Gender Questions

This blew my mind a bit - at work recently, I got a survey about non-profit leadership. The general demographic information at the end asked the following question:

What is your gender?

• Male
• Female
• Transgender
• Inter-sex
• Decline to State
• Self-identify:___________

I travel in liberal lefty arty circles, and I have never seen those available responses before. Not that there's anything wrong with it, I'm just amused.

And eBay seems to be on a similar bandwagon. I was listing some of my spare possessions (yeah, I get on that kick once in a while), one of which was a brand new baby blanket. There was a drop-down window with the following choices for gender:

• Boy
• Girl
• Unisex
• Enter Your Own
  

I clicked "girl" because it was a pink blanket. But why is it generally understood that "pink is for girls" and "blue is for boys"? It apparently wasn't a convention until the 50s, when the rise of the middle class meant that "people who could afford to make the gender assignment did so". And it may date to 1868, when Louisa May Alcott published Little Women, and "Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy and a pink on the girl, French fashion, so you can always tell."

The head spins.

At this very moment, my little girl is curled on the couch in her Glinda the Good Witch costume from last week, home sick with a fever. That is, dressed in PINK! Because it seems to be hard-wired into her.

Butter Tarts

A couple of weeks ago, Beck mentioned some butter tarts, and followed up with the recipe. I was intrigued; anything called butter tarts sounds good to me. Apparently they're some kind of Canadian treat. And since I have a Canadian sister-in-law who had a birthday not so long ago, I figured that butter tarts would be a perfect thing to make.

The recipe called for corn syrup. Not having any in the house, I trotted off to the supermarket to get some. The bottle of Karo corn syrup was emblazoned with "With Real Vanilla". Hmm - I don't remember that corn syrup had flavor added. So I read the label: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, vanilla and salt. Damn HFCS is in EVERYTHING - even corn syrup. But nearby on the same shelf was Lyle's Golden Syrup - a pure cane sugar syrup - nothing but cane sugar syrup. So I bought and used that instead.

And, those butter tarts were FINE. They are very sweet, and maybe could have used a touch more salt in the filling, but splendid none-the-less. I left out the raisins. They are rather like pecan pie without the pecans.

And the Canadian? She said they were better than her Grammy's. I thought that was pretty good validation.

CSA Week 22 - Tomatoes, Strawberries, Squash and Kale

We finally turned the heat on on Wednesday, the same day that I picked up a quart of tomatoes from the CSA. And yesterday, there were strawberries at the greenmarket. Local strawberries! In November! I bought 2 pints. How could I pass them by? But, what strange weather it's been.

• Potatoes (~3 1/2 lbs)
• Cauliflower
• Toscana Kale
• Beets (3, ~2 lbs)
• Salad Mix
• Tomatoes (quart)
• Red Onions (3)
• Parsley

Brave girl that I am, I finally tackled a squash - one of the acorn squashes from a week or two ago. It smelled revolting while I was scraping the seeds out, it smelled disgusting in the oven, it smelled nauseating while I was spooning the pulp out of the shell. But I persisted and made Pinknest's pumpkin bread - without icing, with some whole wheat flour, with dried lemon peel instead of fresh orange rind, and with freshly cooked acorn squash in lieu of canned pumpkin. It's terrific. Even the girl and the husband had some. Of course, it's not really bread. It's cake. There's no two ways about it.

For dinner tonight, I may try a recipe for the black kale that was in the Times last week - a salad of raw kale with a garlicky cheese-laced dressing. Then again, it's blustery and raw, and salad might not be in the cards.

CSA Week 21

Hmmm...

Somehow I completely forgot to post this - this was the CSA distribution for 10/24. I think there are too many posts in my drafts folder...

• Broccoli
• Red Cabbage
• Red Russian Kale
• Acorn Squash (2)
• Salad Mix
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (5)
• Collard Greens
• Onions (1)
• Red Onions (2)
• Carrots (3+ lbs)

Spanning the Centuries

Yesterday would have been my grandfather's 108th birthday. He was born in 1899, in the 19th century.

Next week is our daughter's 4th birthday. She was born in 2003, in the 21st century.

I'm the fulcrum - born more-or-less midway through the 20th century with close relatives in each century surrounding. Of course, my mother can say the same - it's her father, and her granddaughter.

My grandfather was a sweet man. He was good with his hands - at drawing, building, fixing. He composted his leaves, but always called it humus. He smoked a pipe and watched baseball from his recliner. He ate his corn off the cob because he had false teeth. He didn't drive because he couldn't feel his feet - much later, it turned out that he'd had a benign brain tumor, probably for 20 or 30 years. He ate, or claimed to, peanut butter and sardines on rye - using the peanut butter to glue the sardines in place. He was a first generation American - born in Brooklyn to parents from the Frisian Islands. His surname is German but three of his four grandparents had Danish names. He loved CDB!

Owl, this is for you.

F U N-E X ?
S, I F X .
F U N-E M ?
S, I F M.
OK, I-L F M N X .

13 Kinds of Apples

Continuing last week's apple thread...

There's a world of apples out there, beyond Macintosh and Granny Smith and Red Delicious. I just ordered my annual sampler pack from Apple Source. They'll send you a divided box of 12 perfectly picked and packed apples, with a chart like on the back of the Whitman Sampler chocolate box so you know what you're eating. Side by side, the many varieties are surprisingly diverse and differently delectable. And, they have fabulous, whimsical, evocative names. Like these thirteen:

1. Black Gilliflower
2. Dr. Matthews
3. Gold Coast
4. Grimes Golden
5. Hidden Rose
6. Moyer's Prize
7. Newtown Pippin
8. Kandil Sinap
9. Pitmaston Pineapple
10. Razor Russet
11. Turley Winesap
12. Ashmead's Kernel
13. Esopus Spitzenberg

I ordered the Antique Sampler, so I don't know what I'm going to get. But whatever turns up, it'll be fun. And tasty. And different. And not Red Delicious.

Wordless Wednesday: Dancing

One day last week, the above photos were in the Times accompanying that day's dance reviews - three different reviews, three different companies (click on the photos to get to the reviews). I was struck by the similarities in the poses. You think the photo editor was having fun?

(I thought of posting pumpkin pictures because it is, after all, Halloween - but they came out terribly, and surely everyone else is doing it.)

Knitting for Bears

I had the idea that it would be sweet to knit a sweater for one of Miss M.'s many teddy bears. I found a pattern at Wee Wonderfuls, and printed out a picture to show to her. Her response? "They're not chilly because they have coats."

Okay kid, no sweaters for your bears.

Spam, Close to Home

The following spam email message turned up in my office account last week:

Dear Benefactor Of 2007 Masory Grant,

The Freemason society of Bournemout under the jurisdiction of the all Seeing Eye, Master Nicholas Brenner has after series of secret deliberations selected you to be a beneficiary of our 2007 foundation laying grants and also an optional opening at the round table of the Freemason society.

These grants are issued every year around the world in accordance with the objective of the Freemasons as stated by Thomas Paine in 1808 which is to ensure the continuous freedom of man and to enhance mans living conditions.

