I want to read this book so badly!

What an amazing way to explore faith issues.

my favorite holiday tips

Embroidered napkin design for our Thanksgiving kid table.

1. Spend holiday time with the people who really make you want to celebrate. Some of my friends have made a conscious decision this year to party down only with the best of the best-drama free, joyful folks that know how to make merry.

2. Limit handmade gifts. I'm not giving any for Christmas this year. It's stressful, often more expensive than buying something, and if you make a mistake, you're really in hot water. I'm forevermore saving handmade gifts for birthdays, when I can focus on one person at a time.

3. If you struggle with making piecrust, consider adding a tablespoon of vodka to your recipe. It makes the dough more moist, and easy to roll out, but unlike water, alcohol won't interact with the gluten in flour and make the crust tough. The alcohol "bakes-out" in the oven and doesn't leave behind any odd flavors.

4. Spouses: take your kids to buy something for your husband/wife. Kids love giving and it makes the season so much more meaningful for them. And, if you know a single parent, consider taking their kids out to shop for mom or dad. Single parenting can be a fairly thankless job, and a little effort in this department can make a big difference.

5. When you're at a feast...feast. All that advice about filling up on celery and just allowing yourself one small treat at parties is not very festive or effective. Human beings feast to celebrate and you should too. Eat sensibly 355 days a year (356 on leap year) and let that be good enough.

6. I love gift giving...the shopping, the wrapping...sigh. I'm always tempted to pick out lots of little gifts for each person I'm buying for, because I like the process so much, and seeing lots of packages under the tree feels so bountiful. But this year I'm trying to take into consideration that people who don't have a lot of discretionary money often treat themselves to small indulgences, but rarely have the cash on hand to buy that one big thing they really want.

7. Consider making a sweet potato pie. It's what pumpkin pie dreams of being when it grows up. Heresy? Perhaps. Delicious? For sure.

8. Turkey sure goes through a lot of fads...smoked turkey, rotisserie, dry rub, slow roasting, quick roasting, stuffing, and deep frying (do not mix with alcoholic beverages). Then you have your free range birds, your butterball birds, your organic birds, birds that bear the Martha Stewart seal of approval and cost the same as your car payment, and my personal favorite: the essentially-free-with-$50-purchase-at-winco bird. The one method I have found to be the most consistent is brining. The night before you plan to roast your turkey, put your thawed bird in a cooler with a bag of ice, two gallons of water, a cup of salt, a half cup of brown sugar, and whatever spices rock your boat. Use a rack when you roast, too. One friend of mine has made the wise transition to cooking just turkey breast, which is what everyone likes anyway. He doesn't have to juggle between getting the dark meat done and not ruining the white meat, and is able to slice the white meat into really nice steak-like portions. If you don't like to carve at the table and you're willing to give up the image of a beautifully roasted whole bird, this is by far the smartest way to go.

9. If you're like me, you sometimes feel bitter that Christmas starts on November 1st now. However, it can't be stopped, and you may find that the best holiday items are sold out by the time you get around to shopping, so start early and keep everything boxed up till you feel ready for the season to begin. Otherwise you may discover that when you head out shopping for that perfect Christmas something on December 15th, the aisles are full of Valentine's Day merchandise.

10. Booze makes gravy really really good. Some people favor whiskey (wild turkey seems appropriate), some like Brandy. Personally I find a dry white wine does the job. I use it to deglaze the roasting pan and when making a big batch of gravy, I can use about a cup of wine. If you're using the stronger stuff, a little goes a long way.

run run run as fast as you can... and get the stuff for this killer holiday recipe

I've been working on a perfect gingerbread recipe, to use for Thanksgiving dessert. My plan is to cut it into small squares and top with ganache and finely chopped crystallized ginger. Today I think I got the recipe just right. It's dense, spicy, not too sweet (since it will be topped with chocolate), bakes up evenly and makes my house smell so good I never want to leave home.

B's Gingerbread

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup softened butter
2 eggs
2 cups molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/3 teaspoon cardamom (my most absolute favorite spice ever)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1 cup full fat cultured buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350, and grease a 9x14 inch pan (mine is glass). Cream together butter and sugar, then add molasses, eggs, and vanilla. Blend till smooth. Combine dry ingredients and whisk them together or sift. Add to the molasses mixture and mix till well combined. Add water and buttermilk, mix till smooth. Bake for 35-40 minutes, till center tests done with a toothpick.
Attempt to cool, wrap and freeze for holiday use. Good luck!

