lentils & rice

With our economy in the crapper, and so many feeling the crunch, some for the first time ever, of course we are all interested in saving some bucks. My own household has zero income (save for the husband's unemployment benefits) currently and so one might think that we're making drastic changes to our lifestyle. Only, well, no, we're not. The changes are small, things you wouldn't notice, and mostly reside in the realm of psychological distress (the insomnia and wrenched guts of wondering how long we can stave off foreclosure, you know, gripping subjects like that). I'm doing less thrift store therapy, our bills are not as cut and dried and tidy anymore, and we have to say No to the children more often. But other things, like what we eat, remain exactly the same (uh, cross fingers, knock on wood, say your prayers, because who knows how long we'll tread water like this??).

According to so many stories I've heard on the radio (before potential pandemic usurped economic downturn, anyhow) eating for less is the new five star restaurant. I heard some silly chef challenge on All Things Considered recently that had famous names (not so famous that I knew who they were, but whatever.) in food attempting to make a tasty meal for a family of four on a budget of ten dollars. And I nearly switched the station because, seriously? This is news?

But then I had to step back and remind myself that not every person responsible for feeding a family has the same good fortune I have to both a) not ever had much money to start with and b) a formative young adult introduction to being healthy and being cheap.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that it was the cheap that beget the healthy, even if, over the years, the subjects morphed into a symbiotic jumble of mindful living. But I might not ever have made it to where I am now had I not read The Tightwad Gazette in the first year of my marriage.

I didn't catch on to Amy Dacyzyn's compendium of frugal living tips in its newsletter days, no, I checked out the books from the library (but years afterward, the three volumes were published together in one fat edition). And I ate them up entirely. It's been a long time since I've read them, I bet the references are dated and maybe a little hokey, but the suggestions, I'm sure, are still sound.

Suddenly I'm doubting the veracity of one of my family's longstanding menu staples, ye olde Lentils and Rice, and whether it's a Tightwad inspired dish or not. It doesn't matter. It's cheap. It's easy. It's delicious. It's good for you. We eat it every week.

We've also been a vegetarian family for over ten years now, so it's not a lightbulb moment at this point to realize that meatless meals cost less. In fact, though I'm really saving this subject for a post all its own, I must briefly mention that if you're eating meat at every meal, you're probably contributing to all manner of societal ills and atrocities because there's no way in heck this planet can support animal consumption at the rate our country has expected it for so long. Okay.

And if you're not a vegetarian (really, I have no problem with omnivores, it's the factory farming and culture of excess and draining resources and animal cruelty, among other things, that irks me) you should still be eating a lot of bean based meals. I'm glad that pinched pocketbooks are finally compelling some people to make this a priority, better now than never I guess. Though I admit that it truly does surprise me that something as simple as Beans (or Lentils) and rice can be regarded as revolutionary.

So this is a favorite meal of mine because, first of all, everybody eats it. It cooks up long and slow so unless I'm running late, I get it going early and dinner happens smoothly, without any of that last minute Witching Hour Hungry Kids rush. So, all that PLUS it's the perfect dish for using up whatever's languishing in the not-so-crisper drawer in your fridge.

Here's the gist (per my transcribed scrawl in the little spiral notebook that's lived in the silverware drawer of every house I've ever lived in as a married lady): in a 9 x 13 casserole, dump together 3/4 C rice, 1/2 C lentils, chopped veggies, 2 1/2 C water or stock. salt/spices/seasonings to taste. Cover. Bake 325 for 90 min.

That's the basic idea, but I usually double it and make the rice to lentil ratio heavier on the lentil side. I use brown basmati and, also, some sort of tomato, canned diced or tomato sauce. The picture above is prior to adding the (self-picked and canned w/ a friend last late summer) tomatoes, but after I grated in a few stringy carrots and chopped up some salad greens that were starting to head south. I had just picked up our first CSA share of the season and needed to out-with-the-old in our refrigerator to make room-for-the-new.

