southern fried goodness

dark days of winter, meal 6: one pot meal challenge

2012-01-24T13:02:00.002-05:00

the dark days of winter challenge is starting to have some theme and challenge weeks here and there. this week's theme is soups and one pot meals. i decided to challenge myself to see if i could make this from what i already had in the kitchen with zero shopping or planning. sometimes i think i do better when there are limitations that force me to become creative.

on the menu

hearty winter stew with chicken and cabbage
rosemary beer bread

local ingredients

whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
wheat berries from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
cabbage from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
homemade chicken stock from my freezer
sweet josie brown ale from lonerider brewery
bay leaves from east wake apiary (wake county, nc, exact mileage unknown) *
whole wheat bread flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
rosemary from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
pepper
garlic
onion
butter
baking powder

easy: honestly i thought this would be harder. i turn out to have a really well stocked fridge and pantry. lol.

challenging: the challenge here was staying local. there were some things in my fridge that needed to be used and were not local--i couldn't see the value of seeking out the local counterpart to something i already had if it meant wasting something. so--i used the half an onion in my crisper rather than try to find a local onion. for all i know, it WAS a local onion--either way--it went in the stew.

recipes

hearty winter stew with chicken and cabbage
this one's 100% made up.
ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 cup wheat berries
1/2 large yellow onion
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup water
2 cloves garlic
2-3 bay leaves
1 small to medium head of green cabbage
1 cup dark beer
salt and pepper to taste

directions: about 6 hours before eating, cut chicken into 8 pieces, and place into a slow cooker. roughly chop onion, then add it, along with the wheat berries, to the pot. add chicken stock, water, garlic cloves, and bay leaves. cook on high for about 4 hours. while this is cooking, go ahead and roughly chop the cabbage. set aside for later. after 4 hours of cooking time, remove chicken, pull the meat from the bones. discard skin and bones, then return meat to the pot. add cabbage and beer. continue to cook from about 2 more hours until wheat berries are just starting to split.

beer bread with rosemary
this is based on the beer bread recipe on the food network's website. i changed the type of flour, added rosemary, and cut the butter in half, but the original concept is still theirs. :)
ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
~1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
12 ounces dark beer
1/4 cup melted butter

directions:
preheat oven to 375 degrees. butter a 9x5 baking pan. sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. (note: when i sifted my locally milled flour, the sifter wanted to keep much of the wheat berry hulls and other bits of the rough flour. i did sift, but i also dumped those back in. my point was to aerate the flour more than to "strain" it, so to speak. if you wanted fluffier bread, you could leave those things out, but i wanted all the nutrition that comes with the WHOLE wheat berry being included.) whick 1/2 the rosemary into the dry ingredients. add beer, and stir just until mixed. pour into greased loaf pan. pour melted butter over mixture. bake about 1 hour until golden brown and crusty. cool in pan for 5 minutes, then move to wire rack. let sit for at least 10 minutes more before slicing.

family ruling
i knot that picture up there isn't the most stunning, but trust me, people. this. was. awesome. we had friends over for dinner, and the vote for awesomeness was unanimous. it was warm and comforting and delicious, as well as ridiculously healthy. the 8-year-old at the table ate two big bowls, and i think all the grown-ups did as well. this is one made up recipe i'll be hanging onto! the bread as well was a pleasant surprise. i had heard good things about the beer bread recipe, but i was a little reluctant to try it with the dark flour and beer--it was fantastic and went really well with the stew. also--it's worth noting that all of this held up very well--the leftovers i ate for lunch a few days after this was made were probably even better than the freshly made stuff. YUM!

further thoughts
a note on beer and broth. this is something i have never done--add beer to broth. i've read countless recipes for stews and soups that use beer, but for reasons i can't even begin to think, it never occured to me to actually make one before. but i was about to add the cabbage to the stew, and i kept tasting it, and thinking it was missing something...something to give it a little more kick and add to the heartiness of the dish...something a little bitter to balance the sweet cabbage i was about to add. BEER! it was right there in front of me, so i tried it--totally the right thing.

also a first for me: wheat berries. sharon, the farmer at my market who is growing wheat and milling flour had some of these for sale, and i was like, wha??? she assured me that they were delicious, and that you could add them to hot, long cooking cereals like steel cut oats, or to soups where you would normally use barley or brown rice or something like that. i admit, i was a little nervous about them. rice in stews can get mushy, and barley can make them too thick. but. i had them, i wanted something different, and i needed a starchy something in the stew for body. OMG, they are fantastic! they turned out like rice, but chewier, a tiny bit crunchy, and not mushy at all. after 6 hours on high, they were just starting to split and release a little thickening wheat germ into the stew. all of us really liked both the texture and the slightly sweet flavor they brought to the table. so. good. one of those foods i now wonder where it's been all my life. if you can get your hand on some, i can't recommend them enough.

so yeah. success.

dark days of winter, meal 5: gettin' experimental

2012-01-18T12:52:00.005-05:00

i seem to be skipping a week here and there. again, my meal# isn't matching up to the actual week the dark days of winter challenge is on, but i swear i am doing the best i can! :)

this week, the meat was super basic, but i got a little experimental with the veggies. i had some turnips left from my fall CSA (those things last forever!), and a couple of big bunches of kale. the hippie is always talking about trying some green smoothies, so i get extra greens for him. however, it takes us a while to start following through on intentions like that, so i sometimes end up with the extra greens lying in the fridge begging for mercy! suffice it to say, we've had a lot of turnips and kale this year. time to try something new with them!

on the menu

grilled smoked pork loin chips
creamed turnips with bleu cheese
kale chips with french grey sea salt

local ingredients

smoked pork chops from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
salad turnips from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
carolina bleu cheese from the hillsborough cheese company (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)*
kale from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
white pepper
cream(organic, but not local)
olive oil
garlic
cloves
french grey sea salt

easy: this week's meal was thrown together pretty quickly from things i already had in the house--no real planning till i was ready to start to cook. i LOVE when that happens.

challenging: i was a little disappointed that i failed to buy local cream and butter for this week. i've been trying to favor those, but a) i can't get them at the farmers market, and b) not all grocery stores have them either. if i don't make it to the places that do, which are a little out of my way, then i can't get local. i always get organic, but it would sure be nice if local were as easy to find.

recipes

grilled smoked pork chops
recipe is a strong word for this--we don't do a thing to fickle creek's smoked pork chops other than heat them on the grill. i unwrap them and hand them to the hippie, and he grills them about 3 minutes per side on high heat. let them rest a few minutes, and eat them up!

creamed turnips with bleu cheese
ingredients:
~2 lbs salad turnips (these are small white turnips with a milder flavor than the big purple kind)
2 whole cloves
2 cloves of garlic
~1 tsp fresh thyme
1 oz good quality bleu cheese
1/4 tsp white pepper
heavy cream to texture
salt to taste

directions: peel and chop turnips to about 3/4-inch cubes. place in saucepan with both whole cloves and garlic cloves, cover with water, and bring to a boil. reduce heat slightly and continue to boil just until turnips are tender, about 15 minutes. drain well and remove cloves (leave garlic in!). mash turnips slightly with a potato masher and drain again. i discovered that turnips contain a LOT of liquid--drain them a lot so they don't become soupy. add thyme, bleu cheese, white pepper, salt, and a tiny bit of cream, and whip. add cream in increments and by tiny amounts--you don't need much.

kale chips
(recipe from use real butter, one of my absolute favorite food blogs)
ingredients:
a bunch of kale
olive oil
sea salt

directions:
preheat oven to 350. wash and dry kale thoroughly. remove the hard center stems, and roughly tear or chop it into manageable sized pieces. toss with a small amount of olive oil. line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lay the kale out in a single layer. sprinkle with sea salt. bake for about 12-15 minutes until crispy.

family ruling
this whole meal was YUM city, ESPECIALLY the kale chips! those were just fantastic. i've wanted to try them for a long time after having so many friends rave to me about how good they are. i was skeptical, but delighted in the end. i can't recommend it enough. (note: our 3-year-old was NOT as impressed. he was game and tried them, but HATED them--so much that i gave him a cookie to make up for the level of horror he experienced. it's rare for us to have such a mega-fail with him, but there you go--this was right up next to cauliflower on his PLEASE-MAMA-NOT-THAT list, which is saying something. his statement? "mama, i don't really like kale chips." lol)

now. the turnips. turns out they have about 12x the amount of liquid in them as potatoes. so, while the creamed turnips TASTED awesome, they were far more soupy than i intended. i should have done a better job of draining them before i added the cream, so i adjusted the directions accordingly. that said--this was a delicious amalgam about about 15 different recipes i read. i will definitely do this again--i will just know next time to drain better and use less cream.

further thoughts
i forget how much i like playing in the kitchen. this, and the one-pot meal i made for next week's challenge are the first couple of truly creative things i've done in the kitchen in a while. i miss it! for some reason in winter, i seem to stick more to the tried and true than i do in the summer. i think this has something to do with the variety of available produce for sure, but i have also realized that i tend to feel pressed for time when it gets dark so early, too. i need to shake that feeling off and continue to get creative on the winter veggies.

dark days of winter, meal 4: keepin' it simple

2012-01-03T12:34:00.002-05:00

i skipped a week of the dark days of winter challenge because of the holidays and ensuing chaos. that said, i made a LOT of local food over the holidays, including the main showcase of the christmas eve feast i cooked for friends: a pair of lovely london broils from smith angus farms in snow camp, nc. so very delicious!

anyway--onto what is my meal #4, although i have lost count of what the actual week is...

for this week's meal, and after all the madness of the holiday eating, i decided to keep things very simple. again, we ended up with friends spontaneously over for dinner. it seems we do that a lot. and as usual, the number and quality of my photographs drops in direct proportion to how many people are in the house when i am cooking. this post is the lightest one yet for pictures--sorry!

on the menu

simple roasted chicken
baked sweet potatoes
grilled fennel
a big salad

local ingredients

whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
oregano from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
rosemary from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
sweet potatoes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
fennel from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
lettuces from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
cucumber from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
tomatoes from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
watermelon radishes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
pepper
olive oil
cinnamon
yellow pepper (organic, but not local)
celery (organic, but not local)
salad dressings

easy: really, just about everything here was easy. this is how i cook all the time, and i've gotten used to buying as much locally as i possibly can. in the light of the busyness of this time of year, i think i also accepted the limitations better this go around.

challenging: as usual, the exceptions are spices, oils, and the things that aren't frown in my local greenhouses. also, it was a little harder over the holidays, since some of my farmers also took actual vacations to see their own families. how crazy is that??

recipes

simple roasted chicken (adapted from recipes from home, one of my favorite cookbooks):
ingredients:
3-4 lb chicken
6-10 sprigs of fresh herbs (i used thyme, oregano, and rosemary since that's what i had on hand)
salt and pepper

directions:
preheat oven to 450F. rinse the bird and pat dry. salt and pepper inside and out. add herbs to cavity of chicken, and tie legs with twine or linen. place chicken on roasting rack in pan, and roast for ~40 minutes. turn oven temperature down to 350 and continue to roast for 30 more minutes or until juices run clear when the joint between the leg and thigh is pierced. (note: the actual recipe calls for 10 basil leaves, 3-4 sprigs each of thyme and rosemary. it also specifies half a lemon, cut in half, with which you rub the insure of the bird's cavity. this does bring something to the table, but i find that the chicken is still delicious without it. as long as you have a good quality, free-range, non-fatty or water heavy bird, this is fool-proof!)

baked sweet potatoes ("recipe" is a strong word for this!)
ingredients:
sweet potatoes

directions:wash and dry the sweet potatoes, and, as long as they are fairly petite, just throw them into the oven with the chicken. when you turn the oven down to 350, pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork. these were small enough that they were perfectly cooked by the time the chicken was done. if they were larger, i would have started them in the 450-degree oven about 15 minutes before i put the chicken in, and i think they still would have been fine. we're all about efficiency around here. we served them with cinnamon and butter.

grilled fennel (again, not really a recipe)
ingredients:
3 bulbs of fennel
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

directions:
remove stems from fennel bulbs. slice vertically into 1/8 - 1/4-inch slices. toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. grill for about 3 minutes a side or until desired texture.

salad
this one contained:
2 small heads of red oak leaf lettuce
1 head green bibb lettuce
1 large watermelon radish
2 stalks celery
1/2 large english cucumber
1 very large heirloom red tomato
1 yellow pepper

directions: chop everything into bite sized pieces. toss. apply favorite salad dressing, and eat as much as you want--salad is awesome!

family ruling
the chicken was awesome, as it always is, and everyone at our house loves sweet potatoes and salad. the fennel was the dud of the meal. disclaimer: i HATE fennel and didn't even eat it, although i DID force myself to try it just to check to see if i had changed my mind about it. (i hadn't.) but even for the other folks who love it, it was just kind of lacking something--i think i should have maybe grilled it with some other veggies--maybe an onion or a pepper or something. people ate it, but no one relished it. i won't do it again on it's own...

further thoughts
i am so grateful for fresh lettuce in the winter. the new greenhouse guy at my farmers market has been a godsend with his cucumbers and lettuce and peppers and LOVELY tomatoes. i read something recently about the incredibly high carbon footprint of shipping greens, and i am so very glad i can still get them, virtually guilt free, even in the dead of winter. i didn't realize how addicted to salads we had become until we started trying to eat closer to home.

in addition to the greens, i am still in love with the way my farmers market is always showing me something new--the watermelon radishes in this particular salad were a delight. since my farmers market started, i have also tried lemon cucumbers, english cucumbers, french breakfast radishes, black spanish radishes, kohlrabi, poona kheera cucumbers, baby ginger, kale (many kinds), mizuna, tatsoi, savoy cabbage, fresh elephant garlic, and so many other things i never knew i was going to love. the variety in what we eat is ever-increasing, which is an incredible gift from the local farmers to us. so thankful...

dark days of winter, meal 3: Southern Q

2011-12-19T21:03:00.003-05:00

this week's post is horrifyingly low on decent pictures, due to distractions in the form of friends showing up to meet the new dawg and staying for dinner. in lieu of a plate shot, i give you ginger, our new puppy:

now, on to business.

this week's meal is all southern, and very old school, with the exception of the fact that i used my crock pot to make BBQ instead of digging a hole in my back yard to smoke it.

on the menu

pulled pork BBQ
old school braised greens with indian dumplings
honey glazed roasted carrots
sweet josie brown ale from lonerider brewery
(there's a keg of this local brew in my garage--i thought i'd feature it along with the food.)

local ingredients

fresh boston butt from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
carrots from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
rainbow swiss chard from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
collard greens from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
red pepper flakes from my friend rich's garden (durham, nc, ~15 miles)
cornmeal from muddy dog roasting company (morrisville nc, 10 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
red pepper rib rub made by my friend karen
apple cider vinegar
liquid hickory smoke (real, not chemical--cause, ew)

semi-local ingredients

bone-suckin' sauce - made in north carolina, but i have zero clue from whence the ingredients come. it's as local as i can get BBQ sauce without making my own, which is a challenge in the winter.
bacon fat - from holland brothers bacon, not local to us, but local to the grandparents who live in PA. bacon from this place is a yearly gift from our family, and it's awesome.

easy: as always, meat and produce are the no-brainers.

challenging: the semi-local ingredients here are my compromise. things like apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, and salt i KNOW i can't get locally, but the other things? well--i guess i am just trying to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible on things like that. it doesn't make sense to me to buy bacon that's local to me, when i already have bacon that was a gift from someone for whom that bacon IS local. does that make sense?

recipes

pulled pork, crock pot style (made up on the fly):
ingredients:
boston butt or pork shoulder roast
your favorite rib rub
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
20 or so drops of real liquid smoke
BBQ sauce

directions:
cover pork roast liberally with spice rub, and put into your crock pot. add apple cider vinegar. cook on low for 8 hours. remove pork and pull from bone with 2 forks or tongs. drain off most of liquid (reserve for soup stock or beans--trust me--keep that stuff). (note: if you are going to make the greens below, reserve a couple of ounces of meat at this stage.) return the pork to the crock pot. add a little of the cooking liquid, maybe 1/4 a cup. add the liquid smoke, and about 1/3 a cup of BBQ sauce. mix well, and cook another hour on low to mix flavors and caramelize the meat. serve with more sauce or on buns or you know--however you like to eat BBQ.

honey glazed roasted carrots (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
carrots
~2 tablespoons butter
~2 tablespoons honey

directions: preheat oven to 425 degrees (F). peel carrots and cut into sticks. put into a baking dish with some butter. roast for 8 minutes, then stir. roast for 8 more minutes. add honey and stir in. roast for 16 more minutes, stirring one more time half way through. carrots should be starting to caramelize when they are done. best use of fresh carrots in the world!

braised greens with indian dumplings (adapted from bill neal's southern cooking)
ingredients:
2.5 to 3 lbs cooking greens (collards, kale, chard, etc.)
8 cups water
~4 tablespoons bacon fat
1 teaspoon salt
2 oz pork meat or a small ham hock
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup cornmeal
1.5 tablespoons butter or bacon fat or lard

directions:
in a large stockpot or braising pot, add water, bacon fat, salt, finely chopped pork, and red pepper flakes. bring to a boil, then boil on medium-high heat for about 20 minutes. add the greens, cover tightly. return to a boil, stir down the greens, and then simmer, covered, for about 50 minutes if you are going to add indian dumplings, or an hour if you're not.

for the dumplings, place cornmeal into a small mixing bowl. steal 1/2 cup of boiling liquid from the greens, and slowly work it into the cornmeal with the back of a wooden spoon. work fat in with your fingers while the cornmeal mix is still warm. shape into small biscuit-like disks, about an inch wide and 1/2 an inch thick--it should make 16-18 of these. when the greens have been cooking for about 50 minutes, give them a final stir, then lay the dumplings on top to cook. let them cook for about 10 minutes, and voila, you have delicious little dumplings in your greens.

note: indian dumplings are like a cross between hushpuppies and gnocci. this was the first time i'd made them, but they were surprisingly easy and fast--i will most certainly make them again. i can imagine they would be delightful with soups and stews as well as in greens.

note the second: after you serve the greens, you will have quite a bit of liquid left. if you combine it with the reserved liquid from the pork, you have an EXCELLENT soup base on your hands. i generally throw this in the fridge overnight, so i can skim the fat off easily in the morning. then i put it in the freezer to use whenever. i recommend this as a base for my white bean and kale soup.

family ruling
everyone at our house loves all this, and the friends we spontaneously had over for dinner last night agree. the 11-year old had 2 helpings of the greens, so--win.

further thoughts
southern cooking is my kitchen comfort zone, as it turns out. i feel more free with recipes and restrictions in this area than any other, and since i live in the south, it makes sense that these are the ingredients that are easiest for me to get locally. i am guessing you will see more southern food from me before this is challenge is done. meal #3 i am calling a resounding success. yay for BBQ!

dark days of winter, meal 2: dinner with a friend

2011-12-12T12:42:00.006-05:00

this week, i ended up cooking a last minute dinner for a good friend who came into town unexpectedly. this means i had less time to think about what to make, and had to rely on what i already had in the house. as a result, this week's meal has more non-local ingredients than last week's, but i am happy with how much of it IS local, with very little effort!

on the menu

chicken and 40 cloves
whipped sweet potatoes with ginger
salad
rosemary olive oil bread

local ingredients

whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
sweet potatoes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
fresh ginger from redbud farm (burlington, nc, 62 miles)*
milk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)
french breakfast radishes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
lettuces from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
cucumber from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
pepper
olive oil (organic)
celery (organic)
grape tomatoes (organic)
garlic
red bell pepper (organic)
cinnamon
rosemary olive oil bread (not pictured) (baked locally, but sourced from ???)

easy:
as always, the meat and produce is mostly easy for me to get locally. everything you see here i already had in my house with no planning at all.

challenging:
this week i was traveling and very busy, so there was not as much time to plan my meal. as a result, this one is mostly local--all the spotlight parts are local. but it still feels a little cheater-y to me. this is especially true for the non-local salad produce, the bread we had with dinner, which was a last minute purchase, and the salad dressing, which was whatever we had in the fridge. i didn't even think about dressing until dinner was made and on the table.

recipes

chicken and 40 cloves:
this is a tried and true recipe from alton brown. it's posted on the food network website, so i think posting it again here might be a copyright violation. you guys know how to click a l ink though, right? go make this right now! it's awesome!

whipped sweet potatoes with ginger (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
9-10 small sweet potatoes
~2 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons honey
~1.5 tablespoons chopped gresh ginger
(note, i used uncured, super-fresh ginger from a local supplier, and NOT the ginger from the grocery store, which is much stronger. if you use that, i'd recommend cutting this amount in half.)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
milk to texture (added gradually while whipping)

directions:
preheat oven to 450. bake sweet potatoes for ~40 minutes until soft, piercing with a fork after 20 minutes. remove skins and place in a large bowl. add butter, honey, ginger, cinnamon, and about 1/4 cup of milk, and mash with a potato masher until well mixed. then, using a hand mixer, beat until fluffy. add milk if necessary to obtain the right texture/moisture.

salad
um--i can't say i have a recipe for a salad. i just put everything i can find in the fridge that looks like it would be good in a salad. this one contained mixed lettuces, celery, radishes, red pepper, grape tomatoes, and cucumber.

family ruling
everything was awesome, especially the sweet potatoes. my friend who was visiting seemed stunned that this is what i ended up with when i just threw something together, so that's a good ruling as well--he ate everything with gusto.

further thoughts
cooking on weeknights is a challenge for me. i work full time and have two small (hungry) children in daycare. i have to leave work, get them, drive home in a boatload of traffic, and THEN address dinner. i get around this most of the time by planning ahead and cooking and prepping as much as i can ahead of time. some weeks it's great--others, it falls apart on me. this past week, i had the added travel stress on the table, and then my friend showed up out of nowhere--this was literally the best i could pull off. i am not as proud of this as i was of my sunday brunch last week, but then i didn't have the time for the same level of planning and thought as i did for that meal. i will say this, however: i am very proud of my pantry and my freezer for getting me this close to an all local meal absolutely on the fly.

dark days of winter - meal 1: sunday brunch

2011-12-05T12:51:00.000-05:00

this is the first official week of the dark days of winter local cooking challenge, so i decided to start with the first real meal of the week: sunday brunch.

on the menu

blueberry buckwheat pancakes
spinach and cheese frittata
sausage patties

local ingredients

whole wheat pastry flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
buckwheat flour from the old guilford mill (greensboro, nc, 70 miles)
eggs from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
buttermilk from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
blueberries from smith's nursery (benson, nc, 38 miles)*
honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
spinach from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
mozzarella cheese from the hillsborough cheese company (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)*
milk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)
ancho peppers from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
oregano from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
sausage from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

salt
pepper
baking powder

easy: meat, eggs, and produce are no problem for me to get, given the awesome nature of my farmers market. in addition, the market vets its vendors carefully, and while not every farm and food producer there is certified organic, all of them are local to us and follow extremely ethical farming practices, often going beyond the requirements of organic certification. the animals are all free range, and none are given any unnecessary antibiotics or growth hormones. most of the farms are very small operations and family farms, and we have gotten to know these vendors over the past couple of years. we are extremely fortunate to have this place, which is open all year, available to us.