We will also advice that these funds which amount to USD2.5million be used to better the lot of man through your own initiative and also we will go further to info that the open slot to become a Freemason is optional, you can decline the offer.

I recognized it for what it was, but I shared it with our Director of Development - I thought she'd be amused. Her eyes opened wide and she confessed to a fleeting feeling that it was valid, because we are - for real - due to be notified as to the renewal of our annual support grant from the local Order of Masons. It's just a coincidence, but an odd one none-the-less.

What a Wonderful World

All's right with the world - the little girl is asleep in her own bed, before 9:00. And she fell asleep in my arms while I was mangling the lyrics to What a Wonderful World. Here's the master:

And the lyrics, if you need them:

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...

Bread and Jam - and Frances, and Ellyn, and Jessica

Me: You're full of beans this morning.

Miss M.: No, I'm full of lobster.

I can only think that this is because we've been reading (and re-reading and reading again) Bread and Jam for Frances before bed. Because, after Frances remembers that there are all sorts of wonderful things to eat beyond bread and jam, she trots off to school with a lobster salad sandwich. Maybe lobster was cheaper in 1964?

Frances is often held up as a poster child picky eater, but it's hard to argue that she really is - her bread and jam kick doesn't even last two days. The book starts with breakfast, at which meal she chooses not to eat her egg - there is no indication that she's refused everything but bread and jam prior. At dinner that same night, she chooses not to eat her veal cutlet in favor of bread and jam - and confesses to having traded her lunch for a friend's bread and jam. At breakfast on the second day, she isn't offered an egg - because, her mother says, "you do not like eggs." At lunch on that second day, her friend has an elaborate lunch with sandwich and pickle and hard-boiled egg and fruit and dessert, while Frances has bread and jam. At night on the second day, when presented with bread and jam, she realizes that "What I am / is tired of jam" and so has spaghetti and meatballs for dinner with the rest of the family.

And on to the finale - her own complicated and elegant lunch at school, complete with doily, a tiny vase of violets, celery and olives, a tiny basket of cherries, and the afore-mentioned lobster salad sandwich.

Meals with our small child are the typical mix of cajoling and rejoicing. She'll scarf down risotto like nobody's business, but steak? Nah. Hot dogs and cheese sandwiches, yes. Peanut butter, no. Sometimes we'll resort to white lies: "This is Pat's chicken - she told me how to make it." [Pat's the cook at school.] The chicken in question was a butterflied charcoal grilled chicken, with all the black stuff cut off, and ketchup on the side - and Pat had nothing to do with it. And the kid ate that chicken.

Mostly, I've tried to take to heart the Ellyn Satter dictum: "The parent is responsible for what, when, where - and the child is responsible for how much and whether." She's not going to starve. Sure, I wish she'd eat some more vegetables, but I'm not going to start pretending that pureed cauliflower is ricotta and neither am I going to lace chocolate chip cookies with chickpeas. And hey, even fancy organic hot dogs are cheap! If she starts demanding lobster salad sandwiches, we're going to be in the poorhouse.


[This is loosely in response to the Parent Bloggers blast in connection with the release of Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.]

13 Ways of Looking at a(n) _____*

The constraint of Thursday Thirteen appeals to me - and I find myself constructing odd lists in spare moments.

1. It is crunchy.
2. It is indented.
3. It is juicy.
4. It is nutritious.
5. It is past.
6. It is portable.
7. It is potential.
8. It is prophylactic.
9. It is round.
10. It is sweet.
11. It is tempting.
12. It is versatile.
13. It is waiting.

So. What is it? Tiny prize to the first person to guess right.




(*with many, many apologies to Wallace Stevens)

You think I do what?

Last week, Suburban Turmoil had a great post about how marketers do and should approach the mommy bloggers. I read it with interest, though not with much recognition - I don't get a lot of unsolicited marketing solicitations via email, though they happen from time to time. When they come in, they’re usually understandable and usually pointed towards the parenting aspect of my blog – review a kids book, check out a parent-oriented website service. I actually accepted a copy of a book, which I’ve yet to do anything about, and it sits there making me feel guilty, which is really asinine because I don’t owe them a damned thing.

This morning, though, I got one that made me laugh out loud: “I contacted you because you have a pharmacy / medicine related blog”. I guess it’s all that talk about Follistim and Repronex and progesterone-in-oil and baby aspirin and microdose Lupron – not to mention cancer and emergency rooms and cancer and gall bladders.

Cocktail Playdates, revisited

When we picked Miss M. up at daycare yesterday, it was a beautiful fall day and all the kids were outside. We hung out for a bit chatting with people, she demonstrated her tricycle riding prowess, we discussed playdates, and Miss M. asked a teacher if she’d like to come to our house for a “wine-over”.

Some neologism, huh? Grown-ups drink wine and she's pining for a sleep-over, so the next best thing is a wine-over.

As it happens, it's the one teacher I would invite over for some wine. Though I did discover this morning that another teacher and the daycare director went to the Springsteen concert at the Garden last week. I'd have gone to that in a minute.

Aging and Illness

Last week's New Yorker* had a profile of Jacques Barzun, "the eminent historian and cultural critic" which included this bit about getting old:

A few weeks shy of his hundredth birthday, Barzun is still pressed to read manuscripts, give talks and attend affairs in his honor. He tries to accommodate everyone, but there is simply less of him to go around. He's five inches shorter than he used to be, a decrease due to aging and spinal stenosis, which causes pain and numbness in the legs. He relies on a cane or a walker to get around, and, as one might expect, he is alert to the irony of aging: when time is short, old age takes up a lot of time. There are doctors' visits, tests to be suffered, results to wait for, ailments and medications to be studied - all distractions from the work. "Old age is like learning a new profession," he noted drily. "And not one of your own choosing."

In fact, many illnesses could be looked at as similarly like entering a new profession - be it infertility, cancer, multiple sclerosis, or what have you. You're plunged into learning all there is to know and doing all there is to do, leaving less to time to just live life. Life is complicated.







*the issue dated 10/22/07

Respect and Old Age

My mother’s lived in her house since 1972, and the people across the street were there before her. They were a sweet couple of teetotallers, he a Methodist minister, she the cookie-baking minister’s wife. He died five years ago. She’d been doing well, but fell a couple of months ago and landed in a nursing home. Bang zoom: her kids put the house on the market, moved their mom to a facility in the mid-West, held a tag sale, and filled up a dumpster with the detritus of two lives.

It’s so sad.

The tag sale was yesterday. It was run by a hostile incompetent hired gun – the place was a mess and the stuff was priced completely erratically and mostly unmarked (so you had to ask, whereupon she made up a price on the spot). You’d think that someone running a tag sale, working on commission, would want to maximize the income by keeping things presentable, by clearly pricing everything, by acting knowledgeable and helpful. In this case, you would be wrong.

There were still spices in the kitchen cabinets and Q-tips in the bathroom. For all I know, they were for sale. There were clothes in the closets and piles of linens on the floor. There was no order to anything.

