Eating Superbly Well

Shawn and I share a love of cooking...and of eating. We get a bit competitive in the kitchen, especially because we have differing styles when it comes to crafting dishes. Shawn finds a recipe and follows it exactly, and by some magic (good taste and intuition), what he makes almost always turns out world-class. I take a look at what ingredients I have sitting around and throw them together in impromptu creations--dark chocolate walnut cranberry coconut muffins, bok choy tofu udon soup, etc. When we have people over for dinner, we work on our separate dishes, and to my seething chagrin, Shawn's dishes seem to get the best accolades. "These fried plantains and this Caribbean rice is great. But what Shawn made, the Puerto Rican fish stew, that...that was like something a chef would make. That was amazing. I'll never forget that. That's the best thing I've had in a very long time."

Yes, precision and good taste are Shawn's strengths. Fearless adventure is mine. I'm not a baker--all those measurements?! When I read "sift," to me that says, "scoop loosely; don't pack." For Shawn, "sift" means "go to the store, buy a flour sifter, and painstakingly sift until my thumb cramps up."

Now that we're deep into fall, I'm in all my farmer's market glory--buying gnarled varieties of squash, selecting new heirloom apples to try, on quests for the perfect purple bell pepper, lugging Canary melons under one arm, and collecting "dragon apples" (heirloom tomatoes--the weirder-looking, the better!) as if they were gems. This may be the one season where Shawn cannot outshine me...and he dare not even try to match my pumpkin-selectin' and pureein' skills...in my homemade pumpkin pie, mulled wine, and spiced cider, I have absolute confidence--yes, Sept and Oct are my favorite "food months" of the year.

I've branched out these past couple years, however, due to Eating Well Magazine. Thanks to these good folks, I've actually come to enjoy collecting and treasuring recipes. While all of their recipes seem to be online, I still find it well-worth it to subscribe to their print magazine, with its sumptious photos, aesthetically-pleasing layout, and informative ecological articles. I like how their recipes are both meat- and vegetarian-friendly, which has really bridged the gap between me and my carnivorous friends/family at dinner gatherings. And, ingredients that I never bought before, I now look for every time they're in season--asparagus, brussels sprouts, watercress...so here is an ode to our top 10 Eating Well recipes, which are guaranteed to make you like such daunting ingredients as Savoy cabbage and fennel. They range from simple sides to more ambitious entrees...all striking in their celebration of the fine things earth has to offer :)

My Top 10 Eating Well Recipes:

1. Puerto Rican Fish Stew (There's really nothing you can do to make this one vegetarian, so this is a great option for pescetarians who have meat-eaters over for dinner--THE singlemost best recipe ever. Serve with fried plantains and Caribbean rice)

2. Shrimp Tamale Casserole with Three Sisters Black Mole (The mole really makes this one, but pesco-friendly tamales are always a treat. Pure vegetarians could subsitute roasted veggies for shrimp)

3. Gnocchi with Tomatoes, Pancetta & Wilted Watercress (Vegetarians, substitute veggie bacon for pancetta. Cook separately and add last, since adding early to the dish will just impart more salt, and the flavor of the veggie bacon will be cooked out)

4. Asparagus Soup (Vegan if veggie broth is substituted for chicken broth)

5. Creamy Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts & Mushrooms (This one made me like brussels sprouts, which I now can enjoy cooked up in just some sherry and served with some parmesan on top)

6. Tuscan Cabbage & Mushrooms (Vegetarians substitute veggie bacon for pancetta, and veggie broth for chicken broth)

7. Asparagus with Curry Butter (This is so easy that's it's become our fav way to cook up fresh asparagus)

8. Spaghetti Squash & Pork Stir-Fry (Vegetarians substitute veggie chicken strips for pork)

9. Roasted Squash & Fennel with Thyme (Vegan)

10. Blue Cheese-Walnut Green Beans (an early summer fav way to cook all those green beans you bought at the farmer's market)

Eat well and prosper!

