theMiddleBit

Bootlegger's Ballad

2012-01-27T16:52:00.001-06:00

Every night, the loving Father sings the same song to the middle bit and the little bit as he tucks them into bed. It is precious. And they love it.

A few days ago, Minnie, our little bit, decided that there was a problem with the song choice. She explained to me that because it was a bedtime song, that was sung "at nighttime Mom, duh" that we should change the words. Confident that this was just a stalling tactic, I kissed her head, told her, "Yes Dear. I'm sure you're right. We'll figure it out tomorrow," and shut off the light.

She apparently took some time to rethink the song's lyrics and this is her new version.

Oooooo.......

Dear Lego,

2012-01-21T19:12:00.001-06:00

Much has been written in the last few weeks about your launch of a new line of Legos designed to appeal to girls. As a mother of daughters, I can appreciate the initial urge to answer their calls of, "More pink!" and "That's too boyish!" with a pastel colored mini figure that has boobs and carries flowers...

No wait! I can't! That's completely stupid. Lego! You really messed this one up. Your new playsets promise minutes of fun while girls of all ages follow cookie cutter directions and assemble purple and teal scenes filled with puppies and pre-fab furniture. Lame. Sexist. Insulting.

So I thought I would show you what my daughters and I did with our primary colored Legos. The bricks and bits handed down to them by their starship building father. Accessories like a working ceiling fan, a broom, a plunger (for when too many organic vegetable peels get put down the disposal), and a paper towel holder that we had to assemble using our imagination. Furniture we had to build because Daddy's old Star Wars sets didn't come with a 6 burner Viking range, a Sub-Zero refrigerator or a 36 bottle wine chiller.

Is it cliche that my girls and I built a kitchen? Possibly. But Lego, you know your new friends would loooove to be sitting on one of those barstools constructed out of rocket seats and red bricks having tapas and a glass of pinot with with my storm trooper right about now!

Sincerely,

Nancy, the mother of 3 awesome Lego loving GIRLS!

Launch

2012-01-01T10:18:00.001-06:00

A new partnership. A new journey. A new year.

Come see.

AWordBetweenUs

If You're Only Going to Have One Glass...

2011-12-27T19:33:00.000-06:00

My friend knows I love a nice red.

My friend also knows I try to limit myself to one glass on a week night.

My friend found this glass and gave it to me for Christmas...because she loves me.

This glass holds an entire bottle of wine.

The entire bottle.

If you're only going to have one glass...then...duh...this is your glass.

I gleefully showed it to my husband and opened the accompanying bottle of Mad Housewife merlot...then I had second thoughts.

"Honey, it seems irresponsible to drink this whole bottle all by myself."

He responded, "Don't worry love. We'll be here with you."

Wink. Wink.

Georgia's on my Mind

2011-12-20T09:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday ~~was not a good day~~ sucked.

From the minute I opened my eyes and realized what day it was,

everything that happened was yuck

because I knew what was coming and everything I did all day

was only getting me closer to the point of the day that I was dreading.

Yesterday I put my dog to sleep.

And we were all very sad.

But we wanted you to know.

So. Yesterday is now over.

And today is today. And I'm still sad, but I'm supposed to be sad.

It was a sad thing.

I don't like the term getting over it.

Like a hurdle or something you have to clear

and then put behind you only to look back on.

The term seems to imply that you'll know when it's coming

and exactly when you've moved past it.

I rather prefer roll with it. Because then you get to take it with you.

You still have to figure out to how to roll.

Figure out how to move forward smoothly.

With your new shape.

So we're not over the loss of our dear girl here in The Middle.

But we're rolling with it.

A Bit of a Blur

2011-12-08T14:54:00.000-06:00

The last 10 days have been, to put it mildly, a bit of a blur. No great wisdom here today folks, just a recap. A look back. A chance to see the events of the last days through a lens of "I made it!" versus, "Buckle up!" And then, a bit of an announcement.

30 pounds of turkey. Including an appropriately sized feast of thanks.

250 ornaments.

19 Christmas trees...what, didn't you realize I have a thing for trees?

6 lit trees in the yard...at one point the middle one was only half lit, but it was early in the evening, and I often find myself only half lit at the start of a holiday evening...winkwink...it all worked out just fine.

5 rehearsals for the Father.

1 new friend, a lovely lunch and 2 hours of calm before the storm...thank you friend.

4 concerts, which you can tune into on your local PBS station closer to Christmas if you are so inclined...just sayin'...

3 cocktail parties hosted in our home after the concerts...maybe 75 people...or so...

100 pieces of stemware filled and washed, and refilled and rewashed...not sure how many bottles of champagne...lost count at 12.

2 unauthorized animals in the stable and 1 kitty in the manger.

1 snow storm.

13 days of house guests.

So many blessed people. So many.

And this is just the beginning of our holiday numbers. It's only the 8th of December!

What am I sure of? That it's not the number of things you cram in that matters at all. It's the quality of each single thing. If each one isn't important to someone, then it should be skipped. Yes, that was a big turkey, but it fed us. For several days. Yes, I have a lot of trees, but I love every one of them and they make me smile every time I turn them on. Yes, it made me crazy that there was one tree with two dark strings of bulbs, but I had a contingency plan. Yes, it seemed counter productive to take a 2 hour lunch with a new friend just hours before hosting a party for 30 in my own home, but what the naysayers didn't realize was that I was getting myself ready to be the hostess. Filling up my cup before I filled up everyone else's champagne flute. Yes, 3 parties in 3 days is a lot, but I love it. That's my contribution to the holiday concerts. He makes the music, I make the merry. We're a good team. Yes, snow makes every bitter cold day more magical, and chills the champagne beautifully.

And yes, 7 gingersnaps and a glass of pinot grigio makes a perfect dinner when you're trying to clean out the fridge.

We have lots of days left in December and you will find me here, in theMiddleBit, regularly for the rest of this year. But in the new year, I am going to focus on two new projects. The first, a team effort with my sister, is a blog called The Shortest Distance, and you should look for me there. I will be in the MiddleBit from time to time, but my weekly post will be there. More about that exciting venture will be revealed as we get closer to our launch.

And the second? A book. Here's a tiny excerpt...

Introduction or Who the Hell Do I Think I am?

Amemoir of parenting. A motherhoodmemoir. How can you write one whenyou’re not finished parenting yet? Don’tyou have to wait until you’re finished? Until you can look back on all the experiences of your children and yourmothering? Until your daughters arewomen and you can sum it all up and assess what went well and what failed?

Well Ithink that’s kind of like waiting until you know the football game is over andturning on the TV just in time to check the final score. Who does that? Not me, that’s for sure. There’s a whole lot of awesome stuff to watchin the first half of the game that has a huge impact on that final score. I am a fan of the game. I want to watch to see who puts the firstpoints on the board and who heads into the half down by 14. And I'm a fan of mothers. Mothers who are in the game. I’mstill in the first half of this game of motherhood. There’s a whole lot of time left on the clockand I have no previous second half record that I can fall back on.

This isthe BFT era of my mothering. BeforeFemale Teenagers. All of my friends thathave grown daughters tell me there is no real way to be prepared for that, soI’m not going to worry about it yet. A good coach will tell you not to focus on the final score when youare still in the first half…this is the mentality that drives a girl who has nospecial parenting training and already more to do that she can keep up with, towrite a book on mothering.

Stay tuned...exciting things are happening here in The Middle.

Lead. Or be led.

2011-12-04T15:22:00.000-06:00

Any minute now my husband will be simulcast to over 300 movie theaters across this nation. In just seconds the live radio broadcast will begin. The thousands that are there to see it live are taking their seats as my fingers fly across these keys. And it's got me thinking about leading. And following.

He's a conductor...but not the train kind. He is a maker of music. A shaper of sound. A maestro. Heh...it's kind of amazing actually. He stands up in front of nearly 500 people who are all making their own joyful noise and helps them to make it even better.

Ah. To make a joyful noise. Raise your voice. Toot your horn. To remember that this horn we have been given can blow more than one note. And to have a capable director, standing in front of us, reminding us when to come in.

Because we do know. We've practiced it hundreds of times. But sometimes we need to be reminded when to sing out. Or speak up. Or toot our own horn.

The Dalai Lama says, "Appreciate how rare andfull of potential your situation is in this world, then take joy in it, and useit to your best advantage."

Use your voice. Use it the best way you can. Andappreciate the potential of your contribution.

Lead. Or beled.

But don't just go.

Status Check

2011-11-23T14:06:00.000-06:00

The status check. Before the big day. The main event.

How are you doing?

I'm here. In the moment. And it makes such a difference. Monday I was ticked because my brand new car had to spend a day in the shop and I lost hours waiting for them to decide how to handle it. As I sat in that dealership with my little ones, who had been playing for nearly two hours with some broken crayons and a puzzle that was missing a bunch of pieces, I was thinking about all of the things I wasn't able to do in preparation for my company, my Thanksgiving, my to-do list for that day. In other words, my head was not really there and my anger was building. And this nice little old lady rounded the corner and snapped me right back. Right back to the moment. "My your little girls are being so patient. This is a long wait for them. Nice job ladies. Good work Mom." Whoa. Thanks. You're right. Here isn't so bad when you see the success of now instead of the potential failures of later.

So we jumped into our teeny rental and sped off down the road. The afternoon deteriorated after that. Destroyed completely by stuff that's really not worth mentioning, I found myself with three girls squished into the back of this wee little vehicle on the way to dancing school. I cried all the way there because I was rehashing the failed events of the previous 40 minutes. And then, my absolute favorite Christmas song came onto the radio and snapped me right back. Right back to the moment. The girls sang along in their tiny voices and I noticed that traffic lights are very Christmassy and look especially sparkly through wet eyes. Whoa. Fun. It's going to be alright. Here isn't so bad when you see the success of now instead of the failures of the past hour.

Fast forward a couple of days. I'm rocking on the to-do list. The Father and the girls are packed off, headed to the airport to pick up the company, buy some back up gravy at Trader Joe's (just in case), get the knives sharpened. And I, am going to the salon to get polished for the season, to have some calm before the storm, maybe a glass of pinot at noon and the phone rings. Canceled. F*&K! We'll get you in this weekend. I'm so sorry. Things happen. I get it. And you know what else I get? My two hours back that I lost on Monday. And some time to myself to turn the music up too loud while I play in the kitchen...and that glass of pinot at noon.

It's not supposed to be easy. And once you get that, really get that, it gets easier. Events have effects and behaviors have consequences and this is not a lecture about what you are supposed to be doing. Or thinking. It's just my status check.

When I spend too much time just trying to get through it, it's gone and I've missed it. When it's awful, I just want it to be over and when it's good I want it to last forever. But you don't always get to pick which kind of moment you're in. You have to commit to being in all of them. I'm trying to do that. So I won't miss all the stuff that's here. The crap stuff I can learn from and try not to repeat...and the patient children and the red and green traffic lights and taking the time to make pie.

Status check? Good.

I'm a Dork!

2011-11-21T16:16:00.001-06:00

Word for word. This is how the conversation went. I could not make this stuff up...it's just this good. Says the 4 year old this afternoon,

Mom! Look! I'm a dork!

What makes you say that Sweetie?

Look at me. I'm one of Santa's dorks!

Oh, Love. I think you mean dwarf. Right?

Yeah! Dwarf! I'm one of Santa's dwarfs.

And, Love. Santa has elves. Snow White has the dwarfs.

Oh. Right! I'm Santa's elk! Yay! I'm an elk!

sigh...no, actually...I think you were right the first time.

You're a dork.

Power

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

The utility company called this week and told me they were conducting routine maintenance in my area. There would be an interruption in my service for approximately 2 hours on Thursday afternoon. They apologized for any inconvenience this might cause me, but I should plan for a loss of power and make sure I could continue my afternoon's activities with that in mind. Simple stuff. Not a big deal.

But what if someone really did call you one day and tell you they were going to turn off your power. Your own power. Hm. It makes you rethink power.

Power doesn't always beam and sparkle. Sometimes power lets you stay in the dark. Shields you from knowing.

Power doesn't always push. Or pull. Power doesn't always make things move. Sometimes power holds you very still. Sometimes power holds your tongue.

Power doesn't always grip tightly. Sometimes power lets go.

Power doesn't always heat it up, or keep it cold. Sometimes power just lets it be.

Real vs. Make Believe ...continued.

2011-11-08T15:55:00.000-06:00

Well, shit. I guess there's more. But that's just it right...there's always more to the story. And that's how I got so hung up yesterday. Go there and catch up if you're feeling a little behind.

I started off with a simple comparison. Real vs. make believe. I was actually going to be funny and tell you that one of my favorite parts of the whole photo shoot experience was how at the end of the night, after many laughs and expressions of relief; after spending some hours together as friends and a glass of champagne we stood in the foyer to gather bags and put on boots and my girlfriend looked down at my stocking feet and the conversation went just about like this,

"What kind of weird socks are those?"
"Those aren't socks, they're spanx!"
"What? They go all the way up like Oprah?"
"Yep, all the way up to my padded bra...this body is a work of fiction baby!"
"No Way!"
"Yep...I used to be big and I have some leftover skin. And my babies sucked the life out of my sagging boobs. Nice right?"

And then...the most amazing thing happened. My other friend whipped her shirt up and showed off hers too. Like I said, we're all hiding a little something. I hide my unglamorous bits with shapewear and enhance my deflated bits with engineered undergarments. And that's the reality. And it's funny because the relief came from the connection I made with my friend about our little shared secret.

I'm not sure how my thoughts yesterday got so hung up and why I couldn't just write about that revelation and let it go at that. In the same way that I am certainly more than any picture/essay/evening on the town will show you, I am also less than that. Certainly there's more to the story...but there's also less. The parts of me that I fix up show you what I think you need to see. Or do they show you what I think I need to be? Ugh...maybe both.

1904's comment gracefully blasted right into the mess I was dealing with as I wrote yesterday. Thank you sir. As a writer, I am in the midst of a major struggle with how to capture Truth but still enjoy the art and the crafting of it. Because that's what I do...whether you choose to see that or not. He calls it a Problem of Depiction. Yes. What to say and what to leave out? Which stories to tell straight up and which ones to embroider a bit? Which truths to tell and which truths to leave out? That's the one that nags at me...as a writer of non-fiction. It's a blog not a novel, but it's also not my personal journal. It's a collection of essays. And it is all true. I don't make stuff up. But I do leave stuff out...and that tells a story too.

Or maybe it lets the reader think what they will. Because as 1904 says, if I know the truth about padded bras and children who refuse to eat exotic foods sometimes and marriages that have just as many defeats as they do victories then somebody else knows the truth too, right? If a reader chooses to use my broad strokes of content to paint a picture of my reality then there is nothing I can do about that. We are not what other people think we are...ugh...

But I'm mad at people for that. There. I said it. I'm frustrated that people think I am things that I am not. But now we're back to where I started. People think I am these things partly because I want them to. I am not intending to be fake when I enhance the reality, but the fact that I think I need to makes me question why I feel like it's important to do so in the first place. I am not intending to be untruthful when I spare some of the details, but the fact that I do shakes my confidence as a writer because there are parts of my life that I fail to mention.

There's probably even more here to say. And do. And think about. But tomorrow is another day.

Real vs. Make Believe

2011-11-07T14:15:00.001-06:00

I was recently asked to be photographed for the cover of a local women's magazine. I know right...that tiny statement needs way more explanation...but I'll get to that another day.

They wanted me to get some girlfriends together for a photo shoot. There was an article about real women and real places and real struggles. And they needed a picture. Of real women. Real friends.

So we gathered, after real stress about outfits and haircuts...to match or not to match? We smiled and really laughed...just be natural, say something funny, promise you won't get my butt in this shot, don't knock over that tree. We gave the photographer what she needed and headed home for a glass of real champagne...Congrats, you were awesome! You're so funny. That wasn't so bad. So true, so true.

And I started thinking about that finished cover shot. Those real friends. Those real women. And what we were making you believe in that picture.

You know for certain that an image of a giraffe with blue spots and a top hat is a charming work of make believe. The readers of this local magazine are expecting real life on the cover next month. Who shall we tell them was photographed that day? That skinny girl in the middle of the holiday scene wearing the designer vest and the knowing smile...she is exactly as real as the be-speckled giraffe.

We are all hiding something. Leaving out just enough that our message is still true. Creating a certain type of make believe to be consumed by the public. How we look can create a very confusing set of facts. How would you know what I'm hiding unless I told you? The short answer...you wouldn't. But most of the time you don't really want to know. I can't go around displaying the whole reality all of the time. It's messy. It's ugly. It's complicated. It doesn't need to be all out there all of the time. And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that I only show you a tiny slice of the big picture.

So the question is...If I don't give you the real story, if I leave things out...is that make believe? If the unglamorous stuff gets crafted right out of the picture does that make it imaginary? The well crafted reality that is my personal style and my writing style...is it make believe?

I honestly don't know. But it's got me thinking, and that's a good thing. Thinking about what my outside says about my inside and what my writing says about my living.

Thinking about the real people in my life and what I'm trying to make them believe.

...continued here.

A Little Help for My Friend

2011-11-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

...this essay has been re-posted from its original July 2011 date.

Friends are such a blessing. My friends are such a blessing to me. If I pause for just an instant in themiddlebit of a busy moment I can call to mind so many moments...with a friend. So many events. So many emotions. So many friends. Girlish frustration and giggling about being made to eat birthday cake with chopsticks; barefoot tennis and hotel room hijinxs that made me laugh so hard I nearly wet my pants; sitting in a college apartment hearing the news of my mother's breast cancer over the phone; falling in love; garage sales and birthday parties and thrift stores and roller coasters and baby girls. In my mind I can look to the left and the right and see my friends. And there I am. In the middle.

I have celebrated with them. Cleaned up with them. Laughed and cried with them. Climbed mountains and slogged through the mud. And when they call out, "I need some help." I jump up and run over. It's what I do. It's part of what makes me who I am.

Last February, my dear friend Maria called out, "Help." She called out to her friends with the news she was in desperate need of us. Of help. She called out to tell us that all was not fine. That she had laundry to do and errands to run and two young daughters to mother and dinner to prepare and a husband who was busy...and in the middle of all of that...she had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Lung cancer. In her 40's. She called out, "Help."

She needed meals prepared and a few loads of laundry done. She needed someone to pick her kids up from school and someone else to keep her girls while she spent hours on the phone arranging medication and having x-rays and scans and endless visits with doctors. And I wanted to be one of the friends that could rush right over and help.

But I live in the Middle. And she lives 1,500 miles away. And I was paralyzed. I wanted to bring her family a meal while she was in the hospital. And scoop up those girls. And fold laundry. And run to the drugstore. I wanted to jump right into the middle of it all and help. But I couldn't...or so I thought.

Maria is incredibly blessed by her friends too. She had people to her left and to her right that could do those things for her. She was in the middle of the fight of her life, but she had her people all around her. They came. They washed and cooked and scooped and hugged and supported and drove and sat quietly with her while she drank tea...and so I thought...

What can I do? What can I do? Maria once said to me, "Lady! You should write a book! I would totally buy your book! And then I'd buy a bunch more copies for all of my girlfriends." And I laughed her off...heh, I could never write a book...or so I thought.

