Let them eat toast

March 5, 2013 By

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I’m always annoyed when the host of a cooking show tastes her food at the end of the episode, rolling her eyes back in ecstasy.  Not only does she magically create beef rolls, arugula salad, and a pear tart in under twenty minutes, but then she brags on herself.  “Oh my gosh,” she says into the camera.  “This is so good.  Seriously.”  Her hair is all blown out and she wears a size two but she takes a glorious bite of something with a face full of Chanel make-up.  Honestly, it does look amazing, and if she says it’s the best pizza ever it must be.  But I am at home at 4 pm staring into my refrigerator, wearing sweatpants and my daughter’s vanilla cupcake lip smackers with not a stitch of real adult make-up on.  I glance back at the television and see this beautiful person still standing, doing all kinds of lovely dicing and chopping, and I watch in a trance as her curls are still in place.  The cabinets are white and all the dishes are white and she never seems to run out of spoons.

But meanwhile, back in real life, dinner happens.  While I desire to produce homemade chicken stock on a Tuesday afternoon, or make stuffed peppers with a side of beet salad, serving it to grateful children who ask for a double helping of roasted squash, I end up making scrambled eggs with cheese. The little song I made up about it being breakfast for dinner! (it comes with a dance) is so overused and nobody likes wheat toast anyway.  So it’s milk with no chocolate, eggs before ice cream, and please sit down at the table because we aren’t wild animals eating our kill.  Which ends up in a rendition of accurate wolf howling and a discussion of how much we all hate eggs and me bemoaning the fact that I could only find two spoons.  My daughter shrugs like she is completely unaware that there is Lenox silverware hidden in the garden being used as tiny shovels for the dirt-fairy nymphs.

Where is my make-up artist? Where is my blow-out? Why are my children so resistant to toast, I’d just like to know?

One of these days, someone will create a real cooking show, where the chef runs out of time and keeps getting interrupted by a toddler trying to climb the cabinets to get into the shelf for old Valentine’s Candy.  You’ll see her start to sweat because she’s embarrassed about her child’s behavior and ends up using baking soda instead of cornstarch or throws in way too much salt.  Then at the end of the show, when she can’t quite make it to the pear tart because her son keeps trying to grab power bars from the pantry to curb his imminent starvation, she tries to cover for herself and says that you can just eat a whole piece of fruit for dessert like she planned it all along.  But no one believes her because come on.  No one wants a stupid pear.

At the end, she’s supposed to taste what she made. While she’s lifting the spoon to her mouth she slips on the dog’s water (who sloshed it all over the tile? I swear) and her daughter walks in and grabs a bruschetta from the presentation dish.  “Oh my gosh,” her daughter says into the camera.  “This is the nastiest thing I’ve ever had.  Seriously.  Don’t ever make this again.  I’m going to Shelly’s to eat macaroni and cheese.”  Then the poor little chef cries and gives her toddler an old piece of candy after all and we see her sneaking a beer in a red Dixie cup.

I’d be like YES!  I love this show!  I’m a huge fan!  You managed to make a crappy version of stir fry, sure.  But look at that salad! That’s good!  And you tried so hard, and you didn’t totally lose it with that dog water spillage thing, which is so impressive and shows how calm you were under pressure.  So what that your daughter didn’t like bruschetta?  She wears hot pink shirts and eats macaroni with powder sauce, so her credibility is nil.   It’s cool.  I’ll send you a recipe using a can of soup, some Ro-Tel, and some crumbled up chips and we can all feel like normal people.  Then I’ll go skipping off to the garden to find all my spoons and thank the stars that I’m not alone.

NBC, take note.   One of these days, just allow the chef to say what’s she’s actually thinking, which is “please don’t eat this.  I just tasted it, and honestly it tastes exactly like cardboard because it’s only pasta and peas with unsalted butter.  Next time I’ll find a sauce or a cream or something.  Really.  Trust me on this.”   I would.  I so totally would.