challenging: what do you do about things like salt, baking powder/soda, vanilla, and other pantry-type things you use in your cooking without thinking about it? i am trying hard to keep these things to a minimum, but i admit, i forgot all about baking powder when i was thinking about making pancakes. i guess i am trying to look at this from the point of view of a pioneer person--in days of old, you would have traded for these items, right? this is stuff that has almost never been available locally, anywhere. some small carbon footprint is, i suppose, not avoidable in everyday cooking.

recipes

blueberry buckwheat pancakes (adapted from here):
ingredients:
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature
5-6 teaspoons of honey
2.5 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
1 cup blueberries, fresh, or thawed from frozen

directions:
in a small bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt. set aside. in a larger bowl, beat the two eggs until frothy, about 2 minutes. add honey, butter, and then buttermilk, mixing well after each addition. gradually stir in flour mixture until smooth. gently stir in blueberries. note: batter will be very thick. let sit for a few minutes. cook on a lightly buttered griddle or in a flat pan over medium-high heat, about 1/3 cup of batter at a time. after 2-4 minutes, when edges are set and blueberries are starting to crack, flip over and cook on other side, about 2-3 more minutes. makes 10-12 pancakes. serve with honey.

spinach and cheese frittata (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
2 cups spinach, cleaned, de-stemmed, and roughly chopped (packed tight!)
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1/2 fresh ancho chile pepper, chopped fine
2/3 cup shredded fresh mozzarella
10 eggs
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

directions: preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). grease a 9x9-in pan with 1/2 tablespoon of butter. melt the other tablespoon in a skillet. saute the spinach just until wilted. immediately remove from heat and allow to cool. in pan, layer herbs, chopped peppers, and cheese. evenly distribute cooled spinach over this. in a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk until very well mixed. i usually add salt and pepper in this step. pour egg mixture over the other ingredients. taking care to distribute evenly. bake for about 25 - 30 minutes until the center is set. let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

sausage patties
no real recipe here. i bought a pound of local sausage, made it into small patties, and fried it up in a pan over medium heat until it was well browned and delicious!

family ruling
absolutely delicious--i would make every bit of this again, and eat it happily. children and man agree.

further thoughts
i am very grateful that we thought to buy a lot of extra local blueberries this summer and freeze them. our children eat them straight out of the freezer, but they are also mightily awesome to have around for this sort of application and for the random pie craving. if you decide to do this, don't wash them--just throw them straight into freezer bags. wash them when you are ready to use. also, if you use them for pancakes, make sure you thaw them completely first. if you don't you will have nasty, gooey globs of uncooked pancake batter surrounding every blueberry--GROSS!

there's been a lot of discussion in the group about local flours on the east coast and how difficult they are to obtain. i've been discussing this a lot with local millers and bakers to see where people source their wheat. most people are sourcing from the midwest, which is no real surprise. however, i was delighted that sharon funderburke from singing turtle farm in dunn, nc is growing her own wheat. she's growing both hard and soft red winter wheat, and she has just in the last month started grinding her own flour. she sells wheat berries for both varieties as well as bread flour and pastry flour. she also sells chicken feed made from the wheat and from her oats, as well as a small amount of baked goods. her crops are 100% organic, and her practices are beyond sustainable. she is a second of third generation farmer, looking for ways to improve her family's farm. she's been a joy to learn/buy from the past couple of seasons.

first meal of this challenge went well, i think. i'm pretty proud of the fact that everything is local but the stuff i really can't get locally, plus i am happy that it was all delightful--i didn't feel like i was cutting corners anywhere. in fact, the local butter especially felt like an indulgence--talk about GOOD! now onto thinking about my next meal...

dark days of winter

2011-11-16T08:46:00.003-05:00

i talk about food a lot, i know. but get ready, people--i am going to start talking about it even more. as you know, our family has, over the past few years, become more and more interested in healthy eating, local eating, sustainable farming, and reducing our carbon footprint as much as we can. we've been faithful visitors to our local farmers market, which we all adore. we are trying to teach the children by example to love food in the right way, and to be aware of what they put in their bodies. we are working hard to eat well, to cook at home, to get the right nutritional balances to (hopefully) avoid some of the health problems that may be headed our way as we age. anyway--you see my point. good food is good.

i have decided to participate in the dark days of winter local eating challenge from (not so) urban hennery because it represents everything we're trying to accomplish. the goal is simple: cook (at least) one meal a week featuring local, sustainable, organic, ethically grown ingredients and write a post about it. i think i can handle that, and i think it will be a good way to record some of what we eat locally during the winter months. i kind of can't wait to get started!

squeaker

2011-11-01T22:12:00.004-04:00

chubby and giggly, finn is an absolute delight. he hugs and kisses us all the time, and he demands attention with stubborn, single-minded, howling ferocity. he laughs at his brother, at the television, at our neighbor who buzzes loudly when finn touches the tip of his finger to the neighbor's nose. he prefers veggies to fruit, though he's getting better about that. he eats and eats and eats, and then when he's done, he hurls everything left away from himself with great force. he loves frozen peas, pasta, scrambled eggs, yogurt, cheerios and BANANAS! he's starting to enjoy books more, and he loves stacking stuff before knocking it back down again. he's a huge fan of both milk jugs and mason jars--he puts the lids on, then takes them off, then hurls them, fetches them, etc. endless fun. his favorite thing to do at the park is swing, even though it makes him sleepy. and man, does the boy want to MOVE. he wants to be down and walking whenever possible. he adores water and anything to do with water--splashing in it, washing his hands, making a mess with it, swimming--sprinklers, sinks, oceans, and pools, he loves it all as much as his brother hates it. he also loves music and shaking his little booty to anything with rhythm. he wiggles and claps his hands and hums right along. he adores being chased, and is learning to hide, although he's still really bad at it. so hilarious. he likes to wear hats, which is a blessing with the changing weather. his favorite people are his daddy, his big brother, and our neighbor angelo. he'll see angelo through the window and cry to get outside to him--so very cute. he's a lover of electronics in a way that kieran never was--push a button--noise comes out. i loves the hippie's iPad. he's going to talk earlier than kieran did, though he walked later. and of course, i wonder if this is all due to him somehow reacting to being in daycare instead of with a nanny like k was at his age. this age with finn, it's the troubleshooting age. he's cutting teeth, coughing, has a runny nose, is recovering from an ear infection--those 4 things are constant and interchangeable. we are ALWAYS looking for trouble, and feeding him ibuprofen like candy. it's a fun age--he's absorbing EVERYTHING. it's a hard age, too, filled with worry. but lord, he's cute. and fun. i am just trying to enjoy every moment with him as much as i can--his babyhood is evaporating before my eyes, so i am grasping onto it with everything i've got while it lasts. i love his biscuit feet, his imperious little pointing finger, his obsession with his belly button, and the way he hugs with his whole self. i love to rock him at night before bed so i get the sweet snuggles, and i love how he almost always wakes up happy and babbling in the morning. he is the only morning person in our family. he is perhaps the smiliest (is that a word?) baby in creation, with what may be the best giggle. when i am stressed and trying to do too many things at once, finn reminds me to slow down and just sit on the floor and play a minute. and oh, how i love him for that.

(and just to seal the awwwww, the last picture below is finn walking down the street with his paw-paw, who he adores. so cute.)

quiche, revisited

2011-10-26T12:45:00.002-04:00

since i posted the recipe for spinach and mushroom quiche and the recipe for whole wheat pie crust separately and without pictures, i thought i'd come back and add some. here are links to the original posts:

spinach and mushroom quiche
whole wheat crust

the process:

1. prep, 2. whole wheat crust, 3. saute, 4. cheese, 5. herbs, 6. peppers and onions, 7. spinach and mushrooms, 8. milk and eggs, 9. baked

dinnertime!

three and a half

2011-10-25T12:44:00.000-04:00

i listen to kieran playing, and i am stunned. he's enacting a play of his own devising in the living room floor. trucks are involved. dinosaurs, too. a recycling truck is central to the drama, as is a flatbed truck, many race cars, and a monster truck or two. apparently it's crucial that all the monster trucks be lined up all the way across the living room floor because there is to be a parade later. there are many voices and names that come up in the course of his play. my baby is totally gone, and there is, in his place, a rambunctious and vivacious little boy with many very strong opinions. his name, he tells me, is NOT kieran, but rather, ribbon. he's a nice t-rex. also a firefighter. sometimes. he hugs me with impulsive ferocity. he lashes out with a willfulness that i almost can't believe--i have to remind myself not to be hurt by it as i throw him in into yet another time out. then he turns around and makes me laugh so hard! he pretends to eat the whole town as we drive through, but assures me he's just teasing. he's constantly on the move, and prefers to be either outside running as hard as he can or inside playing with all his stuff. he's not all that into drawing or group participation--he prefers imaginative play and reading books and watching british television and dinosaur train. he knows the names of many dinosaurs along with what they eat and all their physical characteristics. he tells me they lived on the earth many years ago, but that they are now extinct. he has real friends at school, and other kids he likes less. he hates playing in the water, and is grateful that summer is over so no one is trying to make him do it. he is as stubborn as a rock. he loves one-on-one attention from either me or the hippie. he tries to take care of his little brother, while simultaneously keeping finn off his stuff and out of his games. he's learning to share. he has favorite colors, favorite foods, and favorite toys. he loves his cats. he prefers vanilla to chocolate. where he goes, his hippo goes as well. he likes cuddles at night, no matter how his day has gone. he's a little bit afraid of shadows. in the end, he's a whole little complete person, and i love him so much i can't breathe when i look at him.

rant, general

2011-10-20T23:09:00.000-04:00

maybe i am just feeling edgy tonight, but i have a few things to say. things i don't usually say for fear of stirring up the muck too much and causing conversations i don't feel like having about topics often seem pointless to discuss with other people, like banging your head against a brick wall. but here are some things anyway. i just want to get them off my chest.

i wish i had the balls to go comment on every glaring grammatical error i see on the internet, even my own. i would especially like to ding every your/you're, their/they're/there, to/too, its/it's, effect/affect errors. not one of those words is interchangeable for the others. also, i hate it when people use the word THAT to refer to people, who are WHOs, not THATs. and, while i am on this grammatical tirade, i would like to point out that the words which and that are NOT the same, and that you have to separate a clause led by which from the rest of your sentence with a COMMA, which is, by the way, one of the most under-used pieces of punctuation in existence.
a person's rights should in no way be dependent on religion, gender, race, or sexuality. further, i don't think any group of people has the right to push their belief system on any other group. if everyone would stop worrying about what everyone else believes, and just treat everyone with respect and kindness, then we would be a lot better off as a people and a culture. if you are islamic, hindu, jewish, christian, black, white, mulatto, hispanic, asian, american indian, gay, straight, male, female, hermaphroditic, well--i don't care. i don't care what kind of sex you have or who you have it with as long as no one is getting hurt (who doesn't want to be) and no one is being forced to do anything against their will and no one is a child. this extends to any and all of the aforementioned being allowed to marry whomever they choose, however they choose. i have yet to hear a single non-religious argument against same sex marriage, and last time i checked, we had freedom to practice whatever religion we choose in this country.
speaking of religion...if you are going to embrace the bible and take it at its word and quote it at me, then a) you better know what you are quoting because i have read it a few times, even if you have not, b) you better not come at me with things taken utterly out of context, and c) you will never convince me of your opinion by quoting this or that restriction/behavioral statute from deep within the old testament without first showing me that you are also willing to embrace all the other restrictions around it. for example, if you tell me it is wrong to be gay because of the words you find in leviticus, then you must also be kosher, not eating seafood, willing to marry your sister/brother-in-law in the event of your sibling's death, etc. i do not believe you can cherry pick which parts of this you are going to follow--it's all, or it's not. in fact, that there's a pretty significant restriction later in the bible about taking things out of context to further your personal agenda. so you know, stop it.
i hate news and politics. and yet, here i am with my opinions. i think my government wastes a shitload of time worrying about things that should be none of its concern and a shitload of money pushing its agenda onto other countries in the name of aid. and i think they don't spend nearly enough time worrying about what matters--taking care of its own people, preserving and enhancing its own culture, and producing things. somewhere along the way in the last 250 years, we have lost sight of what it meant to be free, and of what it was to be able to build yourself up from nothing. our class divisions grow, while our culture slowly dies. what do we produce here anymore? what is here that's worth having? don't get me wrong--i love this country, and i fully realize how lucky i am to have been born here where i feel safe and have the freedom to write a blog post like this without getting arrested. but damn, america! we need to get back to the making of things. when we made things, people HAD jobs, and the economy held its own because we had something to sell. we grew our own food and we made cloth, and we made clothing and home furnishings from that cloth, and people built cars and houses, and all manner of thing. now--now, we push money around. money with nothing to back it up on paper that's virtually worthless. we are in debt to our eyeballs to countries who would love to watch us crumble, and we buy all manner of crap from those same countries to fill the holes where we once had well-made products manufactured down the road from where we live. we need to take a step back and look at things more critically.

4a. corporations suck. gigantic financial institutions suck. it's like having an entity that's chaotic evil running things to let them control what happens in this country. they are NOT people, yet are treated as such under many of our laws, which gives them license to just seriously screw things up in the name of the bottom line for this quarter, right now. there is zero forethought for next quarter, or next year, or 10 years from now, as long as the CEO and CFO and CTO continue to rake in the bucks and someone somewhere continues to invest. there's no interest in the greater good, or the future of anything. it fills me with impotent fury.

ok, i'm done for now. there's more to rant about, but i am too damned tired to do it right this minute. besides, my teething baby is waking up, so there's some rocking and hugging to be done. rocking a sweet baby is way more fun tan thinking about all this mess anyway. 'night, y'all.

peanut butter pie

2011-08-12T08:50:00.004-04:00

i cook a lot. i read food blogs like some people read news feeds. i am not a huge contributor to the online foodie network, but i am most certainly present for it. earlier this week, a food blogger i only occasionally read, jennifer perillo, lost her husband mikey very suddenly--he died last sunday, leaving her and their two children unexpectedly alone. i have been thinking about her all week. and about my brother doug's quick descent, leaving my sister in law and their children similarly bereft. and about myself and my two small children, and what we would do if something happened to our beloved hippie. i cannot imagine, and i hope i never, ever have to know what that's like.

since doug's death, i have become morbid. i think about death almost constantly, and i have bone-shaking fear in my heart every single day. i don't talk about it much--what's the point? and i go on living my life, loving my people, and doing what i need to do. but it's omnipresent--this cloud of doom that follows me. i am self-aware enough to know that this is my way of grieving. i know it will get better with time. but there are days when the weight is literally soul crushing. i cling to anything that can lighten that weight, even for a moment.

the events of this year have taught me, again and again, how very important it is to hold the people you love close to your heart every day. EVERY day! and TELL them you love them. and SHOW them you love them. every day. the whole purpose of this life is to make every second of it count, and i honestly believe you can do that only by living every day as though the future is unknown. because it IS unknown, and all you really have is what's right here in front of you now.

some folks who know jennie much better than i do set up an event for today: making her husband mikey's favorite peanut butter pie as a show of support and commemoration for his life. and in spite of the fact that i do not really know her, i wanted to add my efforts to the event so she will know that one more person in the world knows and cares about her and her family. further, making a peanut butter pie provided a perfect opportunity to tell my hippie that i love him and i am glad he's home. he's been away at a conference all week, and he came back late last night. i made the pie last night, and chilled it overnight so that it's waiting for him this morning as a welcome home gift. i predict he will love it since peanut butter is one of his major food groups. i think i will make him some coffee and serve him a piece of pie for breakfast.

so jennie--i am thinking about you. i am so sorry for the loss you have suffered this week, and i am sorry for the many days of suffering that will come in the next weeks as well. time will heal. and remembrance will help. thanks for sharing this recipe with us.

the recipe can be found here:
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/for-mikey.html

for the record, it's absolutely delicious!

where's finn?

2011-07-27T12:49:00.005-04:00

peek-a-boo!

playing games like peek-a-boo is one of finn's favorite things. i love this age--he is an absolute blast right now! :)

whole wheat crust

2011-07-26T12:28:00.003-04:00

after that last post about quiche, i decided to try making one with a whole wheat crust. i had every intention of photographing the whole process, but then of course i forgot to do that about half way through. i did manage to snap this one pic with my phone. there are herbs and parmesan cheese in there, in case you're all--what's that stuff??

anyway--the variation on the crust is as follows:

1 c whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 stick butter
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp iced water

everything else is the same as below. this was slightly more dense, but still nicely flaky and delicious. i think it might be good with the further addition of some cayenne pepper or chopped herbs, etc. i plan to experiment further...

quiche, sadly with no pictures

2011-07-07T13:06:00.001-04:00

lately, i've been making quiche, and our whole family is into it.

in fact, a couple of days ago, kieran was pretending to make quiche using some random toys. i questioned him about his choice of ingredients, and he told me his quiche contained spinach, basil, red onion, peppers, chicken, and lots of cheese. he also told me he had to make a crust, and that he would use flour, butter, and marshmallows. i was like--marshmallows??? and he goes--MARSHMALLOWS ARE DELICIOUS! hard to argue with that.

but i digress...

until very recently, i had never made a quiche on my own without hand-holding from my friend, meredith, but i decided i would try it anyway since i always have stuff around i think would make good ones. and, OH. MY. GOD. it's been amazing! AMAZING! we always eat them too quickly for me to take any good pictures, which is, i know, the sure way to lure you into trying something, but i am telling you, people--make some quiche. eat it. be happy. here is the recipe (though i use that word lightly--y'all know my favorite measurement is "some") for the one i have liked best so far:

INGREDIENTS

crust
1 3/4 c flour
1 stick butter
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp iced water

filling
4-5 baby portabella mushrooms
~1/2 small red pepper
2 cups packed washed spinach leaves
1 small spring onion (or 2-3 scallions)
olive oil
~1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or other herbs)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
salt and pepper
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk

DIRECTIONS
preheat oven to 400 F.
make crust: sift flour and salt together into medium bowl. work butter into flour mixture using fingers or pastry knife, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. add 3-4 tablespoons of iced water, just enough to make a dough that will stick together--it should still be fairly dry. on a floured surface, roll out the dough and place in a 9-inch pie pan. fancy up the edges if you feel like it--i like mine a bit on the rustic side. line the crust with foil, making sure the edges are covered, and fill with dry rice or pie weights. bake for about 20 - 25 minutes, until the crust is cooked but not browned. meanwhile...

make the filling:
thinly slice the mushrooms. finely dice the red pepper and the onion or scallions. in a medium to large-ish pan, heat a little olive oil and quickly saute the mushrooms, peppers, and onions, for just a couple of minutes. add the spinach and remove from heat as soon as the leaves wilt. you want these veggies cooked, but NOT overdone--they should still have some life in them. in a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, and add salt and pepper as you like--i never measure salt and pepper, but i would gess i added about 1/4 teaspoon of each and maybe a few extra shakes of pepper. when the crust is done, remove the weights and foil. sprinkle the parmesan cheese into the crust. next add the oregano, and then the veggies. last, pour the egg/milk mixture over the other ingredients. use your foil to cover the edges of the crust so it doesn't burn, then bake for 15 minutes. remove foil and bake about 10 more minutes or until the quiche is set. then eat!

we've been having it for dinner one night with a big salad, then eating the leftovers for breakfast a couple of days later with some chopped tomatoes--highly recommend!

robbing the bees, part two

2011-06-21T12:44:00.008-04:00

note: this is part two of a two part post on my family's honey harvest. click here for part one. also, if you want to skip the words, and just check out the pictures, you can find them all here: honey harvest, a set on flickr.

spinning the honey

once the wax caps have been cut away so that the honey is exposed in the honeycomb, you load 8 frames into an extractor and spin the honey out. the extractor is basically a centrifuge, and i have learned that there are two kinds, radial and tangential. the one here is tangential, which means that we have to spin the frames twice: there is a solid layer of wax in the center of each frame, so you have spin in one direction, then flip the frames over and spin the honey out the other way as well. with a radial extractor, you can extract both sides at once because of the way the frames are positioned in the centrifuge. in both cases, as you spin the extractor, honey is forced to the outside of the cylinder and then runs down to the bottom, where it collects until you are ready to drain it. this is harder than it looks, just from a control standpoint. note that in the pictures, you can see that dan chained the whole thing down to a heavy wooden stand so that nothing could get too out of control. each of the frames isn't all that heavy on its own, but you add 8 of them, full and dripping, and your load not without some inertial mass. you have to lean down on the top of the apparatus as you crank it, or it will go flying out of your hands. and then slowing it down when you want it to stop is an act of brute strength--i am pretty sure i came a hairs breadth of letting that thing fly across the room at one point. it's worth mentioning that you can also go too slowly or too quickly as well. you want to go fast enough to extract the honey without getting TOO fast and accidentally collapsing the honeycomb in the frame. kieran and finn were fascinated by the extractor. it's loud and whirring, and produces a lot of wind if you open the lid during the spinning process. and believe me, when the bottom of the tank starts to fill up, you KNOW when it's time to stop--the thick honey will hit the bottom of the centrifuge itself, and it's suddenly like trying to stir a brick. when the honey is out of the frames, they are light, and the comb cells are empty. some people will cut the comb and include it in jars of honey, but i really don't see the point of that. unless you have a use for the beeswax, i'd say just let the bees have it back.

bee pollen (aka, problem frames)

once in a while, you come across a frame that's a big pain in the butt to deal with. this one has a mix of half-filled cells, capped honey cells, and bee pollen. the pollen is the real issue--you don't want to spin that pollen out into your honey because you will NEVER get it back out again. dan taught me how to look at the frame and tell which cells are good and which are not. i thought it was odd that the bees cap the pollen cells just like the honey cells. so the trick becomes uncapping the honey cells without opening the pollen cells. then you can spin the frame just like the others to get what honey there is without getting pollen into the mix. it should also be noted that this is the bee pollen you can buy as a dietary supplement--some people believe that it's beneficial for all kinds of things ranging from improving memory, helping with weight loss, increasing sexual performance, to preventing hay fever. there's actually some evidence to support the use of local pollens to help with allergies, although from what i have read, ingesting them can also CAUSE sever allergic reactions in some people. i think most of these claims are probably marketing hokum, but what do i know, right? if i ever decide i need any, i clearly have a good source for it right here. :)

straining and pouring

as you extract the honey, you periodically have to empty the tank. since we had many hands, we just ran the honey through a fine mesh strainer into big stock pots, then took it upstairs to pour into clean jars. this process is slow, but not difficult. if we were doing this as a commercial operation, we would probably have gone through more than one straining of the honey to make sure we got all of the impurities out. however, since our honey is for--well--us, we strained it once and called it good. i would say about 99% of all the stuff was out after that first straining anyway. it's actually pretty amazing how clean and clear it is straight out of the hive. after the straining, the pot of (freakin' heavy!) honey is carried up to where the jars await. these are just basic mason jars, for which i have some kind of i-was-a-farm-wife-in-a-previous-life kind of love. why do i think they are so pretty?! the pouring is straightforward, if a tad messy. i am honestly not strong enough to do it with a full stockpot of honey, so i enlisted help from the hippie. check out those guns. heh. i thought it was cute how he tucked in his hair to keep it from getting into the honey. this strategy, while seemingly sound, did NOT keep the honey from getting into the hair by the end of the day.

a LOT of honey!

in the end, we harvested over 12 gallons of honey, which is a TON if you ask me! keep in mind that this is only a portion of the harvest, and only from two of the four hives. we will harvest again in the fall, but at that point, we will not take as much from each hive since winter will be coming, and the bees will need honey for themselves. i am really interested to see how the summer harvest is different from the spring one. even this time, there was a marked difference between the early spring honey, which was very light and clear, and the later honey--you could tell that dan and denise's neighbors had put in a buckwheat field in the late spring because the honey suddenly became much darker. we didn't try to separate the honey, but rather chose to blend it all together. however, i've talked to people who do this professionally, and they will rent little plots of land on which ti place bees on farms where specific crops are growing just to get different varieties of honey. i had some cotton honey once that was almost clear and so sweet it hurt my teeth, and then i've had buckwheat honey that's as dark as molasses and has a nuttier flavor. the honey is as different as the crops themselves.

finishing up

last, but not least, you have to harvest the capping wax and honey. this is done with heat--you collect it all in a pot, and slowly heat it till the beeswax melts. this causes the wax to come to the top, with the dirt, debris, and impurities in a layer under the wax, and then the honey on the bottom. from this amount of wax, dan said we should get another gallon or so of honey. and this honey, we WILL keep separate since it's been heated, which changes its character.

to wrap up, here are the answers to the questions everyone has been asking me since harvest day:

1. no, raw honey hasn't been heated in any way at all. it will crystallize more quickly than honey that's been heated, and if this happens, you can return it to nearly its original state by heating it very slightly. however, you don't want it to go over about 120 - 130 degrees F or you will start breaking down the sugars.

