and moves onto something else. His sister did not wean until she was 3 and a half, which seemed then like a very old age. I didn't have any peers, at that time, who nursed their babies so long. I have lots of them now. I got more than a few raised eyebrows. But I've been doing this gig long enough, I don't know if it's that I have more positive reactions, in general, or if I've grown a callous over the negative rubs. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is this: they are babies for such a short time. And when you have a big girl but ten days away from her 10th birthday, you know that 3 is still such a baby.

when in rome

I am not a bad ass. You could have seen me ripping plants out of my yard yesterday with my bare hands. Ivy tendrils and ferns with needley underbellies making scratches across my palms. My good jeans down on the ground, knees dirty. But for all the mud and splinters, it wasn't by any particular work ethic or determination on my part, no. Quite the opposite. It was pure laziness. I couldn't find my gloves or my snips but there I was, caught outside in brilliant rays so full of mother loving Vitamin D, I was hypnotized: must. do. yard. work. now. I don't have the gumption to argue with that impulse. Also, any forward thinking planner sort would have gone looking for the right tools. Not me, man. I just started thrashing about wildly, like a pidgeon caught in the bracken, and managed to pull down quite a few raggedy growing troublemakers I'd been wanting to get to, eventually, anyway.

Actually, the forward thinker type probably wouldn't even have to look for the tools, she'd know just where she'd left them the last time. But she wouldn't have needed them yesterday. She would have had a schedule of more important things to do. Which is all very well and good, but I'll tell you what: I have some of my most profound and lovely moments by being decidedly anti-carpe diem; I seize the day in sneak attacks, blowing in with the wind.

The husband and I are watching, just discovered, HBO's Rome series. We rented the first disc from the movie store, but after getting hooked (I almost wrote "by the story line" but it's Ancient Rome, people. You know the story.) we lucked out and found the whole first season at the library. We watch it up close, on the tiny little portable dvd player we never use for anything, in the dark, in the bed. And it's fascinating and sordid and terrible and exciting and I get distracted by the backgrounds, the props, the costumes and pipe up, "wait? they're in Greece now? When did they get to Greece?" and sometimes, I don't deny it, cover my eyes because it's too much -too much!- "tell me when it's safe to look again".

on the first monday of the year

I didn't have time, in the last week or so, to really put to mind the notion of making New Year's Resolutions, so busy I've been making something of a New Life Philosophy. Which is less a new life and more the same old life, now with fifty percent more. More moxie, more honesty, more Say What You Mean and Stick To It. Like that. It's funny how such things can work. You might find yourself in a frustrated, venting moment declaring something serious ,with facetious bravado flare. And then you might find, so ironically, the very thing you spoke of ringing your doorbell, unexpectedly, the very next day, giving you no choice but to sink or swim. Do what you said or wimp out. Oh, it's all very well to set fictional boundaries, but navigating tangible ones is always more difficult than it seems like it should be. The self-loathing fall-out though, from walking away from a situation, wishing you'd only said such-and-such instead, is so much worse than any brief awkwardness, the evanescence of hot cheeks and a raised pulse.

So while I didn't say I'd suddenly start going to the gym every day and then actually do it (as a seasonally recognized example, that. seeing as I've never been to a gym and don't so much plan to), I did make a pact with myself to be true and to speak up when it counts, and a situation presented itself to me right away and I did it, with no regrets. Look at that, a week into the New Year and already a smashing success.

And, additionally, I have made quiet commitments for a number of scattered personal and domestic endeavors. Commitments, not resolutions, because I've already resolved to do them long ago, they're so basic and obvious and necessary. I simply aim to steel myself against the sneaky inundation of resentment, to do the things I need to do and not be a crybaby about it. The laundry, the dishes (haven't I re-adjusted my attitude about handwashing all these dishes before? hm. yes. well. here we go again.), the facilitation of my daughter's education. I am getting back on track with other things, kombucha, push-ups, making stuff. I allowed myself to get a little off-kilter (read: lazy) and the new year is as good of a time as any to jump back on it.

But because I'm slow and prone to distraction, let's just cinch it down even smaller: a Monday is a good time to get with it. Maybe that's why Mondays are so dreaded. The weekly re-start wherein we make up for our shortcomings the week before. And two days ago (what with today being Wednesday, clearly I have not made any such commitment to 'regular blogging'), on the first Monday of the year, I rocked it. The kitchen was clean (maybe you can keep your dishwasher-free kitchen effortlessly spotless, but this always feel like such a huge accomplishment to me), my bed was made, the laundry all where it needed to be.

And my family was happy. And why wouldn't they be? In an effort to be evermore committed to surprising them with sweet, special things: I whipped up some stove top caramel corn.

