The Simple Life

I have been on a simple life binge. I realize this is probably an oxymoron but it is my reality. I'm gobbling up books, blogs, recipes, pictures, songs, ANYTHING that I can paw to hear about simplicity. All the while, life barrels on.

I have found some good limbs to grab hold of as life rushes me down its rapids. Some of those limbs belong to authors like Alice Waters, Barbara Kingslover, and Katrina Kennison. Their works hold me down. They could hold you too.

During the busy seasons of life, simple recipes become restful places to repeat the practice of centering your priorities back to God, your family and friends. Over my life the recipe that rises over and over as simple and soulful is my Grandmother's Chicken and Dumplings. It has been ages since my arms have pushed dough across a wooden table until it failed to bounce back to its glutenous knot; taking a butter knife and cutting long strips down and across; scooping and plopping limp rectangles into a bubbling broth of chicken parts and potato stumps.

Although the years have pulled the details of this recipe away from my mind, it has not been pulled away from the memory of my hands and fingers. Those hands and fingers were creating that food as far back as my ability to stand underneath my Momom's housecoat as she moved from the sink, to the stove, to the table.

I rest on those memories, making muffins with Sizzles week after week. We fill those muffins with blueberries, spotted brown bannanas, pumpkin puree, applesauce and strawberry jam. It is our refuge together when our days have been long with struggle, stress or disappointment. Together we find our way back to the kitchen, back to where we belong, back to the beginning of that muffin recipe. And we are home.

If you asked me for the muffin recipe that we use every week of our lives, I would have to look it up. If you asked my hands, they could tell you in one long movement.

One day, my daughter's fingers will tell it too.

Jesus loves the pancakes?

According to the folks over at www.allrecipes.com, today begins Pancake Week.

Pancake Week is grounded in ancient tradition. During the Middle Ages, it was common practice to prepare for the austerity of Lent by purging the pantry of luxurious foods such as eggs, butter and milk. These ingredients often became big batches of pancakes. To this day, many communities around the world feast on pancakes all the way through Shrove Tuesday--also known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras--before the season of moderation begins on Ash Wednesday. In fact, another name for Fat Tuesday is Pancake Day.

Who knew?

Not me, that's who!

In the future when I am asked why I believe in God, I will just point to the flapjack stack and give a sticky toothed grin.

Everyone in this domicile loves a pancake stack. We eat it for breakfast and then we eat them for a snack. Sizzles even likes to read about pancakes, when she isn't munching on them. One of her all time favorite books is Hey Pancakes! She also loves Curious George Makes Pancakes.

At least once every six days, we make a plasteful of pancakes around here.

And let me tell you, there is no cardboard box involved.

We make pancakes from scratch! Sadly, I have a couple of friends who said they didn't even know that was possible.

Lord have mercy, the masses must be converted!

Over in the sidebar is our all time favorite Best Quick Pancakes recipe. I tore it out of a Martha Stewart Living Magazine a million years ago. She did a whole pancake extravaganza. It featured this recipe, Crepe Batter, Best Buttermilk Pancakes, Cranberry Syrup, Silver-Dollar Pancakes, Dutch Baby, and Yeast-Raised Pancakes.

MmTasty!

Winnie the Pooh Pumpkin Muffins

Did you know yesterday was the birthday of Winnie the Pooh author, A.A. Milne?
Yeah, me either, until I stumbled upon the information while trolling the blogsphere and getting my daily fix of Sun and Candlelight.

Winnie the Pooh books were some of my favorite chapter books as a child. I remember being the lone kid in the first grade who spent the entire library hour on my knees trying decide which Winnie the Pooh book I was going to rescue from the dark bottom shelf. I liked Pooh books so much that I bought one of first chapter book in the series as soon as I got pregnant with Sizzles.

I think I even tried to read it to her the first week of her life but alas, she was more interested in hearing Brian's voice narrating the first of the Harry Potter books. Sizzles laid her stake as a daddy's girls right from the get-go.

But last night, she was at my shoulder when I checked out Sun and Candlelight so I read to her the entry and she got VERY excited about the idea of having birthday candles for Winnie the Pooh. So, although I was pretty tired from a crazy day at the CDC, I went to the bookshelf and found our copy of Winnie the Pooh. Sizzles brought it to the computer screen, declared it a "match" and demanded to know where the candles were.

