Early Mornings

It was dark this morning. I heard voices in the hall. It was my boys. I looked around at the light in my room. It wasn't light enough to be any later than 5 am. What were they doing up? That question was easy to answer. It was the weekend, and the weekend means video games; only after showers, breakfast, clean clothes, and taking the dog out to pee. The next series of noises forced me to take action. There was the squeaking of the towel rack, the gush of water into the tub, its thunderous reverberations as the water hit the walls, and footsteps as someone stepped into the tub. I looked at my clock. 4:00 am. Way too early to be up on a leisurely Sunday morning.

"What is going on? What are you doing?"

"I'm taking a shower."

"What? Why now?"

"So I don't have to do it later. I'm just getting ready for my day."

"Matt, it's four in the morning. It's way too early to be up. You guys need to go back to bed."

I went back to bed. I was wide awake. I turned this way and that. I tossed and turned. I tried deep breathing, and relaxation techniques. It was no use. I was awake. Ugh. It was only 4:30. I decided I'd better get up and be productive. I had been stuck in bed for nearly a week, unable to move due to a back injury. At one point in the middle of the week, I was certain that I'd be in that much pain and incapacitated for the rest of my life. Such an enlightening experience, the importance of back health. I digress. Since I was awake, I thought I would at least be productive. I had many things go undone for the week, that I could now catch up on.

I did dishes. Three loads of my own laundry made it into and out of the washing machine. Most days I'm lucky to get the kids' laundry done, and the towels. I will usually get one load of my own in in a week, which means wearing the same things, rotated and interchanged, for seven days. This week is going to be so much more fun, with a larger wardrobe to choose from. I also had a birth class to help with later in the morning, so I thought I would make cookies. The kids were up by this point, and had all their chores done, as well as cheerful attitudes. It felt almost like an episode of Leave it to Beaver, or The Andy Griffith Show. I was the quintessential female figure, up before dawn tending to the daily duties, with happy little children milling about on a quiet morning, and I was making cookies. I giggled at the thought, wondering where my valium and cosmo were hiding, and finished the cookies.

I wanted to get a good picture of the finished product, so I borrowed my son's camera; my batteries were dead. His were dead, too. Exhausted battery warning, his camera stated in a panic before shutting off. I raided batteries from video games, video game remotes, the TV remote, and several other electronic devices before I found a set that did not ellicit the same panicked message. By now I was starting to delve into the realm of tardiness. That one I am a little more familiar with. So much for quinessential female figure. I threw on my silver gray sheath, black sweater, and black pinstriped trousers. I put in my contacts, and touched up my mascara. No time for eye shadow or lip stick today. Did I need to brush my hair? No, it looked mussed, but not ratted, it would fly. I threw a dozen and a half cookies into a ziploc, grabbed a blue plate for presentation of the cookies, and slipped on my black flats. Keys, purse, phone, cookies, and I was out the door, on my way, and only 10 minutes behind schedule. Aunt Bea, sorry to let you down, but this is a new era, and at least I got the cookies, even if my hair is not perfectly coifed. You too can wake at 4 and end up with gluten free chocolate chip cookies, but first you must have the recipe. Enjoy!

Anna's Gluten Free Chocolate Chip cookies, adapted from a recipe her sister gave her.

2 eggs

1 1/2 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup nut butter(I use almond or cashew)

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill all purpose Gluten free flour mix

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill coconut flour

1/2 tsp salt(unless using salted nut butter, then omit)

1 tsp baking powder

2 TBS oil

1/2 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla till pale and a little fluffy. Add nut butter, and mix till thoroughly incorporated. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder in, all at once is fine. The dough will be very stiff at this point because the coconut flour holds a lot of moisture. Add in the oil to loosen it a little. You may need to stop the mixer, and scrape down the sides in order to fully incorporate the oil and get the right consistency. It will be a stiff dough. Add the chocolate chips and mix till they are just mixed in. Form into balls by kitchen table spoon, about the size of a golf ball. Bake on a silpat lined cookie sheet for 15 minutes, until the tops are just barely blushed golden, and the bottoms are golden. Do not overcook. Remove from pan to cooling rack, and store in airtight container once cool. They soften up to a wonderfully chewy consistency over time, and are best the next day, or later the same day. They should never be hard as rocks, even straight out of the oven or off the cooling rack. Enjoy!