Sometimes I break out kernels and the air popper for a quick (so quick!) salty snack. But this was the first time I coated the popped corn with some sort of caramel-y sauce. It was such a snap and the mmm wow this-is-so-good reactions were well worth it. I used this recipe as a starting point, but with a wee bit more salt, I think, maple syrup instead of corn syrup, and my usual rapadura as my granulated sweetener of choice. It's a tasty sauce; I think the baking soda is the trick to setting up and coating the corn so nicely. It made more sauce than I needed for 2/3 C popping corn (measured prior to popping), so next time I'll make less sauce or pop more corn. Because eating the extra caramel sauce out of the pan w/ a wooden spoon is one of those things that seems like a good idea at the time, but then later, not so much.

to be fair

I don't have a sweeping disdain for all high range male singing voices, as I might have alluded to in my previous post. In fact, since right around last February or so, I've been listening to Bon Iver pretty much more than anything else. The husband initially caught me in this apparent inconsistency, and dismissed my new favorite music with a sarcastic sneer. But if Justin Vernon depends on falsetto emotion, there's nothing affected and sappy about it. No, I think it's some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard and something about it just creeps into me and sits there and rattles around in a way that makes me feel absolutely supported and known in my lonesomeness. Now I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know. But just in case you haven't heard it, and have yet to form an opinion, I'll do here what I did in my living room some weeks ago: listen! you have to really listen to this. It's the best music of the whole previous year; so long 2008. (and my husband came around and almost agrees with me).

goodbye, my lover

I might be about to insult your musical tastes. I can't apologize, though, because making fun of that James Blunt song is such a running schtick around my house, between my husband and me, that I have chosen to believe it's just as funny to everyone. A couple of years ago, we happened, randomly and accidentally, on both the original airing and the rebroadcast of that song being performed on Saturday Night Live. And I swear there was another airing there, too. It seemed like any time we turned on the television there for a while, there was James Blunt crooning in falsetto. And maybe because it was as a musical guest on a sketch comedy show that I first heard the song, but I really did think it was a joke. It seemed so sappy and put on and really?

I mentioned elsewhere the other day that the recent local strange weather experience was so intense and now it's so *gone* it's a little, perhaps, like a quick, sultry love affair. So all-consuming while it lasts, but it never lasts.

We had 2 feet of snow on the ground, coinciding with Christmas, resulting in a subdued and strange holiday. It was beautiful, it was rare, it was eerie and odd and unsettling. I'm relieved for a return to normal, but I miss it. It's true.

The world sounded like cotton in my ears and everything was a little softer, glittering, hiding the ugly sharp edges. And from inside, watching the flakes fall, admiring the fluff covering every surface, was a wonder. Snow is magic. But we are ill-prepared, in this part of the country, for such a storm. And I worried for those lacking power, for those running out of food. We stayed warm and toasty, a fire, electricity, wool socks. I admit, though, that I am not accustomed to, and do not care for, the process of girding oneself against nature. It's so unusual here. It gets cold here in the Pacific Northwest, but not so cold where you feel this visceral response to the chill, this basic need to cover up to survive. The children suited up and it was such an event, the boots and the mittens and the coats. A hassle we have the luxury of living without, to that degree, almost always.

It was fun, though. There was a snow cave and so much shoveling and snowballs and angels and snow eaten w/ honey and molasses and pants drying by the fire and the amazement of seeing the flakes illuminated at night in the streetlight (that's my favorite thing, to see a tiny snowflake all lit up and then think how many of those tiny flakes it must take to make such drifts and piles everywhere).

It was such a huge part of our days there for a while -it was the only part of our days- so much that I didn't travel beyond our yard for long stretches, that we missed a few days of mail delivery. It was a big deal. And then the rain came back and the temperature rose and all of it melted. We have one last sad lump, the remains of my girl's snow cave, but everything else is gone. Was it really here? Did we really live so differently for a while?

Today I finally removed the Christmas tree from the living room to the driveway. I tasked the ornament packing-away to my daughter, but unwound the lights myself, generally a chore I dislike. But it was pleasant work. The tree, still so soft and supple and fragrant, I almost felt guilty taking it down. Christmas is over. It's time to say good-bye. I'm generally in such a hurry to pack it up and get it over with, but I took my time this year. We lowered the bar this time around and I have to say, it's nice having very low expectations because it's easy to exceed them. I didn't feel so desperate to be done with it, because it wasn't, in spite of all the reasons it ought to have been, a huge disappointment. It was a lovely day, with family and then friends. It was a rare weather experience, it was being warm and having full bellies, it was nothing spectacular, it was spectacularly plain, it was plainly just fine.

I'm ready for the coming of the sun, for the gradual increase to my days. I am grateful for these changing seasons, the better to remember life by, a measure of gauging our own rhythms. We're already moving on, the white was so quickly replaced by the regular green -such green!- and it's hard to be anywhere but right here, right now, taking whatever comes as best as we can.

little tree by e.e. cummings

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower



who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly



i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid



look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,



put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't a single place dark or unhappy




then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud




and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

(this is my favorite christmas-time poem, i think. and maybe tomorrow. or the next day. or sometime before it's too late, i'll tell you what i think about christmas trees, and what i think about christmas, and what i think this time of year, this year and also, more generally).

to whom it may concern

If you're the regularly dropping-by here sort, you might have seen the Dark and Dreary I had up for a few days. I pulled it down, though, because in an atypical re-read (which is to say, generally, what I write is off the cuff and I tend to forget about it later), I realized that I was attempting, not so successfully, to explain myself from beneath a cloud Desperation and my point was smudged and lacking.

The point is this: my husband's losing his job. This was to be his last full week at work, but, local weather being what it is (ice and snow and wind, oh my!) his hours are exceedingly numbered.