2. no you do NOT need or want to store honey in the fridge. it really doesn't go bad that i've ever seen or heard of. just keep it in your pantry. (or if you're like me, put it in something pretty because you are going to keep getting it out and leaving it on the counter so you can look at it.)

3. do NOT give honey to a baby under a year old. the sugars in honey are more complex than their little digestive systems can handle, and giving it to them can make them very sick. in fact, my grandmother used to say not to give it to a baby under 3 years old--the american academy of pediatrics now says one.

after all this, i guess it's safe to say that i am even more of a honey evangelist than i used to be. it just has to be one of the coolest processes in nature. i'm grateful to dan for teaching me so much about it, and i am really hoping he will let me help with the bees in the fall when we get ready to harvest again. if so, there may be a part three. we'll see!

robbing the bees, part one

2011-06-20T19:01:00.011-04:00

i love honey. i think it's beautiful and tasty and healthy, and i love trying all different kinds. i like cooking with it (especially pumpkin pie!), i like it on toast with butter, it soothes my throat when it's sore, it's good in peanut sauce and salad dressing, and i have this idea that at some point i will have time to make things like facial masks and stuff out of it as well. i love how it smells and how it tastes. i've read books on its history, taken pictures of it, and eaten it by the spoonful. there are probably 15 kinds of honey in my cabinet right this minute. so when my pseudo-father-in-law, dan, asked me if i wanted to help him harvest the honey from his hives, i jumped at the chance. and folks, that was one awesome, educational, hard-working day! prepare to be bombarded with pictures, and more information than you ever wanted about honey! (by the way, i think i am going to break this up into two posts--there are too many pictures and too much information for one.)

note: if you want to skip the words, and just check out the pictures, you can find them all here: honey harvest, a set on flickr.

the hives

dan has 4 hives, all lined up in a perfect, shady clearing well away from the house or anything that would disturb the bees. the two in the middle are parent hives, and the two on the edges are child hives. this means that he's using the first two colonies to set up two new colonies in the smaller hives. the parent hives are normally much taller, but dan had already pulled out the boxes we were going to harvest when i got there. as the colonies grow, the hives will as well, but you start the child hives small and with the hive entrance facing in the opposite direction from the parent hives. if you look closely at the middle picture, you can see the bees coming in and out of the entrance on the bottom level of the hive. there's a stump in the middle of the clearing that's hollowed out and filled with water for them to drink. the bottom picture is the view of the top of the clearing, and when you stand there, you can see the bees zooming in and out of the clearing like tiny dive-bombers.

the stucture of supers

each hive consists of a stack of wooden boxes called supers, and each super contains 10 frames, which are wooden frames in which the bees build honeycomb that gets filled with everything bees need: eggs and larvae, pollen, and eventually, honey. when you pull the supers, you suit up in protective gear, smoke the bees to calm them, pull the boxes out, inspect them to make sure they are not brood chambers (ie, filled with eggs, larvae, baby bees, etc.), brush off the bees with a paintbrush, and take 'em into the house--all before the bees get wise to your game and come after you. this is the part i didn't get to help with, about which i was both relieved and sad. honestly, i don't know if i could lift a full super--they are pretty heavy even without a full load of honey! the bees have spent all spring gathering pollen, turning it into honey, which they put into the combs in the frames, and capping the honeycomb cells with wax as each one was filled. the picture on the bottom of this set is a full frame, and the white/yellow coating you see are the beeswax caps on the honeycomb cells.

processing the frames

so, to get the honey out of the frames, we must first remove the caps. dan has this special knife for cutting them off--it's an electric knife shaped like a flat sword that heats up so that it melts the wax enough to cut through it. this process is straightforward but a little tricky. you stand the frame up and hold it with one had, while skimming off the caps with the other. you want to cut deeply enough to open the comb without gouging the it, lest you a) lose too much honey, and b) damage the comb, which will be returned to the bees after the harvest is complete. some people take the comb for the wax, but dan lets the bees have it back so that they spend less time building new comb and more time making honey. makes sense to me. the pointed sword edge of the knife is essential for getting the caps off in the corners. it's also worth noting that this knife is HOT, which means the honey that does come out of the comb at this stage is also HOT, and hot honey is more than a little bit like napalm. there's quite a risk of burning here. i cut a couple of the frames, but dan did most of them, as he's about 14 times faster than me. he makes it look easy and simple, but trust me--it's not. as you cut the caps, you just let them fall into a pan to deal with later. they can be used for any number of things of course, primarily candles and seeding new frames for new bees. the bottom picture is what a very full freshly capped frame looks like. that one is now ready for processing.

next up, spinning, straining, and pouring!

springy foodie thoughts

2011-04-13T12:19:00.003-04:00

springtime! and this girl's thoughts turn to--well--food. my farmers market is year round, but our winter was long and fraught with illness, and we just didn't make it out to the market as much as i would have liked to. but spring--oh spring! the market is in full swing now, and last weekend we stocked up on greens of all kinds, early strawberries, bread, fresh chicken--all sorts of things. just look!

click on the photo for more detail about the stuff.
we came home and had a lunch salad of arugula and mizuna tossed with french vinaigrette and topped with sliced french breakfast radishes and fresh cheese. we shared some clam chowder (from the friday night fish fry at the church in our neighborhood)and each had a cheddar and chive biscuit. lunches after the farmers market are the BEST! and this week, we've been eating many fresh, locally grown things. like so many people, it's becoming more important to me to keep our food close to home and close to the ground as well as to try to reduce our carbon footprint. it's a challenge sometime, but i've come to think of it as an investment in my own health, the well-being of my family, and the earth with live on. plus, hello? the food is better--WAY better!

i am working hard to plan, as well as to front load the cooking so that i can throw quick meals together during the week from things i've semi-prepared over the weekend--it's mostly working out. this past weekend, i cooked normal dinners, and i also made hummus, yogurt, pesto, a giant salad, baked chicken breasts, and chicken stock. i'm prepared for a week of eating based on that stuff as a base. lunches are grab and go containers of hummus, yogurt with berries, honey, and granola, salad, chicken, cheese, etc. and so far we've had the following dinners:

roasted chicken with sauteed spinach and baked sweet potatoes
whole wheat pasta with pesto, sliced chicken breast, chopped fresh tomatoes with a salad
scrambled eggs with thyme, peanut butter toast (on awesome la farm multigrain bread), and bananas (what can i say--i was on my own for that one, and it was what the kid wanted)

tonight we'll have a sweet salad with heirloom butter lettuce, fresh strawberries, english cucumbers, toasted pine nuts, sliced chicken, and a vinaigrette made from white balsamic with apple, elder flower and lime (this stuff is divine!) and some tuscan olive oil. tomorrow, i am going to throw something mexican-ish together with some of that chicken with some black beans, cilantro, tomatoes, cheese, and some type of grain cooked in the chicken stock. friday, i'll make a warm kale and potato salad with a lemon tahini dressing.

it's hard not to be almost high on all the good food!

in other food news, i am thinking seriously of joining a CSA with one of the farms we patronize at the farmers market. if any of you have experiences with this you'd like to share, i'd love to hear the pros and cons from people who have done it. i can't seem to think of a downside...

and in still other news, i'm about to get going in my garden boxes! yay for trying (again) to grow some of our own foods. i am fired up for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, lettuces, beans, and maybe even some corn. i have carrots getting steadily larger that i can't wait to eat--i've been diging up one a week and testing it out. hopefully i will do a little better at keeping up with the boxes this summer than last. trying to learn something about gardening while 8 months pregnant and then with a newborn baby--perhaps a touch ambitious...

ok--i am going to stop babbling about food now--you are probably bored to tears by this point. i can't help it though! i get so excited about it! thanks for sticking withme through this disorganized and rambly post.

in the middle of the night

2011-04-12T09:10:00.001-04:00

last night, or really, i guess it was this morning, finn woke up to eat. usually when he does this, he eats, and we go right back to sleep. however, this morning he woke at 3:32am, ate, and then was just--awake. not fussy, or upset, or even energetic and playful--just awake. the windows were open, and there was a soft, cool breeze blowing in. i stood up with him and held him in my arms and swayed, and he was calm and cuddly, and we just swayed and looked out the window at the half-light, and felt the breeze on our faces for about 40 minutes until he went back to sleep at last. and oddly, i feel kind of refreshed after that interlude, despite the crazed hour at which it took place. i feel almost as though i have been meditating at an eastern retreat--centered and more ready for the day than usual.

with two small children, a job, a man in the house, and a thousand things to do every day, it's not often that i have 40 consecutive minutes of quiet like that. it's not often that finn has 100% of my attention either, with everything else always going on. i can't say i want him to start consistently waking up at 3:30 int he morning, but once in a while? that's ok with me if i get that calm, sweet time once in a while.

it's been a long, difficult winter at chez jones-coposky. perhaps this is a sign that spring is finally here, we're all on the mend, and that we are about to have a period of peace. please, universe!

untitled

2011-03-31T12:24:00.000-04:00

my brother doug lost his battle with cancer last week. cancer, as it turns out, is a vicious beast that cares not one jot about your personal circumstances, or your age, or your children, or anything beyond the life it consumes. it's a horror to watch it take a person you love, and i truly can't imagine how awful it is from the other side. i hope i never know. is that selfish? i think everyone is selfish to some extent when faced with death.

it's a strange and surreal thing how this loss affects me. on one hand, i am devastated. i think about doug at so many random moments. i cry at strange times. but my day-to-day routines are continuing in spite of my underlying sorrow. what else can i do? someone asked me why i was back at work this week--where else can i go? i have responsibilities at home, at work, to my family--these don't end just because a life of a person i love is over. the show must go on, as they say.

and here's something i've learned through this whole mess--people have VERY very very different ways of dealing with grief. whole families have different styles of mourning. and people are unbelievably judgmental of how everyone else does it. empathy is hard for those close to the dying, and it seems that the very closest feel that they are the only ones in true pain or with a true sense of loss. not so.

my brother's life wasn't an easy one. it was filled with turmoil and trouble. but in the end, he had what he felt was a second chance--new family, new job, new role--things kind of falling into place. yet still, there were unaddressed difficulties and sadnesses for him, always. it does seem particularly unfair that the cancer came and struck him down just as he was starting to pull up. life's not fair.

doug was the best storyteller i have ever known. he gave awesome big giant bear hugs. he laughed easily and well. he was charismatic, and people from all walks loved him. even those he had done poorly by loved him--some of those best of all. he liked things simple and not fancy. he loved cauliflower more than anyone i've ever met. he never met a stranger. he loved cars and trucks and big machines with big engines. he was proud of his skill with a crane. he was proud, period. he was crappy with money, not always honest, and plagued by addictions. he loved fiercely his brother, two women, two daughters, a boy who was effectively his son, and the rest of us. he was too young to die, and we were all unprepared for it.

i am still unprepared.

robert douglas jones.
december 15, 1960 - march 22, 2011.

rest in peace, my brother. you are missed.

leapfrog

2011-03-10T12:37:00.000-05:00

attention, those of you who knit for small persons!

if you do not already know about it, it's time for you to check out petite purls, an online knitting magazine featuring items for and of interest to children. it's 100% free, and i must say--it. is. awesome. this magazine is the love child of my friend allegra, and her friend brandy--their model is much like that of knitty.com, with more of a focus on natural fibers and knitting green for your little ones. they've attracted a ton of attention from the knitting community, and for good reason. their patterns are great, from great designers, and so far, very reliable. highly recommend.

i don't have nearly the time to knit that i wish i did, but i do manage a thing or two here and there. and i actually managed to get these little pants (rav link here) finished before the squeaker was too big to wear them. in fact, i made them ages ago, but have neglected to post about them till now because i FINALLY managed to get some decent pictures of him wearing them. this may not come as a shock to most of you, but it's rather difficult to get good pictures of a moving baby!

i bought some AWESOME blue sky alpacas dyed cotton especially for these at the salty sheep (still my favorite yarn store). the yarn is a joy to work with and oh so soft. i also find that i am a lover of the worsted weight yarn in general. when you don't have a ton of time, you want what you knit to MOVE, and even i can see my progress when i am knitting with worsted. i would most certainly use this yarn again, and you should, too.

the pattern is leapfrog, from annika barranti--very well-written and easy to follow. i am in LOVE with the braided cable down the sides! i love that it doesn't look feminine at ALL. patterns for boys are so much harder to find than those for girls. i think these pants actually ARE gender-neutral. the only change i will make if/when i knit these again is that i will add a little shaping to the bottom of the leg so that it flares just the tiniest bit. the straightness of the leg makes them fit just a little more like leggings than i would prefer, so i think that a little increase here and there might alleviate that issue. other than that, however--perfection!

marathon

2011-03-01T12:53:00.002-05:00

the weekend before last, the hippie and i hosted an Event. we've been talking about it for a long time, but we finally got things together enough to have some close friends and family over for a marathon viewing of the entire lord of the rings series (extended editions) and a day of eating like hobbits. we had 7 meals over the course of the day, along with much socializing, a couple of epic backyard battles, and some actual watching of the movies. we had gorgeous weather, and everyone we invited came out. we got our geek on in a hardcore way, and It. Was. Awesome. and really, in the end, it was all about the food. here's the rundown, complete with bad pictures and recipes (or links to recipes) where i can provide them:

meal #1: breakfast
we kicked off the day with breakfast, baked eggs with kale and bacon. i found this recipe on one of my absolute favorite food blogs, use real butter, and i've been wanting to try it for weeks. as usual, jennifer yu proved that she can be trusted to provide a nearly fool proof recipe. i used small ramekins for this and put only one egg in each one. i was trying hard to keep the portions small so we could pace ourselves. that said, every single person at breakfast asked for seconds. i will most definitely be making these again. further, i think you could get really adventurous here and put just about anything in those eggs. we'll see what i come up with as spring approaches and the farmers markets start to fill with new and interesting herbs and veggies. :)

meal #2: second breakfast
for second breakfast, we had cinnamon muffins with homemade peach butter and a fruit salad. the muffin recipe is from muffins and quick breads from the williams sonoma kitchen library. this little book is filled with great recipes and has many ideas for flavored butters and spreads as well. loosely following their guidelines, i made some peach butter by mixing 1/2 a cup of butter with 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar and about 1/3 of a cup of peach jam that my friend meredith made--it was DELICIOUS! the butter was actually a little more like icing than butter, and really--how is that a bad thing?

meal #3: elevenses
for our third meal of the day, i decided to keep it simple. i threw together a place of meats and cheeses, and added some dried peaches, a fig and almond bar, and a loaf of really good rustic bread. thought simple, i think this is always a well-received combination of offerings--i try to include a soft double or triple cream of some kind, a simple and flavorful cows milk cheese, and something more interesting, like a sheeps milk cheese or a morbier or something. this works well, even if your eaters are picky. the meats here are an herb crusted salami and a lovely italian rosemary ham from fra'mani.

meal #4: lunch
for lunch, i tried something completly new to me: meat pies. i did a lot of researching, and decided on this version i found on epicurious. they're made in muffin tins, so they are of uniform size, and they made perfect individual portions that were very easy to eat with your hands. the only real changes we made to the recipe were related to the crust. the recipe calls for frozen crust, but we made our own instead: a double batch of regular buttery pie crust, leaving out the sugar and adding a couple of teaspoons of paprika. the directions say to cut two circles of crust for the top and bottom, but i decided to go for a more rustic approach. i rolled out the crust, cut out 16 circles about 6 inches in diameter, and then just folded them over in a somewhat pleated fashion, leaving a hole in the middle for venting. i made 1.5 the amount of filling in the recipe and it was perfect for 16 pies. we served these with some spicy mustard and an apple and onion chutney made by my friend sonya. i HIGHLY recommend a fruit chutney with these, by the way. it truly elevated them to a different level, though they were good on their own already. in fact, i'd call these the surprise hit of the day.

meal #5: tea
tea is a no brainer for me. it's not tea without scones and cake! i made a chocolate pound cake from bundt classics from nordic ware. it's a simple recipe that just works. i will tell you that the quality of cocoa you use in this makes a big difference--get something dutch processed, and you will truly taste the difference. i also made some blueberry scones from a book i got as a gift a few years ago, breakfast lunch tea. it's an interesting book, in that the amounts of ingredients are a little rough--a handful of cornmeal, two handfuls of blueberries, two very heaping tablespoons of baking powder--but yet, the baked goods always come out smelling and tasting divine. the scone recipe in this book is my favorite. i served the scones with devon double cream and pear ginger jam, again from meredith. (she gave us a bunch of homemade jams and fruit butters for christmas, and we are getting some major mileage out of them!) and of course, we made tea--lots of good strong black tea with milk and sugar.

meal #6: dinner
for dinner i got a little creative. my idea was to make some actual coney stew, but i couldn't find any rabbit. so. everyone (who's had rabbit) knows that rabbits taste like a richer version of dark meat chicken, so i used chicken thighs browned in bacon fat to approximate. i made this in the crock pot, and it made the house smell just awesome. in retrospect, i should have borrowed a second slow cooker and doubled this. here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
~3 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
3-4 tbsp bacon fat (enough to cover the bottom of your skillet completely)
3 good sized parsnips, peeled and sliced
4 large carrots, peeled and sliced
8 oz sliced baby portabella mushrooms
8 shallots, peeled and halved or quartered, depending on size
1/2 a bottle of red wine
1 cup pacific vegetable broth
5-6 sprigs fresh thyme
3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
4 strips bacon, fried
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
heat bacon fat over medium high heat. brown chicken thighs just until golden. (do NOT wash the pan!) add chicken thighs, parsnips, carrots, mushrooms, shallots, wine, vegetable broth, and herbs to slow cooker, and cook on high for about 5 hours, until chicken starts to come apart. remove herb sprig (they will just be sticks at this point.) shred chicken with two forks, stir in chicken stock, and season with salt and pepper. keep the slow cooker on while you make a roux: melt the butter in the same pan as you browned the chicken thighs. when the butter is melted, add the flour and cook over medium heat until roux is starting to brown. stir quickly into stew. serve immediately with good bread. we served a good simple salad with this as well. there was NOTHING left.

meal #7: supper
whew! are you hungry yet? for the last meal of the day, we went simple again. we had a selection of chicken sausages, which the hippie grilled, and i made some hot crash potatoes. the potatoes are from another blog i enjoy, pioneer woman, and they are wonderful, like a slightly healthier twice baked potato with lots of herbs and olive oil. i could eat 5 of them! this was the one thing we made all day that had any leftovers to speak of--i think everyone was just too full! i can't say i'm sorry though. it made for a fantastic breakfast the next morning with some fried eggs and toast with a little peach butter.

this whole day was just a blast, as was researching all the recipes and getting to try some very new things in the kitchen. i think we might make it a yearly event. i would recommend ANYTHING we ate, too--not one thing didn't turn out well all day long, which i consider something of a miracle.

hope y'all are drooling now, and ready to get in the kitchen! :)

january's handmade

2011-01-31T16:41:00.002-05:00

january hasn't exactly gone as well as i'd hoped, what with all the sickness and bad news. but i've been thinking about my yearly goals in spite of it all. i am making time to knit--gg's cardigan progresses apace in spite of the universe's attempts to derail all my best-laid plans. and--i've actually managed to squeeze under the wire with a small handmade gift for laura, the first recipient of my 2011 handmade facebook meme. for january's handmade item, i give you a simple pair of earrings:

note that you've seen these before, when i made a set of jewelry for my friend kerstin's birthday a while ago. the earrings were my favorite part of that set, and kerstin has loved them and wears them all the time. i had exactly the right amount of stuff to replicate them one more time, and i thought reproducing a prior creation would be a great way to get back into the jewels, which i've wanted to do for a while. plus, i really didn't want to knit something for laura, who is an avid and skilled spinner, dyer, and knitter who owns her own yarn store, so i went trolling through pictures of laura facebook for ideas. i decided that the style of these little glass leaves suits her very well, and i think they will look fabulous with her february lady sweater. :)

sick

2011-01-28T15:25:00.004-05:00

i am so tired of sick.

jason's aunt is sick. she's getting ready to start a new round of chemotherapy for brain cancer. here's hoping this one works better than the last...

my brother is sick. today he starts his first round of medication to treat his kidney cancer, which will hopefully shrink the tumor that plagues him. here's hoping he doesn't have adverse reactions to the drugs and that they are effective.

my little baby has RSV. mostly this means he has a really awful cold, but it's also a little scary. the list of problems it can easily lead to in a baby as young as him is rather tremendous. here's hoping that he doesn't develop croup, bronchitis, pneumonia, or even an ear infection. he's so miserable. he sounds like darth vader when he breathes. he has a fever that comes back every time his medication wears off. he's so ill that he cries out in his sleep. it's horrible to watch. i think this is the sickest that either of my boys has ever been, and i hate it. not to mention how hard it is to take care of him and keep working, which i absolutely must do. so it's no wonder that, between the not sleeping, and the worrying, and the trying to keep my professional head above water, well--i am a bit worn down.

and so it comes as no surprise...

i'm sick, too. boo.

perhaps if i go finish off the lovely chocolate chip cookies my friend beth brought to me, i will feel better.