Then check out other delicious stuff at Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!

Thanksgiving Menu

still in progress...
turkey
dressing
potatoes
gravy
sweet potato...souffle? not quite...casserole? not really. Whatever. It's good.
broccoli casserole
green salad with roasted beet vinaigrette
cranberry ginger sauce
relish tray
veggie tray
braided bread wreath with dried cranberries, raisins, orange zest, walnuts etc
walnut pie
pumpkin pie
watergate salad
ganache-covered dark gingerbread
coffee
hard cider
sparkling cider

the calm before

Check out more pics of the storm blowing into Salem and other pretty sights downtown on Flickr.

Happiness is...ka-ching

I love this post on shopping habits from Gretchen Rubin . I'm a classic underbuyer. Years of poverty, plus a larger than healthy dose of cynicism have added up to a person who can and does make do with very little at all.

Rubin's description of an underbuyer:

You’re an under-buyer if…
--You buy saline solution, which you use every morning and night, one bottle at a time.
--You often scramble to buy an item like a winter coat or bathing suit after the point at which you need it -- and often, these items are sold out by the time you show up at a store.
--You’re suspicious of specialized objects and resist buying things dedicated very specific uses: suit bags, special plastic plates and cutlery for children, hand cream, rain boots, hair conditioner.
--You often need to come up with a makeshift solution, such using soap because you’ve run out of shaving cream, because you don’t have what you need.
--You often consider buying an item, then decide, “I’ll get this some other time” or “Maybe we don’t really need this.”
--If you must buy something, you buy as little as possible—say, by putting $10 of gas in the car.
--You think, “Not buying these things shows that I’m frugal and not a consumerist sucker.”

That's me through and through. I do buy hair conditioner, but that's basically the end of the line for specialized products. And I basically never buy newfangled cleaning products. I use soap, ammonia and bleach, and that's it. I'm lazy about buying myself clothes and would avoid it entirely if possible. I often avoid buying things if I know I could make it myself, even if I'm unlikely to do so.

Recently though, I've been trying to break out of this mindset a bit. It's a difficult time to try buying more. It's counter intuitive, especially during a recession. But the truth is, while we're not gazillionaires, we're not starving to death either, and there is always a trade of when you save money (usually time or effort). For most of my life, there has been no question which thing- money, time or energy, I needed most. So I made do, or made it myself. It's an ethic that I appreciate, both in myself and in others. But like everything, there is a flipside...maybe even an evil twin. Underbuyers miss out on a lot of creature comforts, innovations, and even end up spending more if they buy small units of things they use often. And hey, maybe that overhyped stain remover really can save my favorite top, 'cause god knows I'm not likely to replace it any time soon.

I've learned two surprising things since I started challenging myself to do a little buying in past few weeks. First, there really is such a thing as retail therapy. A week before Halloween we ventured into the Spirit store at the Lancaster Mall, for some facepaint. It was way overwhelming for my kids. Too gory. Too graphic. Too much. My tender hearted Rosie burst into tears. We hightailed it out of there and instead of heading home to ruminate on the horrifying imagery we had witnessed, I decided we should mosey around the mall for a bit and try to shake our brains out. Twenty minutes into the Christmas sparkle at Pier One and we were all feeling a lot better. By the time we finished with the candy store, we were flying high. Secondly, even though buying things means that technically I have fewer actual dollars in my purse, spending on creature comforts makes me feel...well, not like a million bucks, but less like po' folk.

It's been a good little experiment for me, and I'm going to expand it to encompass the holidays this year. I've hand-made at least half of the Christmas gifts I have given since I was about twelve years old. I like being crafty, and home-made gifts are a labor of love. But anyone who has ever been sewing at 5 am Christmas morning knows that they can also become a labor of resentment. And, I find that making gifts rarely saves me money. For one thing, supplies rarely go on sale, whereas you can often find good deals and coupons on purchased gifts. I have just barely started my holiday shopping and already I feel so light and easy about it, knowing that shopping for gifts is the end of the process rather than the beginning of a lot of work. Hell, I may even get things gift wrapped! I still enjoy making things for the people I love, but I think from now on I'm going to restrict it to birthday giving, when I can focus on one person at a time.

