Come Fill the Cup

Bug and I are having this repetitive, back and forth conversation about winter. Somewhere along the line, he got it locked into his red little head that Winter begins on December 1st. Every day during the month of November, he would run to the calendar and announce how many "days remaining until Winter." Every day, I'd have to remind him that Winter officially begins December 21-22, not the December 1st. It probably doesn't matter, because when you're this age and in this part of the country, Winter really begins when it snows. And Breatharian, it has snowed...on December 1st. So Bug feels quite vindicated.

We even had our first activity canceled on account of snow. Pity. It was a church dinner and I made the Autumnal Beef Stew with some killer alterations...Campbell's Soup, look out! It didn't go to waste though; all of the Hobbits made short order of it. Even I managed to snag a bowl or two.

We've had our first weather-related power outage of the season. Almost in synch with Tool Guy's morning exit at 7:00a, I heard our neighbor's burglar alarm go off. Squinting in the direction of the clock, I was greeted with a darkened face. Yep. Power's out. Tool Guy had cleared a path to lug the generator up the hill, but with snow and ice since, it was a tricky proposition. Still, I managed. Welcome Winter...whatever the date!

BK--Before Kids--I was quite disciplined about my Christmas regimen. Thanksgiving Day, the tree went up. December 1st, cards went out. Gifting chores done way ahead of time. That kind of thing. Needless to say, this schedule as suffered the predations of time and the vicissitudes of motherhood. I was bemoaning the schedule for the next few weeks to another mom at our homeschooling co-op and how busy things were going to be. She placidly replied, "Only as busy as you let it be." Know what? She's right. I think I'm going to notch it down this year. More snow flurries are coming down and in celebration of winter, I'm making a great old standby that fills me with some of that magical, healing soup broth. Quick, easy, filling, nutritious, and most importantly for the chronically cold: warming!

Egg Drop Soup

1-2 quarts bone broth
2 cups bone broth, kept separate
2-4 T tapioca starch (depending on desired thickness)
2-4 eggs, scrambled with a fork
Pepper, optional

Tapioca starch is probably the best substitute I've found for cornstarch. So heat 2 cups of the broth just until liquid and dissolve the tapioca starch into the broth. The remaining broth bring to a rolling boil, stirring in the well-mixed broth/tapioca starch mixture. Stir until the whitened soup becomes translucent. When the soup returns to a rolling boil, slowly drizzle in the eggs, stirring constantly until the strings of egg are completely cooked. Grind fresh pepper over the top to taste and enjoy!

The tree isn't up yet--I'm shooting for this weekend. I've recused myself from Christmas card obligations for the remainder of my existence. And Tool Guy did all the major shopping in October. All that remains is for me to make up a few more tote bags, rice bags, and the Roman soldiers' armor for the co-op play. I'm thinking cardboard shapes glued to a fabric tunic and some metallic paint. What'da ya think? Oh, yeah, and I need to replace the zipper in Dog's snow suit. After all...it's past December 1st...it's snowing...must be Winter!

Back in the Saddle Again

Nope. Not ready. Not even close. It's too soon for the leaves to start turning and definitely too soon for the school year to be starting. Even after having left the South for quite a few years now, I still gauge Time For Fall by the heat quotient. It isn't time for fall until we've sweated out so many days that we can't drag ourselves through another hot and sticky morass without screaming. Even though we've been in New England for almost six years, I still find myself reaching for my inner yard stick of measuring out the summer. It doesn't feel like it's time for fall yet.

The garden is starting to play out. Tomato production has peaked and while quite a few still hang on the vines, there are more surrounding me in baskets full to the brim than are out there, dodging the predations of hornworms. I'm still mowing the lawn, the decrepit mower having finally gotten back from the shop (the first day back, I had to splint up the limp ignition cable...I told Tool Guy he owes me for repairs. Heh.) but now the grass is sprinkled with the first falling leaves of autumn and the squirrels are attacking the "pig nut" trees with fervor...a sure sign of impending change.

And homeschooling co-op begins. I'm so not ready. I'd planned on a few more splashes in the river, a few more outside adventures, a couple hundred pounds more out of my garden. Ah, well...

Over the summer, Tool Guy and I painted the dining room. He told me when he came home with the paint that it was the gray I'd asked for. With some squinting, the color blots on the lids did look a liiitle bit gray. On the walls, though, it is definitely on the blue side...unless you're examining the color at night, in which case, it looks closer to sea green. However, cleanly painted walls mean a blank slate to be filled up with all of the art projects and newest creations of the year. Last year's works have been archived into portfolios in storage and the first offerings of the new year adorn the places of honor. Okay, we're sorta ready.