Alternative Dimension: Time's Tea Party

Last year I heard a woman share a story about her joy at watching her daughter play. Her daughter was in the backyard, setting up an imaginary tea party and unbeknownst to the child, her mother casually kept an eye on her from an upstairs window. After a time, the mother called the daughter in to help set the dinner table, but the memory of her daughter's idyllic tea party stayed with her. She believed that was how God must feel when he sees his children--all of us--at play. Just like a good parent gives the child time for play and time for responsibilities, so God gives us time for play and work as well.

But how many of us adults really take time for play? And of that time, how much of it is spent with unabashed joy and gratitude? How much of it is instead pre-scheduled and structured, more of an appointed obligation with either a hidden purpose or agenda, a "to-do" or "should-do?" How much of it is spent self-consciously and guiltily, instead of with exuberant creativity and imagination, with appreciation for creation?

Most of us today see time as an enemy, not as a gift. We live in opposition to time instead of in harmony with it; we try to stay ahead of it instead of living alongside it. We over-book and hyper-schedule in an attempt to "get ahead" or "stay on top of," all of which results in barely keeping our heads above water.

Many drown in the sea of time instead of floating on its surface, buffeted and overwhelmed by waves and currents--and a drowning person does not have the perspective to see the shore or the horizon. We feel that we should constantly strive to beat out the competition--but won't there always be sales to take advantage of, friends to be made, and money to be earned? Do we truly believe that if we don't get what we want today, we never will? And if so, what does this say about things of eternal value vs the things of this world--status, money, material--that we should not be measuring our life's worth by anyway?

Even if we see finite time as a curse to mankind, I still believe that God wants to take any evil thing that befalls us and turn it to good. Therefore, even if we see finite time as our enemy, we still must see it turned into a gift from God. Yes, time on earth leads us to a bodily death, but if Christians believe death leads to eternal life, can we not look a bit more kindly on time?

What if we see time as a banquet set before us? Is time a bowl of candy to be devoured--rotting us from the inside out, making us crave more until we're sick and unsatisfied? Is a bowl of gruel, sullenly ate without joy, nothing inspiring us to continue partaking but solely getting to the end and being done with it? Or is it a spread as varied as creation itself, with nearly endless possibilities and choices?

I personally think sitting at God's banquet includes an optional tea party. The courses at God's table can fortify and inspire gratitude and wonder in us, or can (if we choose) lead us to excess and greed, or can even lead us into joyless denial and pointless sacrifice. But what about what just is? What purpose does sitting down to tea serve? None, nutritionally. It's purpose exists in really having no purpose--in letting time just be, in taking a break from the other cares, pursuits, and agendas of the world.

Metal Bands: The Terrible Tale of...The Ring

I'm currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1 in the Lord of the Rings series. The tale (at least as it's interpreted in the movies) has come to have special meaning to me, as I hope to post about later in my HLHS blog. That post will probably portray our marriage in a glowing light. However, I realized today that my marriage has also come undone by a ring's seductive power. As much as I admire the fiercely loyal Sam and puely resolute Frodo, we have a long way to go before we can say we aren't corrupted by the shiny power of a metal band. Hopefully esposo is not reading my little blog, but if he is, he can take solace in the fact the this sordid tale will probably cast him in a better light than it will me!

Esposo and I rarely fight. Sure, we disagree sometimes, but we usually work it out through discussion. I had a friend tell me a couple years ago that couples who don't fight have unhealthy marriages. Said friend is now divorced.

Yet, there are times in any marriage where one person (or both) feels like they aren't always listened to. You know, spouse asks you for advice/help and you comply...and they proceed to do the opposite of your recommendation and expect you to resolve the ensuing catastrophe. And you say, "if you had just listened to me...."

It's pretty easy to not listen to me all the time though, as I talk a lot, and we're new parents so there's usually a 1-year old babbling or screeching at the same time. Or, a 1-year old that we're trying not to wake up with barely audible whispers.