We are not in a unique situation, obviously. My worry, my uncertainty, my stalwart resolution to still, somehow, make this holiday season as sweet as it can be for my children, is the way it is for so many people this year. Times are rough. Times might get more rough.

I don't know how it's going to work, not any of it.

Not for me, not for you, not for our whole planet on the brink of something so completely unknown.

But, this is what I do know:
I know many hands make light work. I know I'm not alone.

I was feeling so low and slow and isolated, this morning, the whole last week. We suited up, the four of us, and tromped up to the hotel/restaurant/pub up the way for breakfast. For a change of pace, for something to do, for the reliable internet access. We'd been saving an old gift card for a snowy day, I guess. A gift card we got once when the restaurant had a problem with our order and gave us a card to compensate. It seemed like a good morning to break it out. We needed something.

We needed to come home and be reminded that people care. That even though I'm no good at sharing myself, at being available and vulnerable, that people still care.

I am humbled by the kindness of friends who know we're treading our way through rough waters and don't want us to sink under.

My world is a bit less bleak right now.
It's not the coffee in my belly or the fire crackling across the room or the magical white wonderland outside, it's knowing that I have enough stores to tread along for some time. It's trite to say we're all in this together, but it's true. And a little encouragement from friends can be just the boost you need.

I can navigate the space between Now and the New Year and be ready to hit the real work of What To Do Next without being so exhausted. I am humbled and grateful and glad for such kind gestures. Thank you.

many happy returns

The super-saturation of my online life, the electronic representation of the muck and mystery that is being me (being any of us), means that I sometimes forget that I haven't returned here, to this place, to share or update. I don't want all my thoughts and considerations to be watered down to 140 twitter characters or very quick third-person facebook status updates, but I can't deny I'm attracted, like a bird (fast and shiny), to the ease. It's just so efficient to tap out a line, what's for dinner, how are you feeling, what's going on, so fast, and not worry about cohesiveness and grammar, not get stuck, thinking slowly with my fingers, in front of the laptop, when I really should be doing other things. So that's why I sat down to write this very glad entry last Thursday, but abandoned it to more immediate tasks and dispatched our happy news elsewhere. So, maybe you already know, but maybe you're a steady lurker (do I have even one?) who did not yet hear: Binx is back!!

Now we've all heard stories of little cats caught in moving trucks and missing for months. We all know cats who have gone walkabout for long periods, only to come back again, scrawny and starved for affection. I kept a solid, neutral, hopeful front up for the children, but I didn't really think this story would turn out well. I was speaking in past tense. I was preparing to move on. He's so tiny, so sweet, not at all the sort of scrappy cat who can make it out there. I thought he was a goner.

Our doorbell rang last Thursday morning and it was our across the street neighbor, holding Mister Missing-Six-Days, just like that. We spent hours out looking for our little guy every day, so I can't believe he was always so close. I suspect he wandered far away and was making his way home. At any rate, we were/are thrilled and grateful.

Six days is enough time for a just getting plump and healthy cat to become all bones again. He was weak and sleepy, but happy. Purring like a purr machine, curled up in laps and on pillows.

Now, home for almost four days again, he's less hungry, more playful, but just as sweet and purry. We are being extra vigilant in monitoring cats and open doors, though he doesn't seem (yet) inclined to leave. And if some kind of guilt-driven forbearance has him sleeping at our heads, instead of our feet, I'm sure you can understand why. We sure missed that little kitten and we don't want to lose him again.

And since I'm already here and all, I should mention that it only took me fourteen months of living here to set the clock on my range. It's an analog clock and smaller than is really so functional in the kitchen and I hardly noticed it anyway. But I set it and guess what? It keeps time (which is noteworthy, as every secondhand wall clock I've brought into my timekeeper-less kitchen has not, nor does my undercabinet radio/docking station, which gets faster and faster each day and I never know what time it is when I'm in there, a problem).

I actually set the clock to see if I could use the Time Bake function on the (old and unattractive but I can't complain) oven. The clock ran like clockwork and the Time Bake feature is fine. I remember it vaguely, a vestige of my childhood and Sunday roasts after church with potatoes and carrots. My mother would set the Time Bake and we'd come back home to a hot lunch, ready for us after changing out of white shoes and slicky underslips, Sunday dresses. So it wasn't after church, and it wasn't pot roast, but it was a busy gone-all-day day and coming home to lentils and rice and baked potatoes. I opened the door and smelled dinner and felt a little like someone else had been there all afternoon cooking for me. It's a nice way to come home.

three minus one

We had something of a scare a few weeks ago: little Binx wandered off and was missing for a night and a day. We found him mewing under a hedge a few blocks away. And then we vowed, all of us, to be ever watchful, extra diligent, keeping tabs on him at all times. But you know. It's hard to keep tabs on a cat. Quiet and quick. Between the dog and the children feet are always in and out, a small cat can slide past easily, unseen, unnoticed, unmissed for hours.

Last night was the third time dinner dishes were cleared and in rounding the corner from the kitchen to table, I did not see a wee but persistent gray and white cat attempting to jump up for crumbs. Last night was the third night I slept through all night without having to toss a purring kitten off my pillow, to a more respectable place near my feet. Last night was the first night my daughter cried herself to sleep, worried and losing hope.