A Year of Healing and Health

Last Winter I was sitting in my mom's living room, looking out the windows at the forest that surrounds her house watching the birds nibble at the suet seed balls we had formed and hung on our live holiday tree. I was trying to think of ways in which to involve my kids actively in their health and awareness. My kids have a decent palate, they like salad, stir fry, and vegetable soups of the general variety, but their favorite foods still hinge on starches laden with cheese. I wanted to broaden their horizons and connect them to their surroundings. We live in the Pacific Northwest which is home to a plethora of both local and international flavors and delights. I have taken my kids to Chinese New Year festivals, Japanese festivals, and local art festivals, as well as the local farmer's market on numerous occassions. They have enjoyed all of these. As a parent, I wanted more for them. I wanted them to know for themselves how to find those things around them that give them a spark, a zest for life, as well as inspires them and leaves them in awe of the beauty and bounty that surrounds us. I came up with a 12 month journey through the seasons and the surroundings to help them, as well as myself, create a deeper more intimate connection to our world, here and abroad. Each month has a food theme, an activity theme, and a nature theme.

The food themes centered around those foods that were appropriate for the month, with seasonal produce whenever possible, as well as how another culture may use those same dishes or ingredients. Every week we would sit down and design a menu plan for the week, and brainstorm which dishes we would be interested in trying that fit the theme of the month, locally foraged foods, locally grown foods, and our global theme in mind. At the end of the week, when we sat down again to plan our next menu, we would discuss which of those dishes or ingredients we liked, which were not our favorites, and whether we learned anything interesting that week while trying new foods. Not only did it create a unified effort to our meal plans, we also had a novel way to try new foods, which is sometimes difficult to do.

The activity theme also centered around what is available in our area at that time of year. For instance, walking or hiking in the winter months is available to a limited extent, and swimming and water sports are set for the summer months. As much as possible, I tried to combine the activity theme with the nature theme, so as not to overwhelm both myself and my kids with too many tasks. For instance, being February, the nature theme is Anything new awake in February combined with nature walks as the activity theme. I wanted my kids to be able to remember these experiences long after they were done, so I developed activities to help them get the most of these excursions. Some of those plans involved digital picture collages, focusing on what they saw around them, or picking a certain kind of plant or animal and trying to get multiple pictures in different settings of their chosen subject. Other options included paintings, drawings, stampings, or research excursions to the Library, so that we could be learning as much as possible about the world we live in, on as many levels as we could.

Each month I will post here what the themes are with weekly updates as to what we are doing and how that month is panning out. I will share our triumphs as well as our setbacks and any challenges we may face. I have soaring hopes for this to be a tremendously rewarding experience, and am so very excited to share in these discoveries with my children. These are my passions. My children. My food. My experiences in this life. Come and share them with me. The journey will be magnificent.

February

Around the world Soups and Stews-Warm the bellies in the winter.

Some ideas we've collected so far:

Tortilla soup
Minestrone
Tomato Basil soup
Morrocan chicken
Indian curry
Thai curry
Chinese chicken ball soup
Chili
Lentil dahl
Potato leek soup
Hot and sour soup
Egg drop soup
Creamy soup-mushroom, broccoli, asparagus, etc…
African ground nut stew
South American Winter Squash soup
Borcht
Cherry soup
Chikka paprikash
Ox tail soup
Clam Chowder

Anything new awake in February-Nature walks and day hikes.

Ideas we've come up with to explore this.

Photo collage

Photo journal

Drawings

Paintings

Journal Entries

Library research

Poetry

Check back next week to see what we found!