But that's just what I've done. I've written a book about all of the things that happen in the middle. About the distance from healthy to cured. About the space where accidents happen and recoveries begin. About the tiny miracles that can be seen in the chaos and the joys that you miss if you're not looking for them. About the middle bit.

I have collected and revised all of my most favorite essays from the first years of this blog. And my sister and some of my friends have taken magnificent photographs to accompany my words. And now you can buy a copy of it for yourself and know that 100% of the profits from the sale of this book will be donated to Maria's fight.

You won't need to rush out and look for it in your local bookstore because I have done this very modern thing called "self publish" which means you can just follow the link below and order yourself a copy. It takes just over a week and you'll be able to hold it in your hands and make it part of your collection.

Maria is a treasure in my collection of friends. I am blessed by her. And this is the thing I could do when she called out...help.

To purchase a copy of my book, go here:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2282604
or contact me directly and I will hand deliver a signed copy.

A Halloween Rewrite

2011-10-30T20:42:00.001-05:00

Sung to the tune of Train's "Soul Sister"...of course.

Right click here, and Open in a New Window to turn on the music and sing along with the new lyrics...yaknowyawanna!

Hey, hey, hey.

Your chocolate stains, Oh the kind that give my cleaners pains,

You know I can’t live without you, And so to lots of stains I amresigned.

Your sweet dark beans, the smell of you in every pocket of my jeans,
I know that it’s misguided, you’re the one I have decided was just my kind.

Hershey kisses, all others are misses, in the candy bowl, lose control, the wayyou melt it moves my soul.

Hershey Kisses, I don't want to miss a single tiny piece of you...tonight.

Hey, hey, hey...

Just in time, little children bring their loot bags home to me.
They notice some is missing, I look at them with love and just deny.
I just can’t quit, I’ll gorge on you until my biggest pants won’t fit.
I’ll be eating you, like the apple, that the serpent gave to Eve and then sheate and damned mankind.

Hershey kisses, all others are misses, in the candy bowl, lose control, the wayyou melt it moves my soul.

Hershey Kisses, I don't want to miss a single tiny piece ofyou...tonight.

The way you can top a cake, eating couldnot be a mistake
So bitter, you’re so sweet, you're my favorite little chocolate treat
You see, when I know your flags waving at me, you’re the only chocolate I see.
I want the world to see you go, in me

Hershey kisses, all others are misses, in the candy bowl, lose control, the wayyou melt it moves my soul.

Hershey Kisses, I don't want to miss a single tiny piece of you tonight.

Hershey Kisses, I don't want to miss a single tiny piece ofyou...tonight.

Hey, hey, hey...tonight.

...Tonight

Sold Out

2011-10-18T19:49:00.000-05:00

There was a party. And ohhhh, there were these brownies. And flowers, beautiful flowers. And the tabletops were sparkling with glasses of this marvelous pink creation. And all these people everywhere; husband, sister, daughters, friends, neighbors, colleagues. And there were books...so many copies of my book that we had to label them so everyone would know which one was theirs. It was amazing.

"Read! Read!", the people cried. So I did. I managed not to cry, but apparently some of them did. They laughed at all the right parts and heard me tell them again and again how grateful I was to them for buying my book. There was much gathering in the kitchen, but there always is. Then it was all over, and they slipped out into the darkness...goodnight, thank you for coming, time to read, tell your friends, here take some desserts. The counters were littered with cocktail napkins and champagne corks. The piles of desserts were dramatically reduced and the book table was empty. Not a single copy left.

Good party.

Don't worry...if you are still waiting to purchase your copy, I ordered more today.

You are This. You are Here.

2011-10-13T14:28:00.000-05:00

The dizzying conversation with the three year old went something like this,

"What is today, Mom?"
Today is Wednesday, Minnie.
"What is tomorrow?"
Thursday.
"Tomorrow is Thursday?"
Yes, Minnie.
"What is after that?"
Friday.
"What is before today?"
Yesterday.
"I know, Maaaahhm. What is yesterday?"
Yesterday was Tuesday.

She was just about finished with the conversation when she said, "And today is today, so I better go get dressed for dancing school," and walked out of the room.

Yes. Today is today.

Today is not yesterday or tomorrow. Today is not what you didn't get finished yesterday or what you're gearing up for tomorrow. It's not last week when you yelled about candy corn pumpkins or ate too many carbs. It's not next month when you might be 5 pounds thinner or caught up on all the Fall yard work.

Today is today. You are this. Today. You are here. Today. This day. So you'd better go get dressed for today so you'll be ready. Because there will never be another day like today.

Are You an Up or a Down?

2011-10-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

You're such an "up" person all the time, Nancy. I wish I could be more like that. Yeah...not so much...when I really think about it. I'm more of a "down" girl.

I'm always ready for a throw down and a double down.

I'm happy to give you the run down and function exceptionally well when time is down to the wire.

My favorite part of the work out is the cool down.

I love to lie down, boogie down, get down, chow down and wind down.

I'm not really into the "ups". Taken all together as a big list or separately, none of these really feel like me.

I don't like to be fed up or screwed up.

I don't ever want to wake up, suck it up, give up, man up or dry up.

It's so unpleasant to throw up, get knocked up and be shook up.

I don't want to do a push up OR a chin up.

Don't tell me to shut up, loosen up or ease up.

Yeah...I'm definitely a downer.

Time for Bed

2011-09-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

Mom! Look! It's a vest! It's pajamas!

It's va-jamas!

Heh. Nice. You are so clever!

Now, go to bed!

Dump It

2011-09-29T10:30:00.004-05:00

Habits are software, not hardware.

Might be time for an upgrade.

It Just Hit Me

2011-09-28T20:10:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, you have to go looking for inspiration.

Sometimes, you are looking in the back of the freezer for a container of frozen orange juice and inspiration falls out of the door, knocks you on the head and cracks open as it hits the floor, spilling its itty bitty slivered contents all over the floor.

A mess? Or inspiration?

It's all in how you see it.

I saw the almonds on the floor, (which was mostly free of black dog hair allowing me to scoop them up and find that I had the exact amount I needed,) and the rosemary sprig on the windowsill and thought..."Focaccia!"

Now, that may not be what your first thought is when you are standing in a nutty mess smelling piney freshness...but it was mine. And if you're smart, which I know you are, you'll give this recipe a second thought some time. It's super easy, looks gorgeous, makes a huge pile of bread and tastes delish!

What's the Point?

2011-09-27T20:55:00.000-05:00

You might not have known this about me, but have this little side job as the leader of a group of people who get together once a week to talk about struggling with food and behaviors and healthy living and some of the finer Points of weight loss. I am so inspired by this group of losers (as I affectionately call them because collectively they have lost nearly 1,000 pounds over the years) that I cannot believe someone pays me to do this job.

Today, at our meeting I asked them to bring "before" pictures of themselves and clothing that they no longer wear because of their shrinking waistlines. They came. They showed pictures. They shared stories. They modeled ridiculously over-sized clothing. And all sorts of things were said about why they continued to make the effort to transform their lives and their bodies. These people are amazing.

I can sum up the sentiment of all the things said in two short sentences. The struggles. The highs. The lows. The challenges and victories. Two sentences.

Once your head is in the game, your butt has no choice but to follow along.

When we weigh less...we are way more.

Thank you to my Tuesday ladies and gentleman. You are truly an inspiration.

The List

2011-09-26T20:33:00.000-05:00

I sent him to the store with a list. He is perfectly willing to go...a real gem that guy. So I prepared a short list; chicken, club soda, milk, apples.

He came home with these too...

Damn him for not sticking to the list.

He's a real gem that guy.

Give Us This Day...Flatbread

2011-09-25T19:25:00.001-05:00

A little inspiration.

A need to assemble dinner.

Nothing on hand but some simple ingredients.

20 minutes.

Flatbread.

I had to fight my husband back with a fork in order to have enough pieces leftover for this shot. It was all gone once I determined that the picture turned out well enough to post. Yes, it's that good. And yes, it's that easy.

Rosemary Flatbread
All of the credit for this recipe goes to Deb. She has a wonderful foodie blog that I love to salivate over. Go visit her for inspiration and know that she creates all of her amazing food in a kitchen that is 42 square feet. Whoa!

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary plus 2 (6-inch) sprigs
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup olive oil plus additional for brushing
sea salt

This is what you'll need to start with. Go visit Deb for all the fabulous directions.

Note to Self: Invite People In

2011-09-24T18:55:00.000-05:00

There are some things in life that you can do all by yourself.

And there are other things that simply cannot be done alone.

No matter how hard you try.

I try really hard.

My husband says I am one of the most trying people he knows.

But some things simply cannot be done alone.

I need to remember that.

The Way You Do It

2011-09-23T22:38:00.000-05:00

There's pizza...

and then there's pizza.

There's anything...

and then there's something more.

What are you gonna do?

Karen says, "The way you do anything is the way you do everything." I think that's just about the truest thing ever. Ever.

*just in case you need to know...this pizza is made with my traditional crust (recipe can be found on this blog) with pesto instead of red sauce, some leftover rotisserie chicken, Asiago cheese, red onion and red grapes.

Not Proud. Proud.

2011-09-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

I am not proud of my behavior yesterday in the produce aisle of our local market. But there it is...I was furious. I let it out...in a mostly safe way...and then I immediately moved on. It was kindof amazing. Like the scary valve on the top of a pressure cooker...once I let it out, my anger was completely gone...hmmm, lesson to be learned here perhaps?

Anyway, I am proud of something else. I have invented a drink. An adult beverage. A cocktail! Well...to be honest, I haven't actually invented the drink itself...I have given it a new name. A style makeover of sorts. Seriously upped its "coolness factor". When you combine 2 parts club soda and 1 part red wine some folks call it a Red Wine Spritzer. I've always felt that a Spritzer would be the kind of drink somebody named Muffy would order. Very fah-ncy. So, we renamed it.

When you want to be served 2 parts club soda and 1 part of Beaujolais (red wine) over ice in a big girl glass in our house, you order a...

Beaujolitzer!

Makes that bottle of red last a lot longer...nice.

You Can't Buy Just One

2011-09-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

A quick trip. A short list. That's all it was supposed to be. But it wasn't. And there was a melt down. And it was ugly.

I was just finishing up in the produce section of our local market, cart loaded with scallions, peppers and the first Honeycrisps of the season when I was stopped by a friend I hadn't seen in awhile. Pleasant small talk ensued. Children were remarkably patient. Plans were made to get together soon...and then it happened.

I looked over my friend's left shoulder and saw them. The bulk bin full of little candy corn pumpkins. A Fall favorite that has been a lifelong struggle for me. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING IN THE STORE IN SEPTEMBER?!?!?!? I cannot eat just one. When they are in the house, I cannot stay away from them. I used to buy them, and then hide them...but it turns out, I'm not stupid and I always remember where I hid them. And I would just keep eating them until I was sick. Not sick of them...literally sick, because I had eaten an irresponsible amount of them. So now I don't buy them until right before Halloween, knowing full well, that I will eat them all. But then it will be over. Damage done. Damage contained to one reckless incident.

So I just walked away. I walked away. Knees quivering. Mouth watering. Strength dissolving. Walked away. Focused hard on my list and moved on to bread and milk and other necessary items. Mostly recovered, and safely surrounded by salad dressings and other innocuous condiments I began to falter again.

What if I bought just one? Paid for it so I could truly appreciate the cost, both monetary and caloric, and limited myself like this until the October gorge could begin? Bulk bin, right? Sold by weight. This will work. I nearly tipped the cart over in my rush to do a u-turn in aisle 7 and made my way back to the other end of the store. Fighting the urge to stick my whole head inside the bin as I lifted the protective lid, I nudged the scooper in and selected just one confection. One itty bitty fruit of the vine. One. I carefully dropped it into the overly large plastic bulk bag, handed my 3 year old a free apple and turned to place it in my cart...

"Um. Excuse me ma'am," came the embarrassed whisper of the pimply faced produce adolescent. "You can't buy just one. It won't register on the scale at the checkout. You have to buy at least a whole scoop full." A scoop full!? Do you have any idea how many of these little pumpkins I can fit in my mouth at once!? I don't want a whole scoop full! It has taken me 15 minutes to build up the strength to buy just one and now you tell me I can't have just one! My face must have whitened as I fought the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and shakily turned towards him. He really did look apologetic, but he had no idea how sorry he was about to be.

"But I only want one," I explained to him, trying to remain calm.

"If you like, you could totally have a "free sample" of one today," was his brilliant solution. He's feeling soooo clever. Like he's doing me a favor or something...aarrggghhhhh! My mind was flooded with images of me hitting this market several times a day to pick up my free sample...get a grip girl. This is irrational. You have already decided to pay for this pumpkin. Money and calories. Totally worth it...can't buy a scoop full and limit myself to just one a day...have tried that in the past. Doesn't. Work. Oh God...why did he have to offer me a free sample.

"Can't you just put a price sticker on it for me? Like maybe 10 cents or something? I am happy to pay for it. It's not a problem." I could hear my voice getting panicky. Ridiculous, I know. Don't judge me.

"Um. No ma'am. I'm sorry. The bulk stuff isn't labeled for individual sale."

My mind was racing again. Maybe I could buy the damn scoop full and throw the rest of them away in the trash can right outside of the store...no, probably not capable of that. This is stupid. Actually it's quite amazing how fast my mind is working right now.

Back to reality. "Um, ma'am. Did you want that free sample?"

"No thank you. I'll just pass for today," I whispered in defeat and handed him the bag with the solitary orange pumpkin. And just as I was turning my back to head towards the checkout I saw him toss the whole thing into the trash can next to the bulk bins. Water welling in my eyes and mouth dropping open I spun around and caught his eye.

"I have to throw it out. You touched it and now we can't sell it to anyone else," was his pathetic explanation.

Shaking. Fuming. Trying not to completely lose it in front of my child and the other unsuspecting shoppers, I gripped my cart for support, swung around so I could roll right past him and said...

"I hope you're happy. You just crushed my soul. I wish I could see things from your point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass. Have a nice day."

My...What Big Eyes You Have

2011-09-20T21:06:00.000-05:00

They are actually not his eyes at all. They are just spots on his flesh meant to look like eyes in an attempt to scare away ~~children with sticks~~ predators. This tiny crawler will one day become a swallowtail butterfly, but for now he just goes about the business of trying to get filled up with enough leaf and when you look at him, you see eyes. But that's what you're supposed to see. When you look closely you can see his real eyes...but you have to get really close. He's busy and he needs you to think he's fierce. But he's so fragile.

I do this. I wear an outer shell that looks very much like something it is not. Just like that swallowtail, my exterior is also meant to scare away ~~children with sticks~~ predators. My outward appearance says 'I've totally got this all handled' and 'managing my life is such a cinch'. On the outside you see calm and balanced and tall. (It's funny to me how people always think I'm tall. I'm only 5'6". I think tall is what I want you to see, so I wear tall shoes and a tall personality. But I'm not tall.) I'm just going about the difficult business of managing two jobs and three children and an extremely busy husband. I'm just trying to get filled with enough sleep and exercise and spaciousness and peace so I can make it through the day. I'm busy and sometimes I need you to think that I'm fierce. But I'm so fragile.

We all do this. We all wear things on our outsides that are not what they seem. We are all just going about the business of getting filled up. But when we let people get close, they can see the real parts. The parts that are what they seem to be. And that is amazing.

At the Top of the Stairs

2011-09-19T20:38:00.001-05:00

I try to be efficient when I clean and straighten the house. I do not run willy nilly from room to room or up and down the stairs again and again returning things to their proper place. This approach, which works very well, often leaves me with a small pile at the top of the stairs. Usually, I try to grab a handful of items when I'm headed up or down. But today just as I was about to finish with my piles, I realized I had misjudged my time and needed to shower quickly before the school bus arrived, my kindergartener flew in the door, we scooped up the little one and ran out the door to do a few errands. So consequently that pile at the top of the stairs was forgotten.

Forgotten when the unattended 3 year old watched Dora while I showered.

Forgotten when we left the house.

Forgotten when we returned, arms loaded with bags of groceries and piles of papers from the school bags.

Forgotten when we settled in for an afternoon of Legos and dress up play.

Forgotten when the big sister returned from school and we zipped around to get ready for dancing school.

Forgotten numerous times today as we all ran right by.

Tonight when I looked again at the top of the stairs and saw the pile I was not frustrated by the fact that my family ignored the pile and chose not to help me return items to their proper place. Tonight I was not feeling like the unappreciated servant that seems to be the only one who actually sees the piles.

Tonight, I realized how lucky I am to have 3 young children who will ignore a pile like that 20 times in a day as they run past. I was grateful for my safe walls, my un-punctured furniture and the lack of broken bones, of any kind, in my house on this lovely Fall evening.

*Pictured, just as they sit, in their pile at the top of the stairs; a 5 pound rubber coated steel mallet, one screw driver and a paper bag full of packing peanuts.

Gridlock...in The Middle

2011-09-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

*Photo credit, Dawn Patterson 2011

Depending on what your plans are for the day, there might be quite a bit of traffic. Lots of things getting in your way. You have a choice...you always have a choice whether or not you choose to admit it...you can either be patient and wait for the things in your way to move along. Or get their shoes or turn left or finish writing their check or walk faster! Or you can choose to do something else.

Is it worth waiting? Is it something that must be done today?
If you skip it today will the opportunity be there tomorrow?
Will this be a miss out or a skip out?
Are there actually things in your way? Are you getting in your own way?

In the spirit of "Harvest Time" I promised my recipe for pesto. Because I would have missed out on over 50 servings of pesto if I had chosen to do something else yesterday. The basil needed to be picked and cleaned and married with cheese. There are lots of ways to make pesto. This is how I make pesto. It is good.

4 cups basil, lightly packed
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or 1/4 cup Parmesan and 1/4 Asiago)
1 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well combined. Use within 3 days or freeze. I spoon it into ice cube trays and cover the trays with plastic wrap for the initial freeze. When solid, I take them out and re-wrap them in groups of 5 "pesto cubes" because that is the amount we need for our family to have with gnocchi (our favorite winter pasta choice.) Each cube is approximately 2 tablespoons of pesto or 1 serving.

How's That for Interaction!

2011-09-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

Facebook is not the solution to the problem of feeling disconnected. Facebook does not keep a list of who your true friends are. Facebook does not contain a record of how your friends are truly feeling. Facebook does not bring people together, it keeps them at home. Alone. Interacting with their devices instead of their people.

That being said...the following is a picture of me interacting with Facebook. I am displaying this exuberant image of my unwashed, pajama clad self as a way to connect with all of you. What you cannot miss is how truly overjoyed I am at the status I am reading on my Facebook news feed. The news that my true friend, my actual real life friend who also happens to be my Facebook friend, is celebrating some amazing news and if I could run up and crush her with my hugs and tears of joy, I would.

She is 2,000 miles away. I am in my pajamas. We'll get to that hug some other day.

Facebook is not everything...but it's something.