The world is full of homeless cats, unloved cats, feral cats, shelter cats, lost and lonely and destined to die soon cats. So I guess I know what you're thinking: get another one. I grew up with this sort of vague, peripheral notion of cats as dispensable nuisances. We never had a cat. My grandma always had cats, rotating litters of skittery kittens chasing out from under her mobile home. But I didn't know any cats, appreciate their quirks and comfort, until I was grown. Not really until we got our big Cozy lump did I realize not all cats are created equal. The obvious and simple can be so elusive. We don't want another cat.

We want this one back. The one with the story, the one my husband rescued from a hot engine, the one who was so suddenly sick and tenuous the vet shrugged and said "keep him comfortable", the one my girl sang to and stroked and made well again, the one who falls limp when picked up and smiles at belly rubs, the one who lets my boy heft him around in awkward ways, the one who perches on shoulders in front of the television, the one we (I must confess) love the best.

take my word for it

This post has no pictures, on account of not being enough of a quick draw with the camera regarding the first item I aim to write about and politely declining the temptation to digitally capture an image of the second (you'll thank me for that one). I apologize in advance for the jarring disparity between topics on my mind today.

Butternut Squash Muffins Are Delicious. I love the versatility of a butternut squash, and at this time of year there's always one or two or several sitting around my kitchen. They can be halved and roasted without peeling; peeled, cubed and steamed; eaten as a stand-alone dish or the foundation from which a more complex entree is built. And while they're seen most typically in savories, they can be used, like pumpkin, in sweets (and obviously, the converse is true).

I make a lot of muffins. So quick and just about anything can be tossed in, surreptitiously-like. I'm not at all about sneaking good stuff into my kids' food, no, but I am about overtly cramming in as much good stuff as I can without the resulting product tasting too much like a nugget of healthy health paste. Muffins are muffins, after all, and should be delicious. I generally just mix a lot of whatever together and see how it bakes up, but this time I wrote down ingredients as I was making them. The yield was so yummy, I had to share. Maybe not my number one most nutritious muffin ever, but still pretty dang wholesome.

butternut squash muffins
(copied verbatim from my real-time scrawl, sub and tweak as desired)

1 C whole spelt flour
1/2 C ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 C butternut squash puree
1/4 C coconut oil
1 C rapadura

you know the drill. mix dry + wet. bake 350 til done. makes 12.

Switching gears now. Ahem.

Cat Sh*t Is Disgusting. I've still not broken in my relatively new "cat person" identity and the jump from one to three felines has been an adjustment. Every time I turn around, we're out of kibbles. The litter box(es) always need scooping. I have attempted, from the start, to avoid feeling any resentment or drudgery about the cat box, making the chore just part the ritual of being, of living in my space. I have succeeded in pretending that the scooping and sifting and flushing is just a daily visit with my own little toxoplasmosis-laced zen rock garden. So given the effort I've put into *not* getting bogged down by the dirty muck of having all these animals, you can imagine how completely frustrated I am by the cat who has taken to crapping in all the wrong places. I've caught her in the act and sprayed her with water. I've taped aluminum foil down on her preferred spots. I've upped my box maintenance from once a day to a steady two. I'm just about to lose my ever loving mind.

Cat pee in the wrong places can be bad, but the way the smell of uncovered cat crap hangs and hovers, heavily filling our whole downstairs living space, is worse. It's not a sneak attack like errant cat piss can be, it hits you full force, invasive and wretched. I am so over it. Now, this is coming from the cat who likes being outside best of all. Our wild cat, our kitty middle child, who was vaguely tamed by the acquisition of the foundling in the car engine (because, it seems, the best toy for a rambunctious kitten is another kitten), who runs out whenever the door is open. She'd stay out all night if we let her (and a few times, accidentally, she has). My theory is that she's protesting having to do her business indoors at all. So is the solution as simple as installing a cat door?

you can eat crackers in my bed kitchen anytime

Who knows, maybe if Barbara Mandrell also finds herself with a surplus of just-made hummus and nothing to eat it with, no chips, no pitas, no tortillas, she'll google 'easy cracker recipe' and stumble on this post at 101recipes.com like I did. And because I don't believe for a second that celebrities (even has beens who aren't regular household fodder) are not as vain and curious as we are (okay, as I am), after she bookmarks some recipes, she might google herself and come here.

Well, Barbara, maybe it also took you being devoid of any crackery type foods to consider making them, because, for all the scratch cooking you do (or I do, whatever, I have never drawn parallels between myself and a nineteen eighties country music star, but I'm running with it, my dearth of sequined pantsuits and all), who needs to make crackers? I certainly didn't have any aspirations to do so.

But as it turns out, crackers are quick. Just as quick as cookies and quicker than bread. I don't know if you're auditioning for dancing with the stars or are appearing at some local civic benefit anytime soon, surely your schedule is much busier than mine, but it really only takes a couple of hours.

I followed the recipe pretty much straight across, minus the semolina flour. Who keeps semolina flour on hand? Uh, not me. (Barbara?) I used my same old unbleached wheat for all 3 cups. I didn't add any cheese or infused oil or anything fancy at all. I've made them a few times now, each time simply dusting the baking sheets with coarse corn meal and then giving each cracker, after fork poking and before baking, a quick grind of sea salt.

