Recipe for a Date

1. Send Son to a friend's birthday sleepover where they plan to have a cookout, sing around the campfire, and sleep in tents.

2. Cook dinner using the amazing Sephardic-inspired or Mediterranean-inspired kosher cookbook, Levana's Table. We made Chicken with Dried Plums (cough, prunes) and Almonds--an utterly delicious "special" dish that was also very easy to make.  Serve with roasted Brussels sprouts.



3. Set table with beautiful thrifted quilt, which will be discussed in detail in a future post.



4. Light a candle in a hollowed out tree limb decorated by Son many years ago.



Fill a vase with the dessicated "flowers" trimmed from a pot of garlic chives.



5. Just as partner pulls into the driveway, turn on Etta James," one of the soundtracks of our seventeen-year romance.

6. Pour wine--preferably a deep luscious Zinfandel from a winery with a name like Folie a Deux--"a madness shared by two." (Doesn't that sound romantic? Unfortunately, it is actually a psychiatric syndrome in which the symptoms of psychosis are transmitted from one individual to another. I do my best.)

7. Talk leisurely, play no board games, don't remind anyone to practice their instruments,

8. Use beautiful pottery "pie-plate built for two" to make a half-sized rhubarb pie (with this excellent free recipe--which makes a full pie). For the pie crust, use the very much-loved and very earthy whole wheat pie crust in Laurel's Kitchen, my most used cookbook ever, full of healthy everyday possibilities for vegetarian meals. Save some pie for Son when he returns home.





9.  Go upstairs with candles...

My 10yo son began taking violin lessons from a Suzuki instructor a few days after his birthday last spring. He is relatively old to begin Suzuki studies.

Sometimes I'm taken aback by the size of some of his peers at lessons! Every time we have a group session--where all of the teacher's students come together both to play together and get to know one another--I can't help but laugh at the absolutely tiny violin cases that the smallest pupils carry.

Suzuki music lessons are predicated on significant involvement by parents. This idea of parental commitment is especially important for the very young children--some of whom are barely 3 years old. For a 10yo student, it is not quite so necessary to have mothers and fathers involved in their practice sessions. However, in a world that de-emphasizes the involvement of parents in their children's learning, the Suzuki expectation is a welcome change.

The Suzuki method also stresses a loving-parent model for the official music teachers as well. As he talks about in his book Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education,the founder of the Suzuki movement stresses that both parents and teachers should strive to acknowledge the child where they are, to celebrate and accept whatever the child does--instead of having some preconceived notion about progress and timeline.

Suzuki's work is in many ways aligned with attachment parenting principles and his book makes an excellent read even for those without children in music lessons.

I'm always inspired by the combination of intensity and love shown between Suzuki parents and their children as they work together:

Thrifting

Several months ago we enjoyed a weekend full of wonderful meals, much wine, knitting and weaving, games, dancing with dogs, and hikes and drives in the beautiful countryside--along with the inspiring company of our lovely hosts.

I left the weekend with a deep desire for a salt cellar--like the beautiful wooden swivel-jar (which looked kind of like this)which graced their well-dressed table.

Over the months, David and I have searched in antique stores and at woodworking studios with hopes of finding something similar. No luck.

Last week as we parked our car in front of the house we were visiting, we glanced at the yard sale taking place next door.



When I saw this lidded wooden bowl, I immediately thought of Babe: "That'll do!"

Humanist Rosh Hashanah

For quite a while, I've struggled to imagine how our family would celebrate the High Holidays this year.



As I have mentioned on this blog before, I have great difficulties believing in God. I am a pure atheist at heart and by my early rearing, but Judaism has been very important to me for a long time. Many years ago I converted after working closely with a Reconstructionist rabbi who held closely to traditional practice but interpreted that faith within a liberal theology. My partner David, who grew up Reform (a tradition which emphasizes more liberal practice but more conventional faith), soon adjusted to both my requests for more orthodox ritual and more "discussion" about what we actually believed--that is, what we really didn't believe.

*  *  *

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a holiday when we are asked to consider what we have done right for the world this year, what we have not done right, and how we want to do better in the upcoming year. This is a holiday ripe for a humanist interpretation. Although I became uncomfortable in any synagogue's religious HiHo service, I have always felt great power in the broad call which Rosh Hashanah sounds--for reconciliation with one's loved ones, with the world community at large, and with oneself.

Yom Kippur, though, is one of those holidays that really does not make sense in that kind of metaphorical way--at least for me. The message is that after you get right with the rest of the world during Rosh Hashanah, you get right with God during Yom Kippur. Because Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are in many ways really only one holiday (or at least one season of thought), my discomfort with the second commemoration has made me uncomfortable by default with the whole damn month.

