Food: It's What's For Dinner

It's the friday before Memorial Day, almost the start of a nice long weekend. Sander is out building me the new garden beds so that we can do some planting this weekend, I've been inside working, and the adorable one has been at 'school' - the toddler program at the local Congregational Church, which she attends 2 mornings a week.


This weekend is a bit of a milestone - last year on this Friday, Sander came home from his job for the last time.


But this year is nothing like last year.  Usually we spend Memorial Day weekend up at Moosehead Lake, but this year we're home, aside from a brief overnight trip to my inlaws Sunday to Monday.   And we're excited, because it is a garden weekend.  3 of the new raised beds are in and just about ready to plant in, the muscat grapevines and the apricot trees have arrived...and in a few more weeks, chickens!!


But before I can get to all that, I need to figure out what the heck to make for dinner.   Friday dinner is important, because Friday is date night here.  We don't get out much (although next week we have a babysitter so that we can go to 'beerfest' - should be fun even though I'm a wine drinker).  On Fridays we put the adorable one to bed, crack a bottle of wine, and relax together.  I don't dial in to work, we don't try to accomplish anything, and we don't worry about anything more than whose turn it is to sleep in on Saturday.   It's rather nice, actually.


We've tried to have a standing meal, like pizza, every Friday.  The problem with that is that the adorable one is coming into her prime pizza-eating years, and so we'd rather share that meal with her.  And other meals got sort of boring over and over.


So on Friday afternoons it is my job to come up with something.  Some weeks I am right on top of it.  Today, not so much.   


This week we took in our final CSA winter share delivery, so there are a lot of green things to be used up - spinach, kale, lettuce, leeks, scallions...that sort of thing.
We haven't been so good lately at staying on top of food before it goes bad, so I'm trying very hard this month to ensure that nothing rots.


There's plenty of food in the house, but of course, that hasn't prevented me from opening cabinets and the refrigerator and freezer and staring into them blankly.  I could go to the grocery store, but that would be a waste of time and money - I have plenty already.  I just need to figure out what the hell to do with it.


But in a tiny flash of inspiration, I remembered one of my favorite blogs: Scordo.com.   And sure enough, there it was.  Sausage (lean chicken sausage) with onions and a bunch of green things sauteed in garlic, with a bit of salt and some red pepper flakes.  


And something else.   Maybe a touch of pasta.  Maybe popovers.  Maybe.....

The Perfect Day

Today is my 3rd Mother's Day, and by far the best one yet.  Not  because of any particular gift, although my husband and daughter did give me a gift of 2 hanging plants, and my daughter potted me a petunia  at Sunday School.   Mostly because our life, while absolutely, insanely busy most weeks, seems to have hit a groove on weekends.  We seem to have finally figured out how to balance work (around the house and sometimes for me extra hours on the weekend at my paying job), errands, fun and rest.


Not always, mind you, but we're definitely getting better at it.  Mostly.


Take this weekend.  We're just back from a 4-day trip to Disney(insanity with a toddler, as well as a rediculous indulgence, but fun), and of course, everyone was unpacked but me - for the record it is after 9 pm on Sunday and there is still stuff in my suitcase. But on Friday I went to the grocery store on the way home, so that was done.  And Saturday, in and around lunch with friends, we managed to get all the housework done (okay, all the housework that we planned to do, anyway. There's always more.)  Which meant today got to be for pleasure.  In and around church, a visit to my Moms, and planting lilacs and begonias in the yard, I took a nap.  A real nap, for almost 2 hours.  


In Mommyworld, naps are the holy grail.  I slept so long this afternoon I dreamed.  And that after I got to read for an hour, uninterrupted. For pleasure, not for research.  A novel, even.  If you don't know what a treat that is, you either don't have kids or never pick up a book.  


Alert the media.  


And I finally found the time to transplant my seedlings -some, anyway - and still make a stir fry for dinner.  After which Sander did the dishes.


It might not be a perfect day by most people's standards.  There were no expensive flower bouquets, nor was there any restaurant meals or spa visits.  We all got pretty dirty in the garden - the adorable one loves to dig in the dirt as much as her parents. Our breakfast was at our church, where a small group of people spent their hard-earned time and money to make brunch to celebrate mother's day.  The waffles won't win any awards, but the food was good, and the community better.  And so went the day - family, friends, flowers, and rest.


Happy Mother's Day. 

The Wilder Life

My mother in law recently sent me a book.  Not just any book either  - perhaps the perfect book.


See, I am one of an absolutely astronomical number of women approximately my age who have spent - and still do spend - time in what Wendy McClure affectionately titles 'Laura World'.  


A good chunk of those of us in the approximately 35-45 age group grew up having read the Little House books, probably before 3rd grade.  And then there was Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon on television every week, living somewhere in Walnut Grove (never mentioned by name in the books, but the Ingalls family did in fact live there).  