story time

2011-01-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

the other night, the hippie snapped this grainy phone picture of me reading to the babies before bedtime, and i just adore it in spite of it's somewhat crappy quality. i absolutely love reading to the boys, and i do it every single day, even if we're late and there's no time to dedicate to reading. the boys also love books--it works out. when finn first went into daycare, his favorite toys there were these lovely cloth books just made of heavily patterned cloth sewn together. i was delighted! (by the way, i have tried like crazy to find these books to buy somewhere--i can't. i am sure they wouldn't be too hard to make, but i don't have that kind of time laying around, unfortunately. but i digress...)

both boys love board books, and lately, kieran's been moving more and more into true story books, which is great fun for me. in my youth, i had aspirations to become a children's book illustrator, and i guess i've never lost my love of the field. i had a few books on hand before k was even born, and now, neither of us can expand our collection quickly enough. his current favorites are little blue truck. harry the dirty dog, the cat at night, and going to sleep on the farm.

last night, i learned the hard way that reading where the wild things are before bedtime is a MISTAKE. critter got all wild and crazy and was chasing the hippie through the house with a stuffed dragon, roaring at the top of his lungs. when i said it was time for bed, he burst into tears, and wailed at me, "no mama! i rawring!!!" cute, but not exactly desired at 9pm...

anyway--the point is, if there are awesome story and picture and cloth books you guys love or have known a little one to love, we'd love to hear about it. we're in the market for more good books!

headway

2011-01-19T13:08:00.003-05:00

i am trying a new strategy for knitting. i am not putting this sweater away until it's done. seriously--i am leaving it out on the coffee table where i can just pick it up and knit a stitch, or a row, or whatever, when i have two seconds to do it. and check it out: it's WORKING! i knitted a swatch (please see the photo i have included as proof of my swatch. i hate swatching.), even. (granted, the swatch was off gauge, but that's irrelevant, right? i just guessed at the right needle size based on the wrong swatch and went with it--isn't that what everyone does?) i cast on for the sweater on saturday, and observe that i am making some serious progress. it helped a ton that i was able to leave the baby at home last night and actually go out and KNIT at my knitting night (thanks, hippie!)--this is only the second time i have been able to do this. i can JUST squeak it in between finn's evening feedings as long as the hippie is willing to feed both boys dinner and get the older one to bed with no help. last night i came home from actually knitting to a quiet house--it was so nice i almost wanted to cry. of course, the diabolical squeaker then woke up and threw up on me, but that's a whole other story, and not for today, when i am reveling in actually knitting. :)

there's actually a real possibility that i might get this done IN TIME for gabriella's birthday. can you feel my amazement?

thoughts on breastfeeding

2011-01-17T18:07:00.003-05:00

i am no breastfeeding nazi, although i definitely think it's too good for a baby not to do if you can. i definitely think it's an awesome thing to do for you and for your baby. there are, however, a million reasons why you perhaps CAN'T. some women just aren't comfortable with it at ALL, and that's reason enough, really. and god knows, it's a level of work and commitment for a working woman--well, for any woman, really--that i nearly stop having every third day. not to mention all the physical issues you can have too--inverted nipples, milk doesn't come in, baby won't or can't latch for a bundle of reasons, low production, infection, blocked milk ducts that can be horribly painful, thrush, yeast infections... the list goes on. all that aside, however, i am breastfeeding. i did with kieran, too, but with him, my milk supply was crappy, and we had to start supplementing almost from the beginning. finn, however, is a champion eater. i have noticed a bunch of small things that were wrong with how kieran was eating now that i have finn who is Doing It Right.

what i want to say here is that we, meaning myself and the women i know who have or who are presently breastfeeding, are a generation of women without teachers. there's this idea that, because breastfeeding is "natural", it comes easily to anyone who wants to do it. well--not really. in the past, you would have had your mother, grandmother, aunts, sisters, cousins, etc. right there to help you, and all of them would have had experience with breastfeeding. but our mothers? we were born to a generation of women who didn't do it, and for whon it was often not even a choice. with the introduction of mass-produced baby formula, NOT breastfeeding became the norm, marketed as it was to women of means and women who wanted to be "free" of their babies and the ties that quite literally bind mother to baby for a year or more. an assumption was made by many doctors during this time that women didn't want to breastfeed, and those who did had to often fight for the right to do so in a medical environment where drugs to dry up milk were given without consent or discussion before the baby's first feeding. for our generation, we have mothers who don't know what we're doing, or in many cases, why we are doing it. add to all that the fact that families are more spread out than they once were and the fact that so many more of us are single mothers than we used to be, and what you have is a generation of women trying to breastfeed without support. it's no wonder that so many women don't do it.

the other thing is--if you have a job, then you have no choice but to pump. and well, pumping sucks. pumping isn't the intimate, bonding act that breastfeeding is. it's purely pragmatic, sometimes painful, and just a bit yucky. thank goodness for it--it makes it possible to continue breastfeeding is you DO have a job. but it's work and not fun at all. it's also disruptive to your work day. you have to have bosses who understand and support your goals as a mother to be able to pull it off, not to mention that you need a place to do it. i know too many women who have been forced to pump in a bathroom because there's nowhere else. again--no wonder so many women choose not to do it.

you read all the statistics about women breastfeeding in this country, and how low those statistics are, and how much better it would be if more women did it, but damn. it's hard. it's work. and there's little support without going to a complete stranger and being willing to let that stranger see and handle both your breasts and your baby, not something everyone is able to do. the services of a lactation consultant are also far from free. most insurance companies won't pay for it, so if you can't afford it, then you are stuck. in my personal experience, it has also seemed that lactation consultants vary so wildly--some of them can make you feel worse than dirt when you are having problems, and others are like miracle workers--one must choose very wisely.

anyway. all i am saying is that i get why people choose not to breastfeed.

for me, i feel lucky that i've been able to do it as much as i have. with k it was about half and half. with finn, it's been all breastmilk, so far at least. and it's been fantastic to be able to do it! FANTASTIC!

one of my favorite things about my breastfeeding experience has been feeding finn in the middle of the night. he wakes up just enough to know he's hungry, and it's a contest to see if i can get him latched on before he actually starts to cry. i bring him into bed and lay on my side to feed him, and he curls into me like a soft little kitten with its mother cat. he pushes against my belly with his knees, and he pats my face with his little hand while he eats. it is not only one of the sweetest moments you can experience as a mother, there's also something very satisfying about the kind of care you are providing on a primal level. your body is doing what it's supposed to, and so is his. it's at moments like that when it's all worth it. all of it.

then there are all the benefits to mama no one talks about. i have dropped weight from breastfeeding like crazy! for a person who has had weight issues since forever, that's no small thing. i am still losing weight now, and finn is six months old and eating solids, too. in addition, breastfeeding helps you stop bleeding after your baby is born, it helps fight depression be releasing yummy chemicals in your brain, it helps you bond with your baby, and there are studies that say it reduces your risk of developing breast cancer, too. for me, with my family history of just about every type of cancer there is, that's pretty huge. but seriously, best of all, it helps you get rid of your big old pregnant butt. (of course, there's the downside that none of my pants fit, and that the babies mean i have no $ left after child care to go buy new pants. but i digress...)

so if you are breastfeeding, or trying to decide whether or not to do it, my advice is--give it a shot, and go into it with your eyes wide open. realize that there may be problems. realize that it's going to be a lot of work. accept that it's going to be something that kind of takes over your life for a year. then give yourself credit for every day that you make it--every single day you can do it is that much better for your baby, so go go go! but if you can't, for ANY reason, for goodness sake, don't beat yourself up about it, and don't feel guilty about it. as with all things related to parenting, i think you just have to do the best you can with what you've got. and, unless you are harming your child, no one--NO ONE--is in a position to judge your decision but you.

treat

2011-01-14T16:43:00.001-05:00

i am participating in a meme on facebook. i don't do too many of these sorts of things, but this one i could get behind, plus it's in line with my goal to make something every month in 2011. my friend kim posted the meme, which was a commitment to make something by hand for each of the first five people to comment on the post. each of the five people must then, in turn, post the meme and make something for five more people, paying it forward.

this morning, i came into my office to find this laying on my desk:

kim is in town for a class, and she brought me a bar of lavender olive oil soap she had made. it smells simply divine! an excellent treat for a friday morning--maybe i will actually find time to take a real bath this weekend and try it out. :)

somethin' new

2011-01-14T13:21:00.001-05:00

i am going to make gabriella a sweater for her birthday. she will be 8 in march, and i have wanted to make her something she could wear basically since the day her mother and i learned to knit together. i've been loosely waiting for the right sweater to come along and jump out at me, and finally, it has--the tiny tea leaves sweater (rav link). something about this is just so appealing to me--it's a real, grown-up style sweater that still looks like a young girl. it calls for some lovely madeling tosh yarn that costs more than i can really spend, so i was hunting for options when i stumbled across something PERFECT in my stash (i LOVE my stash!). i'll be knitting with this lovely brooks farm solana that i bought at SAFF in 2007:

this is a washable wool, perfect for an 8-year-old girl. it's a gorgeous color that will suit her beautifully. this stuff has 320 yards in a skein, and i had two, which gives me more than enough yarn to knit this cardigan and lengthen the sleeves as well. i cannot WAIT to cast on!

i knit a swatch last night in spite of being so tired i couldn't see straight. i was sleepy enough that i knit the swatch, then went to bed without even measuring the thing. we'll see tonight if i guessed my needle size right or if, instead, i have to knit another swatch before i can get going. this, by the way, is torture for a knitter. you KNOW the swatch is fully necessary, but it feels like wasted time when you JUST WANT TO KNIT! but i digress... the point is--this is the first time since finn was born that i am actually fired up to knit something. here's hoping it's a sign of things to come...

the babies, part squeaker

2011-01-12T12:33:00.000-05:00

finn is six months old today! he has been such a joy and such an adjustment! he's a fat, happy baby almost all the time, and man, his toothless grin is one of my favorite things in the universe.

the squeaker is huge--in the 85th to 90th percentile in all categories. he eats and eats and eats. when kieran was a baby, breastfeeding didn't come all that easily--we had to supplement with formula from very early on--not so with finn! the boy is all business. he's been on a pretty tight feeding schedule almost from day one, and has cluster fed exactly in line with every growth spurt. he started trying to grab my food at 4 and a half months, so i started giving him cereal then. everything you read says not to start a breastfeeding baby on solids until he's 6 months old, but you try telling that to this baby. now he's nursing as much as ever, eating cereal 3 times a day, and eating fruits/veggies 2 times. that seems nuts for a baby who's not even 6 months old, but that's the way it is, man. at 21 pounds, he's as big as a lot of 1-year-olds, so i guess it shouldn't be a surprise.

finn looks a LOT like kieran did at his age, and yet, there are enough differences to keep it interesting. k's hair all fell out, then came back in white blonde, and by this age, it was clear that k would have blue eyes. finn's coloring is different--he has dark, wavy hair, and has from day one, and his eyes are a mystery. they are still that baby blue-grey that could become anything. it's funny to me that kieran means dark and finn means light, yet their coloring is becoming just the opposite of that.

so far, finn is on target developmentally, but without the insane gross motor development that kieran displayed. finn is just blissfully normal. he plays with baby toys exactly as they were designed. he is on the verge of crawling and sitting up by himself, exactly as a 6 month old baby should be. i can't tell you how glad i am that he's not doing crazy stuff like climbing the stairs! a second baby should be laid back, and this one definitely is.

the daycare thing has been the biggest adjustment with finn. it's still a little strange to have him not with a person we know and love and trust from the beginning, but in a situation where i feel like he sometimes gets lost in the crowd. we started him in the daycare across the street from my office, and his caregiver there, zoe, was just fantastic--she absolutely helped me adjust to the whole thing, even though i won't say it was easy. now he's in the same daycare as kieran, which is far more affordable. and, while i am not concerned that they aren't meeting his needs, i do kind of feel like he's viewed as just another baby there. i think i just want one of his caregivers to show some signs of attachment to him or something. anyway--i don't mean to turn this into a whining session about daycare--i just miss zoe and having finn close to me at work.

finn is still small, but he has a ton of personality. he's ticklish as all get out and giggles if you even touch his feet. he loves toys, he loves us, and he loves his brother above all. he laughs all the time, more than about any baby i've seen. but he also has a little temper, and won't hesitate to shake his fists if you take to long to feed him or pick him up. he likes his scenery to change pretty often, so we cycle through play mats, a quilt on the floor, the high chair, the exersaucer, a bouncy seat, the bed, and our arms. if he's tired of a toy, you know it because it goes flying away from him. he's also super duper cuddly, which is awesome. his head still smells so good. he's the kind of baby that makes people want a baby--no joke.

having two is hard. having two is so different from one--there's never a break for me or for the hippie, which sometimes wears us down. but having #2 be like finn is worth it. and there's a light at the end of that tunnel, too. having two also makes the time fly by at a rte i would not have thought possible. finn is six months old today--where did that go? i really need to write more so i don't forget these heady first months with him. he's a treasure, and i want to hang onto every day!

the babies, part critter

2011-01-04T18:30:00.003-05:00

i haven't written jack about the boys in a while, and well--it's time. past time, really. so. oldest boy first. warning--this will be very stream of conscious.

kieran is growing like a WEED. he goes up, then out, then up, then out, in that way that toddlers do. We just finished an up, and now we're on an out cycle, which means he's eating--well--everything in the house. this morning for breakfast, he had a bowl of oatmeal, half a banana, a mini bran muffin, 10+ oz of milk, and a TON of blackberries. he goes, "mmmmmmmm, these blackberries are goooooood, mama!" and yay for the fact that the child loves food so much. his speech is taking off at an alarming rate, and he's become a little chatterbox. with us at least. he turns out to be a shy kid who doesn't want to be the center of anyone's attention but those closest to him. we won't even discuss his reaction to having to be in a holiday "performance" at school. that didn't end well.

he likes to be home with his stuff, and he likes to play outside. he's adjusted ok to the daycare thing, although he's hard to move in the morning--like his mother and father, the child is NOT a morning person. he loves trucks and trains and things that move. he loves animals and stories about animals. he feeds his dinosaurs from "troughs" he builds from the silverware caddies he steals from the dishwasher. he's very care-giver-y, putting his hippo down for a nap, feeding his stuffed animals, making them share.

it's pretty hilarious to watch him play, which he sometimes prefers to do alone. not that he doesn't love other kids--i just think he gets his share of them at school and is relieved to have some down time with his own stuff at home. it's good really--i think he's finding a personal balance there. we took him the the art museum this weekend, and that was a hit--he's a fan of the sculptures, especially rodin. he has also had a ton of fun this past year at the durham museum of natural history, and he appreciates a trip to the aquarium or the zoo a LOT these days. back in september, we took a little weekend trip to the beach with some friends, and he had an absolute blast playing with sting rays at the pine knoll shores aquarium and running around on the beach learning to stomp in the surf and digging in the sand with his trucks.

i look at him, and he's such a BOY now. no hint of the baby he was just a few months ago. he's starting to give up his nap (the horror!), and is more and more independent as the days go by. the speech explosion is leading rapidly to a question explosion as well. he asks me a thousand times a day, "what you doing, mama?" or, "what's that noise?"--probably his two biggest questions right now. he's learning to count (up to 20 consistently), to add, and he's recognizing letters--he tells us his name is K because it starts with K. he's too big to be a kieran!

it's been really fun watching him learn to be a big brother to finn. by turns, he takes care of finn--brings him toys, covers him up, pats him on the head, worries about him when he's crying--and is jealous of him. he wants mama when he wants mama--the end. ESPECIALLY when he's sick or tired or hungry. he'll pretent to be a baby himself, and tell me that mama has TWO babies. he remembers some of the baby toys finn now plays with, and he'll sometimes steal them, claiming them for his own. with christmas, we have actually had to draw a line in the sand over a few things, which is a hard lesson for the critter.

at every age, i find that he gets both easier and more difficult to manage. each progression brings its own challenges, which we are just meeting one day at a time. he's a hoot, a pain in the ass, stubborn as a rock, moody, hilarious, and possibly hypoglycemic. he makes me laugh every single day. he fills me with frustration almost as often. but good and bad, he's my little man, and a joy to behold.

brother

2011-01-03T16:10:00.004-05:00

one of the physically strongest and most robust people i have ever known is my brother, doug. as it turns out, nature doesn't give a damn about this. my family history is filled with cancer, and while i've sort of always quietly and morbidly assumed i'd have to battle it someday, it somehow never occurred to me that any of my siblings might also have to face the beast. my brother is heading up that hill, and his fight is likely to be hard one. good thoughts and prayers for him and his family would be greatly appreciated.

this, my friends, is a shitty way to start a new year.

goals

2011-01-01T21:43:00.005-05:00

2010 was the year of unfinished projects. so many things half done; so much life passed in a hurtle without stopping to breathe; so much time escaped from me in a fog of half concentration. to this, i cry: no more! my main goal for 2011 is to follow through on what i start. i want concrete goals for the year, so i have things i can check off. here's my list--consider it in sharpie:

HOUSE AND HOME
1. clean out/organize closet and dresser
2. fold laundry within 24 hours of doing it
3. plan meals better so we waste less food
4. finish bedroom decor
5. do more art with the boys
6. more dates with the hippie

KNITTING
1. knit kieran a fair isle hat
2. finish my sister's clapotis
3. felt all the nearly finished felted bags i have ready to go (and have HAD nearly ready to go for...uh...a long time)
4. finish one of the two shawls for me that i have on the needles
5. knit a sweater for ME
6. knit finn a blanket

SELF
1. maintain my haircut
2. move more
3. play more with my family
4. write more
5. make at least one thing a month
6. finish 3 novels

there. something down on paper, so to speak. as cliche as it is, it's important to me to start the year off with some thoughts of this nature. i'm not wasting time regretting all the things i didn't get done in 2010--that's pointless. all i am doing is looking to the future with thoughts of improvement.

i believe i will print this out and put it in the fridge to remind me every day what i want to get done.

the new normal

2010-10-12T08:04:00.000-04:00

boy, what a lot of adjustments.

when i was out on maternity leave, my nanny quit. she had really good reasons for this and had a super hard time making the decision to do it, but man--it was tough on all of us. the critter has known no other care since he was 6 weeks old, and he was/is a part of their family. very hard for him to get why he was suddenly not there with them every day. at least i was still on leave, so he got to be home with me and finn for a month.

i spent a few weeks researching the heck out of all the options, and in the end, decided that daycare was the best thing for us. right now, the boys are in two different daycares. turns out that wait lists for babies are really long, so it proved to be impossible to find a place that had an opening for both a 2-year-old and a baby without paying an INSANE amount of money. having them in two places is good and bad. it's good in that i really feel like both of them are in the best places they could be. it's bad in that i have to schlep finn and and out of kieran's daycare twice a day, and that i am losing any kind of sibling discount i'd get by having them in the same place.

kieran LOVES daycare. loves it. he's happy to go in the morning, and happy to come home in the evening. he's excited at the end of the day to tell me about what all he did and played with. his vocabulary is exploding. he has taken to it like a duck to water, and i am SO grateful! i love his center and his teachers and the staff at the front desk, and really--i could not be happier about how it's working out so far.

finn, after two days of daycare, got sick, and has been sick for three weeks. he gave it to kieran, then me, then the hippie. so that's been fun. i love the woman who is taking care of finn, but i still very much wish that he was with a person rather than at a center for the first few months. it's hard for him to sleep there with all the noise, and it seems like the hands on time with him is just, by necessity, limited. the awesome thing is that he's directly across the street from my office, which means i can go across and feed him a couple of times a day rather than pumping. pumping stinks, and i am super happy to not be doing it. i am also REALLY lucky that i have bosses who support this. finn's situation, while both good and bad, is also the best i can do right this minute, so we're learning to deal with it.

the weekdays are a flurry of activity. i know every family with two working parents deals with this, so i am not going to get whiney about it. but sometimes, i'll tell you--it's tough. that said--we're getting into a rhythm where it works for us. i'm managing to feed us home-cooked breakfasts most mornings, and home cooked meals most nights. we're all getting some sleep. we're all clean (mostly) and dressed in clothes that are clean. the house hasn't (yet) become a pit of utter chaos. the boys are happy for the most part. now if we could just all get healthy again, this new normal would be working for me. we're getting there...

on birthin' babies, part 2

2010-09-04T15:16:00.004-04:00

so--where were we... oh yes, the doctors wanted me to schedule a c-section, so i did. i did make my favorite doctor at my practice sit down and use statistics to convince me i was doing the right thing. and in the end, i have to say that, odds of vbac success were so low for me that i think i probably DID do the right thing. there's a part of me that will always wonder...

anyway--the differences between finn's birth and kieran's were nothing short of astounding, for so, so many reasons. here are the highlights:

1) pre-op appointment
for obvious reasons, you don't get this with an unscheduled c-section, and there was a part of me that was like--why do i need this? i've already had one c-section, right? i was so wrong--there's definitely an advantage to this appointment. for example, i learned that with kieran's birth, they gave me a dose of sedatives after he was delivered for no reason at all. this explains why the recovery, first feeding, and eventual move to the post-partum hospital room are all a blur. the doctors could not explain why i was given these drugs and why i wasn't told about it before hand, or even afterwards, but at least i knew enough this time to tell them not to do it. also, at this appointment, we filled out all the admission paperwork and had all the bloodwork done ahead of time, so there was no waiting when we got to the hospital

2) scheduling
with finn, we had a scheduled surgery at 10am on monday morning, which meant we needed to get to the hospital at 8am--perfectly civilized. and we did--we got there on time, went through prep, and had plenty of time to meet the OR nurses in charge of things. the nurses went over what to expect in the OR, what the spinal tap would feel like, and what to alert them about with regard to the drugs i had to have. this was also an opportunity to let the anesthesiologist's nurse know that i wanted no sedatives. she seemed surprised by this, but went with it. everything went as scheduled, and we were out of recovery and in our room at 1:somehting pm.

in sharp contrast to this schedule, with kieran, we had a "scheduled" induction, which means the hospital jerks you around for a day or so then tries to make you come in at 3am to be induced. we ended up with a pitocin drip at noon, fully dilated and pushing by 5pm, the decision to have the c-section at 8:30pm, and birth at 8:49pm. recovery took a while, and we finally got to our post-partum room at 2am.

now, the reason this matters is that, after you have a c-section and after you get to your room, they have to monitor your vitals every 30 minutes for 4 hours, and then they drop it back to every 3 hours. with finn, we were done with this monitoring by 6pm. with kieran, it was 6am. plus with kieran, we were both exhausted from the whole process. this time around, we got some actual rest after the birth--i can't tell you what a difference this makes.

3) expectations
going in for a scheduled c-section, you have nothing but acceptance to deal with. you are no longer hoping for a natural birth, or wondering who's on call, or whether or not you will need pain meds. you have accepted the surgery, chosen your doctor, and are no longer fighting the system. i can't tell you how much this reduces the anxiety for both you and for your partner.

4) drugs
the afore-mentioned sedatives, which i would have utterly rejected, had i known anything about them. what a difference not to have them this time!!! in the OR, i was alert, focussed, and able to talk to the doctors and nurses. in recovery, i could ask questions and understand what was going on. and last, and also most importantly, i was able to focus on finn and jason and myself. finn's first feeding went beautifully, which i think is a credit to the clear head. thank god for the clear head!