First and Last

2011-09-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

This was the first tomato sandwich I ever ate. While on vacation this summer in North Carolina I was introduced to this southern gem. Lightly toasted bread, with a wee scrape of mayo, fat chunks of July ripened tomato and a twist of sea salt. Enjoyed on the back porch on a gorgeous summer day. Couldn't be more simple. Couldn't be more delicious.

This is the tomato sandwich I ate for lunch today. That same southern gem with my own spin...

Lightly toasted cheese and chive challah bread, made by me, a generous schmear of locally produced chevre cheese, topped with the last wee tomatoes from this year's garden and a shake of sea salt. Enjoyed in the warm kitchen, because it's too cold to eat outside today. Couldn't be more simple. Couldn't be more delicious. Couldn't be more somber. Mournful. Depressing. A pathetic harbinger of impending doom.

...Wait? What....where did this post go awry?

Well, dear readers, this is the last tomato sandwich of the season, for tonight, I plan to commit herbicide. The frost will come and I will not get out the old sheets. The cold will snap and I will let it. The basil has been harvested. The cukes collected. And those final little reds sliced and diced for the season's final nosh.

It was delicious and all the more sweet because it was the last.

Stay tuned...tomorrow I will be processing 5 paper bags full of basil. Pesto anyone?

Good Advice

2011-09-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

When life gives you lemons...make lemonade.

True. Not useful this evening.

When life breaks your corkscrew...open a screw cap.

Yes! Thank goodness for the wine truck!

Wine Truck

2011-09-14T15:29:00.002-05:00

Mona says...

"This is a wine truck. It delivers wine to people's houses so they don't have to go out and get it themselves. You can place any kind of order. It will bring you wine from California or Michigan or even from Italian. This truck will also bring you extra stems if you run out of glasses for all of your wine people. It is a very wonderful invention"

Legos are the new favorite toy around our house and I ~~have no idea~~ know exactly why my children would build a vehicle of this type instead of some sort of spaceship thingy.

It is a very wonderful invention!

STOP! Thank you for not climbing...

2011-09-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh. The zoo. Wildlife up close.

Here, a mother primate interacts with her offspring.

It's Just as Good as a Tree

2011-09-12T11:03:00.001-05:00

The situation is, we do not have a tree in our yard large enough for my girls to climb. They want one. They asked me to plant a tree of sufficient size. And they were not happy when I explained that you can't just plant a tree that big. You have to put in a small one and wait. Years. "But Maaahhhhhm. We want to climb."

My children don't have a climbing tree in their yard. My children don't have a lot of things. Ten years ago too many people didn't get to wake up on September 12th and be sad about what they didn't have. I am sad for the people who wake up everyday and don't see what they do have. How long have you been waiting for something to appear? How long have you been seeing something only as the world sees it?

Is it because you lost someone? Or something? Or failed, or missed an opportunity, or simply screwed up? We fold our tragedies into the layers of our lives. We build on them. They either raise us up and make us more solid or rock our foundations and make us unstable. Your tragedies may not look like anyone else's, but make no mistake...the towers we build collapse all the time.

How many days did you waste wishing for something to be true...that just wasn't?

Stop. Be grateful for what it is. Or make it into something else.

See what you do have.

Where?

2011-09-11T17:40:00.000-05:00

Today everyone's talking about it. Writing about it. Thinking about it. And I don't even know what to say. So I am not going to say anything.

It's not that I don't think its important. Truly. I think it's a very important question, "Where were you...?"

I have an answer to that question. Everyone does. Everyone.

It's just that I think a more pertinent question is, "Where are you now?"

I am here. In the Middle. With the man who was with me back on that day, and three little girls who have come along since then.

Here. On the parade route with three little girls who stood up and waved their flags and sang the national anthem.

Here. Happier. Healthier. More connected. More grounded.

Everyone who was alive on that day has traveled from there to Here.

Where are you now? That's what I'd like to know...

YeeHaw!

2011-09-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

This IS her first rodeo.

It's NOT What It Is

2011-09-09T11:57:00.000-05:00

My friend Mr. Maple Syrup went on quite a rant the other night about people who use the phrase, "It is what it is." More than a bit shocked at how riled up he got over the use of a simple string of words, I asked for an explanation.

"It's a cop out," he said, "People just say that when they don't feel like making an effort."

I totally disagreed with him...but on second thought...Darn him! He has a way of getting to me. That guy!

In this house, Fridays are special. We don't just meet the bus at the corner and let it be the last day of school for the week. We meet the bus at the corner with a giant bowl of popcorn and make it the first day of the weekend. We make it special.

So many times as a mother or a wife or a daughter or a sister or a woman, I have chosen to view things as what I make them and not just what they are.

So, Mr. Syrup, as much as it pains me to admit this...you were right. It's not what it is.

It's what you make it.

The End of Summer

2011-09-08T13:10:00.000-05:00

Our town has a very big celebration this weekend. Four days of carnival rides, funnel cake and the best small town parade that you've ever seen! Ever! We are celebrating the defeat of a very famous bank robber and bringing an official end to the summer season.

If you come to our town this weekend you'll see all the typical Fall changes. Front porch geraniums become buckets bursting with orange mums and haystacks piled with pumpkins. Little sisters become big kids and everyone has officially graduated to the next grade. Stay at home moms find themselves with empty rooms after everyone goes off to school and the farmer's market is loaded with tables of apples.

But ours is not the typical end to summer. We wait until the weekend after Labor Day in this town, and all sorts of ordinary things become something quite extraordinary. The empty field by the river becomes a carnival and the mayor starts riding a horse. The dog park becomes a rodeo and the downtown streets are filled with music and street food. People that grew up next door become royalty and little boys on bicycles get to be cowboys...even if it's only for a few days.

Quite extraordinary.

The Question and the Answers

2011-09-07T10:42:00.003-05:00

The Question: Are you going to work out this morning?

The Quick Answer: Probably not. I have too much to do.

The Full Answer: The facts are, I have PMS, and my sports bra is dirty, and I could really use new sneakers so my toes don't get crunched. I'm sick of my exercise dvds, and I'm planning to go to spin class on Sunday morning so that should be enough cardio for this week. I have been idle for so long it is hard to get back into it again, and it's wonderful to just have one child at home for a few glorious hours this gorgeous Fall morning in the Middle, and I already ate breakfast and I worry that I'll get a cramp. Oh and the cool weather is perfect for throwing open the windows and baking some bread.

Plus, she is so happy playing by herself and I really could get some writing and book promotion done, and she would be just as happy watching another episode of Dora so I could go meditate for an hour and she would never notice.

And there's the list. I have so many things to do this morning. I could really jam through them because I have only one girl at home this morning while her sisters are at school. Laundry, the giant weeds under the bird feeder (it is such a lovely morning to be outside), the dishes in the sink from yesterday, emails, dancing school registration, a last trip to Target for preschool supplies, Costco list, editing my pictures from the Train concert, scheduling the dentist, the mammogram, the haircut...paying the bills, posting the furniture on craigslist, giving the dog a bath, rotating the closets...

The Real Answer: The only thing that keeps me from working out. Is me. The only thing that keeps me from doing any thing. Is me.

Big Step

2011-09-06T14:44:00.001-05:00

Just look at the size of the step she has to take to get on that bus. It's almost like she needs a hand to grab from the sister who leaped up just ahead of her. Or maybe a boost from Mom standing just out of the picture. That final reach with her leading foot, up on her pink sparkly toes in the back. Climbing into the mystery of the school bus that will carry her to the great big hallways full of friends and classrooms full of new experiences.

Her sister knows about those things. She knows a lot of things and she is more than happy to tell you about them. She has been passing down information about school for two years now and my MiddleBit has been taking it all in. Reaching out for more and more details as her first day of school approached.

I know about those things too. I am so excited for her to go and do them. I was thrilled for her to go out the door this morning and up into that bus. I didn't push her out, she didn't need much encouragement. What I gave was more of a boost. From just outside the picture.

Today was her turn to take her first ride on the big bus. Just look at the size of that first step.

It's huge.

And she made it.

On Board

2011-09-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

This...

is a Train ticket.

It was a trip! But I have just 2 minutes left in today and so much more to say.

So I'll leave it at that.

For now.

I Am Doomed

2011-09-04T14:11:00.000-05:00

"Why are you doomed Minnie?"
"Because first I boomed and now I'm doomed."
"Huh?"
"Boomed comes first and then doomed. B and then D mom. See Mom? Dontcha see how that works?"

Yes, dear. I see. And I am the one who is doomed.

Huddle Up

2011-09-03T15:08:00.001-05:00

Ace Right, z-Dig, x-Shallow. Go!
Wing Right, 31 Red, Dive. Go!
Split right, x-Drag, y-Comet, z-Streak, Rollout. Go!

All fancy football ways to tell a person where they need to be.

I'm tired.
I can't remember the last time we did this.
I miss you.

Also fancy ways to tell a person where they need to be. The trick is to learn the plays and make sure you are listening to which one is called.

Which Came First?

2011-09-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

Does a picture ever remind you of something funny and completely random?

I am always looking for a ~~clean~~ good joke that I can tell in mixed company without getting myself into trouble. My children's ears are not so little anymore and they WILL repeat everything they hear so I have to be very careful these days.

This one fits the bill in every area...love!

A chicken and an egg were snuggled next to each other in bed late at night. The chicken, with a very frustrated look on it's face, laid very still, with its wings crossed over its breasts angrily. The egg, nearly falling asleep, and smoking a cigarette turned to look over at the chicken and simply said,

"Guess we answered that question didn't we?"

I Can Bearly Stand It ...

2011-09-01T19:08:00.000-05:00

It's this nagging tug in the back of my mind.

It's an uncomfortable little bit of guilt that I can't shake.

The longer I let it sit there the bigger it grows. The worse it gets. The scarier it seems.

I haven't posted on this blog in nearly 6 weeks. Sorry. I made a promise to myself, and unofficially to my readers, even before I had any, that I was never going to post just for the sake of posting. If I didn't have something worthy to share, or a piece that was well written enough to be "out there" then I would just skip it. I am intensely grateful for the fact that any of you read what I have to say. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the time it takes you to come to theMiddleBit and read my words. And I am not going to waste your time with junk.

Thank you for taking the time. I am embarking on a bit of a photo journey during the month of September to guide my writing. Part exercise, part really seeing what is right in front of me, part sharing with you. What you will find here everyday for the next 30 is a picture of something that happened that week and the words that flowed out as a result.

Just when you can barely stand it any longer. That thing right behind you. When you get out in front of it and go back to acting like yourself again it's amazing what happens.

It's not nagging at me anymore.

I'm finished feeling guilty.

It is big.

It could be worse.

And it's often scary.

But this time, it's behind 3 inches of safety glass.

Hold. Tie. Pull.

2011-07-24T15:54:00.001-05:00

Friendship bracelets. The official accessory of girlhood summer. My 7 year old recieved her first one a few weeks ago. "Mom! This is so amazing! Look what K made me! Mom! She made it! For me!"  Her mouth actually hung open for a few seconds with surprise when I told her that I could teach her how to make them for her friends too.

I had to reach deep into my memory, and my craft bin of junk, to find the things required to fashion a bracelet of string.  Amazingly, I was able to produce a few tangled bundles, not in the colors she would have chosen as she so eloquently informed me, oh well... and we began our first attempt.

She wanted to watch me do the first few knots. I talked her through what I was doing. Choose your strands, even ones that you might not think go together sometimes end up looking wonderful. Get them all lined up and tie a good knot, you don't want them to come apart once you get started. You've got to anchor your knot down to something firm, so you can keep a good hold on it while you are working.  Then you start slowly, one knot at a time, the tiny loops start to form a stripe, and you'll get better at it as you go along. Count as you go, but don't worry if you forget, you can always look back at what you have and know where you are. Hold tight to those middle strands, never let those go, they are what keep it all together. Hold, tie, pull. Hold, tie, pull. Hold, tie, pull.

She only let me do about 25 knots before she was itching to take over. I handed over the tangle of threads and watched her talk it through. "Knot. Pin. One knot at a time. Count one, two, three, four. Hold tight to my main strands. Look Mom! I'm doing it! This is so simple!"

Yes, Love. It's all so very simple if we let it be.

She has moved on from the leftover threads in the art bin.  She has been to the craft store with her piggy bank money to buy dazzling summer colors and 10 shades of pink. She has upgraded from simple knots and just a few strands to fancy twists and fists full of coordinating hues, but the basic steps are still working for her.

Choose carefully and tie a good knot, you don't want your pieces to come apart once you get started. Anchor yourself down to something and keep a good hold. Start slowly, you'll get better as you go, but you can always look back and know where you are. Hold tight to those middle bits, they are what keep it together.

The basic steps still work for all of us.

Anxiety at the Water's Edge

2011-07-22T10:37:00.000-05:00

She stood there. Panicked. At the edge of the water. It was a hot day, very hot. Her sisters had run in ahead of her with much screaming and splashing. Right in to the cool water. And she had run right up to the edge and stopped. Because all she saw was brown water. And floating bits of forest. And she couldn't see the bottom. And she began to fall apart. Mom, what else is in there? Mom, what are those brown things? Mom, what if I step on something? Mom, I don't like this...

To be fair, this child does a lot of swimming in pools, where the water is chlorinated and the only floating things are inflatable toys. This lake was brown. The bottom was covered with all sorts of unknown things. There were large mouthed creatures, other than her two sisters, swimming around in its murky depths. And it was very, very scary. She decided quickly, that getting in the water was not something she had any intention of doing.

I was unbelievably frustrated on the hot day when it happened. This was the water that was going to keep us cool on the hot summer days and she was not going to participate. This was our lake vacation and she was boycotting the lake. In hindsight, I am able to see it a bit differently.

We are not all the kind of people that can jump right in to something brand new and completely unknown. Caution isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes being up high, out of the water, where you can see where you are going and steer clear of what's coming at you is the perfect place to be.

Notice to Vacate

2011-07-16T14:52:00.000-05:00

I have vacated my life; taken leave of my to-do list; turned my back on my duties; stepped away from my resposibilities. I am voiding bedtimes, relaxing normal nutrition restrictions and giving the gramma and grampa the opportunity to do the lion's share of the swing pushing, face wiping, book reading and ball throwing. In other words, I am on vacation. I am no longer in The Middle and find myself waking everyday, and for the next 11 days, closer to the edge. I am in a magical place where calla lillies grow in the yard, around every corner is a view of the lake, and afternoon napping is not just for toddlers. It is warm, the bills in the mailbox aren't mine, the job of planning meals is on somebody else's plate, and the floors aren't mine to sweep. It is wonderful.

I have a lot of busy things going on in my real life these days. You might have heard, I've written a book, and not only am I the author, but I am also the VP of advertising, the head of the marketing and promotion department, the distribution director and the manager of the central region shipping division. I have big plans to return to the hustle bustle of shameless self promotion in a few days...but as I've already stated...this week, I am vacating.

I am not totally gone. I will still continue to participate in important things like parenting, recycling, catching up on Friday Night Lights in an effort to free up some space on the DVR and making sure there are no half empty bottles of wine going to waste. Some of us are never completely free of to-do lists...sigh.

I have big plans to do things like eat local produce, fall asleep in the hammock, watch the birds on the feeder and bake bread. I will keep you posted on my progress, but if you are in desperate need of something to read during the longer than usual stretches between posts on theMiddleBit then please allow me to direct to you this lovely little tome that you can hold in your very own hands. You could drop it into your purse for some light reading at the pool. You could leave it out on your coffee table or put it on the corner of your desk, so in the middle bit of your busy day, you could open it up, to the middle of course, and read a couple of pages to take your mind off your busy day.

To vacate...just a bit.

A Little Help for My Friend

2011-07-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2282604

Give Us This Day...The Middle Bit

2011-05-22T16:55:00.001-05:00

Because the middle bit is the meaty part. The middle bit is the surprise filling, the good part. The middle bit is the stuff on your inside that holds together your outside...now we're getting to it.

When it starts to feel like everyone around me is an idiot, it usually means it is time for me to a little bit of work on myself. On my insides. People are going to do what they do, say what they say, be how they are...and when I'm taking care of myself, when I'm making sure my needs are met, then I am much better at letting it roll. When I get a handle on my insides it is easier for me to manage what I show on the outside.

Change the insides. Change the middle bit. I have that power.

Homemade Hot Pockets

A fabulous snack. A totally portable party bite. The easiest alternative to store bought pocket sandwiches that I have ever seen! The dough baked around these Korean spiced sandwich pockets is a slightly sweet, fluffy bread that compliments the spicy filling suggested here OR you could put your own filling inside these rolls. We made them with pizza sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni once. I have plans to try spicy sausage and a combination of cheeses. The 7 year old wants to put apples and cinnamon in them sometime. Change the insides. Change the middle bit. You have that power. This recipe is so simple.

Filling:
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon cooking sherry
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 pound ground turkey
Cooking spray
2 cups thinly sliced green cabbage

Dough:
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups water
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon water
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1. To prepare the filling. combine the first 11 ingredients, scallions through turkey, in a large bowl. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray; add mixture to pan; cook 10 minutes or until done, stirring occasionally. Stir in the cabbage and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool the mixture so it is not too hot to handle when it's time to assemble the buns. You could make the filling up to a day ahead and refrigerate until you are ready to bake the buns. Or if you're going to use some other filling, obviously you would skip this part...duh.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

3. To prepare the dough, combine flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and stir with a whisk. In a separate bowl, whisk together the 1 1/3 cups of water, honey and canola oil. Add the water mixture to the flour mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (about 5 minutes). Kneading this dough is not nearly as aerobic as some yeast breads. It is light and easy to work with. You may need to add additional flour during the kneading to prevent it from sticking to you and your surface. After kneading, leave the dough on the counter, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for 5 minutes or so.

4. Flour your surface again, and sprinkle more flour on top of your dough, then roll it out into a rectangle roughly 16 inches by 12 inches. Cut the dough into 12 squares, or squarish pieces, and while you work with one piece at a time, throw that clean kitchen towel over the rest of the pieces to prevent them from drying out. Spoon 1/4 cup of filling mixture into the center of the dough square. Put some water in a small dish and use it to dip your fingers in and moisten the edges of the dough square. Bring the corners up so the opposite corners meet in the center as you fold up the dough pillows. Pinch the seams together all the way to the edges using extra water to make them sticky. Place the filled dough balls, seam side down, on a parchment lined baking sheet.

5. Combine the last tablespoon of water and egg white in a small bowl and lightly beat with a whisk. Brush the top of each dough ball with mixture and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Omit this step if you are using an alternate filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until the rolls are lightly browned. If your filling is cold from the fridge, you may need to extend the cooking time slightly. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for a few minutes before grabbing one and running away with it!

Give Us This Day...EFing Bread

2011-05-16T20:48:00.003-05:00

Let me begin by saying I LOVE GARAGE SALES! I love going to them. I love hosting them. I love helping other people with them. I love the idea that you can spend a couple of days outside in the nice weather, sit on your butt, take people's money and end up with less stuff in your house. I am not interested in your cost benefit analysis of how I spend hours and hours pricing, sorting, folding, hauling, unpacking, and sale-ing; how garage sales are a haven for creepy people and thieves; how the whole thing is a dirty disgusting mess and how it's not worth the effort. For me, it's fun. And I'm good at it. That being said...