Another problem is that I hate hate hate surprises of any kind. There must be a secret control freak slumbering in the innermost core of my being, because I like to know the facts, and I like to know them ahead of time. No matter how "good" the surprise is, I would still rather be informed in advance. Esposo, on the other hand, likes sneaking behind my back and going on secret missions to fulfill quests that he hopes will please his loved ones. He can't stand it when I try to find out what my Christmas gifts are in advance, or when I want to give him his presents or birthday cards a couple days before his birthday so that he's not surprised the day of. I cannot relate to those people who choose not to know the sex of their baby before labor, and a surpise party sounds like a special place reserved in one's own private hell.

The other problem is that I've had my heart set on a ring for a very long time. At our local jewelry store, I've admired it for a couple years. It is (was) a black pearl (my name means pearl) set on a very thin yellow gold band. "This," I thought, "is a thing of beauty, a special thing." Impregnating my mind with all sorts of symbolic meaning, I liked to think it was a matter of time before esposo would make a present of it.

For Himal's 1st birthday, esposo went behind my back and bought a ring to surprise me. But it was not the black pearl ring. On Himal's birthday, he strode into the room with a huge smile on my face and said "surprise!" handing me a jewely box. I thought, "could it be?!" I opened it, and inside was...a huge, ornately-carved white gold ring with all of our birthstones on it. Now, I have simple tastes, and I don't wear big jewelry. In fact, I hardly have any jewelry at all, especially the kind most people would refer to as "jewelry." Ok, I have none, other than my wedding ring. I don't like rings with a lot of height or width, and I especially do not like white gold. I figure, if you're going to buy gold, it should look like gold. Not to mention, my wedding ring is yellow gold, and I think it looks tacky to mix white and yellow gold on one's fingers.

I was so taken aback. I tried to pretend that I liked it, and that I was pleased about the surprise, but I wasn't. In fact, I felt miserable about it, and resentful. Esposo would ask everyday if I was going to wear the ring, and I'd go retrieve it and pretend I was proud to wear it. But it was huge, and heavy, and banged into everything, and hurt my hand, and got caught on everything. The colors were all wrong and moreover, I just felt like...it wasn't me.

Finally, after a week, I confessed that I did not like the ring and that I would probably never wear it. I then went to the jewelry store with the intent of begging the owner to let me exchange the ring, to put it towards the black pearl ring I really wanted. When I got the store, the black pearl ring was...gone. 2 years of admiring, hoping, waiting...and suddenly it was gone.

I talked to the jewelry store owner about what I could do--explained to him that this ring would only bring me sorrow and that it was affecting my marriage. He finally agreed to let me exchange the ring for another--that is, he would put the stones in another setting. I finally chose a simple design, a much smaller, lighter ring.

It seemed like the end of story. Until the credit card bill arrived. Shockingly, esposo had spent a ton of money on this ill-fated piece of jewely. I don't know what came over me, but fury arose and I let loose all my feelings--that I was appalled he had made this big of a purchase without telling me, and that he had let me exchange a ring of such value for a ring that was maybe 1/3rd the price. I kicked myself for not keeping the original ring and just passing it down as a family heirloom. But most of all, I just felt anger that he hadn't listened to me. That he hadn't bought the ring I actually wanted--than he bought one of those mother's rings, which seemed so trite and unoriginal that it was unfathomable, an unimaginable stereotype. For his part, of course, he said that it was meant to be a gift, and that he was sorry. And I said I was sorry for not liking or appreciating it. But neither of us are really sorry--we're actually, deep down, sorry about what the other did.

So now the ring sits, burning a hole in my mind and jewelry box, just like Frodo's ring seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. A source of loathing or discontent, a source of intentions gone awry. Esposo says to just let it sit there, but in my mind, it will always be the ring I didn't want yet am forced to keep. How to make this situation right? Is this a big learning experience in our marriage--something we all go through, one of those incidents that will always be a legendary source of difference, like the spouse who unforgivably voted for Reagan that one time?! Or like the time, as a child, I was taken out for ice cream and witnessed the ice cream-throwin fight of a century because a husband committed the crime of buying his wife a dish of mint chocolate chip? One of those defining shockers that become the symbolic nexus for all the misunderstandings?

Maybe reading the LOTR series will be more cathartic than I ever imagined.