5) hospital crowding
when kieran was born, it was in this weird peak period of baby deliveries at our hospital. this means we ended up in the overflow to the overflow to the birth center in a crappy, tiny room with nurses and techs who were either called in from other hospitals or who had worked multiple shifts. they ranged from kind of tired and impatient to outright bitches, with two notable exceptions. we also never had the same nurse twice. this time, there was NO overcrowding at all. we were in an awesome new room in the birth center with the same day and night nurses both days. all of the nurses and techs were helpful and friendly and in good moods because they weren't completely overworked. it's truly amazing what a difference this makes. i wish i had had gifts to give these women.

this is all stuff i didn't know was bad the first time, until it wasn't bad the second time. this time, it felt like cheating, things were so smooth and easy. i am thankful i had good people all around me, in the OR, in recovery, and in the post-partum care. i am also thankful, they let us go home a day early, even though i am still kind of stunned that they let us.

and speaking of thankful, i am thankful i have a healthy baby, that the breastfeeding is going so well this time (which i fully credit to that first latch), and that i have healed beautifully in spite of over-extending myself during recovery. (hard not to with a 2-year-old in the house!)

the only bad thing i can say about the whole experience this time was that i came home with some nasty chemical burns. they hospital changed the type of adhesive they use on the pressure bandages sometime between kieran's birth and finn's. my sensitive skin does NOT like the new adhesive, and my belly was covered in some large, painful burns and blisters that were hiding under the bandage. i discovered them when removing the bandage--VERY unpleasant. but still--nothing some neosporin hadn't fixed up in a couple of weeks.

again--i would never encourage anyone to choose surgery over a natural birth. i will ALWAYS wish natural birth had been an option for me. and maybe it was, but not without defying a doctor i trust and possibly risking my or the baby's health. not worth the risk.

in conclusion--second birth experience WAY better than the first.

on birthin' babies, part one

2010-08-28T02:11:00.007-04:00

as i write this, it's 2am, and i am nursing my new boy. finn william coposky was born at 10:27am on monday, july 12th. he weighed 7lb. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long. he's the sweetest thing ever, and so far, everyrhing about him has been criminally easy. i can't even begin to tell you how lucky i feel to have two super-healthy babies at my "advanced maternal age" or really, at any age. given all that can go wrong in the development and birth of a baby, i know full well what a miracle i have on my hands. and dear lord, i am thankful!

let's talk a minute about birth, which has become such an industry in the US. y'all know me well enough by now to get that, given the choice, i'd rather have had my boys naturally than any other way, and that it hasn't been an optuin for me. when kieran was born, by blood pressure was slowly creeping up at the end, which means that my doctora were pressuring me to induce. i still, and will always, wish i could go back in time and fight for more time. actually, i'd love to go back and get a midwife, but this is because i didn't know then what i know now. but i digress... anyway. with the critter, i was induced 4 days after my due date and ended up having a c-section after full labor and 3.5 hours of nonstop pushing. not the best experience.

things were pretty different this time around.

this time, i never developed the gestational hypertension we were all waiting for. they monitored the crap out of me, but there was nevernany sugn of any problem whatsoever. however, given the facts of the first birth, my odds of a successful vaginal birth this tume were on the order of 25%. couple that with the fact that the doctors really didn't want me to go past my due date given my age, the size of the baby, my blood pressure issues, and my personal risk of developing pre-eclampsia, and with the hippie's desire to never watch me go through that whole meaa again, and i decided not to buck the system. i had a scheduled c-section 3 days before my due date.

now, let me make two points:

1) all of my doctors recommended that i schedule the surgery on my actual due date to give my body as much time as possible to go into labor on its own. however, the hospital schedule was full, so it wasn't an option. neither was the day after. then it was the weekend, and they don't schedule them on the weekend. they didn't wabt me to wait as long as the following monday, so... you start looking the other direction. the due date was a thursday. the doctor on call on wednesday is the dude who atripped my membranes last tine without talking to me about it. tuesday was doctor death--no thanks--i'd rather have my mother do the surgery. monday waa the doctor i trust the most, with whom the hippie was most comfortable, and who delivered the critter. dora that seem like a no-brainer to anyone else?

2) all of this said, if you are pregnant, i would encourage you to try a natural birth, with a midwife if possible. and if it's not possible, then choose your practice carefully. and do not be afraid to trust your instincts and stand up for what you want. listen to the doctors, but make your own decisions, and don't let them bully you. they will. keep in mind that your doctor, no matter his opinion of himself, is just a person and not the boss of you. you are an intelligent, grown woman. read. learn the facts. ask queations. be a pain in the ass. and if, after all that, you need medical help, take it! and if you end up with a medicalized birth, try not to feel like you have failed. harder than it sounds, but important.

ok the kid has finished eating, and i am about to pass out, so i am going to finish this tomorrow with a discussion of what all was different about this c-section and the previous one. so many things made this such a different experience!

1001 blog posts

2010-08-27T16:30:00.004-04:00

as you may have noticed, i pretty much took the summer off. i've been focusing on living in the now and being with my family. i've had so little downtime that i have been unwilling to spend that time in front of a computer. i'm getting things back together at last, however, and i am ready to start writing again. i have written hundreds of blog posts in my head, but have found no time to get them out. i am bursting with words.

it's a weird thing, this blogging. whether you have a huge readership or not, it makes you start putting pressure on yourself to write. i guess this is a good thing if your goal is to make money from your blog or from being a writer. but for me, this blog is as much for me as it is for y'all, and i don't need the pressure. that said, i am also ready for blogging to become a larger part of my life again. there are so very many things going on, and i don't want to forget them. looking back at this blog, it's like a digital scrapbook for me--i love that. and that's where i want this thing to be. i want to write more and publish more pictures and knit more and cook more and share more, so that all of that will be there for me and my boys.

so.

fresh start. fresh template. i am still playing with it, but i like all the easy options blogger has recently given me. i get to update the look with minimal effort. about time, blogger.

for those of you still sticking with me, thanks for that. i'm hoping to be around a bit more in the near future.

sweet, sweet corn salad

2010-06-07T21:39:00.004-04:00

man, i love summer. and i know it's not technically summer yet, but we've had enough days in a row with 85+ degree weather that i consider it summer here already. and one of my favorite things to eat in the summer is this salad i made up out of some leftover random things i had in my fridge one thursday night a few summers ago. i still think it rocks, and i make it for cookouts, myself, for the critter, and for any other reason i can think of. it's so yummy--everyone but meredith will love it.

INGREDIENTS
4 ears of corn
1 red bell pepper
4 scallions
1 tsp chopped cilantro, or more
~ 1 tsp ranch dressing, just a little bit
black pepper to taste
1 avacado

DIRECTIONS
clean corn, place in a large pot, and cover with water. bring to a boil, let boil for 5 minutes. submerge in cold water to stop the cooking process. cut corn from cobs, and place in a large-ish bowl. chop bell pepper, scallions, and cilantro, and add to bowl. add ranch and black pepper. mix well, cover, and refridgerate for at least 20 minutes until ready to eat, up to a day. just before serving, chop avacado and stir into salad. that's it. simple and delicious.

pregnancy update: entering the home stretch

2010-06-03T22:19:00.005-04:00

34 weeks

seriously, people--only 6 weeks to go. i've been sailing though the past month, refusing to stress over anything, and telling everyone, including myself, that june is my get-my-shit-together month. it is upon me. i spent my lunch hour today ordering stuff for the baby's room. i have an official registry set up for the shower some friends are unexpectedly throwing for me. i have a plan of attack. what i am trying to do now is quell the sudden urge to repaint the new baby's room. so far, the urge seems to be winning, in spite of the fact that the room is a lovely green that's perfectly acceptable. i long for a light, clear, teal. *sigh*

anyway. pregnancy is progressing normally, in spite of the dire predictions of the horrible death-focused doctor at my practice. it's also not without its concerns, in spite of the pie-in-the-sky doctor's assessment. it's funny how well you get to know these doctors when you are on your second round with them and going in twice a week for tests. if anything is going to make me ill, it's the fact that i am spending too much time there. lol.

anyway, as you all know, i have had high blood pressure since my youth, which means there are things they watch for when you get pregnant, especially if you are 40. they monitor my BP of course, as well as the baby's size, the fluid levels in my uterus, the placental function, esp as related to the variation in the baby's heart rate, my weight, my kidney function, and any tiny signs that i might be becoming pre-eclamptic. well, so far--everything is a-ok. the baby is gigantic, my BP is running lower than it has since i was 16, there's no sign of anything wrong anywhere.

dr. death still talks about stillbirth a lot. dr. sunshine gives me unrealistic statistics for VBAC success and the ability to let nature take its course. dr. reality--the dr. who performed my surgery with the critter, is somewhere in the middle. it's pretty likely that i will end up with a c-section with him again this time. i am trying to come to terms with that, although it's still depressing to me that i am most likely not ever going to experience a natural labor and delivery myself. i am somewhere between the anger and acceptance phases of my grief over this. i keep reminding myself that the healthy mama and baby at the end of this process is the goal. but it doesn't change the sadness at the lack of control and over not being able to let nature do its thing without taking a bunch of possibly unnecessary risks.

anyway. my point here was--i'm feeling pretty good. the baby's doing great. we're sailing into the home stretch. my belly is huge, and once again, it's hard to believe it can get any bigger, though i know it can...

on the down side, i am bone tired. i am getting up probably 5 times a night with either leg cramps or to pee, or both. i have considered naps at red lights more than once in the past couple of days. my gums are so bleedy, it looks like someone has punched me in the mouth every time i brush my teeth. my pants are all falling off because the baby is stealing my ass much like his big brother did.

on the upside--he's a mobile little critter, and i am firmly in the land-sharking phase of this pregnancy. it's comforting really, having all that motion from him--let's me know every day that he's ok in there. i am motivated as all get out to Get Things Done. i have a temp lined up for my leave. i am eating all the cookies i want.

could be much worse.

my thyme is blooming

2010-05-06T18:10:00.003-04:00

isn't it pretty?

note: you can see the larger size on flickr if you click on the pic above, then go to "all sizes."

mmmmm, cake...

2010-04-26T13:02:00.003-04:00

my weekends are filled with errands and catching up and trying to get 1000 things done at once. not that there aren't things mixed in there that i enjoy--there are--but sometimes, i feel like it's hard to get any real down time or time for myself. i've been trying to make myself take part of the critter's naptime on one of the two days of the weekend to do something i WANT to do instead of something i NEED to do. and yesterday, that something was to make this cake. and oh my god, it's good. my friends steve and tiffany gave me a lovely book a couple of years ago called heirloom baking with the brass sisters, and i have looked at it many times without actually making anything from it. this was the first, and it was both simple and delicious. the only downfall was that i over cooked the cake a tiny bit, which made it more crumbly than it should have been. however, the icing and peanuts made up for it. this is a chocolate peanut butter cake with a boiled chocolate and brown sugar icing and salted, roasted peanuts pressed into the sides. the combination of the rich dark chocolate in the icing with the saltiness of the the peanuts was SO GOOD! i am no food photographer, but man, these pictures make my mouth water all the same. good thing i have a piece of this right here to eat for lunch dessert, huh? :)

new (free!) yarn

2010-04-26T00:05:00.002-04:00

oops--i wrote this post last week, but failed to actually publish it. let's hear it for follow-through! anyway, here it is--better late than never, right?

one of my bosses is also a friend and fellow knitter, which sometimes works to great advantage. she has excellent taste and picks out lovely gifts as well. earlier this week, these things all coincided when she gave me a gift for administrative professional's day--enough yarn for 3 pairs of socks. now, granted, the likelihood of me making actual socks from this yarn is, as you guys well know, slim. and yet--the yarn--it is intriguing to me. the ella rae is so my color scheme, and it's enough for a swallowtail shawl (rav link). the others, who knows, but the possibilities are endless. are all these colors not lovely? here's what you are looking at, from top to bottom:

aslan trends santa fe: 2 skeins, 180 yards each. 85% merino, 15% polyamide. color SFE1327, dyelot 3810. made in argentina.

ella rae lace merino: 1 skein, 460 yd. 100% extra fine merino. color 120, dyelot 90021. made in italy.

opal: 1 skein, 425 m. 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide. color 2650, dyelot 102. made in germany.

what the hell have i been doing?

2010-04-22T13:10:00.005-04:00

i swear i look up and months have passed. it's a tad disconcerting. today, out of nowhere, i actually feel caught up enough to write something, so let's catch up, shall we?

today, i am 28 weeks pregnant. and TIRED. but otherwise, it's good. normal complaints from any woman in the 3rd trimester, but so far, all is well. baby is healthy, mama is healthy, and the rest of the family is adjusting to the whole mess. we're keepin' on keepin' on, as it were.

in the past couple of months, a lot has happened. there have been some excursions: we went to the celebrity dairy open house again, like we did last year. it was awesome again, too, but sadly i can find the pictures from that excursion nowhere, so you will just have to imagine cute baby goats, chickens, the critter playing on a bobcat, and us buying goat cheese having forgotten that i can't eat it right now. oops!

on march 7th, gabriella turned seven. it's impossible to believe how grown up she is. she's almost done with first grade, and she's so much fun to talk to and so beautiful. she is smart and funny and a blast, and although she's not mine, i still love her like she is. i am so glad for a little girl i can get my girl on with, especially now that i know i'm not having a girl of my own. she's still the best big sister the critter could ever have, and such a huge part of his village and life. we're lucky to know her.

aside: g's birthday party was a bug-themed affair at the NC museum of life and science, which is an awesome place. the critter had so much fun running around digging for fossils, sitting on dinosaurs, looking at butterflies, and petting farm animals, we ended up joining the place so we can go back there often. highly recommended!

my friend emily and i snuck away for a beach weekend in march, which we seem to be making a yearly tradition. unlike last year, this time we had lovely weather, and i took not a single photograph.we spent time shopping in beaufort, eating seafood, walking on the beach, knitting, talking, and making a ninja strike on the salty sheep on the way out of town. i learned that amber, one of the owners of that most loved of all yarn stores, is also expecting a baby this summer. so cool.

easter happened. we didn't do that much, but we did set up a little egg hunt for the critter in our front yard, and then we went over and crashed a larger hunt in jennifer's cul de sac on the other side of the neighborhood. this year, the critter really GOT the egg-hunting thing, which was really fun. we put a couple of m&ms in each of his eggs, and then hid one larger one with a reese's peanut butter egg (the hippie's favorite!) inside. the kid was thrilled to discover this and to get to eat candy for breakfast. he was so cute looking for his eggs, i couldn't stop taking pictures of him. it's hard to believe that we are only a week away from his second birthday. the kid blows my mind.

in more recent news...

on gardening

hippie and i have long discussed the possibility of adding a charleston-style garden down the side of our house. it's damp and shady, and it seems like a perfect place to make a walk with shade plants, ground covers, and big pots of things that will bloom. we've been slowly collecting pots and ideas and making plans, and last weekend, we jumped into it with both feet. it's a work in progress, but the photos you see here are the work of two critter naps plus a couple more hours. so far, i love how it's coming out. there's much to do yet, but we've done enough now that i can SEE it coming together in my mind. i can visualize what it will be like in 5 years, when the periwinkle and hastas have taken hold and the mosses we planted are all around the flagstones will will soon add to the path we're making. this, more than anything else we've done, really makes me feel like we truly live in this house--like we will be here for a long time. we are making it our own. so awesome.

in addition to the side garden, we've also been refining things along the front walk: getting the grass to take hold at last, replenishing the herb garden, adding annuals here and there, mulching around the perennials that have come back from last year and the year before. we have veggies (radishes, lettuce, onions, black cherokee, red pear, and flame tomatoes, orange bell peppers) in the garden box in the back, although this, too, is a work in progress. and the trees we've planted are thriving, and will one day give us a shady corner in the back where we will be able to add blueberry bushes. my head is full of plans, which is my absolute favorite place to be. loving the yard this year!

on cooking and eating

the farmers market is open again! this means i am inspired to cook. i've also been watching jamie oliver's food revolution, which only strengthens my resolve to feed my family well, to try new things, and to keep on cooking fresh, healthy things for all of us. i have come, over the past few years, to look at this as a serious investment in my health and future, as well as those of my family and friends. i am a food evangelist--i can't help it. and yes, i still love me some cupcakes, which i think is just fine. i don't make them every day, and i really only want the ones made by me or someone i know didn't add a bunch of random junk to them. anyway--i'm not about to start a massive food rant here (again)--i just want to say--hurray for spring and the farmers market and local fresh things that make me want to cook them.

this is a roasted pork loin from fickle creek farm (recipe here)with some fresh grilled asparagus (from whole foods still--asparagus isn't in here yet) that i made on sunday. on monday, in accordance with my and the hippie's new plan to eat less meat and more veggies, i made a lovely roasted potato and wilted kale salad (recipe here). it was SO GOOD! i can't tell y'all how much i am loving the world of food blogs and epicurious right now. the food porn available is truly inspirational to me in the kitchen, plus trying to make more vegetarian dishes has sent me searching for new recipes at least 3 times a week. it also helps that my friend meredith has been having some of the same kinds of food epiphanies that we have over these past years, and that she and i have long loved to cook together. we madly share recipes and ideas, and it's been just great. loving my kitchen as much as the garden right now!

so. in conclusion--life is very full. overall, it's happy and good. as always, i want more time, more sleep, more time, more money, and more time. ain't that always the way, though? knitting and critter and pregnancy updates to come, but i have no more blog in me right now, plus i am totally out of writing time. y'all have a good afternoon and night, and tomorrow i'll show you my new yarn.

pregnancy update: snakes, snails, and quilts

2010-02-23T13:23:00.005-05:00

19 weeks, 5 days

so it's taken me a few days to get around to posting anything, because well--life is busy. and also--hello? i'm pregnant and tired. but anyway. the level 2 ultrasound was last thursday, and it was all good. we're having another boy, which is really bittersweet for me. i am happy for the critter to get a little brother, and i'm REALLY glad to have a healthy and normal baby above all things. but it's hard to let go of the idea of ever having a girl. it was a little bit this way when i found out the critter was a boy, too, but then, there was at least the possibility that we would have another baby. this time, we really hope to be done. so this time, it's really the last chance for a girl. and while i love my boy, and i love the idea of two of them running around together, and while i love the bond that brothers share, there is a part of me that will always mourn the loss of pigtails and dresses and ribbons, and a daughter who might have loved my grandmother's china. this is life, right? greener grass and all that. all of that said--yay for another little boy! i hope he and the critter will be great friends for life like my brothers have been. and also--yay for getting to reuse all those cute and adorable clothes i have bought over the past two years, or at least some of them.

here's what the little man looks like right now:

there were more pictures of him, but these are the most clear. and further, i don't think i need to post the pics of the man parts, even in utero! i will tell you that he spent half the ultrasound sucking his thumb and the other half investigating those parts. there is no doubt that this baby is all boy. lol.

so i've been shopping for stuff for his room, and i've been wholly uninspired by what's availble. it's all either too formal to just too damned blue. i like blue a lot, but man--they really pour it on for the baby boys.i get a little overwhelmed by it. i want more than one color in the room, and i don't want it too pastel or too crayola primary either. tough. the only alternative to that seems to be formal. yuck. so anyway--i've been poking around on etsy for ideas, and found this quilt:

it's from an etsy shop called red staggerwing designs, and i love it! i love the amy butler fabrics in it, and i love that it's blue, but not ALL blue, and green, but not all green, and that it has many colors in it. i pounced on it, and i can't wait for it to arrive. i am going to make a blanket for this new baby boy like the one i made for the critter, but in a lovely dove grey, and i will use these two pieces to start designing a new nursery. yay! and maybe by the time i get around to picking out things like a bumper pad, there will be something out there i like that doesn't cost $400+.

olympics progress

2010-02-16T13:03:00.001-05:00

as stated in the last post, i had people over and cast on my project for the knitting olympics. and then i ripped it out. turns out i can't actuall watch the olympics and knit lace at the same time. so i restarted on saturday, and made some headway by knitting through the critter's nap on both saturday and sunday. then monday, i had the day off and the critter was at his nanny's house, so i made some more progress. i knitted a couple of rows at lunch today, too. then i had a little progress photo shoot here at work where the lighting is bad and there's nowhere very light colored to pin out the shawl so you can see it. the light green chair in our work training room was the best i could do. but anyway--progress! yay! of course, it's getting slower and slower as i go, since the rows are getting longer and longer. that's just the way of things i suppose. it's still going to be an absolute miracle if i manage to finish this thing by the end of the olympics!

so back to friday night for a minute. my friend amy made dessert int he form of this lovely cake. this is an AWFUL picture i know, as i had only my phone available to snap a quick one. this picture that THK took is way better, so go look at hers. but anyway--how cute is that?

meanwhile, i also have to say that i really enjoyed the opening ceremonies this time. punk rock tap dancing bluegrass fiddlers covered in tattoos? i mean--how can you go wrong with that. and that poet they found on YouTube??? go canada is all i have to say about that. awesome. no wonder i couldn't concentrate on the actual knitting.

the knitting olympics, 2010

2010-02-12T12:03:00.001-05:00

it's time once again, for the knitting olympics. and as I did in 2006, i am going to participate by starting a project tonight that i will hopefully, by some miracle, finish by the 28th when the torch goes out. last time, if you recall, i had only known how to knit for a few months, and i knitted a clapotis from some wonderful cashmere yarn--i had to pull an all-nighter to finish. but that clapotis remains one of my favorite and most worn knitted items. i am hoping for similar results this go'round.

i've chosen to knit a shoalwater shawl from some lovely prism lace wool that the hippie gave me as a gift a few years ago. my friend beth tells me this isn't challenging enough, but for me, it's definitely going to be a challenge. this will be my first time working with lace-weight yarn for one thing, plus i am not very experienced with lace. so while this is a simpler lace pattern, i still think it's going to require a lot of focus from me. in addition, the sheer volume of knitting involved is insane. if i finish, it will be a small miracle, especially when you add in that whole, pregnant, tired-as-hell, atttention span of a gnat thing. cross your fingers for me, people!

tonight, i have invited all my local knitting friends over for a little cast-on party during the opening ceremonies. i've made two lasagnas and a salad, and the hippie is on board to help with the critter so i can actually knit a thing. of course, now the weather people claim it might snow (AGAIN!), so i may end up all alone with two whole lasagnas, a place no pregnant woman should be. anyway--here's to getting off to a good start. i'll keep you posted as t hings progress. :)

tired...