It's nice having a jar of fresh crackers in the cupboard. I guess it's not really all that much nicer than having a box of store bought crackers, which is pretty standard fare for most cupboards, yes? But, like anything you make yourself, the making makes it better.

Last weekend, I made a batch of these up to take to a potluck. My secret confession is that I don't really like potlucks. Maybe the luck part but not the pot. Sort of how I care not for buffets or other foods behind sneeze guards. And it's not the sneezing part. Its just, I have no idea. It's always very stressful for me to think of something share-worthy. I worry that I eat differently than other folks, that my cooking skills are inadequate, that I oversalt to my own preference, all this silly stuff bouncing around in my head, it's very distracting. So, even though I'm something of a social goofball, I do like the people gathering part very much and I just close my eyes and jump and hope the food part works out. It usually does. Or if it doesn't, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

But you can imagine how leaving a pan of these to cool and crisp for a few minutes around the corner on the dining room table and then returning to find my frickin fracken dog having jumped up and knocked them off and devoured them a mere hour before potluck time would be very stressful to me. Your dog is probably better behaved than mine is, though, Barbara. My dog is aging and actually doesn't have a reputation for stealing food off the table. So maybe this is a testament to their tastiness. To know that my dog would risk being shunned back outside for the crunch of homemade wheat crackers. That's the best review I've got.

Although, wouldn't it just be the way, the batch I made to share weren't even all that crunchy. I must have gotten lazy with my rolling and made them too thick. Still good, perhaps lacking the satisfying crisp but less likely to leave crumbs between the sheets. If you're still into that sort of thing.

(if you're reading this in google reader, it appears as though the strikethrough in the title doesn't come through. sorry about that.)

for the record

I'm pretty grumpy about living in a Vote by Mail only state. since this change happened (99? I think?) I've grown increasingly disgruntled (minus last major election when I lived in another state). Here's the rub: it's supposed to be easier, use less resources, make voting more accessible. Yes? Maybe. Democracy requires a private vote and the "privacy of one's own home" could be anything but. Without the anonymity of a closed booth in a neutral location, how can we know votes aren't being unduly influenced, or blatantly coerced? We don't. We don't know at all. And, I don't know, somehow the going gives ceremony to an act that is, should be, important. Subtract the polling place and it is, should be, as important but something feels lost. Also, no stickers. Of course, anyone who has ever made it a practice to shop at Trader Joe's with young children knows all about the diluted thrill of so many stickers. But some little signal, some kind of proof, to ourselves, our neighbors, our children, that we participated, that we are part of the same country, that we all, despite varying philosophies and objectives, possess a valid voice, seems beneficial. I don't know why Oregon can't buy the same giant roll of I Voted stickers and pop one in with each ballot. My grandparents are polling place volunteers in their tiny New Mexico town and the last time I talked to my grandma I told her she should snag me a few stickers early and send them to me. I was only joking a little.

whistling in the dark

We have this little schtick, the boy and I, when we go into public restrooms together: I remind him not to touch anything and he, to keep himself from touching anything, holds his hands up near his chest and sort of twiddles his fingers together. It's not something I told him to do or demonstrated to him, it's just a little motion he came up with on his own. It makes sense, he keeps his hands busy without fiddling around with door locks and toilet paper dispensers, even if the movement looks funny and doesn't really *do* anything.

It's the not really doing anything part that I am thinking about right now.

I hate to admit it. But I kinda feel like this election is fingers twiddling in a public restroom. I don't want to stick my hands where they're especially likely to pick up germs, but I'm compelled to do something, because what else can you do, so I waggle my fingers around and hope maybe I'm, at least, not causing more harm.

Hope. The word has been used so much this electoral season I'm beginning to wonder what we expect from it. And I worry we expect too much.

I've been driving around with that poster in my back window for weeks now, as much as a reminder to random readers as to myself. Not just a public admonishment but a personal insistence that I am not, cannot be, entirely cynical.

A person totally jaded, someone so fed up and disgusted and comfortable comparing politics to the choreographed pomp of a wrestling match, wouldn't, couldn't possibly, scotch tape that sign in her front window. (could she?)

I believe in the democratic process. I believe in the power of the people. I believe voting is important. I believe we have to do something. And I hope that it matters.

photographic evidence

The picture proves that she was here. A fleeting spirit that, with forces and power unseen and unknown to me, elevated the mood yesterday from something to hide from, endure, up to what might even be considered enjoyable, pleasant. I make no bones about it: I hate halloween. If I made a book of holidays and events and activities I like, it wouldn't make the cut, not even the post-published appendix.

But having, in my house, a girl so excited and full of positive light about something is infectious and, well, it's hard to be a complete grinch (what would the Halloween equivalent be? a real life ghoul?) when she's so happy about participating.

It's wincingly macabre to refer to my daughter as some kind of ethereal mist, and I almost nixed her Ghost Bride costume idea. But, seeing how it lined up nicely underneath my Must Come From Materials We Already Have On Hand stipulation, I let it slide.