We have eaten this in so many (many many!) configurations, but last week I served it alongside a carmelized leek and rapini frittata. The leeks and rapini were also part of our CSA share from of our favorite local farmers (who also happen to be friends, making the whole 'do you know where your food comes from?' question so much more personal and true). Leftovers are great to throw into a tortilla for a fast lunch. At our house we always say "lentilsnrice" all smashed together in one fast word like that. Lentilsnrice. Not just for tightwads!

before i met you

This is the time of day when it's harder to finish the things I wanted to finish but easier not to think about it. This is the time of day after the boy has gone to sleep, so the house is quieter (missing his clatter and, also, that somebody-in-the-house-is-sleeping hush that softens our activity just a bit, an invisible sustaining pedal), but still busy. In a few minutes, the husband will read to the girl (because in our house you're never too old for a read aloud; they finished Watership Down -oh! rabbits!- yesterday and will jump into something new/old tonight) and I will have to finish the last chores of the day so that I can sit, later, and watch something (we have Dexter on borrow from the library. I'm not sure about it yet.) without guilt, without *too much* guilt. Which is why I'm here, ostensibly, refreshing my stale ipod so I can push through by listening to something interesting. But I'm not doing that at all. No I'm listening to this song on repeat. Again, again. Thanks to a friend who mailed me a copy, I have it in my itunes now, but a couple of weeks ago, when I first discovered this song, I listened to it over and over again on youtube (and shared it with you on facebook, depending). I'm sure there are more compelling topics for a barely read blog, but my current favorite song seems as fit as anything else. Okay, one more time. And then, I mean it. Dishes. Laundry. Sweep. And see if you don't play it a few times in a row yourself. So sweet and infectious, simple and profound. We all of us, don't we, have these other people, whether romantic involvements or not, maybe past versions of our own selves, or even, dreams and plans and hopes, that we lug around with us, haunting our present.

the company you keep

My son is playing on the floor with his dump truck, his recycling truck, and a pile of blocks. I walk by and say, just for passing by conversation-sake, "hey, did ever notice that there's an armadillo on your shirt today?"

boy: (looks down, sighs) Yes, I did.

mama: You sound glum about it. Don't you like armadillos?

boy: No. I do not.

mama: Why is that?

boy: They play with bears.

mama: I'm not sure about that. But if it is actually true, why would that be a problem for you?

boy: (sighs, annoyed, that mother of his, always asking dumb questions) They might eat me.

mama: Armadillos don't eat people!

boy: No. Bears. Bears eat people.

mama: But I don't even think bears and armadillos have anything to do with each other anyway.

boy: (getting exasperated) They do! And if bears get really, really hungry, they could eat little boys. So that's why I don't like armadillos. See?!

impermanence

It's been quiet here. And by here I don't mean my blog. That's a given. Or my neighborhood. WHAT? SPEAK UP! I can't hear a word you're saying over the incessant whine of a stupid 2 stroke dirt bike motor, that keeps circling my block. I'm pretty sure boys my daughter's age, without helmets, stacked 2 deep, should not be riding a dirt bike around the hood. Oh, wait, dirt bikes aren't even street legal. I'm all for city noise (in fact, I miss the hum of a more populated place, for sure) but keep your stinkin dirt bikes far away from me. Like in a museum of stupid things people invented that kill people and ruin delicate ecosystems.

It's been quiet at old blogger. Seems like so many people are leaving (have left), for greener self hosted pastures or wordpress or some other better platform. I don't know. I guess I'm feeling the urge to move, too.

You know what happens when you move 13 times in 13 years? (keep in mind, I've lived in a few places for several years at a time. . .) You get accustomed to change. You might not like change. You might dread change and transition slowly to change. But you expect it and when it's not happening, you feel jumpy, because, judging from history, it should. And you just want to get it over with already.

I don't know that I could do the one two switcheroo trick with whatever ill-favored Fate seems to have been hanging over me for so long by simply moving blogs instead of abodes, but it's tempting to try it.

On the other hand, I grew up in the desert and I find tumbleweeds blowing by incredibly nostalgic. (No, really. When I was about five I had a tumbleweed "collection". I was partial to the ones taller than myself). What's it to me if everybody else is packing up and heading out? I barely visit this space, so it should not actually matter if it's passe, played out, sub-par.

But, still. Change. I itch.

You know what's funny? We can think we have a good thing going anyway, we can intend to stay the course indefinitely, to plug straight along with no thought of veering, and -wham!- life can up and have a different idea.

So I guess we take what we've got. When we've got it. We hold the things that bring us comfort and gladness and belonging, and when they change, we hold their stories.

who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?