Of course we needed something to put in the candles and after rummaging around the pantry, it was determined that he had all the ingredients for homemade pumpkin muffins. We whipped up the muffins and read the first chapter while they baked. After they were done, we shoved in the candle and song our homage just in time for bed.

This morning while we watched last night's snow melt away we ate Winnie the Pooh pumpkin muffins and then headed off to school.

The Christmas Humbling

Occasionally I get cocky. Specifically, I have been known to tell people flat out that I am a great cook. To be fair, sometimes I truly am a great cook. But then every ten entrees or so I will fall flat on my face and serve up a totally crap meal. When it comes to baking (as long as you discount my constant muffin making) I tend to wipe out much more frequently than when I cook. Let's just say I have been kissing the hardwood floor this week.

I decided in all my Christmas shimmer that I was ready to try making gingerbread. Even better, I would go whole hog and make the COVER of the Martha Stewart cookie magazine I have been hitting like a stay at home mom hits the Merlot by 4pm on a Tuesday.

So, anyway, I thought I could hang with Martha.
Need I say more? (Yes, Yes, or this wouldn't be a very interesting blog would it?)

So I whipped up the gingerbread dough right before I had to go pick up Lilly from school. I was moving fast (I huge no, no in the baking world) and somehow managed to fly right by the molasses. As a testament to how uppity I had gotten in my Christmas cookie ways, I had gone to the supermarket JUST to get molasses two hours before this dough-making fiasco!

What is even more pathetic (and a reminder that I must humble myself before God and Martha Stewart) is that I didn't even figure this omission out until after I had split the dough, wrapped the dough, put it in my tinsle colored fridge and noticed the unopened bottle of molasses while grabbing my keys.

I won't repeat what came out of my mouth. It was very un-Christian like. It definitely wasn't in the Christmas spirit and I can only thank God (while apologizing profusely) that a certain three year old wasn't within earshot.

Sad. So very sad.

The good news is apparently you can totally take a kick in the pants while making this particular dough and still manage to throw down some spicy, chewy, gingerbread. So despite my fall down, I can still say I am great baker. Well, at least today. :)

Baby steps toward a tasty life

Alice Waters came to my office last week. Well, not my individual office but to the CDC campus to give a talk on food and health. Alice Waters is the famed chef/owner of Chez Panisse and founder of the Edible Schoolyard Project and huge figure in the movement to support local, organic and sustainable agriculture. Brian and I went to her restaurant many years ago as part of our San Francisco vacation. We both still remember that meal. It was beautiful, simple and soul nourishing.

Alice talked about food as spiritual nourishment and how America's obsession with speed has left our children at once malnourished and obese. She said so many wise things during her talk but this concept of the connection between eating good food and having a good life really struck a cord with me. Most of my best memories in life bloom around my grandmother's kitchen table and making slow foods like chicken and dumplings at her side.

When my grandmother was dying a couple of years ago she repeatedly told me how blessed she was and how GOOD her life had been. Her conviction about this gave me a lot to think about during her long journey toward death. She didn't graduate from high school (she finished 11th grade and then married my grandfather), nor did she have a prestigious job (she was a secretary for a life insurance agent).

She did have a basic kitchen and cooked with basic tools (no Cuisnart or Viking stove). Despite these factors, that our consumerist society would look upon mostly with disappointment, she was confident that she had been given the BEST life. She KNEW it.

Her life was Simple, Slow and Satisfying and SO much of it was about Food.

My mind wandered back and forth between Alice Water's talk and my grandmother's kitchen that day as I weighed the lessons that both women preached. Rushing around to catch the prizes of our world (a flashy home, a fancy job and expensive foods) leaves Brian and I pretty empty handed most of the time but when I take the time to cook good food our circumstances always seem a little bit brighter and our struggles with two small children, demanding careers and a lack of space seem a little less extreme when the meal is done.

So in homage to these two important figures in my journey for a tasty life I went to the morningside farmer's market and met some farmers, and bought their vegetables and carted it home to make some food that was spiritually nourishing.

Here are some pictures of the vegetables I bought and the girls checking them out. The recipes I used to cook the vegetables will be posted soon. :) Enjoy!