Let’s face it.  Despite our best intentions, you just sometimes have to eat toast.  Put butter and salt on it if you wish and call it garlic bread.  Add a song about how toast rhymes with roast and how the ghost gets the most.  Then forgive yourself for having breakfast for dinner, or the fact that you gave your kid candy, and that you have been wearing work-out gear for three days with no Chanel in sight.   Honestly, your kids don’t care.  They’re too busy eating to notice.

photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruocaled/6148667409/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Filed Under: Cooking, Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

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Eat Your Peas

December 14, 2012 By
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“Eat your peas,” I tell my kids as a plate of lukewarm food sits in front of them. “They’re good for you.  And delicious.”  But no one really thinks peas are delicious.  They are just placeholders, something I opened from a can to fill space.

“But they are cold,” my daughter pouts.  “And you know very well that I don’t like peas.”  The fact that my daughter says things like “you know very well” and “if you don’t mind, I’d rather be excused” and in her free time dreams up song lyrics and imaginary worlds full of sparkles and iron gates with swirls – this alone I should cherish.  And yet all I want is for her to eat her peas because bath time is coming up on the evening schedule.  I toss away the remains of dinner to avoid a fight and allow her to eat applesauce against my better judgment.

I sigh at the waiting times.  I watch peas roll into the trash after dinner and I think to myself – what a waste.  I can’t see joy or light or give thanks and all I want is for bedtime to come so both kids are protected and safe. Sometimes it’s hard to sit through the raw edges of empty life spaces.  It is hard to be grateful for routine, mundane, headache-laden days. My head hurts and my soul hurts and this big world is full of heart-voids that I run around trying to plug up with duct tape, the edges frayed and worn.

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27:14 

I hate waiting.  The very definition of wait is to remain or rest in expectation. But another definition is to delay, or remain temporarily neglected, like “the vacation we planned for years will just have to wait.”  I can’t just remain at rest with anticipation. I’m not good in this space. I don’t have skills that others have to tolerate it, and I start to get anxious and nervous and pace around like a crazy person. When will it get here?  How can I fix it? Is there a way I can hurry up this process?  Eat your peas already! It reflects so loudly my own anxiousness.  What am I afraid of?  Why am I not able to accept things that I cannot change?

Wait on the Lord.  In everything, give thanks.  It’s a refrain that repeats like an annoying Christmas tune I can’t stop humming.  Yes, yes.  Thanks for children and a home and health and all that business.  Lists and lists of joyful things.  Someday my prince will come and life will turn up roses and patience is a virtue. Jesus gave thanks and Ann Voskamp gives thanks and everything is filled with joy and thanksgiving and waiting for the child to be born under a shining star.  Blogs and books and little plaques with words.  Give thanks!  Find joy!  Tis the season!

And yet life is so full of hurt that it’s painful to sit down on all the tacks.  In my own life, I’m so focused on damage that I can’t keep enough duct tape around, constantly plugging and ripping and mending holes.  Then I pace around and bite my nails to make the time go by faster.  Bath time is a comin, kids.  Let’s get this dinner thing wrapped up.  I guess I don’t trust God’s big enough, or strong enough, to patch me.

And yet God is big enough.  He is powerful enough.  I don’t need to be in charge this time.  I stand up, red and blotchy from the tape marks, and begin to laugh.  Through my tear-stained eyes I laugh and dance to Taylor Swift with my sweet little girl and suddenly find myself offering a thousand little thanks.

Thank you dear Father, for this Christ child, who was half-man and half-God.  Thank you for peas and curling irons and children with big thinking brains.  Thank you for the ability to walk and write and drink clean water. Thank you for love.  Thank you for my warrior friends who pick up my deadweight and carry it on their backs until I can stand again.  Thank you for messages woven throughout the world in signs and emails and articles and dreams.  Thank you for the bible, that instructs me when I need an operating manual.  Thank you for never-ending grace that washes me clean.