My mother and I wandered around – I found a handmade double wedding ring quilt in a heap upstairs, and asked how much. $5, said the hostile incompetent. So I bought a quilt for $5 – I don’t need it, but I couldn’t walk away from it. There was a handsome mirror in the dining room – my mother said she’d been asking $400 at the pre-sale earlier in the week. By yesterday, the price was down to $75. I went back at the end of the day and offered $20. She countered with $30. I left. About 10 minutes later, my husband showed up – I sent him across the street, and he came back with the mirror for $25. And my mother went over and came home with a little upholstered rocker for free – earlier, the hostile incompetent had been asking $60. So erratic.

Once the tag sale was over, they starting heaving things into a dumpster. Plaques given to the minister. Antique clock parts (his hobby was clock repair). Dishes. Books. Christmas ornaments. Napkins. Space heaters.

It’s so disrespectful.

It’s so wasteful.

My brother and sister and their spouses and a family friend and a neighbor headed across the street after dark and, wine-fueled, dove into the dumpster with flashlights.

It seemed right to rescue some bits of their life. A pressed glass citrus reamer. A crochet hook. A pinecone-shaped iron cuckoo clock weight. A Horatio Alger book.

It could have been done so much better. They could have found a way to let her stay in the house. They could have found her a place to live in the area - where she has friends and neighbors and acquaintances and church folk - instead of shipping her off to the middle of the country where she'll know no one but her dead husband's elderly brother. They could have hired a more sensitive person to run the tag sale. They could have been more respectful of her stuff, her life, her things, his life, his hobbies, their life. They could have packed off much of the stuff to thrift shops, to shelters, to people to whom the stuff would have made a difference. A space heater tossed in a dumpster does no one any good. A box fan...the same.

It sounds like I'm blaming her children - and in part I am. But it's also our society. We think nothing of discarding things and people, we disrespect the past. In that is our curse for the future. It's environmental. It's societal. It's human. We should do better.

Little Kid Couture

The things that can happen when you let your child dress herself:

• Plaids and stripes
• Shirt with little flowers, pants with big flowers, socks with other flowers - "Look Mama, I'm all flowers - I match!"
  
• Skirts with pants underneath

• Pants with tights underneath

and, the discovery, at the end of the day, that she's gone to school without underpants.

CSA Week 20 - Of Cabbages and Kings

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax -
Of cabbages - and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings."

The "cabbages and kings" phrase popped into my head when I saw the size of the cabbages at the CSA pick-up - huge, enormous, bigger than my head. I knew the stanza from which it came, but what surprised me was realizing that whole poem is eighteen stanzas long, and the cabbages and kings one is number eleven. Why then is that one middle stanza so burned into my brain? Maybe just because it's pretty damned wonderful.

• Cabbage (1 enormous head)
• Red Russian Kale
• Broccoli Rabe
• Potatoes (6)
• Onions (2)
• Plum Tomatoes (quart)
• Salad Mix
• Parsley

Maybe it's the Irish peasant stock in me, but I'm looking forward to a batch of colcannon with the cabbage and potatoes. Colcannon is basically mashed potates with cooked cabbage (and/or kale) stirred in, but somewhere I have (or maybe my mother has) a recipe for colcannon with an unseemly amount of butter, thereby making a transcendent rendition of the peasant dish.

13 Bears for Thursday

I don't know what possessed me to count the bears, but there are thirteen of them. Thirteen! Is that good luck or bad?


Top Row, Left to Right

1. Night Bear (in night cap)
2. Pinky Teddy (given to me for her, at my baby shower, by my sister, Pinky)
3. Purple Bear
4. Kiki
5. Ginger Bear (a gift from an erstwhile neighbor of my mother's, named Ginger)

Bottom Row

6. Brown Bear
7. Ganny Bear (lifted from Granny's house)
8. Roofus (in the red shirt, a giveaway from Habitat for Humanity, hence the idiosyncratic spelling)
9. Sparkle Bear (with wings and star, his fur is a little sparkly)
10. Pink Bear
11. Tiny Little Teddy
12. Butterfly Bear
13. Brown and White Bear

Pink Bear and Brown Bear used to go to school every day for nap time - they've been mended so many times that they look like Frankenstein.

Tiny Little Teddy used to be a teething object - frequently completely saturated in spittle. He's never been the same since.

Sparkle Bear is a Beanie Baby. He used to have a companion, a white bear with (I think) Mississippi embroidered on it (or maybe Louisiana). I sent the companion to Iraq. The problem is, she still asks about that missing bear. Oops.

Butterfly Bear was a baby present from some neighbors down the hall in our NYC apartment. We didn't know them much beyond hello in the elevator, but I think of them often because of the bear.

Not only do I know the provenance of each of these bears, I know all their names. How is it that my head has room for all that clutter?

Wordless Wednesday

Okay, they need a couple of words: it's a mailbox, attached to a tree, about nine feet off the ground, in Union Square park. Who is getting mail there? And how does the mailman get the mail in the box?

Guest Curator

My friend David, a former colleague and accidental brother, blogless at present, sent me the following email. You might want to watch these clips at home, not the office cubicle. And I'd start with the second one, though I completely understand why he led with the first. And don't blame me if you get an earworm out of it.

Subject: Pepto Bismol audition (A Chorus Line for our times)

• A mockumentary?
• The original British commercial (great ensemble work).
• Hip hop version (it's got a beat and I can't help but dance to it).
• I'm totally jealous of this.
• Attack of the dyspeptic monsters: (as seen on your TV, an instant classic).

The Environment

I've been mulling over today's post for a while now - what to do, what to write, to somehow address the issue of the environment as part of Blog Action Day. And then, with great good luck, the Nobel Foundation awarded this year's Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC - thereby spot-lighting the problems facing the world in a way that even multitudes of bloggers can't hope to touch.

The New York Times had a good editorial the other day - read it if you haven't already. It basically slams the US government, and others, for not stepping up to the plate and addressing the multitude of environmental problems facing our world. Paul Krugman follows that up with an op-ed piece today, about why the right hates Gore - because he "keeps being right".

It's hard to know what to do as an individual, but I find that every day, I get a little more vitriolic, and a little more conscious as to my actions. I bought reusable shopping bags and stashed the big ones in the car, and a small string bag in my so-called briefcase. We've replaced some light bulbs with compact fluorescents. I can't remember the last time that I ran a load of laundry in warm water (much less hot). We're about to replace the windows and door in the basement with energy efficient ones that fit properly and aren't patched with duct tape (and we should get a tax credit for some of that cost). We've been buying local produce and organic dairy products. We have a programmable thermostat that is set to drop the heat in the house to 55°F at night - although we haven't yet turned the heat on, though it's been about 40°F out in the morning the past few days. They are tiny little gestures, but important gestures none the less. We could do much better, as individuals, as a family, as a community, as a country. And I hope that we will.

Master satirist Tom Lehrer was talking about the environment way back when. Pollution was written in the early 60s, and is a scathing indictment of the then state of the environment. If you've never had the pleasure, the video is here and you can buy the record here.

