Living...as Quiet as a Mouse

'Twas the night before Christmas...

and in the hotel kitchenette, my partner David was cleaning out the coffee maker. After removing the (disposable) filter full of used grounds, he looked around and said, "Hey--where's the compost bucket?"

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Happy Hanukkah!

May your windows and your hearts glow with light during this season.

Blackboard art by 9yo Son

Here Comes the Sun

Inspired by JessTrev, David and our 9yo son made a lovely bread to help us celebrate the Winter Solstice:



(Click on the picture for a full view.)

JessTrev includes the delicious bread recipe in her post. Check it out!

Son enjoyed making butter from scratch as well. We half-filled a pint jar with heavy cream, added a marble, and shook for about fifteen minutes.



The sun bread and the fresh butter seem to have done the trick. We woke this morning to watch the sun rise--and we're eagerly awaiting more light and more warmth to grace the coming days.

Ho, ho, ho!

Although our atheist-Jewish family does not celebrate Christmas, we have many friends who do--including this man, the farm manager at a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm:



I knit him the Santa hat from brilliant non-Christmas-oriented pattern for the Bearded Toque. (I think I am going to have to knit the regular one for a particular sometimes-bearded relative.)

I gave Bill the hat the day of a big dinner party. Many people tried it on that evening, and you can see some pictures of the various models here in a Flickr folder.

I'll include one shot of my favorite model (my 9yo son) showing off the hat here:



I hope all of you are having as much fun as I am preparing for upcoming holidays!

The Season of Giving

A day or two ago, I heard someone on the radio talk about volunteering to hand out sacks of groceries at a food bank, only to have the food run out long before the needy people did. The volunteer was profoundly moved when she faced the next person in line and had to tell her she would have to go home empty-handed. There was no more food for her to take home to her family.

Charities have been struggling during the economic crisis as more and more people need their services.

Interestingly, at the same time that so many people are suffering, many people are giving more than ever before. CONTINUED HERE

A New Me

?

I'm so sorry it has been so long since I've written. Sometimes I wonder if I'm ready to let go of this blog: to just live life, to post once a week (when I'm on schedule) at Green Phone Booth. I could read blogs again! I could read period again--books and the like!

I feel overwhelmed by the minimal demands of my day-to-day. Back when I was writing academic book after academic book, I had an excuse for not getting anything done. Now I don't. I sit at home watching my child grow up, watching my houseplants freeze in our cold home, watching the world go by, dreaming up new projects that I barely start because just bathing is enough for one day...

I feel guilty for not getting more done. I feel guilty for throwing away my Ivy League education, yada yada. I feel guilty for presenting a model my child probably has no idea he should feel pressured about. I feel guilty for presenting very few models other than a mother who blogs intermittently, knits obsessively, reads about the end of the world while sitting on the couch, and drinks red wine.

So yes, I am on vacation for a little while. More eventually.

Famine

courtesy of Lil Acorn Studio

Last spring I got very interested in foraging. My family took a hike through a local forest with a knowledgeable acquaintance who pointed out edible foods along our route. Our interest and confidence were both stoked by books such as The Forager's Harvest as well as the classic Stalking The Wild Asparagus.

What could be easier or more local than food that naturally grew in a place, with no labor from us?

During the early spring, my family collected quarts of dandelions and canned pints of delicious jelly. We picked purslane and sorrel which graced our stir-fries. And we eagerly awaited fall when we could collect acorns--and try everything from sugar-coated acorns to acorn-flour bread.

Last year, my young son and I collected zillions of acorns for art projects and pretending. We filled my backpack one afternoon as we waited for the bus, we picked them up on every walk, we heard their falls on our roof. Before I threw in a load of laundry, I had to pick acorns out of pockets.

But when was that, exactly? This year I waited, and waited. Still no acorns. Did we miss the season somehow?

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Already sick of leftovers...

Local Thanksgiving

Although on Thursday we attended a friend's Thanksgiving, on Friday we cooked our own meal--all local and some of it from our own backyard garden.

* * *

For several years, we've split our celebratory meal into two. This allows us to have a full menu, not starve in the early part of the day, and not get too extraordinarily stuffed at the end.

For lunch, we served a salad of our backyard-grown arugula, local feta seasoned with Herbes de Provence (found at the farmers market), and a homemade maple-mustard vinaigrette.



We completed our midday section with a thick and spicy pumpkin soup. After roasting the tan pumpkin for about 45 minutes, I scooped out the flesh and added it to some sauteed onions and apples that I had going in the soup pot. Then I threw in some some vegetable-peeling stock, a bit of cream, pureed hot peppers, and a pinch of non-local curry powder. A warming preparation for an afternoon of cooking.



* * *

Dinner was more elaborate.

We acquired the local turkey from our Amish dairy supplier and served it with all our favorite sides.



Using corn we grew and ground ourselves, I made a skillet of all-corn cornbread, then crumbled it up and added mushrooms, onions, and some of our own backyard mustard greens. Throw in a couple of eggs, a bit of turkey broth seasoned with sage and rosemary, and then bake in a casserole for about half and hour. Surprisingly delicious. I felt quite proud eating what we had nurtured from seed.

Our main vegetable was roasted Brussels sprouts--an all-time favorite around here. There is very little that is easier to make. Cut the orbs in half length-wise, toss them on a baking sheet with oil, salt, and pepper, then roast until brown and slightly crispy. I throw them in with whatever else I am cooking, so the temperature varies--but ideally, try something around 400 degrees.