In years past, we have hidden in back rooms with the lights out. We have, a few times, begrudgingly supervised her neighborhood trick-or-treating. But I've never been so pleased about it. I think, still, it's awfully contrived these days. And commercial. We're decades past a baseline of homemade costumes and popcorn balls. It's like the seasonal aisle of any big box store is parading down the street, on display on my neighbor's porch. It's not my thing.

But I have this cool kid, see. Who insists her favorite part about the Trick-or-Treating is peeking into other people's houses. I can get behind that. And her thrill in dressing up absolutely depends on thinking up and putting together her own costume. The candy part barely registers. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a child: she likes sweety treats. But she knows we don't eat that stuff and why. She eats a few pieces, sure, after scrutinizing the ingredients list for any of the big ticket offenders. The rest she'll willingly toss or give away or (shhh! don't tell!) save for next year's dressed-up doorbell ringers.

The little brother made a night before request for a Lion costume. The girl set to work straight away and fashioned up the sweetest little mane and tail from a scrap of old blanket and some pieces of yarn. We could make a costume any day, and some days we *do*, but having a specific *reason*, was, okay, I'll admit it, a lot of fun.

I couldn't have these kids all dressed up and with no place to go, so we met up with friends. Costumed kids and adults (even me, I was an undercover plainclothes halloween grouch) in a big group, outside, in the dark = a good time. But I wouldn't have done such a thing on my own, I wouldn't have invited anybody over here, I wouldn't have been so keen on traipsing around my own (sketchy) hood. Sharing the evening with other people was worthwhile, though.

So the ghost bride dress is abandoned on the living room sofa, her vaguely metallic gray-ish face washed clean. But she was here, yesterday, snipping brown yarn, perfecting her creepy stare into the mirror, running through the night with a friend.

It was a Happy Halloween.

always busy cooking up an angle

Sometimes the part I dislike most about my job (which is to say, this work I do for no money) is that I'm always here. And in the always being here, there are few absences with anxiously awaited returns, like the hero welcome the husband gets when he comes in at the end of the day. It's not that I don't like being here - I do. But nobody misses me because I'm rarely away and if I don't get the same glad smiles from finally coming back home, I have to find another way. And, generally, that way is called chocolate.

So, just between you and me here, I didn't get a baking bug tonight to satiate my own sweet tooth, no. But some days are grumpy days, and today was fine, but tempers were, for inexplicable reasons, raw and rubbed wrong it was just a little off, as far as Saturdays go.

While dinner was in the oven, I threw together a quick pumpkin pie. Canned pumpkin. I know, I know, but I keep some cans on hand when they're on sale at this time of the year. One of those well appreciated quickie conveniences. I should puree up a bunch of pumpkin and keep it for the same reason, and I have done that before, but I haven't bought a pie pumpkin yet this year. Anway, pumpkin pie filling in the food processor (molasses, pumpkin, rapadura, spices, an egg, you know). Cookie dough-ish batter in the mixer. Pressed the dough (like chocolate chip cookie dough minus the chocolate chips) into the pie plate. bake for ten-ish minutes. Spoon on filing, bake til firm. Sprinkle on chocolate chips, return to oven until melty. Spread melted chips with spatula. Take out pie, let cool for an hour.

The little one went to bed before it was ready, but even as he was walking, so slow and tired, through the kitchen on his way to pajamas, he stopped, "What that Mell? Tumting mell toe good!" and then, peeking in at the oven and turning on the light, "Pie!" And that's why I did it. Because I knew how much they'd like it.

But also, it was good. The melty chocolate chips on top of, well, any sweet baked treat is something I do frequently because this little family of mine loves the stuff. And considers no baked good truly complete without it. I'm ambivalent about the cocoa bean, but don't dislike it outright, so it's no trouble, really.

No trouble at all.

(do you know the lyric this post title is from? )

twist my arm

Nah, no behind the scenes coercion from my friend Lisa, but she tagged me in a 'six random things' meme and, well, I'm feeling particularly amenable and generous today. So generous that I treated my children to cookies at the bakery and small toys at the toy store. And then said Yes! to pie after dinner. You'd think it was my birthday or something. . .

I almost passed because it feels like I've exhausted every random fact about me, magnifying every pore in frightening proportion, describing my last tic and quirk with the most tedious detail, but then I remembered, wait! That's over there, in my little basement speak easy, with the secret knock and dark windows. This space is less familiar, I'm more guarded, deliberate. It feels a little like I'm talking to myself in the city park here, anyone could be listening, but are they?

1. I do, in fact, talk to myself. So blogging to myself wouldn't be such a stretch. When I make some sort of a clumsy gaffe (hello too much political commentary!), I grumble, "april!" and, I must admit, it's the only time I hear my name and it doesn't take me a couple beats to go, oh! that's me. You'd think after all these ::cough, 33:: years, I'd be right attached to it.

2. I love old polyester old lady shirts best. Not any old polyester shirt. But I can sometimes see one from a distance at a thrift store and know, in the cut and the fabric, that it's the one. I have a number of these favorite shirts. I wore my newest one today:

And, as a bonus: here's a post from last year wherein I wrote about this same thing and there's another picture of me in an old lady shirt in front of my same orange wall. (creature, habit, yeah yeah yeah).