Grapefruit

The other day at the grocer's I saw them. Round, blushed pink, hailing from Texas. Their sweet southern drawl calling out to me. I walked over, entranced. Southern muses. I picked up one, too light, and another, heavy, soft and giving with the sweetest little blush. The faintest hint of their sweet, winter sunset scent escaping to my nose. A mixture of crisp citrus, sweet roses, and the tiniest bite, a little grab at my nostrils, right at the end. Maybe that's the pith, that white bitter part that's so high in nutrients. Truth be told, that was my favorite part as a child. I would carefully peel my citrus fruits, making sure to save the white velvety slightly bitter pillow till the end, when I would scrape it off the peel with my teeth. I picked several more heavy, ripe fruits.

I took home my finds, and cut one open. It practically gushed it's juices all over my cutting board as I sliced it, midway between it's two dimples. There it lay, open and glistening, the juices threatening to fall over the edge and roll down the sides into a small pink puddle. The aroma was intoxicating, and flooded me with memories of crisp mornings at my gramma's, the birds twittering out on her bird feeder, fighting with the local chipmunks and squirrels for the bounty, chirping out victory and warning in chorus, until the next siege and victor. There was hot cocoa, velvety and smooth, and cinnamon toast, warm and buttery, spiced and sweet, and the grapefruit half, sprinkled with a hint of sugar that made it sparkle. Almost like a pink diamond. Love, excitement, and joy. The love of my gramma, smiling and Hummel-like, the excitement of spending the day at her house playing outside with cousins, and the joy of hot cocoa, cinnamon toast, and grapefruits, special treats that only came out in the cold, crisp winter months.

Grapefruits. Sunny little orbs of winter. Yellow and pink like a sunset on the outside, soft translucent smiling pink on the inside. I think citrus fruits are winter's way of letting us know it'll all be ok. Color and vibrance are soon to return, and in the meantime there are grapefruits, oranges, lemons, limes, pumellos and more.

Some of my favorite photos

Each journey begins with a step. Japanese Gardens, Portland, OR.

Tranqulity; often found after tumbling through rocks and hard places.

Koi fish. Japanese Garden, Portland, OR.

That seagull almost got bowled over by the waves.

Sunset at Cape Arago, Charleston, OR.

Sunset at Cape Arago, Charleston, OR.

Waterfont Willamette River, Portland, OR.

Sunset Near Umpqua Lighthouse, Winchester Bay, OR.

Breakfast with my brother in Anchorage, AK. Fun times...

Sometimes Mother Earth just gives you the most amazing frame. Outside of Anchorage, AK.

Beavers with a great view. Outside of Anchorage, AK.

Reflections. Simply breathtaking. Outside Anchorage, AK.

Gray Days Crystal Nights

The nights turn cool, chilly, with a sharpness that penetrates. The days grow short. Night envelopes more than its fair share. The once vibrantly colored leaves now brown, trodden, mudlike. Fat little bushtits fluff up and shiver, chirping out their protest to those passersby that will listen. Squirrels race, as if frantically searching, and nibble on strips of bark. They chatter, too, at passersby, but more like the grumpy old men in those too familiar stories. There are a few straggling wooly bears scrambling to find warmth, and the occassional hop of a frog after a deceptively warm rain. Otherwise it is quiet. It is winter.

Winter brings solace, necessary insulation, and sometimes a sense of loss; color gone from the landscape, warmth gone from the air, sounds gone from the winds. Misunderstanding. Winter is a time of rest and rejuvenation. This is the time to delve inward and heal. Storage for winter, hibernation, and slowed pace all participate in the healing of self. Solace allows for self reflection, so much harder to do when the world around you is a sensual feast. Insulation helps to retain the solace, to ensure the space necessary for the process. The loss; simply helps to make those things we miss in their absence that much more wonderful on their return. Cycles and Seasons.Embrace this winter. Take the time to heal. When spring comes back again your work will be rewarded. All things grow better in clean cultivated soils. Weeds are easier to pull in winter. Get in there and weed. Peace and health be with you.