But then we all grew up, and Laura Ingalls Wilder faded into the haze of girlhood, along with 3 months off every summer, a part of another time.


Until my older sister bought all the books, and the Little House Cookbook.  And during sporadic visits to her home, I reread them.  And then got the series for myself, ostensibly for the day I had a  daughter to read them to. And bought the same cookbook.  And made fried apples n' onions (which are brilliant, by the way, and will be on the table for every Christmas dinner until I can no longer cook).


But still, I never truly realized how many others around me lived in Laura World too.  And how mild my fascination seemed in comparison to Ms. McClure's, despite the fact that I've received more than one raised eyebrow for having given my daughter the middle name of Rose, after Laura's daughter.  Yeah, so my kid is named after the daughter of a now deceased author, who was a successful author herself.  


The books are fictionalized - based around historic experiences, to be sure, but fiction nonetheless.   They skip over unpleasant facts like the time that Pa and the family skipped town in the middle of the night because he was too broke to pay a debt, that one of the reasons the family left the 'Big Woods' of Wisconsin was that a hunter's bullet narrowly missed Laura when she was outside the house, that Nellie Oleson is a composite of several girls that Laura encountered during her life - including one that was briefly competition for Almanzo's attention, and an entire segment of Laura's life in Burr Oak, Iowa, that was probably a little too unpleasant for her to want to write about.  Or want to remember.   


But unlike for others who have a foot in Laura World, the realities don't bother me.  I tend to think I would have loved to meet she and Almanzo in old age, and wander around the farm in Mansfield, Missouri that they built up - even though they never really made a go of farming, eventually retiring in comfort due to other income, including that of the books.   I doubt I would have agreed with them politically.  The racism in the books is pretty icky too - especially that of Ma to indians.  Given that reportedly a local american indian saved Caroline Quiner Ingalls' family from starving one winter when she was a little girl, that racism is especially repugnant.


None of us would want to live through what Laura did, mostly in houses the size of a refrigerator box.  When the adorable one is older, we'll work our way through the cookbook, even grinding Long Winter bread.  We'll talk about what it all means.


And it does mean something.  The period in US history called "Westward Expansion" fascinates me.  It's the, well..manifestation of Manifest Destiny (what probably morphed into today's view of American Exceptionalism).  Read through the eyes of a historian, it's easy to apply that worldview to the Ingalls family.  


Still, there's magic in Laura World, all the more so because the places are real.  You can actually still visit the now-caved in dugout on Plum Creek.  You can see the Wilder farm in Malone, NY, the setting of Farmer Boy, and one of the few original structures mentioned in the books that still stand.  Laura World is part of our own history.  It is a place where love, a fiddle, and sheer force of will win out over - well, everything.  It's a catalogue of skills most of us no longer share, and a catalogue of a life most of us would be scared to have to lead.


Laura Ingalls Wilder passed away in 1957, just after her 90th birthday.  Almanzo died at 93, 7 years earlier.   None of Laura's sisters bore any children, and Rose Wilder Lane had no descendants, and so that line has passed on.   Few who knew Laura and Rose in any meaningful way are still amongst us, and there are as many questions as there are answers about the stories - the real ones, and the other ones too.


I'm not sure why Laura World is so compelling, but it is, and I was glad to find a kindred soul in Ms. McClure.   For those of us who visit Laura World, it is a must-read, even if the illusion-bubble gets burst along the way.  In a couple years, with my daughter, we'll start the Laura pilgrimage too, starting in Malone.  Because we have to, even if I can't quite explain why.


Thanks for the book Jean.  And for everything.

Virtually Tongue Tied

I haven't blogged a lot lately.  Which is directly related to a decision I made a few months ago to share my blog more broadly, adding it to my LinkedIn bio.  Which is kind of interesting.

The tool I chose to expose my blog in turn exposes me - and some fairly personal thoughts - to my professional network.  And all of a sudden, I questioned every post (and I started and stopped a lot of them).  Should I share that opinion?  Is that the right way to say it (whatever it is)?  What would xyz contact think of what I said?  Should I continue to be as honest and frank as I have been?

It's not that I think I've done or said anything wrong - quite the opposite, I'm proud of what I write.  But I had to question - do my opinions potentially clash with those of my employer, or my client?  And how well should my professional network know me?

The upside and downside of social networking is that it exposes us.  Sometimes uncomfortably so.  And so I found myself deleting draft after draft of posts.  For a while, I even contemplated just skipping the whole blog thing.  After all, if it was going to cause this much concern for me, what was the point, right? 