Last weekend I made chocolate chip cookies: a right gesture of love for the family, considering that I'm fairly much take-em-or-leave-em. Chocolate isn't my thing. I know, I know, I risk betraying some stereotypical code of my gender by daring to admit such deviance. I mean, it's okay, sometimes. I eat it if it's there, if offered. But let's say Life had 2 doors and I had to choose Chocolate Cake or Peach Cobbler, I'd run through the fruit pie portal. No question. Of course, I don't know what I'd find on the other side. Life is a series of choices (and happenstance and, maybe, I waver, a divine sort of Plan) but so often we see the choices in hindsight. But what if they were more obvious? Arches clearly labeled? Pie or Cake? I'd live the pie life.

And I didn't mean to be punny (I groan at wordplay, but maybe, secretly, I kind of love it), just like I didn't mean to eat so many cookies and like I don't mean to grind my teeth every night while I'm sleeping. Regarding the first point, I can't help it and wouldn't if I could because words hang out and do fun things in my head. On the second point, it's easy, another weekend, another batch of cookies, even if it means springing for another bag of choco chips. I tell myself it's not quite pie season yet. (I'm not going through the door, I'm just sticking my head in through the window. what?) But that third item's pure trouble.

I fell asleep listening to the most recent This American Life the other night, I only heard the first intro story. Did you hear it, too? Business sucks for everybody right now but there's a surprising upswing in dentistry. Repair dentistry. Because guess what? Stressed out people break teeth (let's see. . . stress? check! broken teeth? check!) and grind their teeth (check plus!) and apparently there are enough of them walking the line between stressed out enough to have dental problems but not so stressed out to be so broke they can't afford repairs that dentists are seeing increasing numbers.

I have no future toothpaste commercial aspirations, oh no quite the opposite. Let's say I'm totally down with normal wear and tear. What I'm NOT down with is jaw pain and a mouthful of nubbins. But since I won't be contributing to any dental boon, and shoving the bedsheet into my mouth isn't cutting it (cloth in the mouth is right up there with very high buildings on my list of things I don't like to experience) I am going to see if a diy mouth guard will help.

If the habit persists, though, and chewing anything becomes a chore, I won't be eating any sort of cookies at all. Cake would be difficult. But I think I could still manage pie. It's really the cooked fruit I'm after, anyhow, and that should be easy enough to swallow.

haphazard

Everything is topsy-turvy right now. A sudden jostle could knock the whole thing flat. The husband's several weeks now into full fledged unemployment and we have less structure to our lives than ever. I'm all for free spirit flexibility, but we've become so fluid we spill all over everywhere. It's a weird time. I've never craved stability so much.

It's still Sunday. And I'm still making pizza. And our days are anchored by little things, weak ties attached to small silly routines I make up out of nothing. Something more, some sort of bigger picture involvement with expectations and obligations beyond my own brain, would be nice. But this is what we've got right now. We're just trying to hold it steady.

enough is enough (or often too much)

I've been reading The Long Emergency and several other titles concerning societal collapse, peak oil, global warming, and other such doomy gloomy topics. And while so much that lies ahead of us is unclear, this much I'm fairly sure: a lot of things are going to change, dramatically.

I was thinking these things over the other day as I stuck the quinoa under the faucet to rinse. I'm always thinking of these things and every little thing is a reminder. Because almost every little thing is a direct relic of our infatuation on fossil fuels. Yank them out of any equation and you've got less trade, less consumption, less of so much that has become this modern culture.

We have a lot of space to traverse before we get from here (relative pacification, granted with increasing agitation) to there (a complete collapse and turnaround) and any number of things could happen in the meantime. But in the few moments I stood there with my hand on the strainer, shaking it around while the water ran, I wondered if I'd have quinoa for the rest of my lifetime. Will my children have access to it for the duration of theirs? I mean, it's just a grain (arguably the most nutrient dense of them all), and while I do depend on it a lot now, would I miss it should it become unavailable to me? How much would I miss it?

We have so much. So much. My life has always been caked in excess. I think about the "voluntary simplicity" trend that was, well, trendy a few years ago. The precursor to the ecogreen movement that's so omnipresent now. And it seems, on one hand, sage wisdom, tread lightly, be mindful, take care. But on the other: sort of steeped in a flagrant privilege. I mean, the only reason any of us can choose simplicity is because we have, collectively, taken more than our share for so long. For much of the world, simplicity is not a choice. It simply is.