I had a garage sale on Friday afternoon of last week. In comparison to every other garage sale I have had in the past, and there have been many, this most recent one, was a total failure. Early in the week the weather reports were calling for rain, so I almost didn't even have the sale. Friday morning, when I woke up and the sun was shining, I threw things together quickly, raced around putting stickers on stuff, hauled my tables out of storage and began at 2pm. I committed a cardinal garage sale sin and relied on the neighbor's signs and newspaper ad. She was having a sale up the street and all her traffic had to drive right by my loaded yard...many folks were curious and stopped. Yay for me!

I only ran it for 3 hours because at 5pm it got cold, the traffic slowed down, the drizzle started and I was ready for a glass of wine. Saturday morning was really cold and rainy so instead of opening the sale again, I hid in the garage and packed up the leftovers for donation. Fail. Or so I thought.

Trying to move forward from what seemed like a waste of time, the wet, cold Saturday inspired my bread choice for this week. It is also possible that I needed something to cheer me up after my garage sale failure, and my mind went directly to chocolate. Babka. Mmmmmmmm. Getting screams of joy from my people when I asked them if they'd like a little babka after their lunch, I began my preparations. I didn't even have to go to the store for ingredients...love my well stocked pantry! Mix. Knead. Rise. Sprinkle. Bake. Mmmmm, smells like chocolate. Ack! What's that burning smell? Aaaaahhhhh! The babka is getting too brown! Fail. Or so I thought.

Now. People. I ask you. Does this look like a bread failure to you?

Yeah. Didn't think so. It was totally yummy. Completely edible. And although compared to all the other times I have made babka, and there have been many, this one was not as successful, it was certainly not a total failure. It was, what I like to call, an edible failure. An EF. Which made our rainy Saturday afternoon treat, an overly browned blob off "EFing" babka.

I am capable of producing spectacular bread. This time...it was just really good. I am also capable of hosting spectacular garage sales. This one was not so good. But I did end up with more cash and less crap.

I think it's about setting your expectations. And adjusting your reactions.

Just because it wasn't perfect. Just because it wasn't as good as you're capable of. Just because it wasn't as good as every other time you've ever done it or as good as the next time you try it...doesn't make it a failure.

Chocolate Babka

This is more treat than bread, I can't fathom what kind of meal it could accompany, and it never ever provides any leftovers. It is quickly gobbled up by eaters who start to hover at about 20 minutes into the baking time because the whole house starts to smell like bready chocolate heaven. You could buy 4 oz. of actual bakers chocolate and chop it for the filling, but I have discovered that semi sweet chocolate chips work just as well, and take way less effort. Give yourself at least 3 hours for this recipe.

Dough:
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm milk, any % will work
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour, divided, plus more for kneading
1 1/4 cups bread flour
5 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces and softened
Cooking spray

Filling:
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Streusel:
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter, softened

1. In a medium bowl, combine 1 teaspoon sugar with yeast. Pour warm milk over mixture and let sit for 5 minutes until it gets foamy. Stir in the additional 6 tablespoons of sugar, vanilla, salt and egg yolk. Mix well until combined. Add 1 1/3 cups of the all purpose flour and all of the bread flour to the bowl and beat until well blended. Add the 5 tablespoons of butter. At this point, sometimes the mixing gets tricky. The warm butter causes the dough ball to slip around in the bowl and sometimes it is difficult to incorporate it into the dough. You might have to use your hands...yes, buttery, messy, flour covered hands. I have found that adding in the last 1/3 cup of all purpose flour at this point actually helps to incorporate the butter. After you have most of the butter mixed in, turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and knead for 8 minutes adding more flour, a tablespoon at a time, to keep it from sticking to you and your surface. This dough is very soft and sticky.

2. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray and turn it to coat all sides with cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 90 minutes. The dough will nearly double in size.

3. Line the bottom of a 9x5 inch loaf pan with a piece of parchment cut to fit the size of the bottom of the pan. Coat the sides of the pan with cooking spray.

4. Prepare the filling by combining 1/2 cup sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and chips in a small bowl.

5. When dough has risen, turn it out onto a well floured surface. Roll it into a square about 16 inches on a side. A rolling pin works best here, but I stretched it and pulled it into a square by hand once when I couldn't find my rolling pin. Sprinkle the filling over the flattened dough leaving a 1/2 inch of space around the edge. Roll it up as tightly as you can, pinch the ends and fold them over to prevent the filling from spilling out. Gripping the dough roll with both hands, twist it 4 times like you're wringing out a towel. Fit it into the prepared pan. It will be too long, so just bend it into an 's' shape and stuff it in there. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again, in a warm place for 45 minutes. It will double in size again.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

7. Combine the powdered sugar, flour and butter to make the streusel. Use a fork to press it together, mixing until it gets crumbly. Sprinkle it all over the top of the dough. It's fine if some slips down into the side of the pan. Bake for 40 minutes. Cool bread in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and cool further. Do not attempt to slice the bread when it first comes out of the oven or the pan. It is a hot melty mess and you won't get anything even resembling a slice. Hold off on slicing it as long as possible.

I Suck at Blowing

2011-05-11T14:18:00.000-05:00

Take it out. Turn it on. And get to it...wrong!

It all seemed so simple. From the very beginning I knew that size did matter and that the really big ones required a special skill set, but after much polling of friends and a bit of internet research, I figured I could handle it...wrong.

I had no idea there was a trick to it. I'd seen it done countless times. On TV. In high definition no less! Heck! I'd even seen it done live several times. It looked so easy. Take it out. Turn it on. And get to it...wrong again.

One of my first mistakes was not holding it correctly. I was trying to grasp the bag with one hand and hold onto it with my other hand. It was wildly jerking in every direction. At one point, I almost dropped it. What I quickly figured out was that the best way to position it just the way you want, was to firmly grip it with both hands and to never let go until you are absolutely positive that it is no longer turned on. Absolutely positive.

I also had no idea that you had to pay attention to which direction you were facing. I was unaware that if you didn't watch yourself you might get nailed in the face by flying debris. There seemed to be a way to position myself behind the flow that gave me the best chance of avoiding being hit by the airborne bits. In most situations I am NOT a fan of safety glasses...I think they decrease the coolness factor of just about any activity where they might increase safety. However...in this case...I would highly recommend you go with the goggles. I got pink ones...ya know...coolness factor and all.

I have no doubt that continued practice will improve my skills. I may even ask around for tips on how I might learn to blow better...

Maybe next Fall I can learn how to suck.

Give Us This Day...The Mother Loaf

2011-05-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

My mom. March 1975. Having her "WhathaveIgottenmyselfinto" moment.

There's quite a bit of faith involved in the decision to become a mother. A bit of an "Oh shit! Buckle up!" leap into an unknown life. You've read about it in a lot of mothering books. You've asked a lot of questions to those people who have done it before, but they never seem to have enough information about what the "jump" is going to feel like. You've seen it done lots of times before, but you've never actually done it yourself.

And then you buckle up. And you jump in. And you sink a bit because you're exhausted, and unskilled, and covered with unimaginable kinds of muck. But then you try a few things. You use both hands to hold onto every little thing that seems to work. You discover that the mess is part of the ride. And you realize that you're not sinking anymore.

And it gets fun. So you invite people over to see how much fun it is. And do it with you. Right alongside you. And if you're smart about it, you tell them you're no expert but you're doing just fine. And you're so glad they're in it with you.

But this is a Sunday post. So I'm getting around to the bread part. And I'm so lucky because my friend put her whole self into a couple of loaves of ciabatta bread about a month ago. And she tried a few things. And she made a huge mess. And she produced something spectacularly edible. And she realized how much fun it was. And then she invited some people over to see how much fun it was. And told us she was no expert, and that we would all be just fine...but we all stood around in awe of her flour tossing, dough slinging cheffy-ness.

She called my incessant questioning "enthusiasm". In hindsight, I was being a bit of a pest...can I take pictures? how long does it sit there? does it have to be a cool place? can I try your scraper? does it have to be a metal bowl? But I have so felt that way when an expectant mom asked me a million questions about this or that. Questions that I remember myself answering with things like, "Well, you'll just know," or "This is what seemed to work for me, but you'll figure out your own way when you have to." Sounds a lot like the stuff my friend was telling me last night when I was pestering her...

Much like I entered into motherhood, I bring you this recipe today having never actually done it myself. I've read about it. I've asked a lot of questions. I've watched someone else do it...very successfully I might add...but I have never actually put my own hands on these ingredients. The leap of faith into motherhood says you can do it even if you've never done it before...bread is kindof like that. Like one of my dearest friends, who flung herself into motherhood with her whole self just weeks before I did, I say we try this one together this week...in honor of "jumping in with a bit of faith and some simple ingredients." I will post my results mid week. I would love to find your comments about your results here too. C'mon...ya know yawanna.

Ciabatta

(pronouce this cha-bah-ta unless you want the foodies in your life to laugh at you quietly behind your back, like when you first read the word "nuk" or "onesie" and you went around pronouncing them wrong until a seasoned parent pulled you aside and gave you a helping hand...here's your helping hand sister!)

This recipe yields two gorgeous, airy but dense, crusty but chewy, 'please slather me with tapenade' loaves of Italian artisan bread. Be aware...If you want ciabatta on a Wednesday, you have to get started on Tuesday night. Read the full prep directions before you get rolling...like motherhood, this one take a lot of time.

3 cups bread flour, plus additional for working
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast ***
1 1/2 cups, plus 1 tablespoon cool water
1 cup boiling water

***This is NOT the stuff I have been calling for in all the other Give Us This Day bread recipes. Instant yeast can be found in the same section of your grocery store as active dry yeast but IT IS NOT THE SAME THING!***

1. In a medium bowl, stir together your flour, salt and yeast. Add all of the cool water and mix thoroughly until you have wet, sticky, dough. Really wet and sticky. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and put it in a corner of your kitchen to sit at room temperature for 12 to 18 hours. I know right...that's a long time. The surface will be dotted with bubbles and it will have more than doubled in size when it's ready. You can move ahead in as little as 8 to 10 hours, but your finished loaf won't be quite as filled with air bubbles.

2. When your dough has risen, liberally cover your work surface with bread flour and scrape your dough ball out, all at once, into a blob on your counter. Resist the urge to mess with it too much here. You have just been patient for as many as 18 hours so your loaf could develop air bubbles, if you poke it, knead or mess with it too much you will pop those bubbles and your efforts will have been in vain. Dust the surface of your dough blob with flour, coat your hands with more flour and with light fingers, nudge your blob into a rough 12 inch square. Brush off excess flour and fold the dough in half and then crosswise in half again so you've got a folded square of dough roughly 6 inches on each side.

3. You can leave your folded dough square right on your counter if you've got the space, or move it to another floured surface like a bread board or baking sheet, dust the top with flour, cover with a clean kitchen cloth and let it rise again, for an hour. The dough is ready when it has nearly doubled in size again. When you poke it, the impression of your finger should remain. If it poofs back out, let it sit for an additional 15 minutes.

4. Move the top rack of your oven to the middle position. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. If you'd like to use a pizza stone to bake these loaves, place it in your oven during the preheat. If you're not using a stone, don't panic, we'll get to that later. During the preheat, place an empty cake pan, or oven safe skillet on the bottom rack of your oven. This will hold the water during the baking. A note from another bread momma says not to use a glass vessel for this job... apparently they can break, which makes an awful mess and spoils the whole bread experience.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, you could probably heavily coat your baking sheet with cooking spray in the absence of parchment, but I've never done it...so I dunno. Bring your cup of water to a boil in the microwave. Using a serrated knife, cut your folded dough in half and with floured hands, gently pull it into a 12 inch log and place it on the baking sheet. Again, gently here, you don't want to mess with it too much and pop all those yummy bubbles. Repeat with the second half of your dough. You can place them fairly close together. They will expend during the baking, but not too much.

6. Slide your parchment paper onto your pizza stone, or place your baking sheet onto the top rack of your oven and close the door quickly. Get your boiling water into something you can pour from, quickly open the oven door, pour the water into the pan in the bottom of your oven (be prepared for a fairly dramatic sizzling poof of steam) and quickly close the oven door again. Be speedy here, but don't panic! Set the timer for 15 minutes.

7. After 15 minutes, remove the pan of water and continue baking for an additional 5 minutes. Your loaves are done when they are golden. Cool on a wire rack, if possible. We ate them right out of the oven so fast our bread momma was practically burning herself!

An Eye for an Eye

2011-05-03T00:43:00.000-05:00

***This post comes with a rant warning.

If you're not interested...move on today gentle reader...

Move on.***

The school yard bully. The one who makes threats. Calls names. Says mean things. Blows every tiny misstep way out of proportion. Seeks out your weak spot and exploits it for his own pleasure. Or gain.

Sometimes, that bully falls on his face.

Sometimes, you actually get to see it happen.

So...in the interest of the wildly popular philosophy "an eye for an eye", I'd like to get even with one of my least favorite bullies.

Kick a little sand in their eyes while they're face down in the dirt.

Fox News. You're a bunch of dumb asses! Your moronic talking heads have been confusing the Commander in Chief and America's most sought after terrorist for more than a decade. Shame on your stupid, illiterate headline editors! Mr. News Anchor...you truly are even dumber than you look.

Take that!

We're even now.

I should feel better now.

Right?

Give Us This Day...A Nutball

2011-05-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

"Whatcha makin' mom?" asks the middle bit peeking her head around the corner into the kitchen.

"Bread, Love," replies the mother, up to her elbows in flour.

"What kind?" she asks with a sighing tone that tells me she knew it was bread but she needed more information.

"Ummmm. A nut ball, Love," was my snarky reply.

"Hey! I'm a nut ball too!" was the smiling response. And not to be out done by the middle sister, the other two nut balls rounded the corner with their contributions.

"Hey! Take our picture mom! We are all nut balls!"

These are my nut balls. I made them. With my own hands. From scratch. And they are sooooo good.

Walnut Boule
(pronounced boo-lay, which is french for "ball" and sounds so much cooler than calling this gorgeous loaf a Walnut Ball...seriously.)

A Cooking Light recipe from about 3 years ago, this one is largely unchanged by me. The walnut oil gives this dense loaf a wonderful, sophisticated flavor, but once I had to use olive oil and the mild flavored result was just lovely. Moral of the story...either one works fine so stop freaking out about wacky, hard to find ingredients! Also, don't be tempted to skip the step of toasting your nuts. It takes just a few minutes and really brings out the nuttiness of the walnuts. If you've never toasted nuts before, today is your day! You'll need 3 hours for this nut ball!

3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon toasted walnut oil
2 1/4 cups bread flour, plus additional for kneading
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
cooking spray
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1 tablespoon milk
1 egg white

1. In a large bowl, pour the warm water over the sugar and yeast; let stand until foamy. Stir in the walnut oil. In another bowl, combine the flours and salt with a whisk and then add them to the yeast mixture. Stir until combined, adding additional flour to get the soft dough to begin pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for 6 to 8 minutes until a smooth dough is achieved, adding small handfuls of flour as you knead to keep the dough from sticking to you. This dough is sticky, but it shouldn't be sticking to everything.

2. Coat a large bowl with cooking spray and place dough in, turning to coat all sides with spray. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it in a warm spot for 1 hour to rise. During this hour the dough will nearly double in size. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it out. Sprinkle the walnuts over the flattened dough and begin to fold the dough over and over itself to incorporate the nuts. I'm sure an artisan bread baker would have an opinion about exactly how to handle the dough here...but basically you just have to knead it enough for the walnuts to be evenly distributed throughout the dough ball. Some of them will be poking out the surface, that's fine. When you've got it well combined, shape the dough into a nice round ball, not a flattened dome, and place it on a cooking sheet WELL coated with cooking spray. Lightly spray the top of the dough and cover it loosely with plastic wrap and set in a warm spot for 1 more hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the milk and the egg white. Brush the top of the loaf liberally with this "egg wash" or use a paper towel to soak up the egg and glop it all over the top if you do not have a pastry brush. Using a sharp knife, make two 1/2 inch cuts across the top of the loaf. Make two more cuts in the opposite direction to form a crisscross pattern. Bake for 30 minutes until the loaf is nicely browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you have a bit of this loaf leftover the next morning for breakfast. Do yourself a favor, and toast up a nice fat slice and slather it with apple butter. The sweet of the apples and the bitter of the walnuts is a flavor combination that will improve your life...seriously.

What's It All About?

2011-04-28T13:01:00.001-05:00

Photo Credit: Susan King 2011

What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?

What if you put your left arm in? Your left arm. The one that's not quite as strong as your right arm. The one that is slightly less toned than you'd like. The one that held your babies when they were new or let the bat fly after you hit your first home run. What if you put your arm in and did the best you could with it? And didn't compare it to all the other arms that were in there?

What if you put your head in? Your head. And all the stuff that's in it. And actually used it. And began to understand that you don't have to be a chef to cook great food. And that you don't have to be religious to talk to God. And that you don't have to be perfect to be pretty damn good.

What if you really put your whole self in? And shook it all about? And then you did the Hokey Pokey. And you turned your self around.

And you turned your life around.

That would be so cool.

Give Us This Day...Holey Bread

2011-04-24T19:44:00.002-05:00

Tiny bunny ornaments on a white feathered tree. Lots of pink eggs and a trio of yellow chicks on my windowsill. Jelly beans, peeps and Peter Cottontail. I am very aware that there is another whole story to Easter. But ours was still really good.

Our treat on Saturday afternoon was soft pretzels. Hot and twinged with that classic baking soda metallic taste right out of my own oven. A tiny bowl of mustard on the side. Stirring up memories of standing on a street corner in New York City as a little girl eating them hot out of a folded piece of paper. You may not be aware of the fact that there is another whole story to pretzels. The Italian monk, the Catholic tradition of abstaining from eggs and butter during Lent making this simple flour and water recipe the perfect treat, the crossed loop of the dough resembling prayerful hands. Really fun stuff to know about a simple treat. Even if you leave that part out, they're still really good.

Soft Pretzels
This is a fast and easy treat. You can go from a pile of ingredients, to 6 hot pretzels, to a full belly in under 1 hour.

5 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for kneading
1/2 cup baking soda
water for boiling
coarse salt

1. In a large bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and warm water. Let it sit until it gets foamy. Then add the salt and flour, stirring well to make a soft dough. Add additional flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough stops sticking to the sides of the bowl, then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 minutes until the dough gets smooth and elastic. Add more flour, a handful at a time, to keep it from sticking to you and your surface.

2. In the largest skillet you own, dissolve the baking soda in 4 cups of water. (You need the water in your skillet to be about an inch deep. If you use a huge skillet, or a smaller one, you may need to adjust the amount of water you use. The ratio of baking soda to water is 1/4 cup for every 2 cups of water.) Heat the mixture slowly until simmering. Don't let it boil wildly out of control...you won't mess up the pretzels but you'll be stressed out by the hot water and might end up splashing yourself unnecessarily.

3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Divide your dough ball into 6 equal sections and roll each piece into a rope about 16 inches long or about 1 inch thick. Twist into a pretzel shape and let each formed pretzel sit out on your counter for about 5 minutes. Using a large spatula or slotted spoon, submerge each pretzel in the simmering water for 30 seconds. Remove and place on a WELL greased baking sheet that has been sprinkled with coarse salt. While the pretzel is still wet, sprinkle additional salt on top.

4. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Eat immediately. The salt on top of these gets wet and makes the bread soggy if you try to store them in an airtight container. If you have any leftover it is best to leave them open to the air even though this causes them to get a bit hard. We always just make enough to eat right away...that's how they are best!

On Second Thought...

2011-04-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

I was having this ~~wildly stimulating~~ pathetically judgement filled conversation with a group of moms the other day. We were talking about toddlers and nutrition...sigh. It was meant to be a time for us to share tips and tricks; discuss what has worked for us in the past; what we are still failing at as mothers of little people. As we hesitated and lurched through admissions of daughters who won't touch vegetables and whether or not a whole flax seed gets digested by the body if you don't chew it all up I began to feel a bit high. Not the high that we all did in college...the high that goes with mighty. Yeah, my kids eat vegetables. My kids eat exotic grains. My kids ~~ask~~ beg for "sprinkles" on their oatmeal. In our house "sprinkles" is ~~code~~ the big mother lie for flax seed! High and mighty I was feeling. Indeed! Woe befalls these poor children subsisting on pizza flavored chips and hand held strawberry type cultured dairy products. I held my tongue...mostly.

All natural! High and Mighty! Natural! From nature. Not altered. Basic. Better in every way! In every area of our lives. Let's get back to nature people! Yes!

On second thought...

All natural sucks.

All natural means I can't have Honeycrisp apples. Those glorious spheres of engineered produce that have caused me to commit sins against my children and my grocery budget. They are nothing close to natural. All natural means the two fruit genes that the produce geniuses married to create this orb of perfection would never have even met and we'd all be forced to settle for what grows on natural apple trees...all natural sucks.

All natural is primitive. It doesn't allow for the existence of my HDTV. That massive television that makes the sweeping panoramic shots of the Alaskan wilderness look more beautiful than the actual wilderness that I would never get to see on your average Wednesday evening. All natural doesn't account for why my life has been improved by the invention of the DVR. Watch television in real time? Hah! Nobody does that anymore. And if you are about to tell me my life would be even better without the TV...just don't. I love my TV in all of its unnatural glory and YOU should be careful not to fall down off your pedestal when you lean over to lecture me!

All natural faithfully and truthfully represents nature or life. Like my mousy brown hair? Ashy and flat in all of its natural dullness. Nope. That kind of all natural sucks too. I'll take my stylist managed, seasonally changing, tipped by sass color job any day. Thankyouverymuch. And while we're on the topic of truthfully representing ourselves...two words: waterproof mascara. Duh!

All natural conforms to the ordinary and unaltered state of things. That calls to mind an image of me in a cocktail dress without Spanx...or that fancy deodorant that doesn't leave marks on black clothing...or my 4 inch peep toe stilettos. Unaltered my ass! Literally! Who even wants to go there? If all natural means lumpy, stinky and short, I'll skip it thankyouverymuch.

On second thought...all natural sucks.

Give Us This Day...My Way

2011-04-18T14:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you get to do it your way. Put your spin on it. Make it your version. Your own.

Words are like that. They give the writer the opportunity to make something extra with the ordinary. Sometimes even the errors turn into a tiny bit of genius. My daughter is an emerging writer and incredibly clever. She has very definite ideas about things and is surprisingly observant. She drew some pictures on cocktail napkins a few weeks ago and she did them her way.

A musical score is like that. The notes are printed on the page, but the music is now...the moment it is performed. Each time is a unique experience. This weekend, the Father was the maestro. Of the Brahms Requiem. With over 100 voices and a full orchestra. It was spectacular. Glorious! And he did it his way.

Life can be like that, if you let it. Extra in the ordinary. Little bits of wisdom in the daily motions. Making something your own. This weekend, I was the hostess. And the mom. And the chef. And the bartender. And the audience member. And the party guest. I enjoyed every moment of it (and consequently did not get my bread post up in a timely manner...deal with it!) I was quite spectacular...or at least my scones were! And I did it my way.

Corn Bread Scones

These scones originally appeared in Cooking Light magazine, but over the years I have learned a few tricks, changed a few things and made this recipe my own. Because I make a lot of scones, and they typically call for buttermilk in the ingredients, I have started using the powdered version which can be found in the baking aisle of your grocery store. It keeps for months in the refrigerator...much easier than running out for buttermilk if you get the hankering for a batch of scones. The directions here include the use of actual buttermilk, but if you go the powdered route someday, just add the powder to your dry ingredients and add water when the directions indicate to add the liquids.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, plus additional

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher
4 1/2 tablespoons chilled butter
1/2 cup corn salsa OR corn kernels
2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeño pepper (nacho style from a jar works great here but fresh is good too)
1 cup nonfat buttermilk

Optional topping
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Lime powder

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the 2 1/4 cups of flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Whisk until combined. Cut the butter into small pieces and drop them into the bowl of dry ingredients. If you have a pastry blender, use it to "cut in" the butter. What you're doing here, is mixing in the butter with the dry ingredients, but not actually using a spoon to stir. You can achieve nearly the same results by using two butter knives and slicing into the piles of butter pieces and the flour in a crisscross pattern (think kitchen ninja!) until you can barely see any pieces of butter left. Stir in the corn salsa (you can also use frozen corn kernels or canned corn that has been drained) and the jalapeño pepper and mix with a spatula until the corn and peppers are coated with the dry ingredients.

3. Add the buttermilk and mix well, adding pinches of additional flour until you can form a ball of dough that will not stick to the bowl. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly forming a ball. Add more flour here if it is annoyingly sticky. Scones are a very crumbly, floury baked good anyway, so you don't have to worry about adding too much flour. Pat the dough into a 9 inch circle and place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray (or a silicone mat, or a piece of parchment paper). Cut the circle into 12 wedges by pushing your knife into, but not all the way through the dough. The process here is really more like "scoring" the dough rather than cutting it.

4. At this point you have the option
of adding the sprinkle of flavor to the top.
These scones are fabulous with AND
without this extra step. I have found a
powdered lime flavoring in drink aisle
of my grocery store that I mix with a
pinch of kosher salt. Brush the top of
each scone with a bit of the milk and
sprinkle on the lime powder and salt
if desired. You could also just use the
salt if you can't find the lime stuff.

5. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. If you have used frozen corn, plan on your cook time being closer to 30 minutes or more. Leave the circle of baked scones intact and move to a wire rack for cooling. Gently cut them apart just before serving.

6. Be prepared for your eaters to go wild over this clever alternative to classic cornbread and don't turn into the "Monstro" when they start picking at them before dinner is ready to be served.

Apple Seeds

2011-04-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

My Middle Bit, nearly 5 year old Mona, has a collection of apple seeds in a tiny plastic jar. She guards this little container fiercely and keeps it up high on a shelf in her bedroom to protect it from danger; the new puppy, the 3 year old sister, the vacuum cleaner.

What is so amazing about this collection is that it started with the container, not the seeds. She was perched at the counter helping me make Nervous Bread many weeks ago and asked for the vessel that was emptied as the saffron threads went into the recipe. "Can I have that tiny jar Mom? Please Mom, don't throw it away." Of course I gave it to her, with a stern warning about the lid and how she shouldn't leave it on the floor or the dog would chew it up. When I asked her what she planned to do with it, what was she going to keep in it? She explained that she wasn't sure yet, but that whatever it was, it was going to have to be very small.

A space for a collection. She didn't even have the ~~pieces~~ treasure yet, but she was making a space to hold something. Making a space. So wise. Very small. She didn't even know what she was looking for...but she was looking. For something. She was open. And seeking. So wise.

Like a photograph in my mind, I can recall the instant, about a week later when she recognized that she had found what she was seeking. It was an ordinary moment. Plates lined up, ready for lunch. Peanut butter being spread, pretzels in a pile, apple slices. "Mom! Look inside that apple! Look at those little seeds! Can I have those seeds for my collection?" Breathless, she jumped down from her bar stool and ran to get her jar. The width of her smile when she rounded the corner, palm out, holding the empty jar, nearly took my breath away. She was beaming. "Mom, could I grow an apple from these seeds?" "Well, Mona, not quite. You could grow an apple tree."

I remember when I started the theMiddleBit. It was nothing but an empty container. Like Mona's jar. I didn't have any idea what I was going to fill it with, but I knew it was important for me to make a space for something. As it turns out, I was filling my jar with seeds too. Some of those seeds stayed tiny, but others have grown into big ideas. Some of them have actually produced enough fruit to feed others...for me, that's the real treasure. That there are people out there who read what I write. You tell me you are fed by what you find here. I am so grateful for you.

Make a space. Be open to what might fill it. Be seeking. So wise.

Give Us This Day...It's About Time

2011-04-10T12:42:00.001-05:00

When it started running a few weeks ago, he didn't chase it. He patiently waited for it to come to him. And he wanted to share it with me. I wanted to go out there to the woods where he tapped his maple trees and carried his buckets up and down the hills. Frankly I was fascinated by the entire process. The sap was running and he was going to make syrup.

He kept inviting me to come out and help. To watch him build the fires and help carry the sap. And I wanted to go, but things kept getting in the way. Or I kept letting them...that's actually more like it. With a gentle sense of urgency he kept calling to invite me out to the woods. He called again and again. He has teenagers, and a busy wife, and a lot of years of wisdom. And a lot of patience. "We only have a few weeks left," he reminded me. "We could make it fun for the little girls too if you need to bring them out with you," he says because he knows I have small children and it might be hard to get some time away from them.

Well yesterday my time was up. He made one more patient phone call to declare that tomorrow was going to be the last day of boiling because the trees were changing and the time for collecting the sap was up...my time was up.

So we went out. To the woods. The little girls and I. I was so excited to pull up the gravel drive. When he saw us, he could have said, "It's about time," but he didn't. He's not like that. "I'm so glad you came," was the perfect thing to say. Then he showed us his project and we took a walk in the woods.

"See here girls. This is the sap. It's very watery. It's going to be sweet and a wonderful golden color. It just needs time." It's one thing now, but if you give it time. And attention. And a little heat. It can turn into another thing entirely. I feel like that sometimes.

"Peek in here girls. Be careful. It's boiling down. It's way too hot to touch right now, but if you give it time, you'll be able to hold it in your hands." It just needs time to cool off. I feel like that sometimes.

"Look here girls. It's so little. It's coming up. It's going to be purple. I'm not sure what it is. It just needs time." The little tiny sprout that was poking up in the shadows. Protected from careless steps and hiding from hungry beasts. Quite by accident it finds itself here. But it's holding its ground. Eventually we'll be able to see what it is. I feel like that sometimes.

This day was about maple sap. And how it runs. And how chasing it doesn't get you anywhere. But it was also about time. And how it runs. And how chasing it doesn't get you anywhere. How you have to wait for it to come to you. And enjoy it while it lasts. And find someone to share it with before the time is up.

It's about time.

Maple Oat Bread

To do the bread exactly the way I did it on this day requires a walk through the woods and an understanding friend. It requires you to leap across the kitchen screaming NO!NO!NO! when the 3 year old says, "Mom can I stir the flour with the turkey butt feather that I found in the woods?" It requires the patiently prepared syrup from a tree in The Middle. But you don't have to do it exactly the way I did it to have a tremendous amount of success. There are a few places in this recipe where you can go your own way...and I hope you will. Give yourself 3 hours of time to prepare this subtly sweet loaf. It is great with a savory soup or sliced thin and slathered with butter. The recipe doubles very easily if you feel compelled to make an extra loaf for a friend.

1 cup quick oats
1 cup boiling water
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
1/2 cup maple syrup (I used the real stuff here, but I promise I won't judge you if all you've got on hand is the cheapy stuff from the grocery store.)
2 teaspoon canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for kneading
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons quick oats

1. In a small bowl, combine the 1 cup of oats and the boiling water. Let stand for a few minutes until the water is completely absorbed. In a large bowl, combine the yeast with the 1/3 cup warm water and let stand until foamy. When your yeast is nice and frothy, add the syrup, oil, salt, oat mixture and 2 cups of the flour. Stir well with a wooden smooth until smooth. Add enough of the remaining flour as you continue to stir until the dough stops sticking to the bowl.

2. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 minutes adding additional flour by small handfuls until the dough stops sticking to you and your surface. Place dough in a bowl coated with cooking spray, turning once to coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour. Dough will double in size.

3. Punch dough down and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Shape the dough into a round. The dough will be very flat at this point. Place the dough into a 9 inch, round cake pan that has been well coated with cooking spray. (You could skip this part and just place the round of dough on a greased baking sheet but your loaf will bake up flatter and a bit more dense. If you don't have a 9 inch pan, use a smaller size, or a pie dish, or a corning-ware casserole dish with the lid off. Any round pan will work fine. The point of using some kind of container here is to keep the loaf from spreading out too much during the second rise.) Coat the top of the loaf lightly with cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

4. After the dough has risen, brush the top with the egg white and sprinkle the top with the remaining oats. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the loaf from the pan and allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Coming Apart at the Seems

2011-04-05T20:30:00.000-05:00

Seems like this should be getting easier.

Seems like this place is so familiar.

Seems like being strong should mean you have less weakness.

Seems like that shouldn't matter.

Seems like a lot of the wrong stuff seems to matter.

Seems like there are ups and downs, but then more downs.

Seems like it should be easier to tell the truth.

Seems like we should be getting better at this by now.

Seems like it never stops.

Seems like it never ends.

Seems like it's one thing but it is actually quite another thing.

Seems like I keep finding myself in the seams. In the spaces. Where the stitches are what hold things together.

Seems like the stitches are holding the seams. Holding the seems. Holding them together. For now.

Give Us This Day...Googies!

2011-04-03T13:01:00.000-05:00

Martha Stewart...I prefer the Naked Chef...because the people on my staff cook in the nude, sample all the ingredients, and have the cutest googies ever! Ever!

Martha Stewart...stop making me feel inadequate...or, Nancy, stop letting her make you feel inadequate. Oh yeah, I get to choose how I feel!

Martha Stewart...your magazine is full of all sorts of things worth knowing...but mostly I learned from the doing, not the reading of your gloriously photographed, exceptionally well written articles.

This recipe originally appeared in Martha's magazine ages ago and I have dumbed it down for you...and by dumbed it down, of course I mean; I actually prepared it myself without the help of a staff; I removed the need for expensive tools and specific ingredients ordered from specialty shops; and talked you through all of the potential areas of failure because I understand that sometimes somebody needs their butt wiped while you're melting butter, or other times the doorbell rings and the smiling friend that greets you is more important than stirring constantly for 6 minutes.

I have made some adjustments to this recipe over the years. I didn't always have all the right tools, or all of these children, or an understanding of the fact that ingredients are just directions and eating the pastry is the destination, but that life is not really about directions and destinations...its about the journey. It's the trip. Life really is a trip.

I have learned that sometimes you can substitute margarine in a recipe, but not in this one. I have learned that if you don't cook these long enough they promptly deflate as you are moving them from the baking sheet to the cooling rack, but that even this error results in something edible. I have learned that if you measure out all of your ingredients before you begin, so everything from the flour to the chopped chives is lined up in little bowls on your counter before you even turn the stove top on, this recipe is a lot less stressful. I have learned that you don't have to use a pastry bag and a specialty tip to pipe the egg mixture onto the parchment lined baking sheets. You can use a plastic zipper bag with the corner cut off and get the same results. I have learned that it is much easier to chop the fresh herbs if you put them in a cup and cut them up with scissors. I have learned that it is not important to pronounce the French name of this bread correctly and it's actually much more fun to watch people blush across the dinner table when you say things like, "Would you like to eat another one of my googies?" or, "Did you really just put that whole googie in your mouth?"

More than 15 years ago, when I got my first subscription to Martha Stewart Living, I did so because I wanted to learn the "right" way to do things. She had so many "Good Things" to say and they all looked so beautiful. But along the way I have figured out that the really good things in my life came about as a result of doing a lot of the wrong things. And learning from the journey. And ~~celebrating~~ eating the failures anyway. And that life is not directions and destinations. It's the trip.

Gougeres
(The fancy, pretentious, French, correct name)

Googies
(The wildly inappropriate, highly misused, embarrassment inducing name we use)

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup all purpose flour
5 large eggs, divided
3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon fresh chives

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a medium saucepan combine 1 cup of water, butter, salt and cayenne pepper. Bring just to a boil, and when the butter is completely melted stir in the flour. Reduce the heat to low and stir well until the mixture begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. I use my favorite rubber spatula for this part and find that I end up moving the pan on and off the heat while I mix until it starts to look smooth and shiny. If its lumpy, keep stirring and press the mixture into the sides of the pan until the lumps disappear. If the mixture begins to sizzle and you are starting to freak out, take a breath and move it off the heat. When it is smooth and well blended, dump it into a bowl and let it cool for a few minutes.

3. Add 4 of the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. This is the part when you start to freak out again because after you add that first egg, this mixture gets slippery and weird and you think, "That egg is never going to mix in all the way!" Keep stirring. Yes it is. Keep stirring. After the 4 eggs are in, add the Parmesan and the chives, blending well until incorporated.

4. Transfer some of your mixture to a bag (In the interest of full disclosure, I do use a pastry bag here, but in the beginning I was doing just fine with my converted zipper bag.) and form each googie by squeezing out about a tablespoon of mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet. (Your silicone baking mat or a cookie sheet lightly coated with cooking spray will work just fine, but honestly, parchment is so cheap and it makes the whole thing feel cheffy and cool.) Leave about 2 inches of space between each googie. Dip your finger in a small bowl of water and poke down the little peak that forms when you squeeze them out. You don't have to rush through this part. The dough is moist and it won't dry up if you are a novice googie squeezer. (Seriously, the number of ways you can make this bread sound inappropriate is endless! Love that part! Maybe too much!)

5. In a small bowl, combine the remaining egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Brush the top of each googie liberally, or use a paper towel dipped in the egg mixture to glop it all over the top of each one. Bake 25-29 minutes, until golden brown on top. Be ready to slap away greedy fingers with your spatula when these come out of the oven. I am never able to get as many to the table as I originally intend. This recipe makes about 50, or more if you like small googies. (Again with the impropriety. I tend to like bigger googies. It never stops!)

Leaving. Going.

2011-04-01T09:05:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: Susan King, 2011

It's so real. The physical pain you feel the first time you leave them. I wasn't prepared for that.

I searched long and hard for someone to care for them. Did diligent research on the subject. How could I entrust them to just anyone? I couldn't.

But I had decided that they could not come along with me on this journey. I made all the preparations to leave them behind. Made the lists. Told ~~some~~ all the right people what I was planning. Said goodbye as I walked away.

Funny how I didn't miss them. For awhile. I felt an odd freedom. Lifted. Like myself, but not myself. A new self. A fragile self. How would it be without them? What would I be like now?

It turns out that I never did get an answer to my question...

They followed me here. My weaknesses. They followed me because I simply tried to leave them behind and did not understand that they'd be with me wherever I went. I thought it was my fault that they followed me here because I kept looking back to see if they were still there. It was. I did. They were. I was moving too slowly in my new direction and they were chasing me.