I don't imagine I'll become a shopaholic any time soon, but I do anticipate some healthy indulgences coming soon to a store near me.

dream a little dream of sweets

I know I've blogged about this before, but I have a love-love relationship with my neighborhood. It has its obvious charms, like an abundance of mature street trees and lovingly restored bungalows, but I love our neck of the hood for less obvious reasons too. For instance, there is more racial diversity on my block than maybe anywhere else in town, and people here look out for each-other. And more importantly, my neighbors seriously made Halloween happen last night. Maybe it was the warm, dry weather, or maybe it was me nagging at you relentlessly for the past month and a half, but SESNA, my love, you done right by me. We took five sweet little tricksters around the block and brought home enough candy to feed a third world country, and thank god we did, because the legions of spooks and goblins marching up to our festive-if-I-do-say-so-myself porch mowed through our measly five lbs of candy in no time flat. Adam made a desperate run to the store for six more lbs, and while he was gone I handed out candy that our kids (and C&H) had hauled in. It was trick or treats done right. Best costume of the evening goes to the painfully adorable hobo who, instead of shouting the traditional plea for sugar, simply motioned to her cardboard sign, which read "Anything helps. Mostly candy," and then gave a little rolling bow in thanks. Worst costume went to the two prostitutes who dressed as...prostitutes. C'mon honey. We've all seen the pink skirt like a hundred times. Also, you didn't even put your baby in a costume (if in fact that baby is even yours) and you left it in the stroller on the sidewalk. Let's see some creativity next year, eh? A few suggestions for costumes that can still do double duty as work clothes: playboy bunny, french maid, cat woman, Sarah Palin. Or you could get really wild and dress up your kid instead.

All in all it was a sweet, diabetic coma inducing night. Thank you!

pumpkin patch time!

It doesn't matter if you just ate before leaving the house. Pumpkin patch food is so appealing! We chose EZ Orchards this year because they have a petting zoo, and I knew for sure there wouldn't be any creepy decorations. We've had our fill of spooky, since a trip to the Spirit Halloween store for facepaint left Rosie in tears and left me sleeping with a bed full of three kids last night. Other patches we love are Setniker Farms near Independence, and Martha's on Chemawa. Both are a little scaled down from EZ Orchards and Bauman's, but they're more affordable too. It was worth the clink today for Mai to get down with the bluegrass band and for me to pet the sweet brown calf. Adam could see it in my eyes before I even spoke the words, and the verdict was a decisive NO CATTLE. It's cool. I can get my calf fix, and later, my hamburger fix, out at Maria's.

10 thoughts on 7 days of 200 channels

1. Over two hundred channels and there's nothing on tv. I know it's a cliche but it's true. I've had tv for a week and I pretty much feel like I've seen it all. All of the most amazing rescues of the most endangered animals caught on tape by adventurous men who eat the biggest servings of the hottest chicken wings at the most popular dives on earth, which are clearly visible from outer space.

2. I seriously miss old school Sesame Street, when the target audience was kindergartners instead of toddlers. Baby Bear, Elmo and Zoe form an axis of evil and the show's only redeeming value is the continuation of classic film shorts.

3. Looney Tunes has more gun violence than Gangland, but somehow I still feel it's the best kids' entertainment around. Where else are children going to learn word-plays on all the best works of John Steinbeck, (Canary Row, Of Rice and Hen etc.) and the many methods of killing a bird with an anvil all in one place?



4. I watched Glee. It was totally contrived and ridiculous and I really liked it.

5. I can watch a lot of Anthony Bourdain and not get bored. But I will admit that much much more of his personality comes through in his writing versus on tv. But I don't care, because on tv you can watch his crooked little mouth when he talks. Yeah. I'm seeking treatment.

6. It took me forever to figure out how to go "back" with the remote. Apparently it is the button marked "last." Why?

7. I will never take a prescription medication again. And certainly never, ever for depression. And in fact, I suspect that watching ads for depression medication is a leading cause of depression in America. The following ad, for instance, runs for one minute and twenty seconds. But more than three quarters of the ad time is given to listing the side effects of the medication, ranging from death by high blood sugar to freaking right out.