*  *  *

This year is the first time my whole family has decided that all of us would not attend formal services at our old synagogue--or anywhere else.  We decided instead to spend the day in the world: in nature, and with each other in conversation..

We went to a nature preserve on the Delmarva peninsula--a place where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic ocean.

We took a picnic of leftovers from our evening feast in our favorite picnic ware.



It was lovely sitting on the sand, having long and quiet conversations--some related to the holiday, and some unrelated.

David and I watched our son slowly make his way into the water. Although we had dressed for a chilly day, the sun made the day quite inviting.





As the day began to come to a close, we celebrated tashlikh, a ritual where one tosses breadcrumbs into moving water, symbolically casting one's sins away. Acknowledging our misdeeds is an important part of the High Holidays, but equally important is getting past those imperfections and creating a clean slate for the creation of our better selves.

For years we have tossed our breadcrumbs into a stream running near our house. This is the first time we've gone to the ocean.



It is somewhat disconcerting to have your sins come back to you, as the waves return the crumbs to their starting place.

It is even more disconcerting to have the seagulls eat the crumbs. Does them make them ScapeGulls?

Come to the Table

We had an unorthodox and delicious celebration of Rosh Hashanah on Friday evening. After our son blew the shofar, we came inside to a beautiful table to enjoy the traditional apples and honey...



...homemade challah--this time with dried cranberries and walnuts, twisted into a round instead of a braid to acknowledge the round-and-round turning of the earth...



...and an incredible dish from that sexiest of cookbooks, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook:



This dish is Moroccan Lamb, Quince, and Baby Okra Tagine on page 224. (You don't think of okra as sexy? Well, try this dish...) Although our okra we really not babies anymore, it was still a wonderful dish. Joining the lamb shoulder and okra are melting red onions, gently-roasted garlic, ginger,paprika and cumin, fresh parsley and cilantro, a little hot pepper, and just a bit of tomato. Served with it are glistening quinces--which we substituted with comice pears since quinces are not yet in season here--slightly candied with butter, cinnamon, and a wee bit of sugar. We chose to serve it over couscous. Incredible!

This cookbook is full of recipes that make my mouth water. How about Lamb Shanks with Almond-Chocolate Picada? Tuscan Quail with Red Grape Sauce? Duck Breast with Chantarelles, Dried Apricots, and Almonds?

I think it is time to start cooking the next feast!

Make of Our Lives What We Will

"This [Rosh Hashanah] provides not just an opportunity for individual renewal and reconciliation, but for families, communities and even nations to heal old divisions, seek new understandings, and come together to build a better world for our children and grandchildren.

"At the dawn of this New Year, let us rededicate ourselves to that work. Let us reject the impulse to harden ourselves to others’ suffering, and instead make a habit of empathy – of recognizing ourselves in each other and extending our compassion to those in need."



Wishing everyone a sweet new year full of peace, justice, and learning!

Getting Crafty

Walking through the craft booths at the community folk music festival this weekend was inspiring, as it is every year.

Beautiful pottery is always hard to resist.



I love this salt-versus-pepper chess board:



We grew some larger gourds a few years ago and still have them in our basement, waiting to turn into birdhouses. I wonder if we could decorate them this beautifully?



It wouldn't be Takoma Park ("the Berkeley of the East") without some tie-dye:

SET!

My in-laws have been visiting us for the past week. Last night we said our goodbyes and they are now on the train to their home in Florida. It was a long week--full of adventures on occasion, but also a restructuring of our days because of their physical and emotional limitations. Keeping up with an active ten-year-old boy can exhaust anybody!

Days of rain also kept us indoors more than we would like--but a stash of favorite games kept us entertained. Fundamentally, I am not much of a game person. I don't like games based primarily on luck, and I don't like those that stress competition or the importance of winning. When the two combined, I am likely to whine quite a bit.

One game I really love, though, is SET. The object of the game is to identify sets of three cards. Each card has four features: color (red, green or blue/purple), symbol (diamond, squiggle or oval), shading (solid, striped or open), and number (1, 2 or 3). A "set" consists of three cards on which each feature is either the same on all of the cards, or different on all of the cards. For example, you could have a set with 3 cards where all are red, all are squiggles, there is one of each type of shading, and there is one of each number.



What games do you play with your family? We'd love to be introduced to some new ones!

We had a lovely evening Saturday at our CSA's celebration dinner and silent auction. Red Wiggler is an incredible place--where gorgeous organic vegetables are grown by growers with developemental disabilities. Check out their website for more details on their mission.



My family donated a tiny jar of our dandelion jelly--which sold for $23! I also donated a lace shawl I knit with hemp yarn. It was lovely getting to meet the woman who bought it. She is a knitter herself!