But then I decided that one of the things that I like about myself is that I say what I think.  No one ever really has to wonder how I feel or what I think about a particular topic.  I can be very diplomatic when I need to be, but I prefer being frank and honest.  There's good ways and bad ways to be right out there with opinions and thoughts, and sometimes I do it well, and sometimes not so much. 

But rather than question myself for every sentence I write, and put virtual handcuffs on myself, I think I've decided to continue to post about the things that interest me, make me think, offend me, make me worry, make me happy, make me money, lose me money.....in other words, worry more about the risk of not saying anything than the risk of putting it out there.

You still won't get me on twitter though.



March: The Ugly Month

These days, when someone asks me how I am, I say "Tired".  It's true - like just about every woman my age I have a job, a house, a commute, a family and a bazillion demands on my time.

But it's also March, which, translated from the original NewEnglandese, means "ugly month".  Which means it's grey, cold, no flowers, no snow, and lots of sand and debris on the streets, because the street cleanings don't start until next month.

March and November are the most unattractive months in New England, but at least in November everyone is looking forward to Thanksgiving, and the pumpkins haven't rotted on the doorsteps yet. 



Add to that the lost hour of sleep due to the clocks changing, and there's a big pile of 'ugh' going on.  Okay, so there's a few snow drops up, but even those aren't serving to change the drabness this year.

So I'm cranky in March.  The only thing that keeps me happy (besides chasing the adorable one around) is potting up some garden seeds, and I um, haven't done that yet.  I really think we all should get a pass to just go back to bed and wake up in time for Easter.  I may run for office on this platform. 

So I went out and bought some cute, brightly colored picture frames for the pictures of the adorable one that litter my desk at work, and paint chips for the guest room. 

And now I'm going back to bed (er...work).  Wake me when it's spring.  No, I mean when it's actually spring, not what the calendar says.

What We Owe Each Other

One of my favorite sets of stories to read and re-read are the Little House books.  Not because I idealize the time - not even a little.  I like modern medical advances and central heating, thank you very much.  But because the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, in the words of herself, helped along by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, and the stories by Roger Lea MacBride of Rose's life (these stories pick up where The First Four Years leave off) articulate for me in some fundamental way, the simultaneous need to be independent in the true sense- to minimize one's dependance on others for food, financial well being, etc - and our equally compelling need to be interdependent on one another as people.

Recent events - the outcry over deficit reduction to the elimination of all else in our all-too-easily-swayed-by-big-money-donors congress, the Japanese tsunami, and the unrest in the middle east have reinforced my desire to be as financially and food-independent as possible, as quickly as possible.  Food prices are rising, as are oil prices, and the two are inextricably linked anyway.  More and more people are being impacted by climate changes, and with that, the markets will continue to swing - and the financial fortunes of most of us with it.  I believe this current instability, and the wild swings of change will continue.  

With insecurity comes the all-too-natural instinct to protect ones own.  Money, time, family, food supply.  But when we don't look out for one another on a broader, societal level, we create the situation we fear.  If enough people are hungry, and their children are hungry, revolution comes - fueled by the lack of supply created by those who speculate and stockpile.  And the stockpilers of food become the targets: few of us would allow our children to starve and not take action either.  Right or wrong, food, housing and the essentials of life will send people to the streets...and against those who have what they lack. 

The same goes for deficit reduction at the expense of social well being - when we remove the social safety nets for our fellow humans, they will not stand forever and watch they and their families fall through the cracks.  At some point, what  we've seen in Wisconsin around labor rights and in the middle east for revolution, is driven by the ability to feed and house families.  When there is threat to that, the seeds of civil unrest are sown. 

In the story of The Long Winter, the town of De Smet is starving.  7 months of blizzards stop the trains, and with it, the food supply.  Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland go on a hunt for wheat -using rumors and hope as their guide.  The miracle is not just that they return with the wheat and keep the town from starvation.  It is that, as the story tells us, they, and a hungry Charles Ingalls manage to keep a mob from overrunning the storekeeper who tries to double his money off of their hungry backs.  But later, in the spring, even that fails, and the townspeople break into the first train that goes by for the food supplies.   And that same Charles Ingalls defends the action of those who stole the food "Let them stand some damages" - of the Chicago and North Western Railway.  When the townspeople banded together against a common oppressor, they managed to sustain their families. 

I first read these stories as a girl. But reading The Long Winter again as an adult gives me a new perspective on things. How long would most of us be willing to watch our children get hungrier and hungrier, with only hay for fuel, sitting in a room cold enough to freeze a bottle of ink?  For 7 months, as the Ingalls family did? For 7 weeks? 7 days?

We in the United States are hopefully far from the state of things in Tunisia, Libya and other parts of the world.  And it is true that we need to encourage less debt and more independence.   But continuing to slash social programs that provide housing, food, mental health services and help for the most needy of us, while continuing to sustain those agencies that brought the economy to it's knees 3 years ago is counterproductive.  Continuing on this path only brings us closer to creating what we fear. 