It was so real. The physical pain I felt when they finally caught up to me. I was terrified. I shouldn't have been. They didn't want to hurt me. They just had some things they needed to tell me.

I needed to know that they would cripple me, wear me down, unless I figured out how to deal with them. I would have to be stronger in the right places to compensate. I needed to understand that if I tried to move out ahead of them again, and leave them in the dust, that they would keep stepping on my heels. I would have to let them be next to me in order to walk as easily as I planned. I needed to accept that they were weaknesses. Not failures. Or catastrophes. Or defeats.

It does get easier. The leaving. The going.

Calling All Extra Ordinary Children

2011-03-30T13:49:00.001-05:00

It happened today. I was so unprepared for the question that I was nearly unseated. I was struck dumb...and probably looked pretty stupid as well. I was just hanging around, shooting the breeze with a couple of cooped up mommies whose children are on Spring Break this week. A break from what I feel compelled to ask? The rigors of learning how to tell time and playing basketball in gym class? But I digress...

Well there we were, plotting and planning the remaining days of the Break and someone dropped the bomb. Eager. Perky. Innocent. "So what kinds of things are you signing your kids up for this Summer?" Ummmm...uhhhh... "We're just having such a hard time deciding between soccer and dance camp because they overlap with play practice and swim lessons and art enrichment and, and, and...it's all so overwhelming." Well shit.

Am I overwhelmed by the number of summer options? Well, I wasn't before she asked that confidence crushing question. It's March. If this maternal administrative assistant is overwhelmed simply by the choices then how the hell is the kid going to feel when he gets his schedule in June?

Sometimes, actually a lot of the time, I have guilt about this. I have this ~~intense fear~~ jealousy of you mothers who are already signing up for swim teams and soccer lessons. You internet mavens who wake at 11:49 pm to wait, finger poised over the half filled out online registration form, for the clock to tick over to 12 am so you can get in on the mad rush to sign up for a very popular summer camp.

The truth is...it's me. I am simply not willing to spend my summer running from one activity to the next and keeping a calendar so I can remember who has what on which day. Am I squandering their opportunities? Perhaps. Missing out on a chance that my kid is the next female tennis phenom? I guess. Clipping her artistic wings by letting the deadline for art camp pass us by? Sigh... These children that are being groomed, grown, shaped, enriched, trained...they will most certainly evolve into extraordinary young people.

So where does that leave me and my kids? Actually, it doesn't leave us anywhere as far as I'm concerned. It puts us exactly where I meant to put us.

Our plans for the summer include a variety of very ordinary activities. Humdrum, commonplace time fillers like riding bikes on the street in front of our house and impromptu wagon parades with left over 4th of July streamers. Creating sandbox cities, chalk masterpieces on the driveway and spectacularly muddy pies complete with refugee earthworms. Running in the sprinkler, reading in the shade and eating pb&j sandwiches at the park (the one with the swings and the slide, not the roller coasters and the 40 story water feature.) How droll...how ordinary...

So if you have some extra ordinary children hanging around your house this summer, please bring them over to play with my girls. We'd be happy to share our rather mundane kind of fun. We'll kick ordinary red balls through ordinary goals made with sticks from the woods. We'll make ordinary art work with ordinary supplies. We'll get them wet with ordinary water...right from the hose.

What?! You don't have a fancy battery operated squirt gun with lights and a heat seeking tracking device? Don't worry, I have a stash of industrial sized spray bottles that work just as well AND they don't need to be refilled nearly as often. How extraordinary.

Give Us This Day...Holla! It's My Birthday

2011-03-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

When you make bread from scratch, you accept the responsibility of creating something with your own hands. There is wisdom in the making of bread if you are looking for it. Simple ingredients; yeast, sugar, water, flour. Getting your hands dirty, adding substance just a little bit at a time with each tiny handful of flour. Taking the time. Good bread takes time.

When you live your life from scratch, you accept the responsibility of creating something with your own hands. There is wisdom in the everyday making of life if you are looking for it. Simple ingredients; faith, patience, forgiveness, joy, love. Getting your hands dirty. Adding substance just a bit at a time with each new experience. Taking time. Making time. Making a good life takes time.

I made a lot out of my 36th year of life. Ingredients combined from scratch, not processed by someone else and simply digested by me. Things like a new faith and a charming new friend. Some fragile bridges over wide expanses and making time to see the joys I was missing. Getting to them is messy. I made quite a few messes in my 36th year of life, but the end product was quite nice. And very easy to digest.

Today is the last day of my 36th year. Tomorrow I begin again. Happy Birthday to me. Holla!

Cheese and Chive Challah
(pronounced holla!)

The eggs in this bread give it a wonderful, flaky pastry like texture. Very different from the breads I have been writing about for weeks now. This one takes awhile to execute, but it's so worth it. Give yourself at least 3 hours and be rewarded with two gorgeous braids of challah for your dinner table. These braids do not have an overwhelming cheesy-ness. The addition of the fontina gives the dough a wonderful complex flavor. It is my favorite choice, but Swiss would work well also.

1 cup warm milk, any % will work
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 tablespoon butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
5 large egg yolks (save the whites)
3 large eggs
3/4 cup shredded fontina cheese, about 3oz.
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh chives
2 1/4 cups bread flour
3 cups all purpose flour, divided
cooking spray
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1. In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast and sugar into the warm water and let stand for 5 minutes until it gets foamy. Stir in the butter, salt, 5 yolks, and 3 eggs. Add the fontina and the chives. Stir in the bread flour and 2 cups of the all purpose flour. This dough is really sticky. Really, really sticky. Don't panic!

2. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Add in that last 1 cup of flour a handful at a time, and some additional all purpose flour if necessary, to keep it from sticking to you and your surface. Knead for 8 minutes and then place in a large bowl coated with cooking spray. Turn the dough to coat with spray, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm spot for 45 minutes. After this first rise, punch it down in the bowl, cover again and let rise for another 45 minutes until it doubles in size.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Don't use too much flour here. It is actually easier to stretch and roll this dough into ropes if it is not sliding around in a pile of flour. Divide into 6 equal portions. Roll each portion into a rope about 15 inches long. Braid three ropes together, pinch the ends together and fold them under. Repeat with the other three ropes. Place each braid on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you don't have parchment paper this recipe will not be a failure. The paper works well because this bread is so "eggy" and this keeps it from getting too crusty and hard on the bottom of the loaf. You could use a silicone mat or just coat your baking sheet with cooking spray in the absence of parchment, but think about it for next time. It really does make a difference and is really cheap to have on hand. Lightly coat the tops of the loaves with spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes until doubled in size.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

5. Using the leftover egg whites from step 1, take 1/4 cup of the eggs whites and whisk it together in a small bowl with the 2 tablespoons of water. Brush the loaves gently with the egg mixture, or use a paper towel to glop it over the top if you don't have a brush. Sprinkle the loaves with the Parmesan cheese. Bake for 25 minutes until golden. Cool on a wire rack and then try and stop yourself from eating a whole loaf! Quick! Take the extra one to a deserving neighbor!

I've Heard That One Before...

2011-03-23T16:10:00.000-05:00

So a Buddhist, a Jew and a Muslim walk into a coffee shop...

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke right? Oh you've heard that one before and so you'll stop reading now...meh. Oh you're shocked by how politically incorrect that sounds and so you'll move on now...meh. Oh you're too focused on what you think this is instead of seeing what it actually is...me too sometimes, and so here we go.

I am often frustrated by how groups of mothers can't find anything else to talk about besides their kids. Actually, it makes me crazy! It's like we forget about who we are in addition to being mothers. And just stop, before you think you hear me saying I am not proud to be a mother. I am proud to be a mother. I chose to be a mother. Some days I am a mother first, before anything else. On the butt wiping, laundry doing, appointment scheduling, toy cleaning days...I am a mother only, in spite of everything else. But the other parts of me are still under there...somewhere.

Here in The Middle, it's tough to find a mother who's willing to admit that those other parts are under there. We cling together like refugees and connect because we have a common crisis; toddlers with drippy noses, struggling readers, babies with separation anxiety, 4 year olds that are still in diapers, 2 year olds that aren't talking yet. Common crises. They are very real and very present, but sometimes I wish I could just set them aside for a few hours and go looking for those other parts of me.

So when a group of ~~moms~~ refugees that I know suggested we meet one evening a month without our kids, my first reaction, honestly, was, "No thanks." I've been to that meeting before. I've already heard that joke. You can stop now...meh.

In classic Nancy fashion, when I'm wrong, I'm really wrong. I don't do anything in a small way. I miss out on things when I am too focused on what I think something is, instead of being able to see what it actually is. Damn. Damn. Once I took a tiny moment to see that I was missing out on an opportunity to add some new friends to my collection, I decided to join them.

Hands wrapped around warm cups of coffee and glasses of pinot noir we floundered for just a moment with conversation. We started with poop, preschool and how fast their little short legs are growing out of their pants...sigh, here we go...and then someone showed up with an enormous piece of coconut cake and three forks and the Mother Load fell away. It turns out she was so excited to have cake because they don't eat gluten at her house and she was so glad to be sharing her cake because she wanted to and not because she had to. It turns out we all love coconut cake and novels about girls with tattoos and shamelessly watch reality television even though we know it's bad for us. It turns out she is a nurse and she has a husband who travels a lot. Huh, never knew that before... It turns out we're all struggling with the same things in this tiny town where we live and none of those things have anything to do with potty training or homework or laundry.

In a tiny moment you can see what something actually is, but only if you're looking. Only if you suspend your judgment about what you think you know, or what you think you've heard.

A Buddhist, a Jew and a Muslim walked into a coffee shop...turns out this time the joke was on me.

Thanks ladies. See you next month.

Give Us This Day...Weed and Seed

2011-03-20T14:18:00.001-05:00

My husband is preoccupied with his lawn. It's genetic. A time honored tradition passed from father to son? No actually, in this case...it's his mother. She is obsessed. The verdant carpet that stretches out across their backyard gets her attention every single day of the growing season. And when it's buried in snow...she worries about it. Urban legend has her outside every night at dusk, combing the lawn on her hands and knees, plucking out dry blades with a pair of tiny green tweezers and trimming the uneven spots with a pair of sewing scissors.

To be fair, her lawn is magnificent. And 5 years ago when my husband became the proud owner of his first ~~home~~ lawn, he took on the challenge of living up to her example. He investigated lawn mowers. He launched major internet searches for fertilizers and seed companies. He purchased specialized chemical delivery equipment. He developed a irrigation schedule involving multiple portable sprinklers and beeping timers that maximized water use and minimized the number of times he got sprayed.

And for all of his efforts, I can honestly say...his lawn looked like a lawn. Sigh...not particularly spectacular, but free of brown spots and dandelions and perfectly suitable for a roll down the hill or a mid July lunch picnic. In the proverbial suburban male pissing contest that is "The Lawn", his was right in the middle. Not quite as green as the neighbor with the in-ground sprinkler system and the lawn service (cheating!) or quite as brown as the unoccupied house next door. Sorry love. It was right in the middle.

This kind of consistent lawn achievement went on for 4 summers. I was very content. It was comfy to sit on and our children could run barefoot through the yard. He, was getting restless. Last year he heard about a new product called Weed and Seed. Or Seed and Feed. Or something like that...honestly, I can't remember and I really don't care...but there it is. And he bought a new spreader. Just went out one day and treated himself to a brand new $30 tool. WooHoo! If that's what you're into I guess...I'd rather have shoes...but I digress.

My point? His lawn looked better than it ever had. Really thick and green and healthy. He beamed with pride and tried to hide tears of joy the day his mother came to visit and told him that his lawn had never looked better. Really, it was quite ~~pathetic~~ touching. He tried something new. Made a few adjustments and got an improvement.

Our lawn just started peeking through the melting snow today. And he has started talking about Weed and Seed. Or Seed and Greed. Or Need to Feed...or whatever the hell it is. And I thought of a bread recipe that has weed and seed! WooHoo! See how she brings it all together...clever girl.

From year to year, the lawn is never exactly the same. That is also true with bread. So many tiny things affect how it will turn out. If you use an extra large egg instead of a medium sized one, when you knead it you'll have to add a bit more flour. When the recipe calls for water it feels different than when the recipe calls for yogurt. Every bag of flour is a little different. Even the level of humidity on the day you bake can affect the outcome. Do these tiny nuances make the bread a failure? Um, no. Not if you let them. Even my "failures" have been edible. Baking bread is organic. It's a living thing. Is the idea to bake a loaf of yeast bread like a tiny patch of grass peeking through the snow? Weed and Seed, my friend. Weed and seed.

Dill Braid

This recipe makes use of that bag of bread flour that you bought weeks ago for the pitas and have now safely stashed in your freezer! The real stars of this recipe are the spices. The dill and onion make this bread a fantastic compliment to basic soups or a worthy guest at your Easter dinner. Replacing some of the water with Greek yogurt makes this bread dense and chewy. Yum!

2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup plain Greek yogurt, like Fage, any % will work
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 teaspoons onion flakes, or dried shallots
1 tablespoon dried dill seed
1 tablespoon dried dill weed
1 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 bread flour, plus more for kneading

1. In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and stir in the 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. Let stand until foamy. In a medium sized bowl, combine the yogurt, beaten egg, butter, onion flakes, 2 tablespoons of sugar, dill seed, dill weed and salt. Add this yogurt mixture to the yeast mixture and stir with a whisk until well combined. Add one cup of the flour and beat until blended. Stir in as much of the remaining 1 and 3/4 cups of flour as possible and then turn it out onto a floured surface to finish. This is a stiff dough, GO TRICEPS!, so don't be concerned if it is very difficult to get all the four mixed in with your spoon. Below are some pictures of what mine looked like at this point in the recipe. The second picture was after I worked in that last 1 3/4 cups of flour and before I started kneaded or had to add any additional flour. It will all mix in...I promise, just be patient.

2. Knead for 8 minutes incorporating as much additional flour as needed to make a stiff dough. This one is not a fragile wiggly dough ball. If your triceps are not burning by the end then you either have Madonna arms (ick) OR you need add a bit more flour and make this dough stiffer. Coat a large bowl with cooking spray, turning dough to coat all sides, then cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours. It should double in size.

3. Punch dough down, but do not knead, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into three equal portions. Stretch and roll each section into an 18 rope. This dough is moist but not sticky and you will have an easier time getting it to stretch if you do not add too much flour to your surface at this point. Lay the three ropes next to each other, pinch them together at one end and braid the sections by flopping them one over each other until you get a loose braid. Tuck the ends under and place the braid on a baking sheet coated lightly with cooking spray. Lightly spray the top with cooking spray and cover loosely with plastic wrap. I use the plastic wrap left over from covering the bowl in step 2. Let rise again in a warm place until doubled in size. About 30 minutes.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until the loaf looks lightly browned on top. Let this loaf cool for at least 10 minutes on a wire rack before attempting to slice it. Removing it to a wire rack for cooling is critical for this one. The yogurt makes this a very moist loaf and if you let it sit around on a solid surface while you wait for it to cool, it can get damp on the bottom.

Who's On Your Shelf?

2011-03-15T08:00:00.003-05:00

I am a lot of things: mother of daughters, baker of bread, supportive wife, reluctant PTA member, public speaker, snarky bitch. But I am also a Professional Organizer. You know, (or maybe you don't know that people like this exist outside the realm of HGTV,) the kind that goes into people's homes and consults with them about how to order their things and which important pieces of paper to save. Yes, I am one of those too.

Well today I had one of those moments when you realize that your words really do have an impact, on someone other than the 7 year old you're screaming at to put on her goddamn boots and get out to the bus stop...but I digress. The kind of impact that is so jarring in its simple unfolding that you instantly feel like the whole world should be listening harder to everything that comes out of your mouth waiting for another one of these gems that could really make their lives better too...digression. Again. Sorry.

Here's the backstory...

More than 5 years ago, when I was just starting my business I went to meet with some new clients. This dear couple met me on their doorstep early on a Sunday morning. I had been hired for them by their daughter to help them transition from their stately, old home in the shadow of the college where they had been faculty for over half of their lives, to a tiny 2 bedroom condominium just over the river. There were hundreds of decisions to be made about how to relocate so many of their things. They were glad to see me and the pair of them were singularly focused on the same goal; To get to their new place with none but the most important treasures from their lives and to make a new space for this new time in their lives. In a way, this made it easier. We dispatched with furniture, hired a dealer to handle cases and cases of vinyls, sent multiple china tea sets to auction and brought their children in to become the new owners of favorite childhood treasures. It was all going so well...until we got to the books. There were So. Many. Books. I cannot even begin to describe the extent of the librarious collection this scholarly pair had amassed during a combined total of nearly 100 years of teaching and learning. They still owned every single book they had ever owned.

I focused on their willingness to part with things and their intention of, collecting for the move, only the most special things...but we didn't even know where to begin. "How many should we take," this dear woman asked of me. It was almost shocking to have her putting the fate of her memories in my hands. I was truly overwhelmed by the need to devise some sort of logic to the decision making process for the books. It was so much easier with the furniture. We knew how big the walls were and what would fit, went. What was too big or too many...was sold. Dishes too...we figured out how much space was in the dining room hutch and the kitchen cabinets and they saved enough to fill those spaces. The rest...were sold.

But how do you number the books? And then it hit me. The books to keep should not be measured by number, they should be measured by feet. Linear feet. How much space do they take up? How many shelves will you need to hold your favorites? So that's where we started. We figured out how much space there was, and started sorting. In the beginning it was quick...there were so many that were easy to cast aside. But then we went through the novels that inspired her to become a writer and the texts that guided his lectures for 50 years. Wrenching. Difficult, to say the least.

We had the most wonderful conversations about what to keep and what to leave behind. They really listened to me as I guided them through this unimaginable transition and I continued to be in awe of how these two PhD's could possibly learn anything from me. He, ever practical, and not having any intention to stop acquiring books, posed the question one afternoon, elbow deep in dusty tomes, "So what will we do with the ones we keep when we buy a new book?" And she replied, "We'll just have to take another look at what's on our shelf and see if there's any room. And if there isn't. Something will have to go."

Just perfect.

Long story? Yep. Worth it? Yep. Here's why...

I was early for my yoga class tonight. In the corner of the little sitting area outside the studio there is a lending library of books that have been donated by students for the use of others. I have made use of this tiny collection many times and was delighted tonight as I stared, crook necked at the spines of well loved books on everything from meditation to making homemade pasta, to find a novel I had been wanting to read. My fingers plucked the tattered copy off the shelf and as I opened the cover to remove the tiny card for check out I noticed that this volume's original owner had written her name in the cover. Long before it became part of the yoga studio's lending library it had belonged to that wonderful lady who had been my client more than 5 years ago.

"So what will we do with the ones we keep when we buy a new book?" "We'll just have to take another look at what's on our shelf and see if there's any room. And if there isn't. Something will have to go."