At Least

Looking down from heaven seems like a terrible burden for one little soul.
When I leave, I won't look back, ever.
I won't leave anything unsaid,
or at least unfelt.
I won't have any reason to look back--
when I leave, I'll be finished.
You don't have to worry about me watching what you're doing
or at least I'll turn away at the things you don't want me to see.
I might not even take any memory of you with me.
But at least I'll take the love with me
because it made me who I am.

In memory...9/11 victims.....

A Life Measured by Seasons--and Hummingbirds

We woke up early yesterday and took our coffee and paper out onto the deck for another peaceful Sunday morning. The crisp 55 degree weather awakened my senses to an early fall. All still looked like summer, and it still sounded like summer--the birds and crickets chirping, the rustling of creatures, the bloom of herbs and annuals. But the apples in the orchard behind us have become a magical red before I even realized it. Soon groups of deer will stop under the trees, gobbling in the early cold months, then pawing at frozen ground for leftovers closer to the year's end.

The seasons this year have caught me by surprise, and so have the hummingbirds. I missed the brief spring migration--the winter was long, and they migrated north before I could muster the courage put their feeders outside. I would have, though, if I had known their tiny bodies were braving such cold. This year as well, I didn't imagine they were migrating south already, but as we read our paper, we heard the immistakable sound of a prehistoric misquito approaching us. The female hummingbird took a tiny sip of the 3-month old sugar residue, then fled when she noticed us sitting a meter away. That got my ass in gear--yelling "hummingbird!" I dashed into the house to replenish the sugar supply.

It's easy to live a seasonal life here in Wisconsin, where we undeniably have four very distinct seasons. But it wasn't until we moved out of the city that I truly felt the seasons as more than just changes in weather. There's a new, comforting predictability in the apples turning red, in the barn owl's mid-summer hoot, in the creek roaring with spring's melted snow. These are events that cannot be written in advance on one's wall calendar--they just happen with the seasons.

I've come to believe that a life measured in years is too abstract--ironic, since we've numbered our days with set minutes and hours. What can we say of 2008? Of 2009? "It was a good year?" "That was the year we...?" What do those statements mean, after all?

I imagine, too, that having a young child makes one live seasonally all the more. After all, a 1-year old child has no concept of years. A newborn baby is almost unrecognizably a different being at 4, 6, 12 months old. It's stunning to think that the toddling, waving, laughing child was unable to even roll over or sit up earlier that year.

When I measure by seasons, life seems more manageable. The seasons offer their own comforts and promises, and I've come to appreciate them all. Winter is no longer just an undesirable part of the year to "get through." Winter now offers me the quiet of a fresh-snow morning, the spell of blue hours at dusk, time to rest with my family on long dark nights, the joy of making slow food such as chili, spiced cider, winter squash, and that good local favorite--WI beer-cheese soup.

Living seasonally helps me accept the natural ebb and flow of relationships, feelings, and lifestages as well. We need not be constant year-round. There are seasons of the mind, of marriage, of obligation, of thought, of friendship. There are seasons for questioning, for exploration, for accepting. There are seasons of family life--and being a wildly impatient person by nature, this helps me accept situations that are temporary but feel like they are permanent.

Eating seasonally has long been a part of my adult life--probably starting with the time I lived in Nepal, during which I observed an environment where people were much more attuned to the land. In the US, where most everything is now available year-round, there is opportunity every day to feast. Foods and meals that were once had in celebration no longer mark the seasons for many people. While I am grateful that I have year-round access to healthy vegetarian food, we buy from the farmer's markets when we can (I wish we had year-round farmer's markets in WI, but as far as I know, the only such one is in Madison), which covers most of spring well into late fall. I find that eating seasonal foods makes me more grateful for the seasonal cycle, and lends a special quality to the dishes themselves.

Living seasonally leads to a rather interesting phenomenon and that is...year-round gratitude for what God has created--the special gifts and possibilities the divine gives to humankind in all situations.

As it draws to an end, summer 2009 will go down as a "purple flower and bumble bee summer:" a summer of no surgeries or hospitalizations. A summer of long walks. A summer of friends and birthdays. A summer of reprieve.