Maybe it's in the branding. Maybe I just disdain movements of all kinds, steering clear of the crowd. Even when I meet all the criteria for a trend, the accompanying label makes me wince. I do make simple choices and I do intend mindfulness. But I cannot shake the guilt of privilege, the happenstance that stuck me in the middle of the land of Too Much and others - without anything.

The impending changes scare me. I won't deny it. I hate changes. When the sort of underwear I bought for ten years suddenly stopped being manufactured, I stopped buying underwear. This was nearly a decade ago. I won't divulge further details on that one. When our telephone died and required replacement, it took a good six months before I could use it without cringing at the way it felt in my hand. I like things the way I like them and I like them to stay just like that. I think that's not uncommon. But! despite the fear of what lies on our unknown horizon, and my insufficient resilience, I think we're all good for a little shake up.

(and I'm smack dab in the midst of a personal shake up, which I aim to write more about later. I'm trying empty out the backlog of halfwritten entries in my tiny brain first)

And, frankly, I think the more we start giving up now ("voluntarily", if you will), the less will have to pulled from us, from the fingers of a kicking and screaming indignant mass holding so tight to the last vestiges of a convenient plastic life.

I enjoy, take advantage of, take for granted, abuse PLENTY of plastic conveniences. I am a 33 year old American. Right time, right place. As I type this right now, on a 17 inch laptop, next to my nifty undercabinet ipod docking station, my husband and daughter watch a film on a handy little portable dvd player; we consume. We have a lot of things we don't even need.

But I also don't have some things that a lot of other people do think I need (and by 'other people' I mean, mostly, corporations who seem incessantly irked at my lack of contributions to their bottom lines). Like a microwave. I know only a couple of other people who don't have a microwave.

It was initially a health-based decision (seriously, do you want to eat food that's been in a microwave??) but it's been so long now (coming up on ten years without, minus a couple houses we lived in that had one built-in) that I don't even know what people use them for. I typically reheat leftovers in the toaster oven.

And in what is becoming a ridiculous blog post of irony (you didn't know that by 'too much' I meant: words I will write here), there's one more thing I want to cram in here (because who knows when I'll come back, I'm so inconsistent).

I had an epiphany last month, something of a Too Much realization. There has been too much of me to fit in my own pants for a while. Wait, that's not the epiphany, I'm just setting the scene. We have too much food. We expect too much. I can do something different. I can.

I had the privilege to cope with some stressful situations in the last almost 2 years (hmm, maybe you weren't around when I was beating these dead horses: an interstate relocation, an unexpected pregnancy, a very difficult temporary 6-month living situation, a 2nd trimester miscarriage, traumatic complications from said miscarriage involving a hospital bill we're *still* paying off, a fall down the stairs resulting in a fractured foot, a spouse with a very stressful job that prevented me from talking to/seeing him much, related marital strain, uh, i think that about covers it) by getting lazy. Lazy by not moving enough and lazy by eating too much.

So what am I doing about it? I stopped eating dinner. Anything in the evening, actually. I eat breakfast (usually what remains on the kids' plates, mothers can be such industrious scavengers), a hefty, healthy lunch, and then. . . I wait until breakfast again.

Do I get hungry? Do I even know what it's like to *be* hungry? How can I have grown up with grocery stores and spoiled food in my fridge and restaurants on every corner and really ever been hungry? My stomach might growl and when I go to bed I look forward to breakfast (though by the time I wake up, it's much less pressing) but I don't think that's real hunger. This has been my routine for the last month or so and it's not growing tiresome.

My choice is a flaunting of abundance. I can choose to abstain because I have so much. I hope that my awareness softens the blow of advantage.

I fill my evenings with glasses of kombucha and cups of tea and I am not missing anything. I have eaten lots of dinners. I will eat so many more. But right now, I'm deciding to avoid what is considered necessary, customary, required. I'm not gestating or nursing, I'm not convalescing or competing.

I am feeling better than I have in a long while.