Of course, the Hobbits look forward to fall reunions, old friends coming back, and getting back into the routine. It's a little unsettling at first, because every year is a little different than the previous one and we always show up with last year imprinted on our minds. There's always some disequilibrium and discontent until we get used to the new schedule, new rules, new faces and the lack of some of the old. It's like breaking in new shoes...a little stiff and awkward at first, but quickly becoming the favorites.

Then there's the annual "What's For Snack?" discussion. Unlike the meal menu selection, I want everything standardized for snacks. Thursday morning prep is too wild and woolly to try to handle it all times three. This year, we've settled on the perennial shoestring fries and chocolate chip cookies. In my opinion, Julie Andrews was unforgivably remiss when chocolate didn't make her list of Favorite Things, but it sure is at the top of ours. In our soy-free days, even soy lecithin was a problem and that ruled out just about all chocolate, soy being the emulsifier of choice in candy and chocolate chips. Enjoy Life chocolate chips became one of our Favorite Things. Still is.

Almost Everything Free Chocolate Chip Cookies adapted from Sandra J. Leonard and The Gluten Free Baker Newsletter

10 T Purity Farms Ghee
1 t salt
2 t vanilla
1/2 cup maple sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup potato starch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 package Enjoy Life chocolate chips

Beat ghee until soft and fluffy. Add salt, vanilla, and both sugars. Beat until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until well combined.

Combine flours and baking soda in a mixing bowl. Add half the flour to the butter mixture and beat on low. Scrape down bowl with a rubber spatula and add remaining flour.

Fold in chocolate chips. Chill mixture for two hours. (I make a huge batch of this and make cookies off of it for weeks from the fridge.)

Separate out balls of dough, approximately tablespoon-sized, and lay out on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Flatten to about 1/2 inch thickness and bake for 10-12 minutes at 375*

Let cool on wire rack.

There's a big bowl of cookie dough in the refrigerator, I've got my ASL lesson plan prepped out, and we're tackling Singapore Math one page at a time. Yep. We're back in the saddle again. Princess' eyes sparkle as she bites into one of these cookies and she exuberantly informs me that I'm "the most delicious mommy!" Aw, shuuucks....

My Village

A couple of years before I'd even heard of Hilary Clinton, I read the now famous African proverb that has sometimes been erroneously attributed to her: "It takes a village to raise a child." I imagine different people think of different things when they hear that. For some people, it conjures up visions of a "Nanny State" deciding what is the best way for other people to raise their own children. I hope it never comes to that. When I hear that proverb, I think about the warm and nurturing people that we have surrounded ourselves with since we settled here six years ago.

Six years ago, Dog was a pre-schooler, Bug not yet walking, and Princess, a surprise waiting to happen. We had yet to have had the whole food pyramid come crashing down upon us. We were on an adventure...relocating and discovering what it's like to live in a "Currier and Ives" post card. It took us a while to put down roots into the community that has become our village, but as we've come to know the people in our circle of association, I'm learning to be profoundly grateful for their presence in our lives.

SF, who shares my name and my passion for food issues. She's the one who got me obsessed with gardening, so when I start waxing lyrical over my produce, you'll know who to blame. She's also the one who dropped whatever it was she was doing to take me to the emergency room when I lost the argument with my food processor and entertained my children while I was getting stitched up.

CU, my teaching partner and party planner, who loves my children as much as her own and shows them. One of the benefits to homeschooling is that you know what you've taught, shared, discussed, or explored your children and when they come up with something you haven't covered, you can generally pinpoint where it came from. So when my 6 yo and 4 yo begin discussing the function of the spleen and the "kidney beans," I can tell that kind of thing came from her. So much of what she gives us is mortar for our stones.

AS, the art teacher, who proactively kept me abreast on what projects were in the works, what the art materials consisted of, and warning me when there was corn in the mix, so that we could take steps to protect my children from getting bitten. Unpowdered medical gloves are a wonderful thing.

TC, who kept me posted on the group dynamics in Dog's set, and how well Dog was handling it; who also, without knowing it, told Dog all of the same things I'd already told him while he would rant on the way home in the car.

And so many others who graciously give to us even in ways I'm probably unaware of.

Over the years, our homeschooling co-op has taken on larger proportions of importance in our lives. Every person there brings something precious to our lives. And for Dog, it has been a more significant contribution than for his siblings. Over time, he has discovered this thing called friendship, what it means and what it requires. He's learned that not everyone he likes is good for him and I can also see some loyalty issues looming on the horizon. He's learned how to play in other people's sandboxes and follow other people's rules. It's also been gratifying for me to watch him discover that other families can and do have the same rules we do. He's sheepishly finding out that Tool Guy and I aren't as unreasonable as he thought we were.

This is where having such a village is so valuable. The atmosphere of having the same values reinforced by other people. To know that the correction and redirection that they receive is as caring as what they would receive at home. And even when we bump up against the differences in families, it provokes some very thoughtful discussion on why there are "different rules for different families" and why what will work for one family won't work in ours and the other way around. Most people agree that this was the kind of village the African sage had in mind.