Because we could not find local cranberries, we substituted a thrown-together relish: cherry preserves I canned over the summer with some farmers-market horseradish. It was the same combination of sweet and tart--but it reminded me more of Passover than it did of Thanksgiving...

We also served two of our pickles, both canned with produce we grew ourselves. The green beans were spicy and garlicy, while the lemon cukes were sweet and mild. Great combo.



We drank a bottle of white made by our county's own vineyard. A bit sweet, which went well with the turkey.

* * *

To end our local feast, we made a sweet potato pie with a whole-wheat crust, served it with maple whipped cream, and ate it in front of a lovely fire.



We all were satiated and slept very, very well.

Blocking Dragons

David has been knitting dragon scarves recently:

a dark green one for our 9yo son, and this purple one (temporarily modeled by our son) which we wrapped up and gave to a young purple-obsessed dragon fan.



What a funny little pattern! Watching my partner knit it was amusing as he juggled three needles in order to create the scales.

The scarf was quite a hit. My favorite part is the round metal eyes we found in the button collection--a leftover from a 1950s sweater, perhaps?

Thanksgiving

In a few minutes, we're off to the home of our close friends' parents' house where we will celebrate Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, we will cook our own local feast, but today we'll enjoy the company of a family who has adopted the three of us for many holidays over the past seven years. They live only an hour away--unlike our own families--and it always makes holidays special to have an extended clan of many generations surrounding us at times when we cannot be with our own parents and siblings.



This year, we're taking birthday presents to three of the members of this fall-birthday crowd. Two are celebrating their 40ths, and 1 just turned 7 years old. I love to wrap things up in reusable wrapping. This time I used silk scarves, all home-dyed play-cloths which my son used regularly for many years.

Listening

I've been thinking a great deal about the changing meaning of sustainability. Behaviors that used to seem weird or "hippie" now seem like wise financial moves. In this world of economic chaos, people are planting their own vegetable gardens and canning their extra produce, hopping on public transportation to commute to work, repairing equipment they might have simply replaced last year, and reducing the amount of purchasing they are doing as the holiday season approaches.

As Green Bean said in her post yesterday, "We are no longer hooked on shopping." Buy Nothing Day no longer seems so counter-cultural. Most of us just don't have that money burning holes through our pockets right now.

Many of us are new to a life of frugality. We don't yet have a fully satisfactory alternative in mind to the old American dream of acquisition. I've heard a remarkable number of people muttering about the "sad" or "empty" season of giving we are about to face.

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Why must we have such cold, dark days this time of year?

My 9yo son has been inspired by all my own frantic finishing to start his own project:



...a colorful hat, knit in the round.

Right now, though, he's put his needles down and is playing the piano, picking out the tune to "Up She Rises" and singing at the top of his lungs!

Our family has decided to kick off the Dark Days Challenge by making a local breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and sausage.



The eggs and sausage came from our Amish dairy source. Delicious, easy, and filling.

The pancakes were more complicated. Although the wheat was not grown locally, we bought it in bulk and ground it ourselves with a little human-powered grinder. (You can see which human we're talking about in that link.)



We then made a sourdough starter with that flour. The jar of starter lives on the counter of our very cold kitchen. We feed it regularly and when the half-gallon jar gets too full...



...we pull out a two cups of the starter, add sugar to taste (a tablespoon or two is our usual, depending on the cook) as well as three or four tablespoons of melted butter or oil. Throw in a pinch of salt. If the mixture seems too loose for pancakes, add enough flour to thicken it up a bit. If you like, stir in an egg, or some grated apple, or blueberries, or whatever. Then add a teaspoon of baking soda to the batter. You can dilute it in a tiny amount of water first or you can just pour it in. Stir it and let the batter foam for a moment as you heat up a skillet.

Remember those volcanoes we made in elementary school with baking soda and vinegar? These pancakes work on the same principle. The sourdough starter mixed with soda causes the release of gas which allows the pancakes to rise without baking powder.

The flavor is a bit different from "sweet" pancakes, but we think they are absolutely delicious with farmer's market maple syrup!

Feather and Fan

Over the last few days as I've been working my way through blocking all those shawls sitting in the corner, I've been knitting this lovely silk-and-mohair scarf with the classic feather and fan pattern:



I still have a few things left in my knitting basket to finish up before I cast on something new. However, I am getting my startitis out by facilitating my son's new knitting project: his first hat!

Prairie Shawl

Well, this is the last shawl I have left to be blocked. I finished it quite some time ago except for its bath and stretching:



This, the Heartland Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark, will be a present for a very young friend who loves to put on a prairie costume and bonnet. I thought she needed a shawl to go with her outfit!

Another finished blocking project...

I loved every minute of knitting this intricate Diamond Fantasy shawl, made from Shaefer Andrea silk yarn in the Emily Dickinson colorway. It will look beautiful on its future owner, a delicately-built woman who will look lovely in this color. Can't wait to see her wearing it!

Public and Private Acts

Last year I learned how important the farm bill was to the way this nation approaches the way we eat. Recently, I've been moved by various requests to have an organic vegetable garden on the White House Lawn. And now, I'm learning how important it is to work for a reasonable Secretary of Agriculture. We need to make food a national issue, not just a personal one.

But the way this nation thinks about food and the way we eat is at some level private. And it is easy to get overwhelmed and start believing that our personal choices make very little difference. Our personal decisions will not solve all the world's problems. We are going to need the large-scale governmental decisions--symbolic as well as real--to truly make a more sustainable society.

And yet... CONTINUED HERE