2010-02-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

i'd like a day off. a real one. an actual day where no one needs me to do anything for them and there's no laundry to fold and nothing to wash or dust or anything, and no one's nose to wipe or diaper to change. i'd like to sit on the sofa and read or knit or whatever. maybe all alone. maybe take a nap if things got really out of hand. and while i'm over here in fantasy land, i'll take someone else doing all the cooking for that day, too. because sheesh. mama is tired. bone-ass fucking super-weary. i don't even have the energy to wish for more energy--i just want to lie down.

this probably has something to do with it. but still. *yawn*

i need a day off, y'all.

snow days

2010-02-01T12:54:00.004-05:00

here in the South, getting any snow is like an earth-stopping Event. no one leaves the house unless they must, except to go play. they predict snow--we plan to stay in. we run to the grocery store to stock up on food and beer, and in my case, stuff to cook. when they said on thursday that it would snow on friday, i hit both whole foods, and the asian market. i had Plans. and luckily for me, it DID snow, so i was able to follow through on them and cook warm and comforting foods both days this weekend.

on saturday, i made chinese pork rib soup, which i found on use real butter. and yes, i know that my pictures do not hold even a tiny small match to jennifer yu's, but i am posting them anyway as evidence of my efforts. this is the first time in a long while that i have made something completely new to me, following someone else's recipe and using some unfamiliar ingredients. i forgot how much fun that is! the soup was pretty damned good, and i will definitely make it again. however, there are a couple of small changes i would make for the second time around. the broth had a fantastic flavor, but it was just a little intense for me, even after i added a cup of unsalted chicken broth i had in the freezer. next time, i'll back off on the soy sauce a little bit as well as the star anise, maybe to 2/3 or 3/4 of the called for amounts. i would plan to add a little more chicken broth or water at the end to cut the salt a bit as well. lastly,i think i might add more ginger next time--you can never have enough ginger for me! all of that said, however, it was good enough that i can promise you there will be a next time. the flavor that the broth gave to the noodles and the spinach was just amazing, and the meat was out of this world. i think the meat and broth would freeze well, so next time, i will double or triple this and put what we don't eat in the freezer for some ready-made-meals. the hippie ate two huge bowls of it, and the critter was all about the broth, so this was definitely a success for the whole family. highly recommend!

on sunday, i made some lamb stew. this is something i almost feel obligated to make when it snows--it's SUCH comfort food! i picked up some good crusty bread from la farm on friday to go with, which was absolutely the right thing. i'm having some leftovers from this for lunch today for sure. and since this is my own concoction and is tried and true, i figured i'd share the recipe with y'all:

INGREDIENTS
2 lb lamb stew meat (or really, any stew meat--beef, venison, etc.)
3-4 garlic cloves, cut in half
~2-3 tbsp olive oil
1.5 cups red wine
1 qt. beef broth
1 qt. water
3-4 bay leaves
4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 tbsp butter
1 bag frozen pearl onions
1 8-oz pkg baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
1 small bag frozen peas

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2/3 cup flour

DIRECTIONS
in a large-ish pot, heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan until pretty hot. add the lamb and garlic and turn until lamb is browned on all sides. add the red wine, beef broth, water, and bay leaves. bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. simmer for an hour or so, and then get to work on the rest of the stuff.

peel and slice your carrots, then add them to the pot. melt butter in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. add pearl onions, and saute until onions are golden. add them to the pot. saute mushrooms in the same pan until they get a bit of a sear on them and begin to sweat, then add them to the pot as well. cover, and continue to simmer for another hour or so until the meat has become tender. stir in the peas, turn the heat up to medium, and set about making a roux.

melt a stick of butter in your skillet, then add the flour all at once. stir rapidly and constantly until the mixture stabilizes and begins to darken. pay attention--this is easy to burn! you want the roux to be still a bit liquid-y and about the color of good caramel. when the roux is done, stir it into the stew. voila. you are done.

serve in big bowls with some hefty bread and a big glass of red wine.

and that's not all! it was snow, so there was also playing in the snow! we took the critter out for a romp, and he LOVED it! WAY WAY better than last year, when he was less than pleased. he stomped, threw powdery snow into the air, and generally had a time of it. he cried when we came inside, but i consoled him with some hot chocolate, which he also loved. he drank all of his, half of his daddy's, and would have been happy to keep going. lol. boy, i love this kid.

rockin' my baby

2010-01-29T12:48:00.002-05:00

the past few nights, the critter, who has long gone to sleep easily and well, has asked to be rocked before he's put into his crib for the night. and at first, i was a little conflicted: should i do it? would it set a bad precedent and take away his ability to self soothe? would i be committing to a lifetime of having to rock him before he could sleep? and in the end, i just told myself to shut up and rock that baby. he's almost not a baby anymore already, and soon enough, he won't want to be held and cuddled and rocked on his mama's lap. and sometimes, consequences be damned, you just want to rock your baby! and i LOVE rocking my baby. he lays his head down on my shoulder and pats my back with his little hand or sucks his thumb or babbles quietly to himself about the dinosaurs on his pj's (boom boom boom, mama). it's the sweetest thing in the whole wide world, and i would not trade for anything the fact that sometimes he wants me as much as i want him. that's being a mama, i guess.

last weekend, i was telling my mother about a day a couple of weekends ago when the hippie and i blew everything off to take advantage of a nice day. we took the critter to the park and out for ice cream and made him late for his nap so we could play with him longer, and it was SO WORTH IT! and my mother, who is usually pretty negative about things but sometimes surprises me, told me she thought that was the Right Thing, and that sometimes you just have to take what time there is. she told me it reminded her of the poem my sister had cross stitched to hang in her first son's room when he was born--something about cobwebs settling and dust going to sleep and rocking the baby. all we could remember with certainty was the last line, "i'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep." that conversation and that line has been stuck in my head for days, and i keep thinking about it while i'm rocking the critter. i finally went and found the poem from which it came:

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

and while i know it's a bit silly of me, i can't read that without tearing up a little bit. i'm going to miss my baby being a baby when he's all grown up.

yummy yummy yummy

2010-01-11T12:52:00.003-05:00

my friend meredith, who is a fellow food person and with whom i have often happily shared and traded off sous chef-ing duties, recommended a fabulous food blog to me. it's called use real butter, and i cannot get enough of reading it and looking at the gorgeous photography. you should, too. it's cold here, so i'm gravitating to the soups. i'm DYING to make this french onion soup as well as this tomato soup that meredith made this weekend and swears is lovely and delicious. luckily, i just made a big batch of chicken stock last night--it's time to get cookin'! YUM!

looking back...

2010-01-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

man, let's just call 2009 my year of unfinished projects (many of which are ALMOST finished), sparse knitting, and sporadic blogging. sheesh! i am not really making any new year's resolutions this year--i have enough pressure in my life, thanks--but if there's one thing i want to do, it's to do better here, on ravelry, and with all of my creative projects. i have so many things on the verge of completion, so many unposted pictures, and so many ideas. life has just been in my way a little bit this past year. *sigh*

so--here's to doing more and better, taking more pictures, finishing more things, and finding a way to make it all fit better into my crazy life. i need focus. now how do i get that?

grrrrrrr...

2009-12-14T15:35:00.004-05:00

let us discuss bad customer service. last wednesday at something like 10am, i ordered some little black boots for the critter from livie & luca, whose shoes i love. i paid for 2-3 day shipping so they would be here in time for him to wear them for pictures today. i figured--they are a little boutique store--they'll ship the next day and get here saturday or monday at the latest, right? i get email from livie & luca on thursday saying they have shipped and including a USPS tracking number. so far, so good. and yet--no shoes do i have. i got online this morning (and a few minutes ago) to check the tracking, and the USPS gives me this message:

The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on December 10, 2009 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. Information, if available, is updated periodically throughout the day. Please check again later.

hmmmmm. so i wait a few and check again--same message. so i call livie & luca, and there's no answer. hmmmm. so i email them, and have yet to receive any response. i've tried to call 4 other times today, and i just get a recorded message. so i tried calling the USPS, and got no further--they tell me the shipping info for my package is "not available right now". what. the. fuck.

and i realize this is just shoes. but come on, people. we will live without the shoes, but i think this level of service is just unacceptable. and you would think that a small independent company like this would be BETTER than some big box company to whom you are just a number. sadly, it just doesn't seem to be the case.

ok--i'm done ranting now. i still hope the damned shoes come today.

UPDATE: the shoes arrived, in spite of my rant and the utter lack of tracking available at the usps. they're awesome.

am i the only knitter who hasn't seen this already?

2009-11-24T13:12:00.002-05:00

even if i am late to the party, i am still in stitches. (no pun intended, i swear!) you should go watch this right now, even if you aren't a knitter. ann and kay from mason-dixon knitting are an absolute riot.

how i make stuffing, sans pictures

2009-11-20T18:25:00.000-05:00

i meant to take a picture of this stuffing today before the work potluck, but oops--i forgot, and it was gone in 10 minutes. i'll try to remember to add a picture next week on actual turkey day. however, i didn't want to wait to post this just because i'm an idiot. thanksgiving day is coming, gobble gobble gobble gobble...

"recipe" is perhaps a strong word--it's kind of a made up thing with bits and pieces stolen from other recipes. but anyway, here are the basics:

INGREDIENTS:
large-ish loaf of crusty bread, cut into cubes (8 - 10 cups bread)
1 lb loose pork sausage
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped yellow or white onion
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup chopped tart apple, like granny smith
3-4 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 eggs
2-3 cups chicken broth

DIRECTIONS:
heat oven to 350F.

place cut bread on cookie sheets and dry in oven for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. meanwhile, brown sausage in large skillet, and set aside in a very large bowl. add the bread when it's done toasting.

use your stick of butter to generously butter a large baking dish as well as a sheet of aluminum foil with which you will cover the stuffing to bake it. put the rest of the butter into your already dirty skillet along with the onion and celery. sauté on med-high for 5-8 minutes until vegetables start to soften just a bit. add the apple and sauté for another 5 minutes or so. Pour this mixture over the sausage and bread in your large bowl. add all the herbs and toss. place bread mixture into the buttered backing pan.

in a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a whisk, then stir in 2 cups of chicken broth. pour evenly over bread mixture. if it seems too dry, add a bit more broth. You want everything wet, but not soggy, if that makes sense.

cover with the buttered aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes. uncover and bake for 15 more minutes.

serve warm with gravy, etc.

nothing hard--just time consuming. all measurements are approximate. i tend to heap things when I make this.

i've been thinking about trying a vegetarian version of this, in which i would leave out the sausage, replace the cup of apple with a cup of earthy mushrooms, chopped and sauted, and maybe add a 1/2 cup of wallnuts. the chicken broth i'd replace with pacific vegetable broth, since i think it has actual flavor, unlike many commercial veg. broths. anyway--if any of you try this idea, let me know how it comes out.

jeez

2009-11-18T16:30:00.004-05:00

where does the time go? seriously, i can hardly believe it's november at all, much less that thanksgiving is next week. i'm having a slow week at work, which i HATE. i don't have enough to do, but i feel guilty sitting around not working. plus, there's too much i need to do at home. mostly i'd really like a nap. really. a nap sounds just great right about now. maybe a movie marathon and some serious down time. not going to happen, though. i'm living right now for the two weeks off i will get at christmas. CANNOT. WAIT.

anyway. halloween happened--my kid was a lion because it was 80 degrees, and gabriella's old lion costume didn't have arms and legs. he was pretty hilarious--he didn't want to wear the mane until i showed it to him in the mirror, and then he was all--ohhhhhhhhh! i'm a LION! i get it! he roared. he went to the neighbors' house and rang their doorbell and said "tick tick tick" when prompted to say "trick or treat." pretty good for 18 months. he took maybe 1000 dum dums from those guys and proceeded to get himself all sticky. we went over to my friend tina's and loaded the critter and her daughter into her wagon to do a little neighbor-visiting, which was great fun. got to see gabriella in her puppy costume, and our little friend bailey (g's cousin) made the cutest dorothy ever. after we came back and ate the spoils. k had 5 dum dums and a kit kat. my halloween philosophy is--you can have all the candy you want that day, and then we go back to normal. the pseudo-in-laws were in town, and i think the hippie's little brother was pretty thrilled to be in an actual neighborhood for trick-or-treating for the first time in his life. i somehow failed to take a single picture of him in his phantom costume, but it was a big hit with the neighbors and with his parents. the pseudo-mother-in-law dressed up as a witch, and hers may have actually been the best costume of the night. while they were out and about, i made some buttermilk cupcakes, which i gave to all our neighbors. i heart cupcakes.

the next day we went on a steam train in the cold-ass freezing rain. still fun, but there was much bundling. k is a fan of trains, but was a little nervous about actually getting ON one. he held on tight to his daddy, and then basically passed out for over half the experience. so cute and snuggly. he ended up getting sick later in the week, so he may have been feeling a tad off that day, in retrospect.

there's more to share and show--it's been a crazy busy month--but for now, i think maybe i'll cut out of here a bit early and go home to see if i can get a few things done there.

i'll leave you with some stuff to enjoy:

cauchy's spam embroidery, one of my favorite things EVER!
a christmas card that made me spit water out on my desk.
the hat i'm making for baby evey.

the cutest chocolate-y baby ever:

accidentally awesome bean soup

2009-10-23T12:52:00.001-04:00

a few weeks ago i went on a southern cooking frenzy, and i made barbequed (how the heck do you spell that word?) boston butt in the crockpot and braised turnip and mustard greens with bacon. both of these things generated a bunch of broth-y liquid for which i had no immediate need, but which seemed too good to throw away. so, like a good thrifty housewife, i put it in the fridge overnight, skimmed off the fat, and then put it in the freezer. this broth became the base for some bean soup i made that turned out about 20x better than i thought it would. i think this soup will be ALMOST as good with just chicken broth or other stock, but the complex flavor of that pork roast and the greens definitely brought something to the table. one other note, everything in this recipe but the beans, broth, and tomato puree came from my local farmers market. yay for local!

it's fall--it's the right time for a simple hearty bean soup--get cooking!

INGREDIENTS
1 lb dried white beans, soaked overnight
1 lb smoked polish sausage
~8 to 10 cups broth
1 can (14 oz.) tomato puree
1 medium onion
1 red pepper
2 bay leaves
1 - 1.5 lb red russian kale (or other variety of greens)
salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste

DIRECTIONS
i made this in the crock pot, but i am sure you could do it in a dutch oven or large stock pot just as easily. slice the sausage in 1/4-inch slices and roughly chop the onion and red pepper. combine everything but the kale in your pot.

in the crock pot i cooked this on low for about 7 hours. then i added the kale and let it go for about one more hour before calling it good.

on the stove, i'd say bring it to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for ~3 hours or so. if you do it this way, watch your liquid level and don't hesitate to add some broth or water if too much evaporates. when the beans are starting to get soft, but not mushy, add the kale and simmer for another 30 minutes or so.

add salt and pepper to taste, and hot sauce if you want a bit of a kick to it.

serve with some good crusty bread.

the salty sheep

2009-10-06T12:18:00.004-04:00

The Salty Sheep Yarn Shop
105 W Church Street
Swansboro, NC 28584
Phone:910-325-0018
i had the good fortune of stumbling across the salty sheep yarn shop in swansboro while on vacation last september. it's in swansboro, at the end of a little street of shops in the tiny historic district of the town. the building in which it sits also houses a fabulous deli/coffee shop/irish pub, a pottery shop, and a cigar shop. in our family, that means there's something for everyone.

i've been back to the store four or five times now, and that has been enough to make it one of my two favorite yarn stores ever. (the other is purl soho, where i get to go next month--whoo hoo!) this one is probably the closest thing to what i would do if i opened a store myself. i think it's a great example of where dreaming can get you. the owners, peggy and amber, were knitting friends who often joked about opening a store in this location, and then--one day--the space opened. amber called peggy, and less than 3 months later, they opened for business. just like that. not to make it sound easy--i think there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in those three months, and a TON of work after the doors opened. but the fact that they pulled it off and have managed to build a profitable business in less than two years is nothing short of amazing to me.

this is a store full of fabulous. they decided early on to stock it with yarns they wanted to knit with, and this is working VERY well. any knitter who walks through their door is bound to leave with SOMETHING. they have a boatload of many of my favorite yarns, including malabrigo, blue sky alpacas, be sweet, dream in color, and rowan. it's a wonder i don't felt it all with my drooling. and if i were a sock knitter, i would just pull all the koigu and malabrigo sock yarn tothe floor and roll around in it. it ALMOST makes me want to knit some socks. (but not quite.) and here's the part i love: they are completely up to date. there's ravelry open and running in the store on one or both of their laptops. if you pick up something interesting, both peggy and amber can tell you 10 things you could make with it. i have been in so many stores where the help is kind of not there, but not the salty sheep. they are ON it without making you feel like you can't think for yourself.

further, the salty sheep is a community. i feel like part of this community in spite of living so far away and getting to the store so seldom. and i have discovered through ravelry that i am not alone in this. there are others here in the cary/raleigh/apex area who get yarn shipped from the salty sheep all the time in spite of many closer and larger stores. that truly says something.

on this year's beach trip, meredith and i were fortunate enough to be able to pull off going to the friday knit night at the salty sheep. there was yarn. there were snacks. there were about a dozen very friendly knitters and crocheters. and amber and peggy made is out-of-towners feel 100% welcome. meredith knitted practically a whole hat, and both of us spend too much money, which is only the Right Thing.

in conclusion, if you are down in the emerald isle-swansboro-atlantic beach-beaufort-morehead city-jacksonville area at all ever for any reason, and you are a knitter or a crocheter, then you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't find some time to go check out the salty sheep. it's utterly worth it, and i can't wait to go back!

SALTY SHEEP LINKS
the store: the salty sheep yarn shop
the ravelry group: the salty sheet support group
my pictures of the store: the salty sheep, a set on flickr

there's been some action in the yarn department

2009-09-28T22:29:00.000-04:00

since last we discussed knitting, i've been--well--knitting.

first up, the tarris heeter hat, designed by a friend from my tuesday night knitting group. (ravelry link here) she literally followed a woman around in harris teeter until she had the woman's hat firmly in her head so she could pseudo-knock-it-off, using some information on reducing for the crown by the great and versatile ann budd. all in all, i LOVE this hat. i made it for a gift, but then caved and decided to keep it for myself when i couldn't bring myself to take it off my head. i lerve it. mine.

the yarn is lucious malabrigo, but i fear i've lost the label, so i can't tell you what colorway it is. i'm going with red. i bought it ages ago at bella filati. i have more malabrigo i picked up recently in hillsborough, and with it, i'm going to knit some more of them for actual gifts. i have plans to use some new dream in color class to knit one with a matching scarf (in the little box stitch that makes up the bottom half of the hat), my only christmas knitting so far.

i also made a bulky baby hat for kieran in one night from some blue sky alpacas bulky naturals. (ravelry link here) very instant gratification, and lovely and squishy in all the right ways. it was the color of this yarn that got me. and the hat fits the critter like a dream. so cute! size 15 dpns though--not my favorite. i'd knit this again bc the yarn is to die for and it's so fast, but i am not a fan of giant dpns.

making a shedir hat for the hippie's aunt. it's slow going, and there's not a lot to show yet, so i have no pictures. slow because 1) i have to concentrate on it, and 2) it makes me unspeakably sad. i'll take a picture when it's done.

almost done with a baby blanket for a woman i work with who has a tiny baby girl. i waited on this one for a bit, but now i am cooking with gas on it. it's pink and purple and fluffy and just like the hundred other fluffy baby blankets i've made in the past. i haven't take any pictures of it either--it's nothing you people haven't seen me knit before.

made my mama a ball band dishcloth--my first one. (ravelry link here)i went home to see her a few weeks ago, and she was all bitching about how crappy all her dishcloths were. and then we had to run an errand to the super-walmart, which was FULL of peaches and cream. so--i grabbed 2 balls of it and some size 8 needles and whipped out a dishcloth for her. she reports that it's great but needs to be just a little longer than i made it. as a good daughter, i will oblige and make her some more of them. besides, it was superfun. :)

let's see, what else? i've been working in fits and starts on kieran's hoodie, which now has a full body, a hood, and half a sleeve. (ravelry link here) i am 1.5 sleeves out from finishing the knitting, and then i have to sew down the casing for the drawstring, and i'll be done. if i actually keep working on it, i should have it done in time for cooler weather here. i really love it, but all the gauge problems i had with it in the beginning have worn me down. i pick it up now with a little fear in my heart every time. i'm committed now though--if the gauge goes south on me this time, i'm done. i don't have it in me to rip it out again. besides, it's so pretty!

i am sure there's something i am forgetting, and i have some new yarn to report on as well as a new and a favorite yarn store. however, i am saving those for later when i have both pictures of the yarn ready to go and more energy than i have right this minute. i am The Tired.

but really y'all--i've been missing this bloggy thing.

cucumber mojitos

2009-09-24T12:49:00.004-04:00

last week we went to the beach, as we do. and we made some stuff to eat and drink, as we do. we have old favorites, and we add a few things every year. one of this year's keepers is the cucumber mojitos grant invented/made for us. i pelted him with questions about the process, stole the one picture of them that the hippie took, and i made some notes so i could share. this one's worth the trouble, folks.

INGREDIENTS
3-4 cucumbers
32 oz of decent white rum
4 limes
12-ish sprigs of mint
1 cup simple syrup
seltzer
lime and cucumber for garnish
fancy straws and stuff

DIRECTIONS

1. ~24 hours ahead: make the cucumber infused rum. cube the cucumber and place in a large-ish bowl. pour the rum over. cover tightly and go to bed. the next night your rum will be lovely and ready to use.
NOTE: steeping it longer than ~24 hours is a mistake--it becomes overwhelming;y cucumber-y. if you aren't ready to use it after 24 hours, strain out the cucumbers and put the rum in the fridge. save some of the cucumber cubes for in-th-drink garnish if you like.

2. make simple syrup--this is just sugar and water in a 1:1 ratio. combine in a pot and boil for a few minutes. cool. voila.
NOTE: can be done up to a week ahead.

3. make you some mojitos. juice 4 limes, and pull the leaves off the mint stems. if you are making a big batch, get out the blender and do the following: combine mint leaves, lime juice, and 1 cup of simple syrup. blend briefly, but don't overblend--you aren't pureeing those mint leaves. stir in the rum. pour generous helping of this mixture into tall glasses over ice, top with seltzer, and garnish.
NOTE: if you prefer to do it glass by glass, then you want to muddle about 1/2 a lime's worth of juice, about 1.5 mint sprigs' worth of leaves, and about an ounce of simple syrup in the glass. add about 3 ounces of rum per glass, top with seltzer and garnish.