This past year, while being one of the best ever, has been particularly trying in one aspect. For several months, regardless of what precautions and care we took, every week Dog somehow got contaminated. The hugely frustrating part was not knowing where it was coming from. Sleuth as I would, I never did find out the source. SF gently suggested that since Dog is getting older and moving out from under my direct supervision, there are a million points of unbuffered contact with allergens. I started looking at how much scaffolding I was doing with the younger two, like wiping down tables between activities, sending the entire class to wash hands frequently, particularly after eating and handling food. I realized she's probably right. Just as mysteriously, though, Dog's contamination point disappeared. Weeks now and no more infractions. Makes me crazy. I can already tell that this growing up and letting them go thing has so many levels.

As we're wrapping up our co-op year and planning for next year, there's a lot to be satisfied about. I taught my first full year of Sign Language to the middle and high school ages. All of my students enjoyed the class enough that we're scheduling a continuing class in the fall. I look back to three or four years ago when teaching a class felt totally impossible. The thought of it overwhelmed me. I could barely manage to corral my own kids through an afternoon. Now I'm looking forward with enthusiasm to next year and teaching.

When we first started attending this co-op, I was still learning all of this food stuff and struggling to juggle it all. Any time we go out for any length of time, I always have to have food prepared and it needs to be portable food. Once while I was playing around with the food processor, I made shoe string fries. They were pretty good, so I started making them regularly. But it took going to the hospital for stitches for me to find a way to make them superlative.

The backstory is that Princess was a high need baby, who not only always wanted to be held, but always wanted to be nursing. Barring that, she'd agree to be assuaged with a pinkie to suck on. No pacifiers for Her Majesty. So here I was feeling like I was on top of my game with Princess in a sling, sucking on a pinkie, and me one-handing my way around the kitchen. It so happened that I was making some shoestring fries that day. Overconfidently, I grabbed the edges of the slicing disk with my fingertips to lift it out of the bowl, not anticipating that one of those fingertips would slip. You guessed it. Sheer hubris.

Struggling hard not to lose it with an infant in the sling, a toddler and preschooler to deal with, I phoned SF for help. While she was on the way, I looked at those fries that would have turned black by the time we got back from getting stitches. From somewhere in the back of my brain, I dredged up something about rinsing the starch off of potatoes. So I left them to soak in water until I could deal with them later. These turned out to be the best batch I'd ever made. Serendipity. These days, the only way I make fries is to prep them up the day before and leave them to soak in the refrigerator overnight. More serendipity: Just recently, I was informed that soaking and refrigerating potatoes before frying significantly reduces the acrylamide load. Gotta love it.

Everything Free Shoestring Fries

Using the 1 mm blade on the food processor, slice potatoes. After slicing the first time, stack the slices up like cards in a deck and reinsert them on their sides into the processor sleeve. Run through again. After slicing, rinse under running cold water until the water is completely clear. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.

When ready to fry, drain thoroughly. I use a large dutch oven over the blowtorch burner on my stove. Over the years, I've used a few kinds of oil, but the most satisfying has been Spectrum palm shortening or just plain lard. Actually, the lard is the best. Hey, everyone agrees that McDonald's fries haven't been the same since they changed the oil, right? I heat the oil until a raw fry dropped in immediately bubbles to the surface. Then I add fries until just above the oil and leave to fry, stirring about half way through the fry cycle to loosen them. On my stove, it usually takes 15-20 minutes for a batch this size to sufficiently brown. I scoop them out with a basket strainer, drain, and dump them to cool on paper towels. Sweet potatoes will work for this as well, but need more supervision, since they can go from "done" to "burned" very quickly.

In the four years that we've been attending this homeschooling co-op, I've changed the weekly snacks that I make several times....this cookie, that cookie, coconut covered date rolls, apples, fruit leather, what have you. But fries have remained the rock solid, consistent favorite. To even hint at dropping them would incite a mutiny. A recent family crisis centered around scrambling for a new source of lard when our usual source dried up. These fries stay crisp and don't turn limp when cool, making them a terrific portable food. There are everything free foods that I make that I don't expect anyone outside of our family to like, but these fries are something that I can be totally unapologetic for.

I'll always remember that week-long day camp last year. Dog was sitting there and eating his fries that I'd packed for snack time, surrounded by the other kids who were snacking on the camp-provided pretzels and corn syrup juice. One unknown lad looked at his own pretzels and then over at Dog's fries. Truculently, he demanded, "How'd you get fries?" Glancing sidelong at him and without pausing, Dog smoothly replied, "Because I'm lucky."

Time

One of the things I love most about homeschooling is time. As busy and sometimes harried as my days may be...or at least feel to me...we still have so much time.

