Autumn Days: 10

Last week, we participated in a lantern walk with the Shining Star Waldorf play group. The walk took place at 5:30, when it is nearly completely dark in this northern corner of the planet. There is a particular significance to the festival in the Christian Waldorf tradition, but, for me, it was about Stormy, holding a little lantern for her and for the light she gave us for 12 years. I carved a couple of holes into turnips that were going to go bad in my kitchen, put a votive candle inside each of them, and made a handle. The candles would not stay lit and neither Norah or Harvey would hold their lantern. We left the walk half way through it--literally bolted for our car, frozen and hungry. A nice idea...

Corners of My Home

I think this is one of my favorite spots in our house right now. I like the mustard color of the walls; the plum prints we got in Holland at the Rummikub competition remind me of my grandmother; and the grey nightstand (a grossly overpriced purchase from Anthropologie), even though my love of it is somewhat depreciated by Brian's complaints about its price, can make me smile when I am sad. I try to keep flowers in this corners, but flowers die around me, no matter how hard I try.

Return to Blogland

Because of some sadness in the family, I took last week off from blogging and filled my nights with endless hours of movies in order to dull the pain. One of the movies delivered to my doorstep by Netflix (why, oh why, did I wait so long to join up? Netflix just might be the answer to all of my problems or, at least, the treatment for all of my problems) was How to Cook Your Life. Edward Espe Brown, who I believe is a Buddhist monk and runs a Zen Center, takes his viewers into one of his cooking classes (amongst many other things). What he does with the food, how he talks about bread, vegetables, kitchen tools, all of it is inspiring and new to me. I do not know much about religion, much less about Eastern religions like Buddhism, but he speaks a great deal about being in the moment, about really chopping carrots when you are chopping carrots. All of this for him reminds him to respect the food he eats. I tried this in the kitchen tonight--tried to let the kids get involved a little more instead of just rushing through the dinner preparations, I am not so good at it yet, but I am going to keep plugging away...

Autumn Days: 9

I posted earlier this week about the green tomatoes that this fall season in the northwest yielded. Here is the last of them--fried up this week with eggs, flour, salt, and oil. Yum--very little left of the green tomatoes, but very yummy nonetheless.

Rocking

I had a moment with Harvey this evening, a nice one, a really beautiful one. It was bedtime, and these moments with Harvey do not generally fall into the category of "nice." As usual, upon my pronouncing "nigh-nigh time," he threw his head back in protest flinging his whole body vertical with the floor. Experience has taught me to hold my arm out to catch him mid-fling. This was a particularly powerful fling and the yells that followed were also on the louder end of average. I persisted in my goal though to get one child in bed, knowing that my quiet time or, in tonight's case, my time to watch the election coverage, would soon follow. He protested all the way to the rocking chair and then quieted almost immediately when I sat down and began to rock. And then he nestled in, and the rocking chair which needs oiling badly, creaked and rocked and creaked and rocked, his breathing settled and so did mine. And then, strange as it sounds, I felt like a fifty something (or sixty something) year old me was in the room watching us. Breathing in and out with me. Feeling the softness of this (our) baby's skin. Standing there with warmth and coolness with longing and with love. Right there in the room with me and Harvey and the rocking.

Sustainable Living

I attended a workshop on "sustainable" living on a budget this evening in Portland. Not sure what I thought it would entail exactly but I knew I would be interested in it. And I was. The workshop host covered a wide variety of topics--how to eliminate plastics in your kitchen, how and why to grind your own grains (and even how to make your own flour), why to avoid major box stores and chains (Starbucks, in particular, OUCH! hmmm.... I prefer to stay blissfully ignorant on that one), how to avoid packaging by buying bulk, etc... Much of it I was already familiar with--Nina Plank's book Real Food opened my eyes wide to these issues a year ago. But some of it was unfamiliar and some of it just needed to be reinforced in my brain.
I am still very new to this anti-consumerist world. After all, I was raised in Texas where my entire weekend entertainment consisted of consuming. We could hit three or four malls in a weekend and still have more to buy. And, I get some comfort (albeit short term) in retail therapy. So, I am trying to take things pretty gradually--so gradually that I will never get to that last item on the list--kicking my Starbucks habit. In all seriousness though, there are some things that I want to change (and need to change) like purifying our home, eliminating plastics, gardening, composting, etc.. and there are some things that I just do not want to change. Clothes, for instance. I love beautiful clothes and I get a tremendous amount of joy out of wearing them (of course, most of my life is lived in sweats these days, but STILL). And really, I am ok with this Brian, too, will never take public transportation. One of those things that won't change. We are on this journey together though, finding our way, fumbling around, deciding on what is right for us.

Green Tomatoes

When we moved to Portland in July, I put a couple of tomato plants in the ground--one that I bought at Whole Foods and another fledgling one given to me by some generous gardeners at a fair in July. In New Jersey where tomatoes ripen in August, these plants would have had to be in the ground before July. Not here though. I was told by a butcher that tomato season can extend even into November if the weather is ripe. Well... I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for these little fruits to redden and, sadly, I just don't think it is going to happen this year. So, what to do now?
I was listening The Splendid Table last night and got some ideas that did not involve frying them (although I am not at all opposed to fried green tomatoes--might even make some this week). At the market, I bought some riccotta cheese, mixed that up with some browned onions and garlic, added the tomatoes, and squeezed some lemon over the whole thing. The end result was not the extravaganza that I was hoping for, but it was a nice, light post-summery dish. Something I may make again.