Rock, Revisited

The rock has been returned to its brethren, though it appears to be the black sheep of the family. It is now residing in a stone wall outside my house, and it will be there for all eternity, or until the wall falls down again, at which time someone will wonder why the erratic was engraved with the name of a law firm.

Friday Fluff

This morning, in the four blocks between the subway and my office, I saw the following:

• A small boy in a stroller, wearing a Yankees cap inside out, so that the logo was visible but backwards. I couldn't decide if the cap was inside out as a way of making it fit better on a little head, or as a "damn you, Yankees" gesture.
  
  
• An old woman, smoking a cigar that smelled like a pipe. It reminded my of my grandfathers, both of whom smoked pipes from time to time. Why is it that the aroma of pipe tobacco is so pleasing and evocative?
  
  
• A young man, probably in his early twenties, striding up the sidewalk piloting a radio-controlled car ahead of him. It was almost like his dog. I did think that he was a little too old to be playing with toy cars.

And then, I found this when I got to my desk. Enjoy!

CSA Week 19

I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - her account of a year of producing most of their own food, and obtaining the rest locally. It's fascinating and inspiring, even if I'm not likely to start raising chickens in my own back yard, or growing much in the way of vegetables. I know where to get live chickens nearby, I have the CSA for a goodly amount of our annual vegetables, and I'm lucky enough to work near a terrific greenmarket wherein I can plug the gaps.

Kingsolver's book has an associated website, which includes all of the recipes that are in the book. I haven't tried any of them yet, but some of them look great.

• Spinach
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli Rabe
• Asian Greens braising mix
• Salad Mix
• Ping Pong Tomatoes (pint)
• Plum Tomatoes (quart)
• Delicata Squash (3)
• Onions (2)
• Parsley
• Sage

Because we're getting a little behind the CSA vegetables, I've been blanching, chopping and freezing the greens. And last night, I made another batch of oven-roasted tomatoes. I left them in a slow oven while I went out to a meeting; when I came back, the house smelled delicious.

And maybe, just maybe, the kid has taken to a new vegetable. While we were at the pick-up yesterday, she was surreptitiously stealing bits of cauliflower. Go figure.

Breast Fest

I breastfed my child for two years and 364 days, and we haven't got a single picture of her nursing. It's not that we kept it a secret, it's more that we're inclined to forget to photograph much of anything.

However, the League of Maternal Justice put together a montage of many many mama-baby pairs, to remind the world that breastfeeding is normal and right, not dirty, and that nursing mothers should be proud, not shamed into hiding in closets. Because Bill Maher is an ass, and Facebook sucks, and Applebees ought to be hauled into court.

Book Karma, October edition

It's time for another Book Exchange. This month, I'm giving away Susan Jane Gilman's Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress. If you'd like it, leave me a comment on this post by Monday October 15. I'll pick a random winner and mail you the book. Please make sure I can find your email address, either in the comment or on your own blog. The only requirement is that you pass the book along when you're done - either through a Pay It Forward post of your own, or by just giving it to someone who wants to read it.

The book is fun - it's a fluffy quick read - a non-fiction account of growing up in Manhattan.

Edited to add: Aliki2006 won!

Five Questions

The five questions interview meme is rattling around blogland again. In a moment of madness, I stuck up my hand over at Flutter's place. Here goes!

1) A hippie, an archaeologist and a chef are at dinner, what do they talk about?

Sustainable agriculture –the present implications for the environment and for the culture of eating, and the lessons from the past as to old farming techniques. Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Mineral might be a good discussion provoker, or party favor.

2) Taking note of your Bush countdown clock, who do you hope is elected next term and what is the most important thing you hope they accomplish?

I’m vacillating between Edwards and Clinton. There’s a piece of me that would very much like to see a woman in the White House, and I think that she’s an impressive candidate. That said, Edwards has less baggage, great heart and sound policy ideas. In any case, I hope that universal health care is a priority, that we get the hell out of Iraq, and that a serious attempt be made to address global warming through energy efficiency and a carbon tax.

3) Think of yourself as a wee little one, what was your biggest dream? Are you living it, or has it changed?

I remember saying that I wanted to be a philanthropist – as a five year old. I’m not sure how I even knew the word! And I am not living it, not by a long shot - one needs rather more money than I've got. But, I’m on the other side of the fence. I’ve worked in non-profit arts organizations for the past 20 years, and have had direct and indirect responsibility for raising contributed income, and therefore I interact with philanthropists regularly. Once upon a time, when I was casting about for career direction, I spoke to a man – an erstwhile family friend – who was the head of a largish foundation. I told him that I was interested in working in that area; he convinced me that it was completely dull and pedantic work. But, in the back of my head, it still sounds like a good thing. Foundation jobs are awfully hard to come by, though, and my bank balance doesn't support more than modest charitable contributions.

4) Birkenstocks, Manolo Blahniks or running shoes? Why?

Um, none of the above? That said, my shoe tendencies lie more towards the Dansko/Merrell/Mephisto spectrum – so I guess Birkenstocks would be the closest match. I’ve never owned Birkenstocks though.

5) What is your writing process and what do you feel like you gain by blogging?

I don’t have much of a process…I get a random idea and just go with it. It might be a bon mot from the kid. Or I see something in the paper or on the street. Or I get an idea from a bit I read on another blog. Since June, I’ve been cataloguing my CSA vegetable share, but I feel like I can’t just put up the list and call it a day, that I need to add something whether it’s a recipe, an anecdote, or a paean to the CSA movement. I like playing with words – the phrase “greens, greens, salad and herbs” tickled some part of me. As to what I gain? I have an outlet for all the weird ephemera rattling around in my head. I’ve gained an amorphous set of friends. And it’s just fun.

Thanks, Christine! Next?

Blood and Guts

Are you signed up to be an organ donor?

Irish Goddess wrote a lovely post last year, a thank you to the person who became a heart donor for her father. As it happens, she just referenced that old post and it struck a chord with me as I've been thinking about organ donation and blood donation recently.

Several months ago, another blogger wrote about her sister-in-law's receipt of a double lung transplant, and it prompted me to sign up, on-line, through my state's donor registry. I just got the paperwork back in the mail - it's a little eerie to contemplate my own demise, but if it happens in such a way that there are usable organs, they should be recycled.

But.

Last weekend, our town had a little fair - local merchants, community organizations, hot dogs, a bouncy house, and free tote bags from every single real estate agent around. And the Blood Mobile was there. I've been wanting to give blood and it seemed like the perfect opportunity as W. was there to mind the irascible one. So I sat down and filled out their form - no untoward sexual history, no illicit needle use, no dread diseases. Good to go? No. I spent four months in London in 1982 - and if you've spent more than three months in the aggregate in the UK between 1980 and 1996, you are "indefinitely deferred". I can't give blood. I might have bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease). Argh.

So, here are my questions.

1) If I can't give blood, can I be an organ donor? Unclear - a 2001 CDC article implies that blood and organ donations both pose a risk of transmittal, but the same article says that US policy is to exclude "donations from anyone who has lived in or visited the UK for a cumulative period of 6 months or more during 1980 to 1996". So either, the rules have changed since that article was published or the New York Blood Center has more stringent guidelines.