Since we don't have to get up and go anywhere on a daily basis, we have time in the mornings. Time to let a baby sleep in without invading her warm, cuddly space and pull her out to brace against New England winter mornings. Time to let a highly distractable pre-schooler develop executive functioning skills without the daily harassment of getting badgered into shoes in less than 20 minutes. Time to answer half of the twenty million questions that a deep-thinking adult in little boy skin has to ask. And to have an extra cup of coffee.

Most of the time, my days are unbelievably busy. Even my mother-in-law says so. But she's always been the best of mother-in-laws, has never criticized a single thing I've ever done, and has been unfailingly supportive. I want to be my mother-in-law when I'm a mother-in-law. So she might not be the best person to critically analyse my sense of the industrially hygenic. And even though I get a lot done with a lot left undone, there's still time.

There's time to have conversations with Dog, the oldest, about which came first...iconic characters such as the Eastern cultures use and the Egyptians left for us to see or phonetic-based alphabets and how the age of global networking affects languages that are still character-based, if any. Or to analyze the exploitative motives and techniques of any given commercial hawking the latest groove that is absolutely essential to happiness. Or discuss Smeagol's motivations in the beginning, middle, and end of the journey. Or theorize exactly how many times a sword can be folded in crafting as the Samauri did. Or just listen to him wax enthusiastic about an outstanding sequence in TMNT. Some things you don't have to share an absolute appreciation for. Just nod.

There's time to make an apron for Bug, who is starting to end up in the kitchen, wanting to wash dishes and help cook. Time to discuss the compatibility of being an artist and a chemist at the same time. To analyze the chemistry of baking, of seeds sprouting, of fermented foods. When I said to the van occupants in general, "Remind me to buy some salt and nutmeg out of the co-op cabinet when we get to church today," it was Bug who answered, "Oh, so you can make muffins, right?" Six years old and he has my recipes down.

Yep. There's still time. Time to find that narding control to my pressure cooker that lay nestled at the bottom of the snow drift. Don't ask. I don't want to talk about it.

There's still time to discuss the comparative merits of pink and purple with Princess, my youngest, who is starting to also express profound thoughts of her own that have nothing to do with regency matters or color coordination. Time to help her swaddle her babies and tuck them into her sling so she can get on with the business of her day while nursing her babies. Or set her up with water colors and let her imagination run wild.

All of these things happen while my hands are busy. Busy cleaning. Busy cooking. Busy prepping. Busy redirecting conflicting personalities, highly convinced that their view of the situation is The Only Way it can be resolved. But there's still time.

And I'm always looking for time-savers. Fast Food is out for us, so I'm always looking for ways to make "fast food" versions of scratch food. Fried chicken fingers/nuggets are probably the quintessential fast food and my little philistines have no less love for them than other kids their ages. There are some things that I make that I never worry about appealing to anyone outside of my family and my "chicken sticks" are one of those things.

Chicken Sticks

Chicken breasts
1-2 cups tapioca starch flour
1-2 tablespoons seasoned salt
plastic bag
squirt bottle of water
1 lb lard or palm shortening

In plastic bag, mix up starch flour and seasoned salt. Slice breasts into medium thin fingers. Dump the fingers into plastic bag and shake until well coated. Remove and lay out on large platter or baking tray. Spritz with water bottle until the surface of the flour is damp and pasty. Refrigerate strips for a few hours or overnight; overnight is better since the final product will be crispier and less soggy.

Heat oil to frying temperature and deep fry strips for 3-4 minutes, depending on crisp preferences. Ready for Hobbits of all sizes to enjoy. No one misses trips to the Golden Arches, unless it is to rhapsodize about the playscapes.

The beauty of this recipe is that chicken breasts can be pre-sliced and frozen in meal-sized proportions and defrosted as needed. They can be prepped ahead of time to be pulled out later in the day and a meal is ready in five minutes. My version of fast food and time-saving cooking.

That leaves more time in my day. Time enough to instill what we believe and what we value into our children. These days, Dog does things like pick up someone else's mess or give his brother a dollar out of his own wallet for spending while Bug is having some quality time out with Dad. Or voluntarily owning up to a wrong-doing. Bug gives me hugs when things get too much and I sit down and cry. And Princess remembers to ask for prayer in Sunday School for her uncles with terminal cancer. That's when I'm really thankful for the time we have.

Time enough to bop through the house, plugged into my CD player, and polishing my ASL interpretation of Chris Rice's "Nonny, Nonny" while thrilling to the idea of this life being just the first sentence of eternity.

Bug was exploring the dynamics of magnets the other day. Holding his huge horseshoe magnet in his hand, he sucked up all of the widgey bits into mid-air. He turned to me and said, "When Jesus comes back to get us, He's going to use a magnet just like this."

That's exactly right, Sweetie.

I'm acutely aware of it washing away from me, this time thing, but I'm glad I still have so much more of it to look forward to.