I do not want to belabor body issue quirks or imply my sell-out to media dictated ideals. I have lots of the former but firmly avoid the latter (if that's possible). Outgrowing my own clothes, serviceable garments with much life left, is not mindful or simple or treading lightly at all. And nobody feels good wearing clothes that don't fit. And not feeling good is no good for me or for my family.

I sit with my family while they eat (and by 'sit with my family' I mean: sit for a second and hop up for the salt, or another fork, or napkins, or the boy's soup that was cooling in the freezer, you know.) and have not yet, in over a month, felt even the tiniest bit deprived. It's just dinner. I look around and I see all these things, pounds of flour and beans, shelves of books, cupboards full of useful things and pretty things I keep just to look at and hold, and it's all SO MUCH. More than anybody needs, really.

It is a poignant thing, to step out of one's routines and into a new thoughtfulness. What started out as a willful attempt at combating a growing malaise has become surprisingly meditative. Recognizing my abundance in everything, the food on my plate, the hot water in my pipes, the solutions to my problems, is such a gift of gratefulness. Who knows what will happen in a few weeks, months, years. But for now, I have enough.

a round tuit

My grandparents have one of those rubber grippy circles, like the sort passed out in AARP advertising blitzes, that was printed with the explanation that it was for people who are always waiting to do something until they get a round tuit. Ta-da! Problem solved.

I have one of those grippy circles, too, a spare direct from my grandmother's kitchen. And it is, in fact, emblazoned with an AARP logo and slogan: for independent living! But it doesn't say anything about getting stuff done. It's round and good for opening sticky jars, but it's not a tuit at all.

It takes me a long old while to get around to it, whatever it is. I am quick-witted and keen on ideas. I am good on the front side of any task, but get mucked up in the middle. And sometimes never see the end. Starting is no trouble, it's the doing and finishing that give me grief.

When we moved in here I hastily tacked a red checkered beach towel over the bathroom window. This remained until we recently upgraded to a blue twin sheet. The window has that mottled bathroom glass -supposed privacy glass- but I can't bring myself to do bathroom things at night in front of an undressed window, no matter what.

It took me a year and a half, but we finally have a curtain in the bathroom. Maybe my tuit is square?

same old, same old

I'd say I blog the way I do laundry, but you might think we're stepping around piles here for half a month before I get a mind to toss in a load. I could compare my slowness in coming around to this little spot to the way I dawdle and delay and guiltily, sheepishly, never get around to mailing things. But while I'm a better laundress than I am a blogger, I'm a much worse mail correspondent. Much, much worse. So, if you bother to click on over here, wondering if I have anything to say (and I'm sorry for all the wasted click-on-overs, praise be to the google reader), take comfort in knowing at least you're not one of the sad souls to whom I owe a package. Unless you are, indeed, waiting for some promised parcel. In which case, I apologize. Actually, let me just be sorry all around. For everything. I'm feeling a little sorry this evening and I might as well toss some contrition in the direction of any passersby to my public presence on this, the spaceship interweb.

I said goodbye to 2 dear friends the other day. I had known them for such a short time, but we spent most evenings together for the last month or so and I grew accustomed to the routine. Oh, Pullo and Vorenus, how I'll miss you. Yeah, yeah, we finished Rome. It might be a little like nutritional yeast: an acquired taste. It is gruesome and violent and a lot sexier and steamier than, well, network television and I nearly dismissed it after the first episode. But we kept it up and got sucked right in, right back two thousand plus years, and now I want to sprinkle that stuff on everything. It was good. It is over. Sigh. Moving on.

It's easy to be in the moment when you're surrounded by clocks that don't keep time. I have several. This is not an oversight, a belated purge of broken housewares; it is intentional. I like the random-ness of hands pointing to disparate, inconsistent numbers (i feel a little disparate and inconsistent myself, so much of the time). I like the ability to enjoy something -the aesthetic of shape, the recognition of age, the space taken up on a shelf- despite its purposed function having stopped some while ago.

See? No time has passed. The hands haven't moved at all. I might have had secret intentions of blogging here *every day for the whole, short month of February* and then, clearly, failed so completely. But such an endeavor would have accomplished. . . a whole bunch of nothing. I am giving myself the space to write when I feel like it and the time to come here when I remember to and the permission to be as sporadic and vague as is reflexive. I'm so tempted to close up shop, put the useless in a drawer and focus more on that which is productive, but pleasure is important. And this place does please me, even if it's quiet and I can't be so transparent and I have more ideas of things to write about than I ever get around to writing. . .