The next time we eat peas, it will be a conscious act.  I will buy them split and simmer them with ham and garlic and sautéed vegetables.  I will spoon them in between my hungry lips and I will be grateful for their warm, comforting saltiness.  There is even hope for peas.

Sometimes it’s hard to wait in periods of stillness.  It’s hard to give thanks in those times.  That’s okay.  Keep telling yourself it’s wise and true, so that when your eyes are opened, you can see that angels were carrying you through the dark and warrior friends were shouldering so much of your heavy.  Then you will begin to smile again, and be thankful for God’s far-reaching mercies, and say thanks to the world and God and little green peas. There is no need for me to manipulate solutions and fix my own holes.

God’s bigger than you think.  Wait for him to do his work.  And in all things dance, and sing, and eat your peas.  Because they are delicious, after all. 

—

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haprog/4002891340/

Filed Under: Cooking, Inspirational, Love, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

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Give bran a chance

May 16, 2012 By

I’m not a huge fan of blogs that are only about cooking.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love to bake, and there’s nothing quite so enchanting as seeing a Nikon zoom into a bowl of flour and watching frame-by-frame as the butter is mixed in.  There goes the sugar.  Is that unbaked dough?  Are those hands molding it into the shape of bread? Riveting. But sometimes food is just so important that you need to talk about it.  Like bran muffins.  Let’s discuss.

Bran muffins are usually reserved for the advanced-in-age-crowd with intestinal blockages.  That little raisin-dotted hockey puck acts like a snowplow, dragging its cardboard-tasting self through your colon for a thorough Spring cleaning.  It’s the muffin that’s left at Starbucks after the others have gone. It’s the muffin at a conference room breakfast buffet that you pass up for the crappy plain bagel.  It’s unloved.

But fiber is good for all ages, and I just knew there was a bran muffin recipe out there that didn’t taste like wood shavings.  So I searched online and baked and adapted, and came up with the following.  I decided to rename these muffins “really tasty blueberry banana muffins,” considering the negative PR associated with bran.  It’s our little secret.

So in essence, you mix the ingredients below in a large bowl in no specific order, in between warming up your lukewarm coffee and changing diapers, and then spoon the chunky mess into muffin tins and bake at 375 degrees until they seem done. I promise – no pictures of my grungy hands dripping the batter into my beat-up muffin pans.  You can imagine.

Really Tasty Blueberry Banana Muffins

(Not bran.  Don’t call them bran or your family will rush out for donuts.  Stress the really tasty part.  Enunciate blueberry)

1 1/2 cups All-Bran buds (it looks like dog food, but it’s actually not)

1 cup buttermilk (this gives it a wonderful flavor)

1/3 cup vegetable oil (please don’t sub in applesauce. You’re making healthy bran muffins for crying out loud.  Live a little)

1 egg

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I just pour a splash in.  Use your judgment)

A few shakes of cinnamon

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 banana – all mashed up with a fork

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

You will be surprised at the looks on your family’s face when they eat them.  No one throws up.  No one says “I’ll have that cheese danish instead, thanks.”  There actually is no cheese danish offered, which makes that last part work out so well.

Finally – a bran muffin that’s worthy of love. You might eat so many you’ll send your husband to the grocery store for more toilet paper.  But whatever you do, don’t give up on healthy food.  Just tweak it and re-make it and rediscover ways to make boring things taste wonderful. Even if that means changing the name. Even if it means an extra tablespoon of sugar or nuts or berries.  Even if it means telling your kids it’s really tasty. Because it is. Trust me on this. Even your colon will thank you.