Slavery Happened Here

For me, as a northerner, slavery seems distant to me. Of course, I know it happened not that long ago and I know it was horrific and that we see the modern evidence and effects of it, but it hits me in the same manner the Holocaust does: that it happened in another place and time. In fact, the Holocaust may seem even a bit more real to me, having had some in my family who actually survived the camps.

As a northerner, other things seem more real to me: inequality certainly is real to me. Segregation is very real to me. The fact that things weren't ever great for black folk in the north either is real to me. But the actual bondage? That doesn't seem as real. It didn't happen on the land I consider to be my home. My family never owned any slaves--almost all of them came to the US around the turn of the 20th century or after WWII, and the few that came earlier settled in the north woods of rural WI.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not an idiot. I know how every single white person in the US has received an unfair benefit or advantage due to slavery, even to this day. It's the slavery itself that seems so abstract in my mind--that while I know it happened, the tie that binds me to it seems indirect and indistinct.

I'm in KY this week and I've been down south several times before, including to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham and the civil rights marty's memorial and the capital building in Montgomery (which features a prominent portrait of old Governor Wallace). But these sites, too, reminded me more of social inequality than actual slavery (the two, of course, being irrevocably historically connected--but a connection going further back both chronologically and mentally than Jim Crow).

But yesterday on a hike at Mammoth Cave, of all places (not even deep South), the park ranger started talking about the history of slavery on the site--that slaves originally mined the saltpeter from the cave, built the tourist hotels, cooked the food, gave the early cave tours--all for free.

"Who were these slaves? Were these local people who had owned rights to the cave who'd brought them here?" I asked. Yes, the ranger explained to me. Local people who were living on the land discovered the profit to be had from the cave, and exploited it--both the natural resources and the human labor. There is a cemetary along the trail where some of the slaves are buried--most in unmarked graves but for one, who was given a headstone some years after his death by a European.

The unmarked graves astounded me. Why were they unmarked? The ranger said researchers have tried to find out who they were, but they have been unable to. And my first thought was, "well, then they obviously didn't try hard enough." But, of course, these researchers were professionals--is it possibly that these graves represented people whose names have actually been obliterated from human knowledge? What about their families? How is it possible that there isn't someone, somewhere, who has knowledge of who they were? Who might have records, even a diary? It is almost too hard for me to comprehend that no one in this world knows who they were.

It seems like the final injustice to a person's life and memory--an unmarked grave, and obviously it was intentional. A final degradation.

The ranger was white, and to hear her talking about it--I don't know, it just hit me. That on this very land--not just "here" in the US,--people were enslaved. That people were bought, sold, owned, inherited. That a few families reaped immense profit and luxury on the backs of the free labor of many--and I was actually standing on one of the very sites where it occurred, looking at the graves of the very people who acted out this chapter of history. And for those few moments, it felt more real than it ever has.

Feminism and Consumerism: Conjoined Twins?

Feminism is a complicated issue for me, and while I consider myself one on a fundamental level (ie, I believe that women and men are equally human and, as such, both deserving of their equal individual, political, and legal rights), I haven't always approved of what many in our culture consider to be feminism in practice.

Recently, however, I read The Way We Never Were: American Families and Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz, which finally clarified something for me. Namely, that it is once again consumerism that I disapprove of--and that consumerism has infected our idea of feminism to the point that it makes it hard for people (women? Can men be feminists too? I think they can--how many would admit to being such is another question) like me to identify with the current conceptualization of "feminism."

I should back up here and state that I do not believe feminism to be a set of actions to check off on some magic to-do list: going out and getting a degree does not make you a feminist. Not even becoming the first female president of the United States makes you a feminist. Feminism is also a lifestyle and a set of core values. Feminism should be ethical. To put it plainly, feminism is NOT just advancing yourself as a woman. It is not just pursuing your own personal ambitions. I believe this would be a male-centric value (please don't mistake me here--I'm not saying men are in any way bad or evil--I am classifying greater culture behaviors based on a male-centered culture--not on any individual male. I love men--heck, I'm married to one and have given birth to one! I have a great relationship with my dad and several of my good friends are males. I do not dislike men). If one is truly to call herself a feminist--that is, one who believes in the social, political, educational advancement of women--one helps to advance other women, and girls, and even boys and men--why? Because feminism revolves around equality and being fair.