8. There are like seven channels playing Michael Jackson specials right now. That's all they've broadcast over the last week and I'm assuming they will continue to feature Jackson until another high profile celebrity dies?

9. Other people are more enamored of multiple births than I. Also, Spongebob.

10. Overall, I don't feel like I'm getting my $30 a month out of cable. At least, not yet. But I'm hoping that as I become familiar with the channels and on demand features, I will find more programming that is to out liking. It might also help when we get our new tv this weekend...the one we're currently making do with only shows various shades of orange and blue. Black people are blue, white people are orange, Asians are coral. Orange is my favorite color but I find myself getting pretty burned out on it. Which sucks, because to fix it I may have to toss out three quarters of my wardrobe. My favorite Sesame Street film is the crayon factory, but on our tv, Crayola is only pumping out the two colors.



edit: yeah, I posted the wrong freaking out video. Sorry folks.

little bits of fall on the ground

tv free...for all

Our family has been essentially tv free since 1998, when our first child was born. We've often had a set of some sort, usually a castoff from someone who took pity on our poor deprived children, but we've only had an actual signal once, from late summer 2001 to mid spring 2002. We tuned in to our local PBS station and two network channels. It was one hell of a time to experiment with tv media and it didn't take long for us to switch off.

But last week, I decided to give the idiot box another go. My main motivation for not having tv turned out to also be my main motivation for getting tv. As a homeschooling mom, I've always considered tv to be a trap to avoid. I imagined that bringing the tube to life would turn the kids into jingle singing, hot pocket munching, Hannah Montana worshiping disneybots. But after the success of our Civil War unit last year, which made much use of Ken Burns' masterpiece documentary, we've been using films a lot more in homeschooling. I know you TWTMers out there are shaking your heads at my tomfoolery. Yes, I know all about how edutainment rots kids' brains and makes them unable to digest Homer and Shakespeare. I know. I'm just not sure I believe it anymore. For one, much of the random yet useful knowledge I keep stored up in my noggin comes from PBS documentaries I zoned out to through my middle school years. That's right, when my bangs and I weren't out flirting, sassing parents, or slightly intimidating teachers, we camped out on the couch for marathon sessions of Nova.

Having grown tired of piecing together documentaries in four minute sections on youtube, I decided to give Comcast a call. My salesman was top notch. He asked the right questions, flattered my ego, assured me that I, above all other mothers, have the ability to use television wisely and easily convinced me that I needed something beyond the basic package. I ended up with 200 channels, installed three days later by Michael Cera. Or at least his cable guy look alike, who admitted to me that as a grad student he has no time for tv, doesn't have cable himself, and never watched tv as a kid. My stomach hit the floor. If my kids watch tv, does it mean they'll never become cute and polite college students humbly working to pay their own tuition and possibly hooking up with Ellen Page? But then the reassuring words of my call center cohort echoed in my brain and I was once again eagerly anticipating the wonders of Discovery, Animal Planet and multiple PBS channels. And, truth be told...some quality after-hours time with my man Anthony Bourdain.

Thursday marks one week in our year long experiment with television and I'll be checking in with thoughts on programs, the baffling remote control, and the most frightening commercial known to man.

a thousand words

I had a couple of little friends over to play today, and we had all kinds of autumnal fun, including massive doses of sugar in the forms of cocoa, apple cider donuts from EZ Orchards, and finally, caramel apples. Well...in theory. Rarely does an image capture the truth so completely.

home, home on the ranch

I've never been much of a ranch person. I love bleu cheese and home made vinaigrette and cheap thousand island, but recently I've been really in the mood for some decent ranch. I looked up some recipes but they all depended on onion and garlic powder, neither of which I keep stocked, so I decided to mess around and see what I could come up with, and this glorious substance is the result.