She did it back then. And she is still doing it now. Partly because I told her to. But she was only able to be told this because she was ready to listen. It was truly amazing for me though. To know that she listened. And did differently. And is still doing differently. And the next time I greet her in the aisle at the co-op I won't say a word about the book. I'll just give her a hug like I always do while we scoop rice out of the bulk bins and fondle the local produce. And I'll ask her if they're still loving their new place, which really isn't so new anymore. And she'll tell me they love it, and that it's just the right amount of space for them and that she's doing such a good job of keeping everything organized. But that's what they all say...when they see me in public. My clients.

But she'll tell me. And I'll believe her. Because I held her book in my hands today.

To be continued...

Give Us This Day...Retreat! Retreat!!

2011-03-13T21:22:00.002-05:00

Give us. Give me.

This day...something to feed me. Something to feed my soul. And fill up my spirit. And recharge my battery.

The Sunday posts have been about bread for weeks now. And about the journey that takes you to bread. And simple ingredients. And new variations. And taking risks. And ~~trying~~ doing something new. And ~~taking~~ making time.

And this week it's about bread too. And a journey, to Chicago for the weekend with just my husband and no kids. And simple ingredients, like sleeping late and enjoying friends, and retail therapy. And new variations, like Wicker Park instead of the Magnificent Mile. And taking risks, like sneaking into the Fairmont Hotel and pretending to be a guest so the cute doorman will call you a cab when there are none to be found.

Making time for me this week meant I didn't have time for a few other things. I don't have a recipe for bread to post this weekend, but if you look carefully you will see ingredients and instructions. You will see that I was fed.

And I had the most unbelievable cinnamon crumb cake at a little hole in the wall called the Red Hen Bakery. The dripping, warm pieces of batter. The melting cream cheese icing. The decadent creation with absolutely no nutritional value...sigh...on a doily...perfect.

And I had the most wonderful sight seeing companion that told me I looked so cute in my pink jacket that I needed my picture taken in front of the sculpture...that's a whole different kind of nourishment...thanks friend...you were perfect.

The retreat is the thing you do to avoid defeat.

Give Us This Day will be back. Next week.

Give Us This Day...CaresAway Bread

2011-03-06T14:39:00.001-06:00

A novel. A piece of sheet music. A jar of jam. A slice of day old bread. Uncommonly similar. Words. Notes. Fruit. Flour. Ordinary ingredients. Combinations of basic ingredients, that when assembled by the right person, yield something extraordinary. And oftentimes terrifying for the person doing the assembly.

It takes a certain amount of ego to screw up the courage to put something out there that wasn't there before. Conceive a story and then write a novel. And publish it. Compose a piece of music and then perform it. In public. Pick fruit from your garden, make something with it, and then serve it. To someone else.

Every artist brings their entire self, their entire life, to every piece of new construction. He can only craft the story the way he does because of who he is. My music man brings every piece he's ever heard, or sung, or conducted to the keyboard when he sits down to write something new. She creates with what's growing. Or what she planted. What she likes. What she knows has gone well in the past. Those kind of original compositions are based on experience. Extraordinary.

I am so inspired by these people. So. Inspired. I love to cook, but I have gotten famous preparing the compositions of others. I'm a recipe girl. Famously. New construction in the kitchen has always been stressful for me. I want to know, on the front end of my efforts, that it's all going to turn out well. Be edible. Look pretty.

And then he writes a novel. And it's so good. You should get yourself a copy. And he sits down at the piano one Sunday afternoon to play a little something and it doesn't sound like anything I've heard before so I call down the stairs, "What is that you're playing?" And he calls back, "This is the piece I wrote." No way...really? It's so good. You'll have to hear it for yourself someday. And I walk in the door from work one afternoon and there's a box in the foyer filled with mason jars. They have magical labels like apricot/blue and rhubarb/chipotle. And they are so good. Sorry, not sharing.

And I'm inspired. To take what I know from what I've done. And attempt some new construction. So I started with the basics and modeled them after some successes I've had in the past. Yeast, salt, water, flour. Now what? Something new. I pulled down every spice jar in my cabinet and started reading the labels to the 3 year old. Fennel. Cinnamon. Dill. Anise. Caraway. "What do you think Minnie? Which one should we use?"

Every artist brings their entire life to every piece of new construction. All the parts.

"Let's make cares away bread mom." And there you have it. Let go of your fear of new construction, please. Step outside your box a bit, please. ~~Try~~ Do something original and be one of those people.

CaresAway Bread

Back to the basics of yeast, water, flour and salt. You simply cannot go wrong with the basics. True with bread. True with life. But then there's that whole variety thing...spice of life and all. This basic recipe has been spiced up just a bit to take it from basic to something more. Give yourself 2 and 1/2 hours for this one. Don't bother leaving extra time for it to cool before you eat it...there is no way you'll be able to resist it smelling wonderful right out of the oven. A special slicing technique will keep it from smooshing on you when you try and slice it hot!

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground sage
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus additional for kneading
cooking spray

1. In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let it sit for 5 minutes until it gets foamy. Add the butter, salt, sugar, caraway seeds, nutmeg, sage and half the flour. Beat with a spoon until mixed thoroughly and smooth. Add in the rest of the flour, stirring to combine. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface to incorporate the flour, scraping the leftover bits from the sides of the bowl. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes. This dough ball will be very soft and sticky when you begin your kneading. Add handfuls of flour as you knead to prevent the dough from sticking to you or your surface. You'll know you've added enough flour if you can easily work with the dough without it sticking to everything. Don't let sticky dough make you angry. Don't knead angry! Just add a bit more flour...no worries!

2. Coat a large bowl with cooking spray, place dough in bowl, turning to coat all sides with spray. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Push your finger into the dough to make a dent. If the dent remains, the dough has risen enough. It should be about twice the size as when you began.

3. Turn the dough out again onto a floured surface but do not punch it down or knead it. Tuck the edges in all the way around to form the dough into a dome shape and place it on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, or use a silicone baking mat and skip the spray. If you're feeling kinda "cheffy" you could take a sharp knife and make a crisscross pattern or some shallow slices in the top of your bread. Spray the top of the bread dome lightly with cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an additional 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

4. Bake bread for 25 to 30 minutes. Watch it carefully near the end so it doesn't get too brown. If you have zero self control and simply must eat it when it's still wicked hot from the oven, use this special slicing technique so this light and doughy bread won't collapse on your impatient little self. Slice the dome down the middle. Take one of the halves and turn it, sliced side down, round crusty side up. Then make a series of slices from the top down to make half oval shaped pieces of bread. Using the crusty edges to give it some structure as you slice keeps it from getting smooshed.

theMiddleBit of the week...

2011-03-02T13:01:00.000-06:00

True:

Occasionally we all enjoy a good laugh at someone else's expense.

We are not all willing to admit this.

Wednesday frequently feels like the longest day of the week.

I know some people who could really use a good laugh today.

It may be time to have The Father start closing the door when he uses the toilet.

Give Us This Day...Whole Wheat Pitas

2011-02-27T14:21:00.001-06:00

She came charging across the room last night, still breathless from the music she had just finished performing, words coming out of her mouth almost before she reached me, "So I'm looking forward to reading your blog post about bread tomorrow. I'm not going to bake it, but I love reading about it." Heh. Well that's good. I guess.

The man I love is her choral conductor. A leader of singers and crafter of music. People ask me all the time why I'm not in his choir. I look forward to every concert. The music transforms. I'm not going to sing it, but I love listening to it. Yes. That's good.

She may never make the bread I write about. For herself or anyone else. But she's a fan and that feeds us both.

I will probably never sing for him. But I will always be a fan. And that feeds us both.

Last night's concert was extraordinary. Extraordinary. Thank you all for that.

Whole Wheat Pitas

If you've been following the posts under the heading Give Us This Day...you're beginning to see how the same simple ingredients can be transformed into many wonderful things. For this recipe you'll need to expand your pantry staples with a few new types of flour. The great thing about flour is you can store it in a zipper bag in your freezer, indefinitely, so go ahead and buy these two new types of flour and store them for when you need them. This recipe, as written, makes 8 pitas about the size of your open hand. I ALWAYS double this recipe because, in this case, 8 is NOT enough. Allow yourself about an hour and a half to produce wonderful homemade pita rounds, hot from your oven.

1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons of dry yeast (or 1 package)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour, divided
2 tablespoons plain yogurt, Greek style is best, any % will work
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
cooking spray

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in the warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes or so until it gets foamy. Whisk in the yogurt and oil. Add all of the bread flour and the salt, stirring well to combine. Mix it until it is smooth and then add about half of the whole wheat flour. When it gets difficult to stir, turn the dough ball out onto a surface lightly sprinkled with some more whole wheat flour. Scrape the dough bits from the inside of the bowl and gently knead the dough for about 10 minutes adding additional whole wheat flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough stops sticking to you and your counter. You may need a bit more flour if your dough is sticky. Don't panic! Just keeping sprinkling it in until it behaves. You should be able to work with the dough easily, pushing it hard into your surface.

2. Place dough ball into a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning it once to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm spot for about an hour. It will double in size.

3. Move your oven rack to its lowest position and preheat to 500 degrees.

4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Do not knead it. Gently pull it into a rope and cut it into 8 portions. Form each portion into a 6 inch round. Don't mess with the dough too much here. The less you handle it the more it will puff up when it cooks. Heavily coat 2 baking sheets with cooking spray. Place 4 dough rounds on each sheet and bake them one sheet at a time for 8-10 minutes each until they are nicely puffed and slightly browned. Cool on a wire rack if you can wait that long. We love them with soup or with spicy Middle Easter fare that needs a little help being pushed onto the spoon.

Give Us This Day...#@!*&...Pardon My French Bread

2011-02-20T16:09:00.000-06:00

It all started so innocently. Easy Saturday. Nothing planned. No commitments. "Ok girls. Mommy has to post about bread tomorrow so let's get cooking!" They put on their aprons. I changed my shirt...bread is messy business. And we began to measure. Bowls out. Two cups of warm water. "#@!*! We don't have any yeast girls, let's go to the store."

We began again with a renewed spirit...and a new jar of yeast. Reheated the 2 cups of water. Yeast. Sugar. Salt. Oil. Taking turns dumping ingredients into the bowl. So civilized. I am such a good mother. "Let's measure the flour and put it into a bowl for when we need it. Perfect ladies. Take turns dumping it in. Nice work ladies." I am such a good mother. "Let me just turn around here for a second and wipe out this bowl and then we'll mix it all in."

"#@!&*! No girls! Not yet!"

"That's ok. We'll just measure again. No problem. Just keep playing with that stuff. I'll make a new bowl for the bread." Such a good mother.

They had a ball playing with the flour. I showed an uncharacteristic amount of patience letting them make a mess. I finished kneading. We cleaned up. Nice. The dough rose nicely in the sunny window. It went into the oven with plenty of time for me to heat the soup for dinner. Perfect timing.

Beep! Beep! "#@*!&! What the #@%& was that BEEP? Why does the oven panel say ERROR? What does that mean?" Beep! Beep! Fast forward several minutes to the Father doing a frantic Google search for error codes and me trying to reprogram the oven repeatedly, to no avail, in an attempt to keep the ovens hot enough to finish french bread that had nearly 20 minutes left to bake.

It did not end as innocently as it began. The new electronics panel that we will need for the oven is going to cost $150. #@*!&! The dog puked flour on the oriental rug. #@*!&! Bread was a bit doughy, but edible. #@*!&! I should have just bought a loaf when I went to the store to get the yeast.

Pardon My French Bread

Simple ingredients, provided you have them on hand, yield 4 french baguettes. Watch your time planning. You'll need 3 hours for these. Eat two and freeze two for another night. Wrap the cooled loaves in plastic. Reheat bare loaves in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes to restore crispness.

2 cups warm water
5 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 cups of all purpose flour, plus more for kneading
cooking spray

1. In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar. Let stand for at least 10 minutes, until it's foamy and creamy looking. Add the salt and oil. Stir in 5 cups of the flour. Scrape dough bits from the bowl and turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead dough for at least 10 minutes adding additional flour by the handful until it stops sticking to you and the counter. This dough is VERY soft and sticky when you begin kneading. It will stiffen up a bit as you knead. Don't stop after just a few minutes though. You'll notice it get very smooth after about 6 minutes or so. Keep adding the flour to your surface or your hands if it starts to stick to you again and work that dough for the full 10 minutes. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray, turn dough to coat all sides with spray, cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour.

2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide into fourths. Stretch and roll each section into a rectangle about 6 x 12 inches. Roll it up as tightly as possible and fold the ends over. Grease two baking sheets and place finished loaves on the sheets placed as far apart as possible. Stretch the loaves as long as your baking sheets will allow, up to 16 inches. Brush the tops with water and make a 1/4 inch slash down the center of each loaf. Allow to rise uncovered in a warm place for another hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven. Use a lasagna pan or any other oven safe container like corningware or pyrex. Do not skip this step. Putting the water in the oven keeps these skinny loaves from turning into crusty cracker sticks. Before placing the loaves in the oven, brush them one more time with water. Bake them for 10 minutes, brush again with water and bake 20 minutes longer or until the loaves look lightly browned on the top. Don't let them get too brown, they'll be hard as rocks.

Serve warm, right out of the oven. With or without the oven manual...your choice.

RE: Mission

2011-02-18T11:08:00.001-06:00

Regarding the information I was presented with on Sunday past...She wasn't given the quintessential "Your mission, should you choose to accept it." How could she possibly accept another mission in the middle of everything else she needs to do?

How could she not? Accept it. What's the alternative?

Regarding the mission. The fight. The effort. The journey from staying alive to living again. I am not the one doing the fighting and just knowing her heart fills me with immeasurable optimism.

Regarding the mission from here to there. From healthy to cured. Unaware to survivor. She is already planning the retreat of her enemy.

Here is my response. Her people are going to help her live. Her people are the reason she is going to live.
Consider this response final and please don't burden me with further questions.

RE: Mission.

Author's note: This one was for my friend, who is in the MiddleBit of the fight of her life. I can't hug you, or come do your laundry, or make a Starbucks run for you, or drive you all over town and I don't even know what to say about that. But, since I always have something to say about everything...stay tuned.

I'm Not In Love With You

2011-02-14T09:12:00.000-06:00

Oh, to be in love. In it. Deep.

I was there once. I was walking along one day and I just fell in. Totally not watching where I was going. Fell right in. I was in over my head. And he was in there with me. The right one. I'm pretty sure he fell before I did. Fell in over his head and was just waiting there for me. It was wonderful. I was in Love. Deep.

But I'm not anymore.

I'm out of that gooey, enveloping, mind-numbing, keeps you from acting rationally, clouds your vision Love. I used my muscles to climb out of that sweet muck awhile back and now I'm moving on to the -ing part of this Love I've chosen. If it's love...and you've decided you're in it with the right person...then after awhile you quit floundering around together and get some skills. Some skills that help you live together in places other than Love. In places like Stressful. And Parenthood. And Tragedy. And Joy. And Out of Town on Business. And Split Level Houses in The Middle with laundry to do and weeds to pull and dishes to wash and, and, and...the -ing of it is how you survive.

When you decide that it's forever, Love changes from this thing you're in, to this thing you do. Loving. Loving him means I'm doing something. I'm giving back. Shifting to compensate. Celebrating the victories. Towing the line. Taking the time. Telling him. Showing him. Needing him. It's the doing that gives Love power. Strength. Makes it last.

When you've been at it for awhile, you can't give Love anymore. You can't be in Love. You have to do Love.

My doing is my being. My being is loving you. Happy Valentine's Day Love.

Give Us This Day...Rosemary Loaves

2011-02-13T16:57:00.000-06:00

I kill houseplants. People who know me have all kinds of stories about my murdering ways. My relationships with indoor foliage have been peppered with incidents of neglect, over watering, exposure and infestations. One of my favorite stories that gives evidence of this behavior was when my mother came to my college apartment and questioned the health of a window plant she had purchased for me on her last visit. She told me it looked a little pale and asked me, "When was the last time you fed it sweetheart?" Um. Never. I didn't know you had to feed plants...you know, with that whole clorophyll thing. I thought the sun did it all. Every single way that a house plant can die, I have tried. It's not because I want to...it just happens...or at least that's what I used to think.

I spend a lot of time with my three small children in the car. Out here in The Middle, our landscape is crisscrossed with ribbons of asphalt that deliver you from small town desolation to big city retail therapy. I spend a lot of time with my three small children in the car. Years ago when we were in the market for a minivan, I specifically asked the guy at the Nissan place if I could pay extra to have a limo-style privacy screen installed behind the drivers seat. No joy. I spend a lot of time with my three small children in the car. Sometimes they are loud. Sometimes they are whiney. Sometimes they beat on each other. Sometimes I have the patience to distract them, or play a word game, or turn on their favorite song, or do some other fabulous parenting trick. Sometimes that works. Sometimes I scream back at them. Sometimes that works. Sometimes I am driving 75 miles per hour and there is nothing I can do about it...or at least that's what I used to think.

And then there's bread. Fancy, shmancy artisan bread that comes from a bakery, costs tons of money, has a million complicated ingredients and simply cannot be baked by a commoner like myself...or at least that's what I used to think.

Rosemary Bread

This recipe was originally adapted from a Junior League cookbook. With very simple ingredients it is a great partner to a bowl of soup, or toasted and smeared with apple butter. Be warned, this one is a time commitment. Allow yourself at least three hours and be rewarded for your efforts with two hearty loaves of crusty bread.

3 3/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup warm milk (any % will work)
1/4 cup olive oil
5 cups all purpose flour, divded
1/4 cup minced fresh rosemary
4 teaspoons fine salt
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or any other coarse salt)

1. In a large bowl sprinkle the yeast into the warm water. Let it stand until foamy. Stir in the milk and oil. In a medium bowl combine 4 1/2 cups of flour with rosemary and fine salt. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix by hand. Gradually add additional flour while you continue to mix until it no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and continue to knead by hand for another 10 minutes adding additional flour as you go to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands or the counter. The dough will be nice and moist, but it should not be sticky. If it's difficult to work with just keep adding flour until it behaves. Don't be afraid to add more than that extra 1/2 cup if you need it. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray turning it once to coat all sides with spray. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place for at least 1 1/2 hours. It will double in size and you'll know its ready when a dent remains in the dough after you poke it.

2. Gently punch the dough down on a lightly floured surface. DO NOT KNEAD IT. Cut the dough in half and shape it into two rounds by tucking the sides under. Put the loaves on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, or use a silicone mat, and lightly spray the tops with cooking spray. These loaves grow when they bake so don't put them too close together. If you have two smaller baking sheets that's even better. You'll want to place them side by side on the same rack in your oven. When you stack them they don't bake as evenly. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot for another 45 minutes until they double in size.

3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

4. Just before you place the loaves in the oven, make shallow crisscross slashes in the top of each loaf. These slashes serve no culinary purpose but make the bread look gorgeous, so if you are nervous about cutting to deep, just skip this part. Sprinkle the top of each loaf with the coarse salt.

5. Bake for 10 minutes. During this first 10 minutes use a spray bottle to mist the inside of the oven with warm water. Open up the door and really go crazy spraying all over the inside of the oven 8 or 10 squirts each time you do this. I set my timer for three minutes intervals so I won't forget to spray. This helps the bread get a really chewy crust. Don't skip this part, you'll be sorry.