4. drink up.

on down time, and how i don't have enough of it

2009-09-03T13:02:00.001-04:00

we've had one of those weeks here that feels like fall. i know it's a fluke--we have one or two of these every year right before it gets hot as hell again. but man, does it ever feel awesome! i've gotten to eat lunch outside a couple of days this week, and go for a few walks outside, and best of all--the windows are open. there's something truly wonderful about having them open and hearing the crickets and frogs outside my window while i am falling asleep at night. makes the mornings delightful, snuggling under the warm comforter while a cool breeze blows in the window. it makes my house smell like my grandmother's house always smelled when i was a child.

this weekend, the critter and i are packing up and heading to my parents' house on the edge of the mountains, and i am really hoping the weather holds. i'm overdue for a walk in the woods with my little guy, kicking leaves around. i'm also looking forward to some good nighttime conversation with my mama after everyone else is in the bed. i might even get some knitting done if i am far, far away from all the household stuff that usually distracts me from doing creative things.

sometimes in the day-to-day rush of living my life, i forget how important it is for me to take some DOWN time. i need it--i think everyone does--but it's so hard to take it when there are always 1000+ things you need to do, most of which you should have gotten done yesterday. but right now, i feel so overdue for a vacation, it's not even funny. i'll get one soon, but even the week and a half till we leave for the beach feels far, far away right now. so let's think about that for a moment, shall we?

let's look again at the house where we will be staying this year. let's remember some of the beach trips from the past, and let's revel for a moment that this one is going to include all of the original beach group but one person--kind of a miracle after 9 years. yay! i absolutely cannot wait for a whole week of sitting, and hanging out, and walking on the beach with my hippie, and talking to friends, and cooking, and eating, and knitting, and putting that baby's feet in the sand again. maybe i should start a countdown ticker for it, so i can let the anticipation build even more--it really can't get here soon enough.

visitor

2009-08-29T15:29:00.003-04:00

this summer, we have had some lovely herbs planted along the front sidewalk that we've been using in all manner of thing. it's been awesome to just run out front and grab what i need, and it's saved me a fortune. i found, however, that i didn't really use the parsley all that much. so when these fabulous huge yellow and black caterpillars moved in and started to chomp it up, we let them have at it. this photo is a testament to a) how awesome my camera is, and b) how much we've enjoyed these visitors to the yard. the parsley is gone as of a few days ago, and all these caterpillars are off being big swallowtail butterflies now. so cool.

gone, baby, gone

2009-08-26T13:08:00.001-04:00

so this will be news for some of you, and not for others. for those of you reading this and thinking--wow--who knew? i am so sorry for not talking to you in person about this. it's a conversation i just can't have over and over again, but for some reason, i feel like writing about it. so i am.

i took last week off. my nanny was having foot surgery, the hippie's sister was supposed to be in town all week, i was tired, and i missed my baby. once in a while, as a working mother, it's nice to take a week and pretend you're a stay-at-home mother instead. but anyway. i took the week off.

at the beginning of last week, i was about 6 weeks pregnant. now, i am not. over the course of the past week or so, i lost that pregnancy, and now, i am just me again, instead of me and a little growing bit. and folks, it's a weird feeling. i am rational--i know that losing an early pregnancy is unbelievably common. and i know that it means something, somewhere, in the nothing-short-of-a-miracle process of making a baby from a couple of rogue cells went wrong, and that's all there is to it. i didn't drink, smoke, eat a slew of high-mercury fish and bacteria-laden cold cuts. i didn't take up cage fighting, or start riding horses out of the blue. this shit just happens sometimes. and in some ways, i actually feel lucky. i didn't have a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. i didn't have uncontrollable bleeding or a tremendous amount of pain. i didn't not know what was going on. i don't need a D&C to complete the process. my body just said--hey--this ain't right--and took care of it. ah, nature... what a bitch!

so it's weird. there's a sense of loss and emptyness, but i think far less than if you lose a baby later in a pregnancy. there's also an odd sense of just wanting it to be over if it's going to be over, so i can let it go and move on. and not to get all graphic, but i am so sick of the sight and smell of blood, i can't even tell you.

somewhat unexpectedly, it's made me feel incredibly closer to the family i have. i want to hold kieran so tight and never let him go. i want the hippie to sleep so close beside me that we are like one person. i want to hole up in the house with my family and not let anyone in or out for a month. i have more love than ever for them. where's it coming from? am i trying to protect what i have? i am honestly not sure. but it's a crazy side effect of this crap, that's for sure.

in the end, i am fine. we are fine. this was yet another accidental pregnancy for us--lord help us all if/when we actually decide to TRY to get pregnant. either we won't be able to, or i'll have triplets. lol.

ok--enough about that.

on an utterly different topic--i'm 40. when the hell did THAT sneak up on me? i don't feel any different, but there it is. where's that Box of Badass i was supposed to get when that happened? i DID get a brand new macBook pro and a whole bunch of unexpected guests over the weekend, plus a slew of other unexpected gifts. and a party. what i really want is a do-over week off, which i will get in a couple of weeks when we go to the beach. maybe i'll manage to get through at least registering the macBook by then. i have a real problem with time lately. there's just not enough.

when that Box of Badass arrives, i would like it to contain the following: some ID's for covert international travel, some plane tickets, a few interesting firearms, lots and lots of cash in various currencies, the ability to speak 9 languages of my choosing, PhD's in planetary science and mechanical engineering, some hidden macGuyver capabilities, black belts in at least 3 martial arts styles, and definitely, DEFINITELY the superpower that allows me to stop time for everyone but me so i can get some shit done and then take a nap before things turn on again.

dragonfly washcloth - free!

2009-07-22T13:07:00.003-04:00

i blogged about this little washcloth i made an age ago, but since i am on ravelry and have emailed it out to bunches of people, i decided to officially offer it up as a free pattern. it's one of my favorite and most well-used knitted items, and it makes a great little gift with a bar of soap. so here ya go--have at it.

you can download it directly here.
or if you prefer, here's the ravelry pattern link.

ps--i have no delusions about becoming a designer or anything, but i might someday get around to drawing a few more washcloths. i'll keep you posted. :)

new toy!

2009-06-22T13:06:00.003-04:00

this little video camera is my new favorite toy. i wish i had had it sooner! the hippie asked me when the critter was born if i thought we needed a video camera, and i was all--nah--i'll never use it. I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG! i have a friend with this one, and as soon as i saw it i was beside myself with jealousy. and now--i have one too! yay! this thing came just in time for the weekend, and i think i made like 25 videos in a day and a half. HIGHLY recommend. this one is my favorite so far:

and now for a little something different...

2009-06-16T11:51:00.000-04:00

last night i blew off all responsibility after the critter fell asleep and retreated to my studio to make a spontaneous birthday present. i haven't made any jewelry in ages, but one apparently doesn't forget how to do it. i am pretty pleased with how this came out, and kerstin LOVES it, so WIN! this is a stone pendant ( i think it's jasper) and many many glass beads (the leaves may be smokey quartz actually--i can't remember), with matching earrings. analysis in 3 parts:

1. the necklace is on beading wire with crimped ends. sadly, my crimps are a bit assy. turns out that my crimping pliers a little too large for my tubes, so i am a little concerned that the crimps aren't going to hold--we'll see. could be i'll be re-stringing this in a week.

2. the earrings, which i basically made as an afterthought, are my favorite part--for once i am actually really proud of myself: the wraps are beautiful. this is a tiny detail that no one who doesn't make jewelry would ever notice, but to me, getting them right is absolutely crucial.

3. i am a fan of a) making necklaces adjustable in length, and b) adding a little fob detail to any open chain end. this is what my friend rita, who is a phenomenal jewelry designer, always does. i think if i take my cues from her, i can't go wrong.

so yay for some pretty jewelry! now i want to make more stuff. stuff begets stuff, people. it really does.

progress report (aka, third time's the charm)

2009-06-15T12:38:00.000-04:00

one of my goals for the year is to knit kieran a sweater. i tried once already, and ran out of yarn due to a mistake in the pattern i was using. boo. so i decided to go for this children's hooded pullover, which i have made before, as it would be reliable and simple,and useful. silly moi--little did i know i was going to have gauge issues out the yin yang! i started and ripped this sweater twice due to gauge problems (i swatched, i swear!), and had to put it in time-out for a little while before i wanted to work on it again. however, i really want the sweater, so i thought--ok, one more time... and so far, so good.

i love the color, although dark heathered charcoal grey proves to be remarkably difficult to photograph. the yarn is mas acero from brooks farm--i bought it at SAFF specifically for this hoodie while i was still pregnant. it's listed as worsted--it's not. this yarn is DK, or i will eat my hat. however, i find that i like it knitted at the worsted gauge--i am on size 10 needles to make that happen. it's a little looser of a fabric than i usually knit, but it's giving it this lovely, beachy feeling. and in NC, that's not such a bad thing--it just means he'll be able to wear it more. i am concerned about colorfastness--my fingers turn corpse-grey when i knit this yarn for more than 20 minutes. i think perhaps a vinegar soak will be in order before it gets officially washed. but anyway--so far, i am loving it. links and details are all in ravelry for you knitters who might be interested in those. otherwise--isn't it pretty? still have a ways to go...

new farmers market--whoo hoo!

2009-06-08T13:16:00.003-04:00

WARNING: i am a farmers market evangelist.

everything in this picture is labeled--just click on it to see the notes.
the western wake farmers market is changing my life. it's one of a handful of new farmers markets that have opened in our area this summer, and it's the closest one to us of any size. we missed the first weekend it was open, but we've been every other saturday for the past month and a half. it's impacting our weekend and the way we shop for food, which i think is a VERY good thing. we are getting to know the vendors, who have come to expect us--also a VERY good thing.

i have long been a fan of the raleigh farmers market, but a) it's HUGE and sometimes a little overwhelming, and b) it's far away. we still go--just not as often as we did when we lived downtown. and there's something to be said for a smaller marketplace--it's more intimate. the farms represented here seem to be fairly modest in size, and the farmers and sellers seem knowledgable and enthusiastic about what they do. it gets us all excited about the food we are eating, and it has definitely made me more enthusaistc about cooking lately, too! it's a little more expensive than going to the grocery store, but i feel so much better about the quality of the food and about the types of farms we are supporting that i think it's worth every cent.

so far, we've bought the following things from the new farmers market: arugula, radishes, romaine lettuce, leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, swiss chard, a basil plant, whole wheat and seeded breads, stuffed baguettes, carrots, radishes, squash, eggs, ny strip steaks, breakfast sausage, lamb bratwurst, ground beef, a whole chicken, pork chops, goat cheese in various forms, camambert, mozerella cheese, broccoli, savoy cabbage, spring onions of every color, elephant garlic, asparagus, flounder, swordfish, trigger fish, scallops, shrimp, sunburst tomatoes, grape tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. i am probably forgetting some things...

some of the more amazing meals we've made featuring these things?

grilled cumin-rubbed NY strips, sliced and served with a two part salad. part 1: baby arugula tossed in a french vinaigrette with sliced radishes and shaved goat manchego; part 2: chopped sunburst tomatoes and purple spring onions with basil tossed in olive oil, balsamic, and lemon juice. (we've made this a few times, because we love it so much!)
pan fried trigger fish with cheese grits and sauteed swiss chard with soy and lemon.
diver scallops sauteed with garlic, butter, lemon, and white wine over pasta with sundried tomatoes, spinach, and baby portabella mushrooms tossed with cream and parmesan.
roasted herb-stuffed chicken with sweet potatoes and steamed asparagus. (made stock from the carcass.)
lamb bratwurst with roasted rosemary potatoes and savoy cabbage slaw. (see recipe below) (see also picture)
flounder soaked in buttermilk, breaded in cormeal and 3 peppers, and pan fried in peanut oil and butter with the leftover potatoes and slaw from the above meal. (see picture)
and last but no least, lunch after the farmers market run has become 1/2 a mini stuffed baguette from la farm bakery with a salad made from whatever fabulous veggies we got that day.

here's the recipe for the fabulous savoy cabbage slaw i made my messing around in my fridge this weekend:

1 sm. head of savoy cabbage, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, grated
1 white or purple spring onion, thinly sliced
1 clove fresh elephant garlic (could use 1/2 a clove of cured elephant garlic or 1 clove regular garlic as well)
~1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
~2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
juice from 1/2 a lime
1-2 tablespoons good vinaigrette (i used briana's traditional french vinaigrette)
2-3 tablespoons miracle whip (yes i know--hush! i grew up eating this, and have not yet found a replacement for it in salads. i like the sweetness and the creaminess

mix it all up. chill. eat.

and now, i leave you with one more picture. here are the blueberry scones i made at 6:30 this morning just because i wanted them. the berries in these are from right down the road, and are second in flavor only to the ones on my pseudo-in-laws' farm. so good!

catching up

2009-06-03T12:46:00.002-04:00

it's been so long since i have written that i feel like i need to catch the blog up on my life. kind of funny how this thing that's mainly cathartic and fun can sometimes put pressure on you. or well--i guess that's really ME putting pressure on myself, a thing you would think i would get used to after almost 40 years. lol.

so anyway. let's start with the kid, and then later i'll get around to mama.

kieran turned one. the fastest year of my life! it's almost impossible for me to believe he's one, to tell you the truth. i am still adjusting to the fact that he's actually MY baby and that i am not playing house with someone else's child. but i guess we'll keep him. :)

for his first birthday, the hippie and i took the day off and took him to the zoo (pictures here), which was great fun for all, in spite of the fact that this kid is NOT a stroller napper. thank goodness he does ok without naps once in a while--he fell asleep in the car before we even got out of the parking lot on the way home.

then we had a birthday party for him (pictures here), which was just a simple cookout at our house with our friends and their kids. he had fun watching all the other kids, but was a bit confused by the singing and the FIRE on the cupcake. he got to have his own cupcake, with predictable results. he's a fan of the cupcake, it turns out. not too big of a shock--he IS my son, after all. i gave all the kids bubbles and beachballs and turned them loose in the back yard--much fun. :)

in the month since his birthday, he's somehow stopped being a baby (although we still call him the baby), and started being a little boy. he has developed all these opinions about food all of a sudden. i LOVE avacados! i hate avacados--what the hell is that green mess you are trying to kill me with?! yay, strawberries! but not cut up like that please--i will take a whole strawberry mother, and i want it NOW! blueberries! oatmeal is my favorite, but i prefer to eat it myself with this spoon, which i will hold upside down and then fling. no mama--what are you thinking? YOU feed me! whew! i just offer the kid everything in the house, one thing and one form at a time, bot with and without utinsils, until something sticks. if he flings it, pushes it away, knoocks it out of my hand, or violently shakes his head, i take the thing away. if i try 10 things without succes, i give up and release him from the confines of the high chair. some meals he eats it all. some hardly any. welcome to toddlerhood. i know this is all perfectly normal, and that it is, in fact, important for his development, but it sure can try the patience at 7am. lol.

all that said--he's so freakin' cute! and lovey and affectionate and fun--he definitely makes up for it all. he continues to sleep well, develop at an alarming rate, grow like a weed, and make us both (all three if you count aunt jenn) fall in love with him 10 times a day. he's a joy.

observe the diffrence one year makes:

one

2009-04-29T10:01:00.000-04:00

playing in the new yard

2009-04-24T13:25:00.003-04:00

funny that it's been over two years,and i still think of this house in which we live as the "new house" and the yard as the "new yard." until this spring, my intentions for this yard have been mostly just intentions. my road to hell is well-paved. and i know, i know-i had a baby--yadda yadda yadda. but that baby is mostly an excuse for times when i just can't get my shit together. and gardening? well--it's hard! and i am ignorant about it, and digging holes sucks. and sweating. and when it's too hot, i tend to prefer sitting onthe porch with a big glass of iced tea to being out where the evil sun can smite me. but as always, i digress...

this spring has been different. this spring, i have started to get my shit together. i have read books, researched, sketched things out in my head, and formed some long term plans. it's as though i am mentally accepting that we really do own this house and are allowed to do things like plant stuff in the actual ground instead of just in pots. oddly enough, our planting efforts seem to coincide with holidays. on valentines day, we bought two trees for the back yard: a red bud and a dogwood. old school, traditional trees i have loved since childhood. i learned that there are one million types of redbud and basically two types of dogwood, although the cherokee dogwood does come in two colors. i picked white, which is what i had growing up in the woods that surrounded my house. the redbud is a lovely lilac-y pink with these gorgeous shiny purple leaves. we got big-ass trees. the hippie dug big-ass holes. they bloomed a LOT, and are now leafy and thriving. one day, they will make a bower of shadiness between them, and i will put a garden bench there with a blueberry bush at either end. and there will be bulbs around the bases of the trees. and periwinkle. and stuff. but not yet. for now--they are just trees.

easter weekend we planted dirt. we dug out the from flower bed (if you can call it that), and replaced about a third of the existing dirt (by which i mean clay with rocks and construction debris in it), with a mixture of peat moss, fertilizer, soil conditionaer, limestone, and perlite. i have become a wheelbarrow chemist. we added a thick-ish layer of mulch on top. then on the following monday, i went to garden supply, which is AWESOME, and got two azeleas, two gerbera daisies, a dahlia, and a scabiosa plant. i had to dig my own holes this time, and i actually managed to get it all in the ground while the critter was a'napping--a miracle. so far, nothing has died and everything is blooming. yay!

this weekend, the hippie is going to help me make a box for a small raised vegetable garden in the back yard. and we are going to extend the from flower beds to accomodate some herbs. this part scares the beejeezus out of me. the herbs i think will be fine. the vegetable box could well be a huge unmitigated disaster. i have never grown a vegetable in my life. however, i am going to give it a shot at least. and if it works out, i will add a second box next year. and if THAT works out and i end up enjoying that part of it, i will add some raised beds to my long-term landscape architecting plan for the back yard. this plan is very long term, and involves things like retaining walls and screened in porches and how the neighbor's tree will grow to chade part of the yard, etc. there is much to consider.

there are days when i miss our old yard so much! it was insane, but it had once been heavily gardened and loved--there was ALWAYS something blooming, and things would come out of nowhere and surprise you. i miss walking through the yard and cutting little bouquets for my little bee bottle. but at the same time, i now get to create a whole little landscape, literally from scratch. it's kind of thrilling, but also intimidating.

so look people--help! if you have ideas or suggestions, or sources of information, or good gardening books to recommend, PLEASE share them! especially on gardening in the south, and vegetable and herb gardening in small spaces. i ahve been relying heavily on don hasting's book, month-by-month gardening in the south, which came highly recommended and has yet to fail me, but i know one resource isn't enough. so you know, help a sister out.

ps--i took all those flower pictures with my new camera, which is really not all that new at this point, but which i am finally starting to learn to use. the hippie gave it to me for my birthday last year, so he's been a little annoyed that i haven't used it more. again with the intimidation. however, so far, it's awesome! i think it will get even better if i get around to reading the book of instructions. hmmmm...

used to be...

2009-04-22T12:55:00.006-04:00

i used to design textiles. it was a lovely and rewarding and creative thing to be able to do for a living, an i am unbelievably glad for the experience of it. here's one of my designs:

last night, i had dinner with an old friend from the industry, one of only a tiny handful of people i know doing this now and possibly the best working relationship of my whole life. she's great, and seeing her was awesome--she is in NC for the high point furniture market, which is a shadow of its former self, but still important to the shreds of the american furniture world. but--we were talking about the state of the profession in the united states today, and friends--it is bleak. i know this, and have known since NAFTA passed that the textile industry in this country had numbered days. in fact, it's a huge part of why i left the industry when i did to go back to school. there were many reasons, but that was one of them. anyway. it's depressing as hell to me that this once great profession and industry, once something like the 3rd largest in our country, was basically handed over to other countries on a silver platter by our own government. where was the bailout money then? further, what are all those people i knew in the 6 years i spent in that industry now doing for work? i can count on one hand the ones still affiliated with textiles. there's no going back, i don't think, and it's woefully depressing.

today a friend from my current job, which is not at all creative, sent me a link to the website and blog of a wonderful woman in australia, and she said to me--i think this woman has your dream job. and she does. it's bittersweet to find things like this. on one hand, i LOVE her work, and i find her life inspiring. on te other, i am just not sure that kind of thing is even possible right now in the united states. i know people do it, but the ones who do always seem to have some other means of financial support and an etsy shop on the side instead of making a living designing beautiful things.

*sigh* i am not looking for a solution or huge insight here. i am just feeling a little melancholy today for the career that was and can never be again. i'll get over it.

lemons

2009-04-20T12:50:00.000-04:00

this weekend, the hippie was out of town, and my good friend meredith was in town. i helped throw a baby shower for another good friend, and meredith and i had other friends over for brunch on sunday. there was much running around. the critter came to the baby shower with me, and was quite a hit. he provided much entertainment. i also made red velvet cupcakes, a cheese plate, and lemonade for said shower. and i decided you people need to know about this lemonade, as it's easy, fabulous, and excellent if you want to bring an easy-to carry beverage to a party. kids and adults both love it.

here's what you do. in a 1-quart container (i use old chinese soup take out containers for this, but a mayonaise jar or mason jar would also work well), combine the following to make lemonade concentrate:

1 cup of fresh lemon juice (about 5 large lemons worth)
about a teaspoon and a half of lemon zest (from about half a lemon)
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of hot water

now, shake it up. put this in the fridge until you need it--you can make it anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 weeks ahead. when you get ready to use it, just pour the concentrate into a pitcher and add about 8 cups of cold water (or seltzer, if you want some bubbly)--that's two quarts, so you can just fill up the container it's already in twice to get the right amount of water. it looks lovely if you top it with a few thin slices of lemon. pour over ice to serve, and add lemon slices, mint, or you know, vodka, if you want a little something extra.

enjoy!

mama's potato salad

2009-04-02T12:36:00.000-04:00

ok. i know. by tomorrow, what i meant was THURSDAY. and i know. there's no picture. this is because i can't remember shit anymore. but anyway--here's the cookbook entry all the same, and i promise it's tasty and pretty even though you can't see a picture of it! :)

my mama is famous for this potato salad. i can't tell you how many times i have eaten it at barbeques, cook-outs, pot-luck lunches, picnics, and holidays, and i still love it every time. of all us kids, my brother doug is really the only one who can make it like mama. i still try, and other people always seem to like it, but to me, it is just never quite the same. maybe it's because there are no measurements to speak of in mama's kitchen...the measurements are usually things like "some" and "a little."

potatoes (idaho, peeled, or red skinned, not peeled)
eggs
sweet pickle relish or salad cubes
onion
mayonnaise, or Miracle whip, if you want to be authentic
mustard
salt and pepper to taste

so this is a dynamic sort of recipe based on how big your bowl is and how many people you are going to feed. let's assume a pretty big bowl, and that this is a side for a cook-out with like 10 people. i would start with one medium potato per person plus a couple of extras, so let's say 10-12 med. potatoes. peel and cube these, and then boil them until soft, about 20 minutes. drain well when done. at the same time, put 8-ish eggs in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. boil 10 minutes. cool and peel the eggs, then chop and add to the drained potatoes.

ok--this next part is where you get to use your zen. for this amount of potatoes and eggs, i would start with a big heaping tablespoon of relish, and about 1 and a half medium yellow onions, chopped. add these to the potatoes. next, add about a teaspoon of mustard, and about 2 heaping tablespoons of mayo. stir it up, and add mayo a little at a time until you get the right texture. taste often, and do not hesitate to add a little mustard or relish if you think it needs it. salt and pepper to taste--it takes more salt than you think it will, and don't be shy with that pepper!

this is a GREAT recipe to make a day ahead, as the onion flavor sort of makes it, and that takes at least a few hours to steep through the whole salad.

cookbook posts a'comin'

2009-03-30T12:54:00.000-04:00

i used to have a pretty active website, back in the day. and part of the website was a little cookbook that started mostly as a way for me to keep track of recipes I had scribbled on pieces of paper--family stuff and things from all over the place that i didn't want to lose. i was making one such thing this weekend, it it ocurred to me that i should share these, as they are already written up and all...

so--these are on the way. look for #1 of them tomorrow. the rest i'll post as i make them again so i have pictures to go with them. :)

believe it or not...