3. I sing Amazing Grace to my son every night. If he's having a hard time falling asleep, he might get the extended lullaby selection, the order of which I developed when my girl was wee and took, in her very spirited child way, a long, long time to zonk out each night. So mostly, it's just the one song, but it might be some traditional churchy songs (Jesus loves me, etc), fading into a patriotic medley, then on to Dream a Little Dream of Me (hey, I'm no Mama Cass, but I try), and finishing it up with either Cat Steven's Moonshadow or The Counting Crows' The Rain King. My repertoire is limited.

4. I abstained from eating any overt cow dairy for nearly a decade. And then, in the last week, I willfully and knowingly ate some. Twice. Pizza. What next? (bacon.)

5. I am a horrible knitter. I learned how years ago, from a combination of looking at a kid's knitting book and seeing one demonstration from my friend, Sarah. I jumped right into my first project and have been knitting along, so slowly ever since. But I never seem to get more than one or two little things made a year and my skills stagnated at very beginner level and I still can't follow a pattern and I know so many superknitters, it's a little embarrassing to be the lone less-than-mediocre knitter working with plastic needles and lion brand yarn on a stockinette scarf. So be it. (oh, okay, so mostly I have wooden ones, but plastic sounds more dramatic).

6. My father was born on the 23rd of November on his mother's 23rd Birthday. Several of his siblings are born on the 23rd (of different months), as well. I was born on the 23rd of October. This same grandmother died on the 23rd of October, 2000. I have a special relationship with the number 23.

(i was always the sort to break chain letters. the golden books pass alongs when i small, the postcard kind when i was older, and definitely the email forwards now. so, on the basis of consistent principles, i respectfully do not tag anyone, but do tell me something about yourself, if you're so inclined).

outside/inside

I like the idea of a nature table, little bits brought in from out, like a small gallery of objects culled from paths and parks and sidewalks. But for all the nuts and seedpods and scraggly branches we keep on shelves and windowsills, there are all the more under the oven, splayed across the floor, stuck to the bottom of my foot. Carried in by the handful, by the pocketful, and admired, such lovely fleeting things, but also, played with and stacked up and rolled around in the back of tiny toy dumptrucks. So the nature table is a nice idea, but having these pieces around and a part of how we live, in the house or not, is better. Or, at least, a pretty good validation for elevating sweeping/dusting beyond the Sisyphean dread of other chores! ha!

the more i see, the less i know

station impulsively switched -not another commercial, anything else- and i'm not a mom in morning traffic. i don't have two sleepy car-sicky kids in the backseat. the opening notes of weezer's sweater song and i am behind the wheel of my 2-door white ford escort. i am taken by surprise. i am scott bakula oh boying into the mirror. i am a thousand miles away. i am one thousand four hundred and seventy-seven miles away. i am me, fourteen years ago. i am eighteen. just like that. i believe in time travel. sure i do. isn't it amazing, the way you can be driving along like any day and then, without any preparation or warning or inclination at all, music can pick you up and take you some place else? maybe someplace you don't want be again. or someplace you've never been before but feels familiar anyway.

and so i'm choosing to be here right now. loving, dancing, living. because this would be a pretty sweet place to come and visit again. be with me. (this is say hey by michael franti and spearhead. it's not any song that makes me dance when everybody else in the house is sleeping. also, hooray for music videos with capoeira cameos!)

warm ankles = good

On dry days, like today, with clear skies and no clouds and sunshine, the air is so cold. Last night we dropped down near freezing. Cold. But I am determined not to turn on heat yet. Our old house has funny (original) electric radiant panel wall heaters, a separate unit in each room. We can efficiently warm up one room without unnecessarily heating the whole house, but I'm still trying to hold out. I've been putting the boy to sleep in two layers of pajamas (a good idea anyway, since he kicks the covers off, cold or not). I wore a sweatshirt to bed last night. And when the husband said it was too cold to sleep, I said, "put on some socks, man."

Our winters are mild here, so when I say it feels like winter out there, it's true. It does. Which means we need to dress accordingly. I wouldn't wear a parka in July. But I'm so glad to have these ankle-warmers around this October:

Say you're not the super-gifted knitty sort, or the very talented crafty kind, but you have all these short pants, and your ankles are always cold and oh! what to do? How about felt up a large wool sweater in the wash, cut off the sleeves, pull them up over your legs. Ta-da! I've done this with several sweaters now. Okay, so the very first one was an accident: I was attempting to make baby pants for the boy, you know, back when he was still a little baby and when I sewed them up, I screwed up the rise and fat babies in big cloth diapers + low rise pants = no worky, so my girl snagged them out of the scrap pile and wore them as her own legwarmers. So I guess what I'm saying is she discovered them and has been utilizing the idea for a few years and I just finally rolled around to it yesterday. It's a very good idea.

just in time for fall

Oh, we'll have sun breaks and dry spells and blue skies, now and again, but the drizzle and the bluster and the growing drifts of soggy leaves spell Goodbye Summer, in case last week's surprisingly warm temps caused any confusion. And when the cooler weather sets in, when the windows are splattered with rain and we all start thinking about wearing socks again, what's better than a crusty loaf of bread right out of the oven? Freshly baked bread is good in any weather, but the start of Autumn always makes me extra enthusiastic about the simple pleasure of a slice of bread and a bowl of soup.