2) Who can give blood in the UK? If the rule is the same there, that would mean only children and recent immigrants can give blood. But if the recipient lived in the UK in that same time frame, they'd have the same risk factor. So it would be okay to give blood in the UK today if you'd spent three months there between 1980 and 1996? The head spins.

This is all neither here nor there. Are you an organ donor? You should be.

CSA Week 18

It was a very green week: greens, greens, salad and herbs. I think I'll blanch and freeze the spinach and the braising greens.

• Broccoli
  
• Broccoli Rabe
  
• Spinach
  
• Braising Greens - Asian mix
  
• Salad Mix
  
• Plum Tomatoes (quart)
  
• Juliet Tomatoes (pint)
  
• Red Potatoes (5)
  
• Onions (2)
  
• Basil
  
• Parsley
  

The potatoes are piling up - we didn't get any last week, so I wasn't aware of just how many potatoes we had until I put these new ones away. So, I think I'll make a fennel/potato gratin tonight with the fennel from last week. I've never made this recipe before so I can't speak for it, but it sounds good. That said, I've not had much success in feeding fennel to the family in the past, so it could be a disaster. But that's part of the beauty of the CSA - experimenting with things you don't usually eat or actively shy away from. That said, last week's kabocha squash is still in the fridge...

Fennel and Potato Gratin

1 medium fennel bulb, cut crosswise into 1/8-inch slices (about 2 cups)
2 cups thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes (about 2 large potatoes)
Salt and pepper
2 cups half-and-half
2 T. butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly coat a shallow 2-quart baking dish with butter.
2. Cover the bottom of the baking dish with a layer of fennel slices. Cover with half of the potato slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Repeat layers until you’ve used up all your slices.
3. Bring the half-and-half to a gentle boil in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Pour it over the fennel and potato. (The half-and-half can be replaced with whole milk for a less rich dish.)
4. Using a large spatula, press down on the top layer to submerge it. Dot with butter. Bake until potatoes are tender and the top is golden, about 1 hour.

(from Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables)

SCHIP Vetoed

Well, he did it, he vetoed the children's health bill.

He'd said previously that he would veto it, because it would be a step “down the path to government-run health care for every American.”

And, really, what's wrong with that?

I tend not to air my political laundry here, but this is something that really rankles me. This country SHOULD have single-payer universal health coverage. And maybe this children's insurance business would have been a small move in that direction. MomsRising (with help from MoveOn) is organizing rallies tomorrow evening, to try and get the 20 House votes needed to overturn the veto. I'm going to try and go.

Delurk!

"It's delightful, it's delicious, it's delectable, it's delirious, it's dilemma, it's de limit, it's deluxe, it's de-lovely..."

And it's delurking day!

So say hello to everyone you visit.

Delurk, And The Perils of Tonic

Tomorrow, the 3rd of October, is delurking day - as decreed by Schmutzie, Sweetney and Jenandtonic. So delurk tomorrow! Here and elsewhere. And, as a refresher, delurk means getting up the gall to post a comment to a blog where you've been reading posts without commenting (a/k/a lurking). You don't need an account. Go ahead. Try it.

Jenandtonic's blog name reminds me of a little piece I read in the Sunday Times Book Review, about the remaining one of the Two Fat Ladies and her penchant for gins and tonic:

About Wright’s heft, The Daily Mail’s interviewer comments: “It wasn’t the alcohol that damaged her health. It was the quinine in the tonic water she added to her gin — two pints of gin a day for 12 years, which I calculate as roughly 9,000 pints of gin and over 50,000 pints of tonic water. The quinine destroyed her adrenal gland, and now she can’t lose weight, even if she lived on lettuce — which I doubt she ever would.”

Imagine. It's not the gin that's hurtful, it's the tonic. Who'd have thunk it?

Engraved Rocks

Every year, Working Mother magazine publishes a list of their decreed 100 best companies for women to work at. I actually have a subscription to Working Mother – a freebie from somewhere or another, because lord knows it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on, and paying for it would be adding insult to injury. The issue with that list arrived recently, and I skimmed through it in horrified fascination – I’m a working mother, and I can’t imagine working for any of those soulless corporations with such nebulous “benefits” as knitting classes.

Last week, Toddled Dredge pointed me towards Deep Muck Big Rake where Becky posted some incisive analysis around that Working Mother list – and pointing out that many of the recipients are also advertisers in the magazine. Were they advertisers first, or coerced into advertising in order to receive the award? Or guilted into advertising because they received the award?

I work for small non-profit that happens to be a small-time client of one of the big law firms that ended up on that 100 Best list. This morning, I arrived in the office to find a small heavy box that had arrived in the mail. Inside was a card from said law firm, patting themselves on the back for "Breaking Barriers One Rock at a Time”, along with an engraved ROCK. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Am I - a woman, a client - supposed to think better of them because of their appearance on that list? Am I supposed to want to hire them more often? Am I supposed to want to go and work for them? Actually, wasting $6.20 on Priority Mail postage to send an engraved rock (value unknown) and printed card makes me more than a little irritated. I’d rather pay less in legal fees than support such nonsense.

And now, what do I do with the rock?

Edited to add a photo of the rock - the other side has the name and logo of the law firm:

Magpie Needs...

Magpie needs you.
Magpie needs the sparkle sparkle.
Magpie needs your help.
Magpie needs the function array change key case.
Magpie needs trees for nesting.
Magpie needs two parsers.
Magpie needs to be upgraded.
Magpie needs to be rescued.
Magpie needs to do something about its waiting times.
Magpie needs two blue.
Magpie needs no description.
Magpie needs defending.
Magpie needs to rescue the moon.
Magpie needs braces.
Magpie needs help.

A Google game, stolen from Niobe. It's found poetry.

CSA Week 17 - SQUASH!

Oh no! The squash has arrived!

• Sunshine Kabocha Squash (1)
• Mei Qing Choi (1 head)
• Red Russian Kale (1 bunch)
• Broccoli (1 head)
• Fennel (1 bulb)
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (4)
• Juliet Tomatoes (pint)
• Mariachi Hot Peppers (3)
• Green Beans (quart)
• Lettuce
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Arugula

I will be brave; I will try to find a palatable way to prepare the squash. Otherwise, it would make a very sweet little jack-o-lantern, and Halloween is just around the corner...

We are finally at the point of drowning in vegetables. We are overrun with broccoli, awash in tomatoes, swimming in peppers, inundated with salad greens. It may be time to start putting some things (other than tomatoes) into the freezer. Like soup, glorious soup. The thing about soup is that it is generally thoroughly forgiving. And, if frozen in two-cup containers, it makes a perfect lunch for a workday - toss the frozen container in your bag, stick it in the waver at lunchtime, and ta da! Nearly instant, very virtuous lunch. Need soup inspiration? Try Mad Hatter - she wrote a delicious post with a divinely witty title: A soupçon of soup's on.

Sick Chicken Update

My sick chicken is all better - she's even finished with her antibiotics, and required no junket.