Filed Under: Cooking, Humor Tagged With: , , , ,

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Rising

April 10, 2012 By

Every Monday, I take off my wedding ring and pull my hair back in order to mix, pound, and watch bread rise through the dark oven door.  I always need to control something, and my two-year-old never listens.  So bread has become my new muse since leaving the corporate world.  Watch out, Julia.  Here I come with this hard crust and soft center business, all up in your junk about how Parisians do it best. So says the woman who used muffin mixes and bought canned biscuits.  I shudder now at the thought of my former self.

The old me wore heels and rushed off to the office, saying things like “well that’s a bifurcated approach” and “I hope we don’t bust our E&O deductible.”  I never used yeast packets except for holidays, and couldn’t understood why things never looked like magazine photos.  I was harried, and short-tempered, and wondered why my husband didn’t pitch in more with the kids.  I was juggling a career and a novel and small children and, well, I didn’t have time to wait hours for things to rise, for goodness sakes. I scratch my head at that woman now.  I pity her a bit, running around and around the wheel at a dizzying pace.

My life is simpler now.  I am settling into a new routine.  I complain less.  I sigh less.  I try to hug my children more.  But most of all, I’m grateful.

I used to think staying home was akin to bondage, where men secured all the power and the women were forced to perform menial tasks.  Who is John Galt? was framed on my desk, as if to remind myself to keep fighting against the machine. Stay-at-home mommies wrung their hands about potty training and play dates and had nothing interesting to talk about.  They wore flip-flops and gym shorts and all went to Starbucks after carpool talking about reality television.  I went to law school.  I defended the Federal Government.  I’m a fighter.  Women before me forged a rugged trail for me to blaze through.  Plus – it was good for my daughter to watch me working, so she could witness first-hand one who could do it all.  I could buy bread at the grocery store.  Right?  Anyone give me a hell yeah?

But one day, I quit running.  I realized that my life was out of balance, and I longed for peace.  So I quit my job, and bake day firmly settled over our house like a bad coat of dust. Maybe it was to fill the house with an aroma of warm wheat.  Maybe it was so my daughter had memories of always having fresh bread.  But when I really dig down deep, I think it was just my way of working things out.  To put my frustrations into tangible form.  I punched and kneaded and watched the first few batches bubble up or not rise at all and wondered how I’d make it in this new life.  But I kept trying.  There was always next Monday, after all.

I’m so very thankful these days.  I piddle around the house.  Sometimes I take a bubble bath after I drop off the kids.  I take long walks and pray for wisdom.  I make up songs with my daughter and let my son pick me flowers on a Tuesday afternoon. I used to laugh at those mothers.  I used to think they were crazy.   I was built for more than this, I thought.  While waiting for a new batch of bread to rise the other day, I took a walk in a wooded area around our house.  I heard the snort of a deer not ten feet away before she went running off at breakneck speed.  I laughed out loud, scared to death of a deer.  As it turns out, this is enough. I’m finally hitting my life’s stride.  I finally feel ready to stretch myself in ways I never did before.

I’ve learned that one has to feel bread dough to know whether it will turn out okay, regardless of what the recipe says.  You have to pat and form and squeeze it beneath your fingers.  You have to knead and pull and give it time to grow. To let the yeast mix with the warm water and sugar.  To rise.

Sometimes you just have to push the pause button and take it all in.  Long measured breaths.  One ingredient at a time.  Then, you’ll start to see how God is working all around you.  How he softly calls you to do something greater, and bigger, and more glorious.

A friend told me to cover my dough bowl with hot tea towels, which was an excellent tip, and I rub risen loaves with water to form a harder crust.  Just for looks, I sprinkle the top with oats.  I love every part of baking bread, from the smell of the yeast granules to the way the molasses runs down the heap of sticky dough like dark rivers, to the moment I pull it out of the oven and my family comes rushing over, asking for butter.

I am so grateful for this moment in time to walk slowly with my hands behind my back.  I am allowing my words and thoughts and the meditations of my heart to slowly expand, growing into myself with each passing day.  I am praying.  I am listening. I am rising.

Filed Under: Cooking, Health, Motherhood, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

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