I should also back up even further and say that I do not believe feminism revolves around imitating male behaviors and traits, ie, a reduction of womanhood to the practice of monkeying men. I suppose this would get me into some trouble with would-be critics (were anyone actually reading my little blog) because it could be interpreted as separate-but-equal ideology--and we all know to what extent that was a sham when it came to racial equality in the U.S. A closer analysis, however, would reveal that equality does not necessarily equal sameness. Just as we have diversity between people in the US when it comes to ethnicity, religion, and culture, we can have diversity when it comes to sexuality yet still have equality.

But the above two sticking points for me stem from the mixing of consumerist and feminist precepts--ie, that women should be as free as men to consume to their hearts' desires--not just in the domestic realm. That women should be equally free to pursue wealth and ideals of individuality--also a pillar of a consumer culture. Coontz brings up the point that ever-increasing fragmentation and hyper-individualism is the logical conclusion of consumerism. We see this in the fact that children are becoming "target audiences" at younger and younger ages--being told that they can best create their images through purchases. The idea that women "should" pursue a career and work right through child rearing is often pressed upon them not in order to make them into fulfilled, well-balanced individuals, but to make them into targets for products, images, and lifestyles--not just as individuals, but as moms as well, in order to give their children the "best" objects and amenities on the market.

This ideology strikes me amoral on several levels, not least of which is the fact, as Coontz points out, that working conditions, schedules, and locations are not female- or family-friendly. It's the "do it all" syndrome I addressed (on a societal level) a few posts back. Women are expected to be men in the workplace and this is actually the opposite of equality--it puts women at a disadvantage and on an unlevel playing field. But women, told that they can indeed be equal to men if they just work harder, sleep less, and be smarter, feel pressure to be "just as good if not better." All this--often, not always--to serve the almight bottom line, the household dollar, in a never-ending pursuit of "the next-best thing" and "keeping up with the Jonses."

Furthering the immoral cycle in my mind is the question, "what about the other best things?" You know, the ones like having a parent available to be there and raise you--one who's not stressed out and always rushing. A parent who helps you achieve your dreams and meet your needs, not the other way around. A parent who takes you to story time and the park during the day. A parent who listens, not hyper-schedules you to keep you busy. What about those other best things, like food that doesn't come out of a box, or being at home when you want to be, instead of shuttled off to a group situation all day? I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong to be a dual-earning couple, but what I am saying is that there's something to be said for the things money can't buy. Seriously, would my kid rather have a trip to Disney World, or would he rather have me or my husband fully engaged with him every day? Would he rather have a TV in his room to be sat in front of while I microwave dinner, or would he rather help me make dinner? Would he rather be taught discipline and values from institutions or from his parents? Would he rather be allowed to explore his individuality within the pace of everyday family life, or within the bounds of structured "creative" activities?

I believe consumerist societies, cultures, pursuits, and values ultimately lead nowhere, and are self-destructive. I guess I can feel more comfortable thinking of myself as a feminist now that I have more understanding of where "the movement" dead-ended. For awhile I was wondering, "how can I call myself a feminist if I'm a full-time mom?" But it wasn't feminism that I rejected when I opted to stay home with my son. It was consumerism. I refused to march off to something I didn't believe in under the guise of a corrupted, politically correct -ism. But that's just me. Do I think all dual-income couples with kids are pursuing a materialistic lifestyle? No--my point is that our culture has become locked into a cycle of individual pursuits and purchases, which Coontz shows is not necessarily conduicive to family or community life--or even marriage. I have a post-graduate career (or lack of one!) that I can put on hold, so I am lucky to be able to stay at home with my son for now. I can't possibly say all women should stay home from work when they have children--it's not practical or ethical , let alone feminist. But dads can opt to be full-time parents too...true feminism would approve.