But, I now know why sick chickens need junket: Because Mr. Hippity says so.

There was an eccentric pair of 1960s singer/songwriter/story tellers - Jim Copp and Ed Brown - who put out a series of self-produced records in which they included sound effects, hand-drawn art work, a pop-out cardboard theater, and a general goofiness. And we had at least one of the records in the house when I was a kid - though my younger sister remembers it better than me, and she still has that original LP.

Anyway, armed with a few search terms tossed out by my mother (Copp, Brown, Gumdrop Follies), I dove into Google and found that the records are still around - on LP, cassette tape and/or CD - direct from the original publisher. And, I found a gloriously peculiar site for collectors and fans of weird music, the forum archives of which pointed me towards the correct song: Mr. Hippity's Pull Toy - in which Mr. Hippity believes that his chicken pull toy is dying and requires Junket for a cure. And so, I ordered a CD copy of A Fidgety Frolic, and await its arrival to share with my formerly sick chicken.

Musical Esoterica

Here's the kind of place I work at:

Someone in the office is listening to music - a cacophonous non-linear hodgepodge - dubbing a CD to minidisk to use in the studio. I finally asked "what IS that?" "Xenakis" was the reply, "sounds like bad Meredith Monk".

And here's what happened in the car the other day:

Miss M. has become quite fond of the Pink Martini song "Hey Eugene". When I started the disk from the beginning, that is, not jumping directly to "Hey Eugene" as we often do, she asked "Is that Newgene's Mommy?"

Maybe you had to be there. Both times.

Monday Mission: "Dear John"

Dear Skechers,

When we got together a couple of months ago, I thought you were great. We fit together well, you complemented me, and you were game to go everywhere I go. But then, you started to flag in your support for me. I think there’s something wrong with you, the way that you just kept slipping away from me. And then, I caught you on the subway, with an elderly woman. It was then that I knew things were over, and you weren’t the shoe for me.

-Magpie



[This post is a Monday Mission - today's was to write a post in the form of a rejection letter. There's more at Painted Maypole.]

Kitsch

Mad Hatter requested kitsch a while ago. How's this, Mad? It's the cabinet in our downstairs bathroom. One of those sets of "teeth" is mine, and the other is W.'s - because yes, we both needed crowns a couple of years ago. And what else are you going to do with the Farmer's Almanac but put it in the bathroom? I think it's some kind of law.

I had a lot of orthodonture as a child. The orthodontist, a sadistic man named Morris, had a whole wall of tightly-spaced narrow glass shelves full of plaster casts of other children's teeth. I can still remember what it felt like to bite down into the u-shaped trough of goo, which hit so far back in the mouth that it was impossible not to gag. And then the rubber bands and wax and pain and retainers...not fun, not fun at all. W. never had to go to the orthodontist. I hope that Miss M. has inherited his teeth and not mine.

She likes to play with the plaster teeth in the bathroom cabinet. Not a squeamish child, no not at all.

Thorny Thursday Thirteen

I have never:

1. Had a pedicure
2. Traveled to the Frisian Islands
3. Owned diamonds
4. Eaten roadkill
5. Driven cross country
6. Drank absinthe
7. Been self-employed
8. Flown a plane
9. Gotten a speeding ticket
10. Played golf
11. Had dinner at Per Se
12. Smoked a cigarette
13. Sailed to Europe on a Polish freighter

The prime numbered items I think I’d like to do. The others? I don’t think so.

CSA Week 16 - Tomato Tart

No squash (winter or summer) - so we are staving off the despair of winter squash for at least another week!

• Italia Peppers (4)
• Potatoes (1 quart)
• Juliet Tomatoes (1 pint)
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (1 quart)
• Broccoli Rabe
• Tatsoi
• Garlic (2 heads)
• Sweet Corn (3 ears)
• Salad Mix
• Basil
• Arugula

Last night's dinner was a splendid tomato tart, though the recipe called it a "pie". But it was open-faced and baked in a tart shell, so I think it's a tomato tart. Besides, I'm the queen of tarts, not the queen of pies. It's got better prosody.

Tomato Pie*
(Adapted from From Asparagus to Zucchini: Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition)
Pie crust
6 plum tomatoes, cut 1/4 inch thick
Salt (optional)
2 cups shredded cheese**
Olive oil
1/3 cup minced fresh basil
1/2 t. ground pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Fit pie crust to a 9-10" tart pan. Do not prick crust. Partially bake 9-11 minutes or until golden. (If crust puffs up, gently press back with back of wooden spoon.) Remove and cool crust. Reduce oven heat to 375 degrees. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt, if desired, and place in single layer on paper towels; let drain 30 minutes***. Pat dry. Sprinkle cheese evenly in cooled pastry shell. Arrange tomatoes over cheese in an overlapping circular pattern, covering surface. Drizzle tomatoes with olive oil. Sprinkle with basil and pepper. Bake 30-35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing. Serve hot or at room temperature.

* The recipe called it a "southern" tomato pie. I don't know what's southern about it, but I'm from the Northeast.

** The recipe called for mozzarella or swiss; I used cheddar because it's what I had. I think almost any cheese would work, except maybe Velveeta or Brie.

*** I did this draining thing, but I think it was unnecessary. Maybe it would be a good idea if you were using beefsteak tomatoes instead of plum...

The Coffee Truck and the Pink Medicine

Exiting the doctor's office yesterday:

Miss M.: Look, the coffee truck!
Me: Actually it's UPS.
Miss M.: The one that brought my sleeping bag?
Me, to woman laughing nearby: Yes, four months ago.
Miss M.: What's it doing?
Me: Bringing stuff to the doctors.
Miss M.: Sleeping bags?

Little does she know that every month the UPS truck brings us four pounds of Peet's coffee. It is indeed the coffee truck, more so than the sleeping bag truck.

She's a little better today - but didn't want to take her (pink) amoxicillin, demanding instead the (red) acetaminophen: I want red medicine, the pink medicine doesn't match my plate!

I've unsuccessfully tried logic: But the pink medicine matches your pajamas.

And I've tried bribery: You can't go to Grandma's unless you take your pink medicine.

Finally, I pretended she was a cat, stuck the medicine syringe in her cheek and clamped her jaw shut.

Sick Chickens

I have a little sick chicken today. We went to a friend's house for a "playday" yesterday, and after little more than an hour Miss M. decided abruptly that we had to go home. She hunkered down on the couch with Noggin and was quickly asleep. Shortly thereafter I realized she was hot. Despite repeated doses of acetaminophen, the fever didn't break until about 8 this morning. Around the same time, I discovered that she had an all over rash. So, off we went to the pediatrician. They took one look at her and said "strep". Quick culture confirmed it. Poor thing is asleep on the couch again.

I feel terrible that we were at someone's house just before she showed any symptoms, because she was likely contagious.

But here's the question: why is it that I think sick chickens need junket? Was there some old advertising slogan along the lines of "junket is for sick chickens"? Or did I once invent that in a feverish moment? Or did my mother make it up?