6. After 10 minutes, reduce the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes. Watch them carefully near the end so they don't get too brown. Cool on wire racks before serving.

I chose this picture just in case you are under the mistaken impression that I have all these child free hours to spend blissfully making bread in my gourmet kitchen. I want you to know that life, even in my house, does go on all around me while I'm constructing a loaf or two.

And the mysterious tool that links thriving houseplants, road weary travelers and rosemary bread? The spray bottle. I mist my ferns. They love it. I shoot my screaming children, they shut their mouths and the evidence dries before we get to our destination. They hate it. Really spraying that oven in step #5 makes a huge difference. You'll love it.

The Daily Post

2011-02-10T14:38:00.000-06:00

I will admit that I am a Facebooker. I live here in The Middle where we go for months without a double digit temperature. Today it is -14. I am virtually a shut in. I have three small children which equals exactly 6 gloves, 6 boots, 7 zippers, and 8 carseat buckles. I have a husband who travels extensively during the cold winter months...read: leaves me home alone with a bunch of needy short people with whom it is difficult to engage in stimulating conversation. I could pick up the phone and call someone for engaging adult repartee were it not for the fact that even the possibility of me picking up the phone transforms a peaceful cooperative collection of children into a screaming, hitting, needy bunch of animals making it impossible to hear the person on the other end of the telephone line. I could go out and meet friends for coffee...and I do, but not everyday. Or 5 times a day, when I have a need to feel like an adult and there is nobody around over the age of 4.

I'm left with Facebook. And all of its faults. So in the spirit of highlighting the shortcomings of those things we depend on in life I have assembled a list of the types of Facebook posts I find the most ridiculous and annoying. Note to self: figure out how to determine when you have been "un-friended" before publishing this blog post.

Ima Gud Muther is reading a book with her kids. Or is having a great time with her kids at the zoo. Or is sledding with her kids. Um, no you're not! You're posting on Facebook. Don't ignore your children and then lie about the imagined quality time you're spending with them.

Ivana B. Thinner just ran 12 miles in the snow. Really? Then go take a shower. Have a glass of water. Do something, but don't post an exaggerated jog on Facebook. Are you trying to make us feel bad? Those of us who have been sitting in front of the computer the whole time you were out improving your health. If you're going to lie about your exercise, at least lie big! Tell us you ran 30 miles! We'll comment about how proud we are of you or how awesome you are, and then our lies will match your lies. See, everyone's happy!

The lyrics to pretty much any song. If you can't think of something of your own to say...don't say anything at all. If I wanted to experience Pink's lyrics, or Katy Perry's lyrics or some profound reworking of The Grateful Dead, then I would turn on the radio and experience them in the way they were intended...as part of a song! With music! Not some attempt at highly evolved, meaningful, social network poetry.

Weather reports. I'm totally fine with laments, complaints, disastrous accounts of and explanations of mental conditions as a result of the weather...but do not give me the current conditions people! If you live in my town, I can look out my own damn window and tell that it's snowing, raining, windy, a beautiful sunny day or really effing cold AND if I don't live in your town...I really don't care what the current conditions are.

The current score of the game! Seriously people, don't you have a DVR? Nobody watches TV in real time anymore. You're spoiling it for those of us who do choose to be the masters of our own TV consumption and watch the game on our own schedule. If you're watching the game, go watch the damn game and get off of Facebook!

The ending of the TV show. *see previous entry.

The situation with your Mafia hit, your Farm, your attempt at getting Fast Money or your stupid Duck. I don't care. Keep your games to yourself. Ya wanna play with me? Get out from behind your screen, pry your thumbs off your qwerty keyboard and drive over to my house. I'd be happy to kick your ass at Scrabble anytime. Ya know, Scrabble...the one with the little wooden tiles and the pencil and paper score pad?

Any post that is followed by a See More at the bottom. I can tell you straight away that when I notice your last sentence trailing off into blank space followed by the blue texted See More I immediately scroll past you. If you can't say what you need to say in one or two fragmented, slightly strung out highly embroidered sentences then don't post it. If you really do want us to see more, know more or understand MORE, then get a blog people! It's what all the cool kids are doing these days and you can always link it to Facebook!

Am I judging you if you post this junk? Maybe. Will I have any "friends" after this? Maybe not. Am I guilty of posting garbage on Facebook? Certainly. I'm just outing myself as a person who ~~uses~~ needs the social network to keep her sanity.

Now. I've gotta link this post to Facebook.

Give Us This Day; The Purge, the Drip and the Country Loaf

2011-02-06T10:00:00.004-06:00

A few weeks ago I was prowling the blogospere and landed myself smack in the middlebit of someone's post about the urge to organize their household. Blah, blah, blah, visions of neatly stacked cabinets and efficient pantries purged of anything non-essential...you get the idea. My point? I was barely able to finish the article fast enough as I sat there quivering, half a cheek on my barstool, with the urge to make-over the space underneath my bathroom sink. I know, I know...an organizing project involving half empty bottles of lotion and more Clinique Bonus Time lipstick than any girl should admit to possessing is not the kind of thing that should send my body into shivers of excitement...but I digress.

Armed with a paper bag and a recycle bin, I firmly believe that the bathroom is the next frontier of recycling. You would never think of tossing an empty ketchup bottle into the trash but shampoo bottles get trashed all the time. Put a recycle bin in your bathroom people!...again, with the digression...I headed into the master bath to rid myself of some under cabinet clutter.

My first step was to remove everything from under the sink. Not to glance over the collection and push aside the things I knew were staying like the hair dryer and the box of panty liners, but to actually take everything out of the cabinet and survey it in the light of the bathroom. As I reached into the darkness of the "way back" my fingers closed around something cold and wet and the unmistakable odor of mildew stung my nostrils and my pride. Thoroughly disgusted I discovered a small puddle, a pile of soaked tampons (absorbent little suckers), and determined that we had a drippy pipe under the sink.

I immediately employed "the bucket technique" and moved forward with my organizing project. This is where the organizing part of the story concludes. Please note that I was able to reduce the contents of the cabinet by ~~tossing~~ recycling half empty bottles of stuff I don't use and freeing myself of several lipsticks that I could only imagine wearing to a Halloween party. Very freeing. And, if I had not taken on this project, who knows how long the drip drip drip of neglect would have continued, possibly causing expensive damage.

When the Father got home, I described our little issue in the bathroom. Do not read my meaning to be "I described the sink problem to my extremely handy husband and was so glad when he came home so he could fix it in a jiffy," because that is not accurate. My husband is extremely talented but not in the mysterious ways of the pipe and the wrench. He can get 1,000 people to breathe in unison with a flick of his baton, but he is dangerous with a hammer or a wrench. My purpose for telling him was to rant about how the last time I called a plumber to fix the drippy spigot in the backyard, the butt crack displaying, late arriving, deodorant boycotting pipe doctor that showed up at my door replaced a 15 cent plastic washer and charged me $90! And no, I'm not over it, thankyouverymuch!

My point in describing our plumbing predicament was to ask him if he minded me putting out a distress call on Facebook to see if one of our friends could come to my aid. Intrigued by my plan to save us $90, he told me to go for it. Almost immediately the offers of assistance started coming in...we have such wonderful friends...and within the week my friend brought her husband over to diagnose our drippy dillema.

What was supposed to be a little fix, in my ignorant assessment at least, turned into him making a trip to the local hardware store for a 15 cent washer which it turns out you can't buy separately from the entire drain housing, which he bought and offered to install for me. So now I was into this ~~guy~~ sweet husband friend for his time and the money he spent on the parts I needed...sigh. "Sure I'll install it for you, " he said cheerfully. "Let me just get the sink taken apart." Oh God, I've destroyed his Sunday afternoon and now he needs a simple wrench from the toolbox which I'm pretty sure we don't have, but I'll put on my slippers and go out to the arctic garage anyway just to make a show of effort.

So it turned out that we made a plan for him to return the following week and finish the job. We continued to employ the highly effective "bucket technique" and he did restore complete function to our drain. And before you even think it, the Country Loaf part of this story does NOT refer to my husband who grew up the sheltered son of a physician who very responsibly called a plumber when he discovered a drip and consequently did not prepare his boy for basic home maintenance of any kind. The Country Loaf, or Loaves as the story more accurately goes, were the beginning of a long list of culinary reparations that I will be making to this man and his patient family as repayment for his prowess with a pipe and drain. He came in the door with a wrench and I sent him out the door with three Moroccan Country Loaves.

Moroccan Country Bread
(or Khubz Maghrebi, pronounced cubz ma-grebby, so you sound exotic and cheffy)

An impossibly short list of ingredients, adapted from Cooking Light, and a simple set of directions provides you with three loaves of simple, rustic bread. No kneading in this one shortens the time commitment.

1 1/2 packages dry yeast or 1 tablespoon
2 1/2 cups warm water
7 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons kosher salt (or sea salt, or regular salt. Don't let the wrong salt be the reason you fear this recipe.)
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1. In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. In another bowl measure 7 cups of your flour and whisk the salt into the flour. Gradually add the flour to the yeast mixture, stirring well with a wooden spoon, until the dough forms a ball. It may get difficult to mix near the end but resist the temptation to knead the remaining flour into this dough ball. You'll know you're done when you've got a nice ball of dough that's not sticking to the sides of the bowl. If you've got some flour left over, just free yourself of the guilt, hide the evidence and toss it in the garbage. Problem solved!

2. Turn the dough ball out onto a floured surface, roll it into a log shape and divide it into three equal portions. Again, resist the urge to knead and manipulate the dough here. The less you play with it, the more crumbly it will be and for this bread, that's a good thing. Shape each portion into a round by turning the edges under and place them on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. The silicone baking mat works here too. They will increase in size when baked but not too much, so it is possible to nestle them all together on the same baking sheet if you must. Lightly coat the tops of the loaves with cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place for an hour or until a dent remains when you poke your loaf. Heh, heh. Poke your loaf...sorry.

3. Move your oven rack to the lowest position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

4. Uncover your loaves, brush, or glop, the tops with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes. The loaves will not get brown but they should sound kind of hollow when you thump them.

This bread has a very mild, yeasty flavor. Frankly, it's not great when eaten by itself. Perfect for soaking up the juices from a spicy soup, or pushing bits of curry onto your fork, this bread is a wonderful compliment to Middle Eastern dishes. Morocco, go figure! Or, if you're pooped out from the effort of the bread, it is fantastic when accompanied by a can of Progresso!

If you're looking for the other bread recipes in this collection , go here, and here.

The Principle of Lift

2011-02-03T15:12:00.001-06:00

Car-o-lyne rhymes with 'fine'. Which is ironic. Because I'm not fine. I'm angry. And tired. And under-appreciated. And bitter. And 40 pounds over weight. And alone. Not alone alone. I have kids and a husband, but sometimes I feel like I'm here all by myself.

My damn cellphone is a better speller than I am, that little red wavy line under my misspellings calls more attention to my inadequacy than to a potential word error. My dryer has recently proclaimed itself more adept at determining how long something should tumble. It actually overrode me the other day. I set it for 15 minutes and the damn thing honked at me and informed me that was a waste of energy due to the moisture level of the clothing and I should set it for 10 minutes. I'm angry. Did I mention that one?

Car-o-lyne rhymes with 'fine'. I'm not fine. Right from the very beginning, when I got my name, I have not been fine. She gave him one job. My Father. "Go with the nurse and fill out the paperwork," and he couldn't even spell my name correctly. So instead of being just Carolyne, now I'm Carolyne rhymes with fine, and from the very start, people who think they know me have to be corrected. I'm bitter. Did I mention that one?

That's how I seem to start every relationship. A tacet here's what you think you know about me from all the information you have. But you're wrong. I don't even know you and I know you're wrong.

I want to be fine though.

I think at this point I've been down for so long that I don't even know which direction is up anymore. Or if I even need to go up. Maybe just forward is the way I need to move. Forward, quickly. Like the lumbering 747 that moves forward so fast, strapped to the ground by gravity. Gravity. That twisted force that slams you back to the Earth. That holds you down. Keeps you down. Gravity. Like sick kids, or a husband who travels all the time, or a blizzard and a broken snow blower, or PMS. Slams you back to the Earth.

Amazing though, that 747. When it gets going fast enough it does go up.

Up. Yes. But I'm going to start with forward. Or maybe, Car-o-lyne, and yes, I'm fine.

Let me tell you about last week in the dressing room of Macy's. So. Not. Fine.

to be continued...

Give Us This Day...Walnut Rosemary Loaves

2011-01-30T15:43:00.002-06:00

To be honest, the first time I made this recipe I was lulled into inattention by the description in Cooking Light magazine. They described a classic technique, easy shaping and simple ingredients that even an inexperienced bread baker could handle. That was me! Inexperienced! Perfect, so I proceeded with the recipe and was not paying close enough attention to what I was doing. Originally run in the magazine under the heading, Walnut and Rosemary Loaves, and yielding a total of two loaves of bread, I was under the impression that following this recipe carefully would yield me one walnut loaf and one rosemary loaf. I could not understand how I was going to be able to seperate them if it all went into the same bowl in the process of making the bread.

Duh. I hope that gives you some insight as to how inept I was in the early days of my bread making.

I have since come to love the fact that this recipe results in a total of two loaves of bread both with the wonderful combination of piney rosemary and robust walnuts. Once, in a dramatic display of why you should always check your ingredients before you begin, this recipe was made over into a pair of pecan and sage loaves. A wonderful accident! I got bold after that serendipitous combination and tried walnuts and thyme once as well. Very nice indeed.

The other thing I love about this recipe is that it is already measured for two loaves, so you don't need to double everything in your head as you go and hope you don't mess up halfway through. I love to keep one for dinner and take one to deserving neighbor just in time for dinner. Yum!

Walnut and Rosemary Boules (pronounced boo-lay, french for ball. Makes you sound kinda cheffy!)

2 cups warm milk (whatever % you have will work)
1/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons salt
2 packages dry yeast (or about 4 1/2 teaspoons)
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary (fresh is better but dried will work, just use less)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking Spray
1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal

Egg Wash Glaze (can be omitted, but it gives the bread a nice shiny appearance)
1 tablespoon milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Whisk together your milk, water, sugar, butter and salt in a large bowl. Add the yeast, stir with a whisk; let stand 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of the flour, stir with a whisk. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 15 minutes.

2. Add 2 1/2 more cups of the flour, walnuts, rosemary and 1 egg, stirring until combined. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for 10 minutes adding additional flour to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. Don't be shy about adding the flour. Add it in 1/4 cup handfulls slowly to avoid adding too much and making the dough stiff.

3. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray and turn the dough to coat all sides with spray. Cover it again with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour. Poke it with your finger after an hour. If the dent remains, then it has risen enough.

4. Punch down the dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface. Cut it in half and shape each portion into a round by turning the edges under. Place loaves on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. You can also use a silicone baking mat here and omit the cornmeal. Spray the tops of the loaves lightly with cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap and let rise again in a warm place for 30 minutes or until the loaves have doubled in size. My favorite spot is a sunny window.

5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

6. Whisk together the milk and the egg for the glaze. Brush over the loaves generously. If you don't have a brush you can use a paper towel to glop it over the tops of the bread. Use a sharp knife and make a 4 shallow slices in a tic tac toe pattern on the tops of each loaf. This makes it look gorgeous but serves no culinary purpose so if you're shy about cutting too deep then skip this part.

7. Place loaves in the oven and immediately reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Bake for 40 minutes. Let stand on a cooling rack for 20 minutes before attempting to slice. If you rush into this one the bread will get smooshed if it's too hot when you try and slice it. Patience!

A little heads up. This bread is another simple set of directions to follow, but allow yourself at least 2 1/2 hours to complete this recipe. You don't need any special skills, just some time and a little patience. It's great with soup, or toasted with apple butter the next morning...that is, if you have any leftover.

Wonder Woman?

2011-01-27T13:05:00.002-06:00

Last night I got more than 9 hours of sleep. This morning I've had more than 5 cups of coffee. I am positivly bursting with possibilities. Ahhhhhggrrrttt! Quivering with potential...or possibly caffeine.

This must be what superheros feel like! The profusion of energy. The acute senses. The razor sharp focus. Yes! Not like my normal self, functional but not running on all cylinders, senses slightly dulled, protected against the real-ness of everything. Kind of like walking through life with Vaseline all over your glasses. No. Today I am a superhero!

Well I'm seeing it all today and I have decided that I am Wonder Woman.

I wonder why Al, the guy from Sears that was here yesterday, even bothers to call himself a repair man. I wonder why he doesn't just call himself an "Open up your machine and tell you what part is broken and can be ordered at an extraordinary cost for parts and labor and then set you up with a follow up appointment after I place two pieces of heat tape on your dryer and charge you $129" man. Or maybe a "Here's a coupon for a new machine because in the long run and the short term for that matter it's a better investment" man. Too long to put on the business card I guess. Just call me Wonder Woman.

I wonder when I will get to go through a whole day with out someone calling out, "Mom! I pooped! You need to come wipe my butt!" And before you judge me and suggest I ought to teach her some wiping skills, the alternative is letting her do it herself, badly, thus producing multiple pairs of underwear per day with skid marks in them leading to more laundry, recall that I have no dryer, and the nagging thought that my 3 year old is roaming the house with feces on her fingertips. Who would choose that? Really? Just call me Wonder Woman.

I wonder where the hell my husband is and why he's never home when someone urinates on the rug (human or canine, you pick), spills their milk (and yes, I do cry over spilt milk when it's on the oriental rug that will need to be sent out for cleaning), or pukes on their carseat (which has to be handwashed, damn European designers). When he's home alone with them, I get stories about trips to the zoo, children who eat all of their dinner and hours spent playing board games and doing playdoh art projects. Lies? Just call me Wonder Woman.

I wonder when the new puppy will stop having accidents in the house. We are following all the rules for puppy training. He is doing better, but c'mon really. It's been 6 months and I'm tired of the constant vigilance. I wonder if the fact that it's the slogging frigid MiddleBit of winter, and the snow banks are way over his head, which is only 6 inches from the ground, has anything to do with his dislike for pooping al fresco? Just call me Wonder Woman.

I wonder if the those blundering toy designers intended Polly Pockets to be an exercise in forced Mother/Child interaction or if they were just inventing microscopic toys for the fun of it. I wonder if I am the only mother whose small children are incapable of dressing these synthetic damsels without the assistance of their unenthusiastic mama. I hate Polly and her small gang of scantily clad plastic girlfriends. I abhor the rice sized shoes that get stuck to the bottom of my feet. I loath the process of tugging and stuffing these tiny females into their sticky clothes. Is Polly an anti-neglect device in rubber clothing? Just call me Wonder Woman.

I wonder when I will get over the fact that I leak. I leak when I exercise. When I laugh. When I get up in the morning. I wonder if you think this is too much information and now you have this picture in your mind that you can't get rid of? I wonder if you realize there are other blogs out there that reveal less about the writer? No offense. Just call me Wonder Woman.

Nine hours of sleep. Excessive amounts of focus centering, caffeinated beverages. A lens to more clearly examine my life. Wonder Woman my ass! Can I just get the costume and go back to ignoring all this crap? Just call me Wonder Woman.