So while I will continue with my family on the work of minimizing my dependance on others for income and food over time, I also acknowledge that most of us can't - and we shouldn't even try to - do without each other.  It makes no sense to produce everything we need ourselves, and would be an unsustainable amount of work anyway.  And the skills and abilities of all of us vary greatly.  The reality is we cannot live without one another - we need human interaction to thrive.  Someone to hug, to learn from, to play with.  And we need shared efforts and resources to grow. 

Some of us can do more than others.  Some of us have more than others.  But the ever-widening divide between the haves and the have nots may serve to bring together groups that will balance the power divide, as has happened so many times before.   I do not yearn for this, I dread it.  Because it never goes smoothly.  And it is eminently preventable. 

I wish I could be less worried.  But until we as a society can figure out what we owe each other, what is fair and equitable, I worry. 

A lot. 

REAL Gender Equality

Just as I committed to blog more, two rather massive and messy projects at work got dropped on me, which meant I was back to working nights and weekends.  That, along with some other commitments I had made proceeded to suck up all my time, and then my daughter decided to get her two year old molars, and we went into a few weeks of nosleeparanza.


Needless to say I sat here and stared at the screen a few times, started more than a few posts, and then went to bed.


The combination of life with a toddler, lack of sleep, a commute, tons of work, life in general and endless snowstorms made my brain shut down for all but the most basic day to day tasks.  It  wasn't quite of the 'drool from the corner of the mouth' variety of shutdown, but close.  


But then yesterday I read a blog post on Slate about women who outearn their husbands, and it caught my interest, and switched my brain to the 'on' position, even if just briefly.  This coincided with some interaction between my absolutely wonderful husband and my absolutely wonderful father-in-law (okay, slight edge to my husband, as I tend to think he's about the greatest guy on the planet, give or take the Dalai Lama and a few others). See, my father-in-law is fabulous, without a doubt one of my favorite people.  But he's a leeetle old fashioned, and the idea that my husband and I are dependent on my income tends to make his palms sweat in fear.


It's not that he's not proud of my husband, quite the opposite.  It's that, like many men, much of his identity is wrapped in the idea of 'provider'.  And for him to be jobless at my husband's age, with a family and a mortgage would have been an absolute crisis.  So I think he's having a bit of trouble wrapping his brain around the idea that not only are we fine, but we're better than fine.  We're even, um, good.  Really good.


Sander would love to be back at work.  He misses it - a lot.  And he's looking hard.  Signs that the tech sector is easing up and starting to hire are around.  That's good. 


But in the meantime, I feel extraordinarily blessed to have a husband who takes being a father   as seriously as he does.  Without a doubt, I have a complete co-parent at my side (if not even a better parent, I often admit), the kind that other women profess to want.   I married a renaissance man, and the trade off of that is that our roles are not traditional ones.   Which is just fine with me.  Really fine.


I should probably admit that I am probably more well-positioned to accept our non-traditional roles than most.  Raised by gay "moms", gender roles were never my strong suit, given that toilet-fixing and other male-type roles were being done by women.  I was a US Marine, and I can tell you right now that the suggestion that I wasn't a full equal to my male counterparts wouldn't go well for the suggester.  I had two female and two male attendants for my wedding, and got just a teensy bit pissy when the pastor suggested they process in male/female pairs with arms linked during our rehearsal - I was only going for it if my husband's all-male attendants left the church with arms linked as well.  Needless to say, I got my way.  It's not that I cared so much about how they processed so much as I was annoyed at the idea that they should be paired because they were mixed genders.  If I'd had 4 female attendants it would have never come up.   


So, I have pretty strong feelings about gender equality.  And that includes who should be the breadwinner.  If women want to be equal, it must cease to matter, and we must acknowledge that our families financial well being is as much ours to ensure as our husbands.   That's not to say that all women should go into the workforce -far from it.   But rejecting the automatic equation of male as breadwinner and woman as nurturer is the only way things should be is one way women win equality. And that means that those husbands who earn less or not at all aren't 'losers' or 'unmotivated' - they are equal partners working towards that family's well being.


And the idea that a man's value is defined by his ability to generate income has to go too.  It isn't that no one should move towards a well-paying career, and I'll be the first to admit that there is real satisfaction to be gained from work.  I happen to really like my job, and when I do something well, I love it.  But the role of men has to be broadened in our minds.  If someone wants to sign up for the traditional arrangement, great.  Just support our slightly different one to the same degree - societally, legislatively, and so on.


Women are often great nurturers, and men are often great breadwinners, but neither of those things are the measure of their genders.  Far from it.  And I for one would take my husband, currently curled up with my daughter watching Sesame Street than any old master of the universe.  


I am one lucky woman.