I thought of making her some junket - but I think I may make rice pudding instead.



Edited to add: Junket is a brand name for a rennet tablet. It's used to make a dessert by coagulating sweetened milk. Rennet is also used for cheese making.

Lying Awake

The Owl and The Pussycat

I've always loved Edward Lear. So I was delighted when W.'s aunt turned up on Labor Day weekend with a couple of old books for Miss M., one of which was a copy of Lear's "Nonsense Songs", illustrated by one L. Leslie Brooke. The other book was written and illustrated by the same Brooke and is called "Johnny Crow's Party", and happens to be the companion to a book my mother had as a child called "Johnny Crow's Garden". I got curious about Brooke and went slip-sliding around the internet looking for information, background, what have you. Alas, I didn't find much biographical stuff, but I did discover that some of his books have been digitized.

Wow. These digitized books are an amazing thing. They're all supposedly out of copyright, so once it's out there on the web, it's available to me and to you and to anyone else. I found that the New York Public Library's copy of the Lear was up there, so I downloaded the large pdf - it turned out to be the same book as mine. But their copy has had the spine taped back together (with what looks like Scotch tape) and mine has a color illustration up front that differs from theirs. So that the internet is complete (hah!), here's the illustration variant - a very whimsical color plate of the owl looking lecherous and the pussycat simpering alongside. The piggy-wig (with a ring at the end of his nose) and the turkey (who lives on the hill) are in the background.

In The Basket

Three years ago:



Three days ago:

What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

What better way to waste time on a Friday afternoon than to muse about a new career? According to Career Cruising, which I found through Rome-Colored Glasses, here are my top ten suggested jobs (out of a list of 40):

1. Personal Financial Planner
2. Certified Public Accountant
3. Corporate / Commercial Lawyer
4. Research Analyst (Financial)
5. Lobbyist
6. Economist
7. Economic Development Officer
8. Customs Broker
9. Special Effects Technician
10. Judge

I am rather appalled at how boring that all sounds, while at the same time, kind of bemused - I'm neither #1 nor #2, but not all that far off. And I'd be a great judge, but I'd have to be a lawyer first. But, what is #9 doing in there? Does that speak to my penchant for tossing water balloons off the deck?

Most interesting is that nowhere on the list of 40 is a job title that comes close to what I actually do. Maybe that's because "Director of Everything Else" is just too idiosyncratic?

CSA Week 15

You may well be weary of my vegetable lists. But, I'm not really doing it for you - I'm doing it for me. This list-making is my way of keeping track of what we've gotten from the CSA. At the end of the season, I plan to do a little economic analysis. My sense is that this has been a good deal financially - that overall this way of getting our produce is cheaper than it would have been to buy all this stuff at the supermarket, farmstands, and greenmarket like we've done in past summers. There is no question that the quality has been amazing. Add to that the fact that the vegetables are local, and that the breadth of variety has been inspirational, and you get a fabulous experience - one that we'll happily repeat - though maybe without the weekly blog entries!

In addition, posting these lists is my little subtle proselytizing for the CSA movement. CSA stands for community sponsored (or supported) agriculture. In a nutshell, a bunch of people buy shares in a farm. In return for money provided up front, the farm distributes all of its produce to the members. In the case of the farm we belong to, they distribute at 18 pick up sites between Albany and New York City. We pick up at someone's house in the next town. The site is open from 3 to 7 one day a week, and is staffed by one of the members (my turn comes in November). The produce is set out in plastic boxes with hinged lids and there's a list of what's included for the week - how many ears of corn, how much lettuce, etc. You bring your own bags and pack it yourself. Other farms operate slightly differently - I know of some that pack each family's share into a box. Lots let you pick up at the farm.

If you're interested in finding a CSA near you, try Local Harvest or Biodynamics. We had to sign up and pay in the winter, for a share that began in June.

And now, without further ado, here's what we picked up yesterday:

• Sweet Corn (4)
• Yukina Savoy (a Chinese cabbage, loose greens)
• Mei-Ching-Choi (1 head, like bok choi)
• Broccoli (1 huge head)
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (3)
• Juliet Tomatoes (1 pint)
• Plum Tomatoes (1 quart)
• Ping Pong Tomatoes (1 quart)
• String Beans
• Garlic (2 heads)
• Red skinned potatoes (1 quart)
• Sweet Red Italia Peppers (3)
• Salad Mix
• Cilantro (but I didn't take any)
• Arugula
• Basil

I am secretly thrilled that the expected winter squash did not materialize. I'm sure we'll be seeing more winter squash than I would like to see in a lifetime. Maybe I'll be converted. I'm not holding my breath.

What I'm Reading

I just updated my Library Thing list and groaned when I realized that the two books I was adding to "currently reading" were perhaps diametrically opposed: Claudia Roden's Coffee: A Connoisseur's Companion and Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's Sleepless in America: Is Your Child Misbehaving...or Missing Sleep?

At least the child isn't drinking coffee.

More little NY moments that made me smile

• Small boy, about 4, riding atop his smaller sister’s stroller – with his toenails painted, white on one foot, red on the other.
• Lovely tall blonde woman on the subway with the most animated baby girl riding high, facing outward, in her Bjorn – a two-toned lime and army green Bjorn.
• Biker dude on commuter train, wearing Harley vest and Harley fingerless gloves, carrying a totebag – printed all over with an image of Monet’s waterlilies.
• Two young Japanese women, sharing a tray of sushi out of a plastic bag, with chopsticks, and washing it down with chocolate soy milk – at 9:00 in the morning, on the subway.

Why yes, I do have blue eyes!

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front.

What Color Crayon Are You?

The Chatt'ring Magpie

My father-in-law has a fondness for antiquarian books, especially ones aimed at children. The other day, he emailed me about a book with a magpie in the title:

In 1817, John Marshall, a London publisher, put out "The Hopping, Prating, Chatt'ring Magpie – A game of Questions and Commands for Children." It is described in a recent bookseller's catalogue as being a "round robin memory counting game that ends with inflicting punishment on the loser."

It lacks, most likely, the whip that was polybagged with the original edition.

The only thing is, there weren’t any plastic bags in 1817. Maybe the whip was sold separately? Seriously though, what’s with a game that inflicts punishment on the loser? Isn’t losing enough?

I Know It

Once upon a time, my brother asked my mother when it was that she knew that I was a crusty child.

I had a pet mouse when I was about five. A black mouse. Named Schwartz*. One morning my mother discovered that he had expired during the night. She went downstairs to drink some coffee and smoke a cigarette while she contemplated how to tell her small child about the dead mouse. When I came downstairs, and sat down to eat my cereal, she told me: “Your mouse is dead”. I looked up and said "I know it". She knew then.

Somehow, this little tale seemed an appropriate introduction to two more bloggity awards. Mayberry Mom says I'm a schmoozer. And Oh, The Joys says I'm nice. I am verklempt all over again. I used to be crusty, and now I'm a nice schmoozer? Then again, my husband would probably say still I'm crusty, and I know that my mother would. Can't be all things to all people, I guess.

But I know how to pass my prizes along!