There were so many wonderful items up for bid. Someone had donated a very cute Baby Surprise sweater with adorable buttons in the shape of farm animals. There were handmade aprons, babysitting services, an incredible restored dollhouse, bottles of honey made on-site, a green cleaning basket, handmade jewelry, and quilts for raffle.





A gorgeous pottery vase called my name. A Halloween-costume development consult called my son's name. My mother-in-law bid on an antique doll, which she was very pleased to win. Although we bid on many things, we left with some handrolled beeswax candles and a coupon for a weekend in Berkeley Springs, a nearby town with hot springs. I'm dreaming of a healing escape sometime in the late winter....

Rainy Day

I woke up this morning to steady rain, very cool temperatures, and trees bending lightly in the wind. Our 10yo son is still in bed, trying to sleep off the dregs of a cold. The house is so quiet and calm this morning, unlike the running-around-with-our-heads-cut-off that we were all doing yesterday.

Here I am, ready to make whole-wheat muffins and sweet black tea, pull out my
knitting, and spend an hour or so sitting in our barely-lighted living room remembering that morning a few years ago where the sun was shining brightly, the air was crisp, and the world changed.

Life, Up Close

* * *

Anybody know what this one is exactly?

Fermenting Revolution

This weekend, some of our neighbors put on a backyard show. Rather than being a circus or a community play, it was a fermentation festival--complete with tastings and demonstrations.



The "fermaments" were incredible--crisp and flavorful (unlike the mushy fermented vegetables that came out of my first attempt at making sauerkraut).



Not everyone realizes that homebrewing is the same basic process--but thank goodness it is, because that fact let us have beer with our sauerkraut:



There were other beverages, including pomegranate kefir, coconut water kefir, kombucha, and even a demonstration of making sake:



This is definitely on our to-try list, along with making mead.

My favorite demonstration was of speed-slicing cabbage using a kraut board and a protective kitchen glove (filled with metal meshing to prevent cuts):



and then smooshing that cabbage for ten minutes to make sauerkraut:



The lovely, sharp taste of the crunchy vegetables--along with the fabulous company-- made this an inspiring afternoon.

birthdays and fairies

When we found these long, sparkly gold lame gloves at an antique/thrift store in North Carolina, we immediately thought of our young fairy-obsessed friend Z., about to turn eight years old.

Our 10yo son wrote an incredibly sweet birthday story for her,  We then figured out how to print it out as a little booklet and bind it with a simple 3-hole tie bind.  (If anyone is interested, we might be able to put together a tutorial.)







The birthday girl enjoyed her presents very much, but perhaps not as much as my son did putting them together!

Playing Together

We have been spending a lot of this holiday weekend outside, with old friends and new. We've been to parties, meetings, festivals, and celebrations.

In one backyard, the hosts set up a children's tent, complete with vegetable print supplies. I was especially taken with the beautiful markings made by rolling corn cobs:



Our son was fascinated watching the eldest daughter of the house trying out her stilts...



...so he tried it himself!

The Joy of Anagrams

Carol, aka Or Miracle, turned me on to an online anagram generator.

Mine is JOY! HA! HEN 'N' RAN. This certainly says something about my life. (Obviously, I could be happy if only I could keep chickens. But they are always so eager to run away, as am I.)

And yikes: my 10yo son is ENJOY SMEARY BEER.

My husband's anagram, interestingly, is VARY MISDEED. No comment.

Try it out yourself, and please let me know your results!

Inspired Lunch

It was just about time for a little bite to eat when I ran across Erin's elegant meal over at her blog New at the Market.  Her lunch, as she hints, brought an echo of travels, of luxury, and of simplicity all wrapped together.

Although our refrigerator is still quite bare following our time out of town, I still managed to put together a variation of her composed plate:



There are steamed yellow beans with a spoonful of olive tapenade on them, a still-warm boiled egg sprinkled with pepper, green zebra tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, and steamed new potatoes tossed with lemon verbena and butter.

The tapenade was store-bought, the cherry tomatoes and lemon verbena are home-grown, the eggs and butter from a local Amish farm, and the beans and potatoes from our CSA.

Just looking at the plate made me feel calm and sophisticated.  Thanks, Erin!

Violin

My young violin player is reunited with his instrument!

We packed his fiddle very carefully into the trunk of our car as we started our drive to the mountain cabin for vacation. When we arrived, we found this:



Apparently, keeping a violin in the trunk of a hot car can dissolve the glue and make the neck crack. It can even do damage much worse. From now on, we'll always keep the violin in the passenger compartment.

When we returned home, we took the violin in to be fixed. $150 later, we have joy and music in the house again!