I saw that No Knead recipe floating around, on the blog of a friend a while ago and on the blogs of some of those top tier popular patty types. And I admit I was dubious. I mean, I'm sure it's fine and tasty and all that, but what's bread making minus the Knead? That's like sewing without the, uh, needle threading. Oh wait, the automatic threader on my machine is pretty nifty. It's like sleeping without the pajamas. I don't know! It's less than, that's all I'm saying, less than the whole experience that I find pleasurable. I have written plenty about how I appreciate the mundane details, because even the dumb work we gotta do amasses into something spectacular (Life! how fantastic is that?!) and I am suspicious of employing too many time saving devices that, at the end of the day, get us to the same dang spot without the exhilaration of having done it all ourselves. That's a good feeling. (so says the woman who is over. done. finished with life without dishwasher. install an automatic, maytag, used, new, whatever and I won't ever, not once, bemoan losing the Little Red Hen-ness of scouring up a sink full of dishes. I swear!).

I like kneading bread dough. I have small appliance envy with regard to dehydrators and a vita mix, but care not to acquire a bread machine. I don't like the uniform bricky shape, for one, and I just dig making bread, for two. And while I seem not to do it as often as I should (save for the Sunday night pizza dough standard) fresh bread happens often enough around here, especially in cold weather, that it's not that unusual.

I have this new (old) Descoware dutch oven, shipped to me by my mom, found in my grandmother's kitchen, unused for decades, inherited from an Aunt, so long ago. And when it came in the mail a few weeks ago, I thought: bread! Okay, first I thought: score! Another piece of cast iron enamelware for my burgeoning secondhand collection.

But then I remembered, oh! Dutch Oven = No Knead bread recipe. Okay, why not? And guess what? It's great! The kneading part isn't missed because the bread dough, in its slow rise over a day, becomes such a part of Kitchen Life, tucked in the corner on the counter in a bowl or plopped down front and center on a cornmeal dusted dishtowel, that I don't feel like I'm missing anything by skipping the kneading. Am I really making references to getting to know my bread dough? And then asserting that, yes, appropriate relationship can be formed without the visceral work of kneading? Yeah, I am.

When it came time to try this recipe out for the first time, I just googled it and pulled up the one published at Mother Earth News, though, it seems like there is little variation between versions. I thought it might be incorrect at first because it calls for but a quarter teaspoon of yeast. And just 3 cups of flour. I think it's a great recipe for maximizing limited ingredients (which is something we might all be doing more of from now on out).

It makes a nice, crusty loaf. Soft on the inside with lots of air pockets. Good chewy texture. (My great grandmother used to say: the middle's for your tummy and the crust is for your teeth). Slight tangy flavor, it only rises a day, so it's no sourdough, but it has a more complex taste than your standard loaf bread, I'd say.

I've made it a few times in the last week and I think it's going to be a regular around here.

with what shall we pay it, dear liza, dear liza?

Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets an irrepressible urge to start singing There's a Hole in my Bucket every time talk of the bail-out floats by. With the taxes, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry. But the people have no money, dear Liza, dear Liza. And so it goes. The snake eats its tail and so many of us are holding tight to the little scraps by the wayside.

How can someone I've never met, been in the same room with, be so generous and kind? A certain friend did something today that was such a surprise, such a sweet gesture, that I don't even know what to say except Thank You.

Which means I might get back on the writing track, because the picture-ing should return to its regularly uploaded pattern. I am itching to shake up the look of this little blogspot place, but maybe a switch to someplace else all together? Thinking. And revealing, too, my tendency to cut and run. Oh, I'm very loyal and stick around long past a respectable welcome, but just using my living situations over the past several years as an indicator, I should point out that I don't even know how often a person should clean beneath a refrigerator, because I just do it every time I move. Which has been sufficient. So when I'm growing tired of the same title banner (that lovely curly headed baby up there is a whole year older now and couldn't squeeze into that orange stripey pantsuit for anything) why do I start poking around at other platforms? I guess it is the Clean Slate appeal.

And I don't buy for a second that there's any sort of Hope or Fresh Start or Healing coming down the pike any way we slice it come November. I don't think any plan has that much straw to spare and if it's not one bucket, it's another.

But there are, despite all the upheavals and uncertainties and very valid worries, kind people and bread (tomorrow I tell you about No Knead bread and my new/vintage Dutch Oven) and if you've got those two things, you've got community and without community, we're all leaky sieves. I feel extra full right now.

gladness doubled

Two weeks ago we went camping (again). I declared we should attempt a new destination, each time we have the urge to pitch a tent and build a fire. So instead of heading westward, we drove east, and landed at Silver Falls State Park. What's not to be glad about waterfalls and trails and two days of hiking? It was a good time. Even if we forgot a knife. And forks. And the big bowl for dishwashing. And a flashlight. And fleece for the husband. We had everything that mattered.

My son walked over to me, "I have someting in my pocket, mama. You wanna see?" "Yes, I do!" and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little stone. "I have a wock in my pocket!" And then I said to my boy, "I have something in my pocket, also. Do you want to see?" "I do! What is it?" And I pulled out my own little stone. "I have a rock in my pocket, too." "You do have a wock in your pocket, mama! You do! We both have wocks!" And he smiled like this was the best thing ever. "Here mama, you can have my wock. And now you have two."