I hereby dub Julie Pippert of Using My Words a good schmoozer (and community builder, through her Hump Day Hmms). She is a great writer and has the best internet monikers for her kids ever: Patience and Persistence. If that doesn't describe young ones to a T, I don't know what does.

And I hereby dub S. of Rhymes with Javelin as just plain nice, not to mention kind and smart and empathetic. And she knits with fishing line! And grows her own tomatoes! And she owns a bookstore! She's pretty cool.

Thank you Mayberry Mom and Oh, The Joys for bestowing these honors upon me so that I could pass them along.



*That’s how I’ve always spelled it – but it’s kind of a corruption. The Yiddish is “shvartz”, German is “Schwarz”. In any case, it was a black mouse, and we probably shouldn't have called it that. What did I know? I was only five.

Stunted Growth

It's a good thing we joined the CSA, because I'm apparently not much of a farmer. As evidence, I give you this photo: the sum total of our carrot crop this year.I'm not sure what possessed me to grow them in the first place. I don't much like carrots, and Miss M. doesn't eat them. But she came home from school one day last spring with a plastic cup full of dirt and one sprouted carrot. I dutifully put it in the ground in the herb garden, and the next thing I knew, a packet of carrot seeds jumped into my hands at the garden center one day. I think we'll not try it again.

I Went Out and Shot a Couch

Those Parent Blogger people have another blog blast going, about style or the lack thereof. The Little Black Book of Style might have something to say about the fact that 98% of the time I wear jeans and a black shirt. But once upon a time, I used to wear this here jacket with jeans and a black shirt. Stylish, no?

Periodically, like most people, I go through my closet and toss, sell or donate the things I am never going to wear again. But every time I lay my hands on this jacket, I pat it, straighten it on the hanger, and put it back in the closet. I just can't get rid of it. I don't wear it. I'm not going to wear it. I haven't worn it in, oh, 15 years?

I used to wear it. I'd wear it with jeans and a black turtleneck, and I got lots of compliments. The jacket is, after all, eye-catching. And every time someone said something, I got to reply merrily "Thank you. I went out and shot a couch."

The jacket has been in my possession for at least 20 years, and if memory serves me correctly, my sister had the SAME jacket. Imagine. There were two of them. I wonder what happened to hers.

I've just had an epiphany, though. I think I'll cut up the jacket and turn it into a throw pillow. Wouldn't that be a nice karmic reincarnation? Couch to jacket to throw pillow? Too bad it doesn't go with my living room.

CSA Week 14 and a neighborly pie

Yesterday, the problem of having a two-earner household up and bit us. The CSA pickup site is open from 3-7, but we can't get there until 5-5:30 as we both have full-time jobs and someone has to pick up the girlie. And so yesterday, when W. got there around 5, the heirloom tomatoes were all gone. Great sadness.

• Sweet Corn (6)
• Potatoes (3 big white ones)
• Broccoli Rabe
• Broccoli
• Heirloom Tomatoes
  
• Juliet Tomatoes (1 quart)
• Red Onion (1)
• Garlic (1 head)
• Sweet Red Italia Peppers (4)
• Salad Mix
• Cilantro
• Arugula
• Parsley

Several weeks ago, Julie's Hump Day Hmmm was about neighbors. The whole time that I was growing up, there was a Labor Day party across the street (or on my mother's porch if it rained). It was mostly a block party, but with lots of honorary members - people who lived across town or on the next block. The hosts provided tables and ice and wine and lemonade and paper plates and plastic cups and forks. And the food was potluck: everyone brought something, nearly universally homemade. And some of those homemade things were perennial: the plum torte from down the hill, the tabouli that my mother made every year, and the potato pie from a woman in the next block. That potato pie is divine, and it was always the first thing to be gone when the vultures descended upon the tables of food.

So, though Labor Day has come and gone, here is that recipe for the divine Potato Pie.

Potato Pie

3 pounds of potatoes (~8)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 T. chopped parsley
2 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground pepper
3 T. butter
1 egg yolk mixed with 2 T. water
1 cup heavy cream at room temperature
Butter pie dough for a double crust pie

Peel potatoes, and slice thinly. Toss with onion, salt, pepper, parsley - and set aside. Fit pastry to a 11.75 x 7.5 x 1.75" pan (or 10" round pie plate). Drain liquid from potatoes. Fill pastry, dot potatoes with butter. Add top crust. Cut 4-5 good sized slits, and brush top with egg yolk. Bake at 375° until potatoes are tender - 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Take out of oven and pour cream bit by bit in the slits, letting it absorb (this takes patience!). Eat at room temperature. Or, bring to your next block party and watch it disappear!

Pint Sized Grammar

About a boy in her daycare class:

I love Owen, he's such a favorite boy for me.

How she asks for things:

May you please get me some milk?

Instead of using "tomorrow":

The next day, can I visit the children?

Sometimes it sounds like she's speaking English as a second language.

Book Karma, September edition

It's the September edition of the Pay It Forward Book Exchange! This month, I'm giving away a copy of Ayun Halliday's Dirty Sugar Cookies. If you want it, leave me a comment on this post by Monday September 10. I'll pick a random winner and mail you the book. Please make sure your email address is available, either in the comment or on your own blog. The only requirement is that you pass the book along when you're done - either through a Pay It Forward post of your own, or just giving it to someone who wants to read it.




Edited to add: Her Grace won!

Preparing for Winter

Now that it's September and there's a coolness to the air, W. has been in full on preparation for winter. By the end of the day, he'll have been through a bushel of tomatoes (half beefsteak, half plum), and made slow roasted tomatoes, tomato puree, and a vat of pomorola sauce. It's all going in the freezer, and will be gone by the time summer is here again. This red onion was so strange and beautiful inside that I almost wanted to use it as a rubber stamp.

The roasted tomatoes get a sprinkle of dried herbs, salt, and pepper and a tiny drizzle of olive oil, and go in the oven for a couple of hours at about 225°. They dry out a little and collapse a bit. We'll then freeze them on the sheet pans, and transfer them to bags when they're fully hard.

The sauce is just tomato, red onion, garlic, basil, carrot, celery and a glug of olive oil. Nothing is sauteed; it's just all cooked down at once, and then run through the food mill. It's fine over pasta as is, or can be the base for something more complicated. I don't know how big that stock pot is, but yes, that is a lot of sauce. It wasn't cooked in that pot...it was done in three smaller batches and then combined to cool before being divided up into freezer containers.

The ABCs of Suburban Real Estate

Asphalt bespoils countryside.
Deer eat forsythia.
Grass, hedges, insects join knotweed.
Lo, McMansion needs one patio.
Quality Realtor says to utilize visual wiles.
Xeriscape yard.
Zoysia!

It's really terrible, especially in light of the wonderous ones produced by Slouching Mom and Niobe.

But it amused me no end.

I am easily amused?

Making Books

My sister-in-law sent along this link to a new blog at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It's just begun, but it's got some great ideas for making books with kids. So, it's my public service announcement for the day, and for the beginning of the new school year. Enjoy!