Passions

A little about me. There’s too much to just put into black type on a page. I grew up on the Oregon Coast. Days spent sleuthing the tide pools for cool finds. My favorites were the sea urchins, Spiny dark purple koosh balls. Does anyone even remember the koosh ball? I love the ocean: The salty sea air, the sticky mist, the sound of the waves falling onto the beach, or lapping at the shore, the cries of the seagulls claiming foodstuffs like small children wanting to be first at snack. The little crabs were always of interest, carrying their worldly belongings on their backs, always on the lookout for the next best shell to call home, even if that means deposing of the current tenant. Anemones. I think that I may have been in a past life, or perhaps still am one. An anemone is beautiful; Simple clear colors, not a whole lot of flash, just enough to get your attention. An interesting little response is to that of harsh touch, the anemone retreats, sucking into herself, hiding all of its color and frills. Don’t look at me. One may also look at this bit of physiology and say that it really is that the anemone lures her prey in with pretty colors and then sucks them into oblivion, that little belly button in the center. Maybe. Of course I do not like to think of myself that way, but I am the anemone. So, you really don’t know that much more about me than you did on sentence one, except that I ramble on about sea life.

Passions. Much more interesting. This is where imagination and life can mingle. I have a passion for food. Good food, shared with friends, laughs, music, and a little flair. I think one of the main reasons I like food so much is that I can transport to another time or another place. If you want to know a people, eat with them. Want to experience Thailand? My favorite is a bright Jade Curry with fresh Thai basil thrown in just at the end. Peppery, crisp, clean, and a shock of green on top of, and mingled in with the melting bouquet of florals, spices, and sweet coconut milk. France, lemon and thyme seem to show up a lot, along with veggies and fruits, savory cheeses and of course wine. Italy. What other country, besides maybe Greece, may be as voluptuous as Italy. The tomatoes speak for themselves. Succulent, full figured and heavy, with the slightest bit of give, and the most intoxicating aroma. Sliced, lain with fresh basil and a swirl of thick balsamic syrup. What could be better or more simple. Food is not about how many chemicals or stabilizers we can get into a it and still have it taste the same months down the road, which it never does. Food is about tasting a moment, seizing an essence, or capturing a region’s Terre in one tiny morsel. Can you taste the rain, the hillside where the sheep grazed, or the sun beating down on the tomato? When you can it is simply an amazing transformative experience. Unadulterated food is by far the best. The less one does with their food, the better.
Another passion is my children. Watching them grow up and learn, experiencing things from the mundane to the miraculous. Such a privilege. I love to see them grasp their lives with both fists and hang on for the ride. Finger painting is more fun when you use your whole arm. Imaginary sword bearing monsters are everywhere, including the aisles of our favorite grocery stores, book stores, and even at the library. There isn’t anyone in this world that doesn’t like to hear beautiful songs sung at all times, in all venues. And, aren’t all things that might possibly have a hand hold meant for climbing on? Lessons I have learned from my children.
Photography. Another passion. I just love to take photographs. Snapshots of a frame. Memories, both impromptu and slightly fabricated, posing and all. Nature shots, how best to frame that one little square of visual so that anyone else could see the same beauty that I see in that split second. They are never quite as perfect as the whole experience, but they are a hell of a lot of fun.
The best thing about passion is it’s best when you share it. So here ya go!

Roasted Asparagus
1 bunch asparagus washed, tough ends removed
2 TBS Olive oil
Sea salt to taste
Oven to 425 degrees F
Toss the asparagus spears with olive oil, put into an oven safe dish, like a sheet pan or a 9X13 pyrex, and sprinkle with some salt, just enough to make them sparkle a little(1/4-1/2 tsp). Put this into 425 degree oven and roast for 15-20 minutes, until tender and smelling fully of asparagus. Be careful not to overcook them, which can happen if the spears are thin. Some brown but not too dark is what you’re aiming for. Enjoy these alone like French fries, floppy yes, but that’s how they get eaten most of the time for me, or you can make an aoli to serve them with.

Smiles,
Anna