2009-03-20T12:26:00.000-04:00

i've been knitting!

yesterday at lunchtime, i sat outside in the lovely weather and wove in the ends on the blanket i knitted at warp speed for my friend kylie, whose baby boy is due in just over a month. this is a tried and true pattern for me, and one many babies love above all other blankets. plus it's affordable, machine washable and dryable (driable?), soft as clouds, and quick to knit. it's a simple 4x5 basketweave with garter edges. this one's 5 skeins of paton's melody in le grande bleu, knitted on size 15 addi turbos. knitted in less than 2 weeks, which for me, is nothing short of a miracle.

i also finished (and mailed!) the butterfly hat (free pattern on ravelry) for my friend amy in oregon, where she promises me it is still cold enough to wear it. i confessed to her that i actually wore it myself last weekend for emily and my walk on the beach in the freezing wind. it was a tad harder to mail after that--i may make one of thse for myself. this is knitted in malabrigo (the BEST hat yarn) in the velvet grapes colorway on size 8 something or others... anyway, totally fun to knit, and i love the result.

i've also been having a bit of a delusional cast-on problem lately. i keep starting projects with this kind of field of dreams mentality of "if i cast it on, somehow it will get knitted." this is the mable dress from erika knight's book, simple knits for cherished babies, that i have wanted to make for years. however, i have never before known anyone having a baby girl at the right time of year for it. now i do, but odds of me being able to get it finished in time? well, we'll just see. if i don't make it in time for boo, then some baby sometime in the future is going to get a lovely little classic dress knitted from jaeger sienna in the creatively named colorway, 404. i will refer to it as lilac. so far, it's slow going, but lovely.

and since mable isn't knitting itself up at warp speed, i needed a faster back-up project. thus this hooded tunic i am making for kieran. this is a pattern from knitting pure and simple that i have made before from noro silk garden--that one is one of my favorite finished objects of all time. this one is a dark grey (darker than the picture looks) wool, silk, and viscose blend called mas acero from brooks farm, which i bought at SAFF in 2007 specifically to make into a hoodie for my then-unborn baby. i was going great guns on this until i realized i might be having a weird gauge issue. i need to address that--there may have to be frogging and redoing on different needles--we'll see... so far, i am happy with the fabric, but i dislike how the yarn gives me corpse-colored fingers when i knit with it. this will get a vinegar soak before i wash it when it's done.

and as if that's not enough (and it's definitely not--who are we kidding?) i've started buying a new yarn here and there in spite of the fact i have enough yarn to last me a good 3 years of constant knitting. at the beach this past weekend, i picked up this lovely skein of be sweet magic ball in the lemonade colorway. nevermind that my pasty white face has no business anywhere near these colors--i want to knit a ruffle out of this. i almost HAVE to. my friend kerstin's fabulous suggestion was to make a skirt and put this around the bottom as a thin ruffle--i REALLY want to do that! now i just need to learn to sew...

i also bought yarn to make some chickens, but we'll get to that later. :)

6 or 7 years

2009-03-19T13:32:00.001-04:00

6 years ago today, the hippie moved in with me. he's still awesome, and i still like him pretty well. we're not really doing much this year to commemorate, but he sent me some beautiful flowers at work--excellent surprise! the view from my desk right now is perfectly lovely. :)

love you, hippie!

in other news, it's also his mama's birthday, so we must include a happy birthday shout out to denise! :)

quickie

2009-03-18T16:41:00.001-04:00

this past weekend, my friend emily and i snuck away for a little overnight jaunt to the beach to hang out, knit, eat, visit a fabulous yarn store, and walk on the beach. it was refreshing and awesome, and we got a bit of a break in that the weather turned out to just be cold instead of cold and rainy. here are some photos from our walk to make you jealous:

the rest are here.

ps--stayed in the seahawk motor lodge. it was all good till my bed was full of sand. ew. next time, we're trying the atlantis. it's been recommended, and the sign alone makes me want to stay there.

open house at the celebrity dairy

2009-03-17T14:53:00.007-04:00

a couple of weeks ago, we went with friends to the bi-annual open house at the celebrity dairy, which is a working goat farm and B&B in siler city, nc. they sell cheese and eggs, and many of our local shops and restaurants feature their products. it was one of those absolutely gorgeous warm sunny days we sometimes get in the late winter here in north carolina--one of the many reasons i love living here. i've made a pact with myself to start searching out and taking advantage of some of the many free, cool, and interesting things my area has to offer, and to get kieran outside to see his world as much as possible this year. (thanks to betsy for letting us know about thisone!)

we met up for brunch, then headed to the dairy with jenn and harry and betsy and all the girls. there, we hooked up with amy and kelly and baby sage. we spent the afternoon tromping around the farm (in the mud!), checking out baby goats, pigs, one bright blue peacock, and about 700 chickens. gabriella chased chickens for two solid hours and then cried when we left because she couldn't bring one home with her--she is a born farm girl. even kieran got to get his little paws on one of them, which utterly delighted him, of couse. afterwards, kelly and amy spontaneously came back to our house to grill out and eat goat cheese (not me--because ew--but everyone else did), and we threw the boys into the tub so that the babies would have that clean baby smell and be a little less farm-ish. all in all, a fabulous, wonderful day.

the complete set of pictures is here.

fitness snippet

2009-02-12T12:16:00.000-05:00

by some bizarre quirk of my body being weird, i weigh less now than i have in like 10 years. this is not normal for a person who has had a baby in the past year, but i am not knocking it. ( i do kind of feel like i have somehow cheated and am having some emotional issues accepting it as reality, but that's a topic for a longer, more self-involved post than this one, which i have about 2 minutes to write.) and being so oddly close to my goal weight, i figure i should maybe make an actual effort to get there. here's my thought of the day on that topic:

some days my thoughts go like this:
less simple carbs--more fruit--take the stairs--take a walk at lunch--yoga?--eat more veggies and less meat--how lean is this protein?--STEP AWAY FROM THE CHOCOLATE--can i run up these stairs?

other days, it's more like:
fuckit--fuckit--cookies--fuckit--fuckit--cupcakes--mmm...fries...--fuckit

what gives, self?

critter update

2009-01-16T12:27:00.005-05:00

maybe fridays are the right time to check in on the critter, or at least post some pictures of him. kieran is two weeks from his 9-month doctor's appointment. he is growing by leaps and bounds and will soon be completely out of his 6-12 month PJs. time to go shopping again! he's a blast lately, although i could do without the sleepless nights that come along with this whole teething thing. the bottom front two teeth came in pretty easily, but man--the top two are a BITCH! you can see them through his swollen and tender gums, and he's clearly not enjoying the process. i wish they would just hurry up.

other than the teeth, though--we are having a great time with him, as is jennifer (our friend and nanny) and her whole family. he's become one of the pack at her house, which is perfect. he loves them as much as he loves us, and while this is sometimes hard sometimes emotionally for me, i think it's definitely the best thing for him. he's happy to go in the morning, and happy to come home in the evening, too. gabriella loves him and reads to him and makes up games for them to play. and he immitates her and wants to get into everything she's doing. she is why he can climb stairs like a champ at 8 months old. she's why he loves throwing himself down on the bed and laughing over and over. she's a big part of why he loves his books so much. we are lucky and grateful.

he continues to astound us with his mobility and crazy development. he can draw lines on paper, keep rhythm with his maracca (favorite toy in the world!), and LOVES LOVES LOVES music. he is superfast at crawling, pulls up and climbs on everything, and is a huge fan of the stairs. it's all awesome and scary as hell at the same time. mostly, we let him explore and spot him. he laughs at everything new, claps his hands^* with excitement over things he loves, and is definitely developing some rather strong opinions about things. he is starting to initiate games with us, which is great fun, and oh, so cute! he's showing signs of becoming more and more independent, too--preferring to feed himself rather than have us feed him and to get his own toys off the shelves and out of the baskets instead of us giving him things to play with. all normal and good. again with the lucky and grateful.

it also continues to scare the crap out of me on a daily basis--this whole parenting thing. i pray more. i hope more. i fear more. i just want him to be happy and healthy, and i hate that i can't just guarantee that for him myself. i am sure every new mother goes through this. it's so weird--it's not that i want to protect him so much as i want to somehow ensure that he doesn't get more than he can handle, if that makes sense. or more than WE can handle. mostly i just try to backburner these thoughts, since they are all related to things over which i have zero control. in spite of that fear, he is just a wonder and a delight, and i am so happy to have him in our lives! it's really truly unbelievable.

this series of pictures is from hanging out at home last weekend. kieran was "helping" his daddy put some chairs together. he "helps" a lot these days--must be in the thick of things at all times. wonder where he gets that?

* a note on the clapping thing: we've been playing clapping games with him forever, but something clicked in his head on christmas day when my 6'3", 280 pound, barrel-chested tree of a brother was playing pat-a-cake with him. this was one of the funniest things i have ever seen--doug was hamming it up insanely, and the critter was totally enthralled. 5 minutes later, he was clapping himself--it was such a sweet moment. it NEARLY made up for the horrific stomach virus doug gave me that day. nearly...

crockpotting

2009-01-13T08:08:00.001-05:00

for christmas, my friend jenn gave me a crock pot--something i have wanted for literally years and have just never gotten around to buying for myself. this weekend was my first foray into the world of the slow cooker, and it was AWESOME. we made a BJ's run on saturday and came home with a lot of meat--a perfect time to bring out the crock pot, right? having no idea what to do, i googled, read a bunch of recipes, and then just made some shit up. here's what i did.

INGREDIENTS
1 4-pound pork loin roast
8-10 shallots
1 cup chicken broth
5 cloves garlic
4 large, lush rosemary sprigs
~1 pound green beans
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

DIRECTIONS
peel shallots and cut each in half. place cut side down in bottom of crock pot until the bottom is covered in shallots. salt and pepper the roast all over and rub in. this would be an excellent time to apply any spice rubs you find intriguing, but i didn't this time. heat some olive oil (maybe 2-3 tablespoons?) in a heavy skillet and brown roast on all sides. (this step also known as--make a big spatter-y mess out of your stove, but whatever.) place roast on top of shallots. pour cup of broth over roast. cut garlic cloves in half and place in a line longways down on top of the roast. lay rosemary sprigs on top. place the lid on the crokpot and cook on low for 8 hours. when there's about 45 minutes to go, add the green beans.

when everything was done, i picked out and discarded the rosemary sticks, put the green beans in their own dish, and pulled out the roast to slice it--little did i know that it was going to fall completely apart. this was ok with me--i am open minded. i used an immersion blender to puree the shallots and garlic with the broth and pan juices to make a gravy, and then added the pork back to the pot. i served this over rice noodles with the green beans on top, but in retrospect, i think it would be better with some wild rice or something with a little more body than the egg noodles. in any event, it was YUMMY! i would definitely make it again.

a note on the immersion blender. i borrowed one from my friend jenn to try it out, and now i need one. it was AWESOME--so fast and not too messy. i am currently lusting after this one. you need one, too.

i have been asking around for crock pot recipe recommendations from people who know from food, and here are my three faves so far, in order of how strongly they were recommended:

fresh from the vegetarian slow cooker (book)
a year of crockpotting (blog)
not your mother's slow cooker cookbook (book)

if y'all have favorite recipes, i'd love to hear them. i am all about trying stuff in this thing now!

monday knitting update: the amanda hat

2009-01-12T12:43:00.000-05:00

mondays are for knitting updates. i guess--why not? i made a hat. hats are about all i can swing lately, but that's ok, as i have not yet gone through a round of hat gifting. there's a group of people on ravelry knitting 3 hats for january, and i thought about joining it. but man, i don't need the pressure. i am just knitting hats when i can get to them. i bought a bunch of malabrigo so i have many colors to choose from, and i downloaded many free patterns. excellent.

anyway--this is the amanda hat, which i knitted for kerstin, my friend and one of my bosses. this was my ONLY christmas knitting, and well--i gave it to her last wednesday. the good news is, she loves it! it fits her perfectly! it matches her shearling coat, which has this lovely ribbon trim in white, silver, and champagne. this hat is made from malabrigo, my current favorite hat yarn--soft and boingy and semi-solid. the color is called polar morn, and is the same color i used for my own foliage hat a while back as well as for one of the many umbrella hats i've made. love it.

note: posted on ravelry here.

ps--if you knit or crochet, and you aren't on ravelry, get on there. i mean it--there's just no reason not to!

in for it

2009-01-07T08:47:00.001-05:00

so it turns out that we have a crazy baby. he's 8 months old now--time flies. and lately his favorite activity is what the hippie and i refer to as, "gettin' into some shit." last night while i was out knitting, the hippie was on point. he turned his back for a moment, only to turn back and find this:

it's a blurry as hell picture, but i think it gets the point across.

the kid wanted a music box that was too high to reach on the living room book shelf. so he took an emptly diaper box (one of his favorite things), pushed it over to the shelf, climbed up on it, and helped himself to the lovely little hand carved music box i have had since i was 8. naughty.

this problem solving thing he's got going on is a little scary. as is the climbing. whew.

ah, 2009...

2009-01-06T12:53:00.003-05:00

some thoughts on the last year:

so glad that i have a happy and healthy family and a great village in which to bring up a baby. so in love with that baby and his daddy, it's not even funny. so grateful to have a job, a house i love, two kitties i love, and a neighborhood i love. i have plenty (too much!) to eat and clean water to drink. there are many people in this world i love and who love me. i feel so lucky! i feel so lucky, i almost feel guilty about how much more i have than so many people in the world. i am blessed.

this past year hasn't been all fun and games, and it's been one of the biggest adjustments of my life so far. i am sure that's not over--we are continuing to find our groove with each other as a family and to re-prioritize all our stuff. but overall, it's been a good year--a great one, even. the hardest thing has been time--i never ever feel like there's enough.

for 2009, i have more overhanging goals than resolutions.

i'd like to focus the first two months of this year on finishing up with all the loose end things hanging over my head, so that for the rest of the year, i can focus on enrichment, personal development for all of us, and play.

in january,

i'm going to hang the aplhabet cards i got for the critter's room.
i'm going to get all packages in need of mailing into the mail.
i'm going to organize the crawl spaces.
i'm going to trim the crepe myrtle tree.

in february,

i'm going to finish all the almost-finished knitting projects (there are a few...)
i'm going to finish my massive flower bed overhaul.
i'm going to do my level best to get two trees planted--a redbud and a dogwood.
i'm going to get my studio organized.

general goals for myself for 2009:

spend more time in the studio.
focus on debt riddance.
walk more.
try yoga.
read more.
spend more time outside.

knitting goals for 2009:

finish kerstin's hat!!!
make the critter a sweater.
finish and felt 3 almost finished bags.
pick up the baltic sea stole again.
get started on a sweater for the hippie.
make hats for the critter, the hippie, tristan, and amy p.
make baby gifts for 3 babies.
start on a blanket for my house.

note: i have all the yarn i need for all of the above projects. and more.

two possible big-ass long-term house and home things:
1) ditch all the carpet and put in bamboo flooring?
2) puppy?

and last, but definitely not least, this is a year when i want to do something to give something back to the world. i need to live greener and lessen my footprint on this earth. and i really want to do something for others this year, whether it's volunteering or knitting for charity or what--something. suggestions are welcome.

pet peeve:

2008-12-15T12:41:00.000-05:00

i hate it when i pay for rush shipping on a thing, and they ship it rush, but take 3 days to get it out the door. hrmph.

ten random notes

2008-12-11T15:19:00.006-05:00

1. still hate herbal tea.
2. the kid is climbing stairs.
3. cookies? they're good. really good.
4. christmas tree is up.
5. work is slow. painful--feels like i am wasting time.
6. tired. teething sucks.
7. still need to buy christmas cards.
8. determined to finish 3 nearly finished felted bags that have been ready to felt for--oh--a couple of years now.
9. sucks when the whole family gets sick at once.
10. really want to knit a hat.

and as a bonus--a cute picture of the critter:

on gardening

2008-11-12T13:06:00.001-05:00

alice bradley is moving from the 'burbs back into brooklyn, from when she came. i am positive that she has many many reasons for doing so, but the one i can relate to the most is the mulch. when we lived downtown, our house had a yard filled with lovely blooming things that had been planted 50 years earlier and loved long enough to become well established. the grass would not grow, but there was always something lovely and interesting going on. i had ideas then of gardening--of what i would one day do, given a yard of my own. i have a yard of my own now. i hate my yard. i hate my lack of time for it and how it alwyas looks just half-assed. i have these pictures in my head of what it may one day be, but in truth, i just don't see how it's ever going to get there--at least not till the kid is about 10 and able to help trim the holly bushes that threaten to overtake the porch. someone should really do something about all the plants i have that need to go into the ground. someone should also maybe finish the Great Soil Amendment Project of 2008^* that i started last march while still pregnant and filled with illusions of grandeur. someday i will finish it. someday i will plant trees. and bulbs so i have daffodils in the spring. someday i will repot all my houseplants. someday i will mulch. meredith's coming into town this weekend. maybe i'll make her hold the baby while i work on the yard.

* the flower bed in the front of my house is full of builder's detritus and clay. i've been slowly digging this out and amending the "soil" with a mixture of peat moss, perlite, and fertilizer. it's working wonders for the weeds adjacent to the bed, and i am guessing would also be good for the plants in the bed, were there any. the hippie pokes fun at me for "planting dirt", but i maintain that this must be done before we plant anything else. last time i checked, plants and bulbs did not find tar paper and 10-penny nails nourishing. but i digress...

catching up to the present

2008-11-07T16:46:00.002-05:00

a lot's happened in the last couple of months while i've been not blogging. time has been going by so quickly, i haven't even realized i've failed to blog it. so--let's catch up, shall we? some visual aids should help us.

labor day weekend, we went to visit my parents. kieran spent some time with some of his cousins and had his first rice cereal. he liked it. :)

we went to see the carolina rollergirls with many friends. fun, but jesus, it was HOT! the kid did pretty well with his first sporting event, in spite of the crazy loud applause.

then he got a nasty cold, but he was still happy.

luckily he was all better by the time we went to the beach, where we spent time with carrie, isaac, ella, meredith, denise, warren, and lani. i've been dreaming about putting his feet in the sand since i was pregnant, so this was particularly satisfying for me. he was very brave about the water on his feet, and he immediately put a fistful of sand in his mouth, as expected. there's a whole set of pitctures here, but here's one of my favorites, too:

there's been some knitting:

the critter started sitting, crawling, and pulling up.

fall came.

my friend tina had her baby, kyla christina. i was there with her, which is always an awesome priveledge and makes me want to become a doula. still thinking about that...

and then--suddenly it was halloween.

y'all want to tell me how the hell that all happened so fast?

and then i voted, but you guys already know about that.

whew! that only took 3 days to get posted. maybe i can get back onto the normal blogging schedule now. clearly, i should not make any promises. but man--i miss you guys!

ps--happy birthday, alyce! love and miss you like a fiend!!!
pps--good thoughts to lisa, who's having a baby as we speak!

i voted

2008-11-04T22:59:00.004-05:00

this is the first time i have voted in my life. i have planned to vote for barak obama for president for some time, mainly because sarah palin scares the hell out of me. and i think it says something about our country that i finally registered tovote, not because i was totally gung ho for a candidate, but because i was so filled with bile and rage that i wanted to vote AGAINST someone. but i digress... anyway, i voted. and about a week ago, somewhere in all the reading, i drank the hope kool-aid. cnn just projected that obama was going to win. i have my fingers crossed that the coming change will be good. i am stunned that we have elected an african american as president of the united states in my lifetime. stunned and thrilled.

a month? really?

2008-10-22T08:20:00.000-04:00

dang. it's been over a month since i've had the time to write anything here??? i didn't even realize it, which is pretty sad. and you know, i miss blogging--a LOT! i need to get back on it. maybe today i will try to get on here at lunch time and write the rest of the 5-month update i started--oh--at the end of september when kieran turned 5 months old. time flies, people. time flies...

cooking on the fly

2008-09-17T12:48:00.001-04:00

having a kid makes you become first less efficient (A LOT LESS!), and then suddenly more efficient. i am finding a new groove at last. (thank you exersaucer!) i am learning to roughly plan ahead and to make stuff up on the fly. i now go to the grocery store with no real list, but instead, some vague notion that we should maybe have some food in the house and that some extra diapers wouldn't go amiss. and maybe more advil. for example, on saturday i just went to the store with this notion of coming back home with FOOD. and here is my smartest idea ever: buy a whole big family pack of boneless chicken breasts and all kinds of random vegetables. grill the whole pack of chicken. and then for days--you have dinner almost made already. i keep making random stuff with grilled chicken and veggies, and man--it's been pretty good. here are some successes:

one night i roasted a butternut squash--i chopped up half a pear (random) and put it in the cavity of the squash, rubbed the whole thing with olive oil, sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on it, and baked it for somehtng like 50 minutes at 350. when it was done, i scooped out the squashy goodness and mashed it up with a little more cinnamon, and voila. with that we had some cous cous (one of those near east boxes--i think this was the toasted pine nut variety) to which i added a handful of spinach. and by the way, i will definitely be doing THAT again. i just threw the spinach in on top of the cous cous and let it steam for a few minutes, and then stirred it in--it wilted beautifully, and man, it was good. and i think my hands on time for this whole meal was maybe 15 minutes.

chicken caesars. easy peasy. use real parmesan for this, people, and you can't go wrong.

last night i took half a box of pasta and cooked it. then i added it to a saute of mushrooms, halved grape tomatoes, and some frozen soycutash from trader joes(although you could also use pretty much any frozen vegetable or a can of something), a cup of chicken broth, some sprigs of thyme, and a few red pepper flakes. and you know, chicken. fast, low fat, and delicious.

sandwiches with sliced chicken, roasted red pepper, basil or watercress, and herbed mayo. or if you want them to look fancy, drop the mayo and serve them open faced with shaved manchego cheese and a drizzle of olive il and balsamic vinegar. yum.

burritoes!!! take some of that chicken and add some avacado, some salsa, maybe some black beans and cheese, a little cilantro if you have it. roll it up in a tortilla.

tonight we will have some sugar snap peas and something. maybe a stir-fry. i'm sure i still have some other vegetable bits and pieces hiding in that crisper drawer--half an onion, a red pepper, some mushrooms...something...

i realize there's nothing earth-shattering here, but it's made all the difference to my psyche this week. last night the hippie was reveling in the fact that we're eating at home, and that it's not all PB&J (although yum! PB&J!). it's good, finally getting back into the swing of my kitchen.

ps--speaking of PB&J, can i just tell you how good this strawberry and rhubarb jam we found is? we bought it in a general store out newr my hometown, and holy lord--YUM! just sayin'...

blogging from the iPhone: a test

2008-09-15T22:40:00.002-04:00

sometimes it's hard for me to accept that this phone i am using has more power and memory than the computers i learned to program on. technology is just crazy, man. a friend asked me to test whether or not i could write a blog post from my iPhone. apparently yes.