Because I am a broken record, a bulldog, a dead horse kicker (I didn't have any nicknames when I was a kid but these things I was called frequently, and really: some things never change) I will remind you that Rome truly is worth watching and, then, when you've finished the series (but two short seasons, boo melodramatic hoo) tell me all about it.

tick. . . tick. . . tick, I won't mention it again, I swear.

leave yer thermarests and rainfly at home

I can be so obtuse. For years, we've mused about yurt camping. But because there's a "no pets in yurt" rule and we always have the dang dog with us, I just sighed and pretended that I don't really need a shelter I can stand up in.

It was just a few weeks ago that I lightbulbed the following: our tent is so small and our dog is so smelly, she always sleeps in the car *anyway*. We can sleep in a yurt and she can sleep in the car and what the heck has taken us so long?

The girl's birthday last week was the perfect opportunity to give this whole fancy camping a try. I really did think our tent was sufficient, before. But now? I'm not sure I can go back.

Because the yurt was awesome.

I got a full size sleeping area all to myself. And because I don't like to sleep all mummied-up in a sleeping bag, I took a big fat comforter and stretched right out and had more space than I usually have at home. Nice.

We had a table inside for setting stuff and plenty of hooks for hanging stuff and a little covered deck outside for cooking. It was so much quicker and easier than tenting it.

And warmer. It was definitely warmer. I'm not sure we're hardcore enough to tent camp in the winter anyhow, so the yurt gave us a chance to visit the off-season of a beach campground. It was so different, so much more empty and quiet. Our yurt was the only occupied yurt in our loop of the campground. So quiet.

We had the beach all to ourselves, too. A few times, I could sort of squint and see people, very far away, but mostly it was just us.

Oh yeah, and the weather was brilliant: 50ish degrees, blue skies, no wind. It was a quick trip, but it was a good one.

a perfect ten

It humbles me, confounds me, astounds me that my daughter is a whole decade old. The girl who made me a mama and taught me how to be patient and gentle and kind. Her difficult nature as a baby, her demanding intelligence as a toddler, her inexhaustible wisdom and wonder as a small child, her busy plans and schemes as a big kid all required of me something that I surely did not have before she came along.

Even though I chose her name, in part, because it's not nicknameable and even though I think her given name suits her absolutely, in that sweet singsongy way parents can have with their babes, when she was still very new and young I started calling her Fifi. And then, because I'm so fond of alliteration, I tacked on Fantastic. The Fifi faded, over time, but the Fantastic has remained because she is, indeed. Fantastic.

The most surprising, blessed, Fantastic thing that has happened to me, becoming her mama. Such a gift. I'm not an overly lovey dovey soft focus person, but I am still pretty much in awe of this wonderful girl creature I get to watch grow and learn and be. I feel a little bit lucky every day, just for knowing her.

And can you believe I'm still hanging construction paper numbers?? I wrote before about our little family tradition. One of those funny spur of the moment ideas that unwittingly becomes *the thing we do* year after year after year. It's important. But I thought she'd outgrown it, and also? I thought it was a one digit phenomenon. But as we eked into the last week of January, she asked me, sweetly, if the nines would be replaced with tens. What else could I do?

I admit that the double digits stumped me for a bit until I decided to work with negative space and voila! The cutting was a snap.

She was up so early on her birthday and she said she opened her eyes and saw the numbers twirling, the larger 10 shadows cast all about, and knew it was really true: she was Ten.

I had tacked a note on her bed, a happy birthday good morning, we love you, sort of note, which she read upon waking and which set her off on a whole house scavenger hunt for her gift. I attempted to make obscure clues, leaning on her love of literature and language and history (for example: one clue was 'ovum' -where to? the egg carton, of course. another clue? 'dogeared achilles' she ran directly to our most worn mythological reference) and it was fun. She enjoyed it and I was glad I bothered to stay up the extra hour it took to arrange it.

These are little things: construction paper numbers and quickly written clues hidden about the house. But it's my hope that all these little things I do will together make a picture of a happy childhood, someday when she looks back.

Because I'm already looking back, as much as I look forward, and feeling so overwhelmed by the goodness, the sweetness, the joy of spending my days with this girl.

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.)