1 cup real mayonnaise
1 cup whole milk, cultured buttermilk
2 tablespoons onion, grated fine
1/2 teaspoon fresh garlic, grated fine
2 tablespoons mixed dried herbs, crushed (I used basil, oregano, thyme and parsley)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all up and have a salad! When I make taco salad (like, every other day) I add a good handful of chopped fresh cilantro and two tablespoons of chipotle Tabasco. It's to die for.
Find more recipes and info from real food foodies at Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday carnival!

off trail at Minto

Check out the Minto set on flickr for a few nice shots I took at the park in late Sept.

just beachy

Saturday was an amazing day at the coast. We did all the touristy campy stuff like Undersea Gardens and the Wax Works museum. The Oddwater exhibit at the aquarium was really well done, with beautiful blown glass sculptures displayed in the tanks with the sea-life.I fell in love with these gorgeous fish prints from Japan. They're made by painting an actual fish and then laying rice paper over top and rubbing, and were originally used to record amazing catches for posterity. This is SO going to become a homeschool art project! (C'mon mom we can look at pictures of fish anytime. You're missing the sharks!)
I'm not sure if it's instinctual or something I picked up from watching too much Jaws, but feeling the shadow of a shark pass over you is creepy.
To make our Newport tour complete, we even lunched at Mo's. I love spending $60 on what amounts to five bowls of potato soup but hey, it's all about the nostalgia. The sea lions were all lined up on the docks and gave a good show for free.

Gotta hit the candy store...


Unexpected art on the beach.


My beautiful girl looking so grownup.



Checking out the anemones.

Gorgeous sunset at Otter Crest, which is my favorite Oregon beach. I love to watch the surfers, and there are tide-pools and warm sand, and it's somewhat protected from the wind, so you can eat your candy without grit blowing up on it.

lil' bird-words

With my youngest child at age four and a half, I'm coming to the end of teaching speech and pronunciation. Maia speaks clearly and has for a long time, but there are a small handful of words that she still struggles with. Despite my love of words and language, I find myself treasuring these last few remnants of toddlerhood. They are the last I'll ever get. I don't go so far as to adopt her way of saying the words, but I don't walk her through the corrections either. I'm sure that by the new year they'll be gone. But for now:

library=lie-berry (a classic, I know, and actually it grates my nerves when other people say this. It's unacceptable from adults!)

napkin= mackin (Criss Cross'll make you jump! jump!)

The other three words all share a common pattern that she just can't quite master, much to my delight. And here I must admit that yesterday at Winco I got caught up in the nostalgia of the season and bought my kids some junk food cereal. Sue me.

nebula= neb-lee-uh

Bunnicula= Bun-nick-lee-uh

Count Chocula=Count Chalk-lee-uh

But yesterday she was picking flowers with her best friend and naming all the flowers as they worked, and she nailed "calendula" perfectly. She's her mama's girl.

early fall in the garden

This is my favorite poppy of all time. I don't remember what it's called but it's a perennial I put in a couple of years ago. It gave two blooms last year, which I treasured, but since then it's been looking pretty grim. It had some fairly sad greens this year and while all my smaller poppies were blooming like crazy this spring, this one did absolutely nothing whatsoever. A month ago the greens started dying back and I gave up on the whole situation. Then suddenly a few days ago the greens greened up, a bud shot out of the ground overnight and this morning-poppy perfection. And so worth the wait.



The roses, perhaps sensing that I'm going to stop deadheading them soon and let them rest, have decided to reward me with a very pretty display.






And the Virginia creeper, which recovered beautifully from its run in with marauding vandals, is full of (deadly) berries, so lovely against the backdrop of leaves-going-red.

Friday I'm in love

"For Children: You will need to know the difference between a Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken.

Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday; of course, though, you might do it on a Friday.

You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while."

Douglas Adams

buncha junk

Very interesting article on Slate today, about junk food taxes. While I love the whole foods/slow food/real food movement, I'm not down with taxing donuts. It's not fair, or even close to fair. Everyone gets pleasure from food, according to their means. According to proponents of junk food taxing, if your splurge is a delectable Vanilla Kreme from Dunkin Donuts, because it's delicious and costs less than a buck, then a sin tax is in order. But if your splurge is a $13 napoleon made with from-scratch puff pastry, imported chocolate and something savory and out of place like hungarian smoked paprika or sturgeon roe , well that's something different. It's artisanal. It's a thing of beauty, a thing beyond Twinkies and taxes.

Bullshit.

Taxing junk food just puts a price on who is allowed pleasure from eating (the rich) and who is not (the rest).

Hey, I never claimed to be a graphic artist...and that's probably for the best.

hello fall, I love you