What’s for supper? Vol. 484: It finally happened, I used up all my words writing and now I can’t think of a title

Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya. (And now ends the part of this post where I find out how old you guys are.)

Happy Friday! Coming up to five weeks post surgery, I am still doing VERY LITTLE INDEED. Lots of naps, lots of lurking about, lots of soup. Damien has been doing an absolutely phenomenal job of not only taking care of all the kids and all the household stuff and appointments and driving and also doing his actual job, but also constantly reassuring me that I’m not being lazy or crazy or malingering or anything, and the whole craniotomy thing really was a big deal, and it really is my job to rest, rest, rest. So that is what I’m doing. 

However! I am also very gently working toward Doing A Few Things. This week, I started cooking again, and although Damien (along with some of the incredibly generous staff at our kid’s school!) was keeping everyone very well fed, it feels pretty great to be back in the kitchen, wrecking the place up.

SATURDAY
Awards dinner!

Wait, I’m confused. The awards dinner was on Friday. Well anyway, on Friday afternoon, Damien and I drove down to Boston where he received the Freedom of Information award from New England First Amendment Coalition. It was a truly wonderful event. Incredibly, Damien was introduced by Diane Foley, the mother of journalist James Foley who was beheaded by ISIS, and she and her husband were so warm and gracious. Kind, friendly, intelligent, sincere people everywhere, delicious food, wonderful venue. We were at the Commonwealth Hotel, right across from Fenway Park.

And it was a lovely night! Here’s a few pictures. 


Saturday morning, it seemed like a shame not to go do fun Boston things while we were in Boston, but I was truly a blob of glup and had a hard time even sitting up to drink my coffee, yeesh. So we made a quick stop to see Clara and Wesley on the way home and then went home, and I spent the rest of the day just blobbing gluppily at home. I think we had leftovers and pizza pockets for supper. 

SUNDAY
Brats, french fries, peach cobbler

Sunday I did get to Mass, and it was much easier than the previous week. I am less paranoid that someone is going to leap out of the bushes and whack me in the head with a hammer. Damien did the week’s shopping, and I took a nap and then picked some peaches and made a very basic peach crumble for an afternoon snack. 

I can’t find the recipe I used, but I remember messing with it anyway. Probably I used corn starch, sugar, a little salt, cinnamon, and butter, and mixed that up with the sliced peaches (skin on). I topped it with a box of cake mix mixed with cinnamon and scrunched up into clumps with melted butter. Baked at whatever until the top was slightly browned and the filling was bubbling. 

Would have been great with ice cream or whipped cream, but an unexpected warm dessert in the middle of the day was well received (declared by the kids to be yum dot com).

I also had a moment of satisfaction because the household has been getting along ALARMINGLY well without me. But when I went to get some butter for the streusel, I found this:

Turns out I was the one keeping the butter situation around here reasonable. Me!! I’m useful after all!!!

MONDAY
Ina Garten’s roast chicken with carrots and potatoes

Monday I got tired of worrying about the carrots I never dug up, and went outside to see what was going on. I discovered that something (probably some combination of wild animals and feral Corrie) had already dug up most of them. So I got what was left, and fetched a few heads of garlic from my drying corner. 

I washed and trimmed all the carrots except for these two, who already had other plans. 

This is the roast chicken recipe. I had dried thyme instead of fresh, and no fennel, and I threw in a pound or so of little red potatoes. It’s SO EASY and it takes literally 15 minutes to throw together, and it always turns out absolutely juicy and delicious, with a tasty, crackling skin, and you don’t have to baste it or flip it or anything. 

I was a little miffed that I hadn’t thought to get some nice crusty bread to sop up the splendid lemony garlicky juices,

but it was still great. And now I did something about the damn carrots. 

TUESDAY
Chicken cheesesteak sandwiches and chips

Tuesday I took care of another thing that’s been nagging at me: I made two big jars of pickles. Just cucumbers from the store, since my cucumber garden was a bust; but I had stuffed the last of the dill from my garden into a jar of vinegar, and it was just sitting there daring me to forget about it. This is basically the recipe I used, except I fiddled with it a bit, and added peppercorns, bumped up a lot of the spices, couldn’t find coriander seeds, forgot to heat it up, and couldn’t find the kosher salt, so I used table salt. 

I haven’t tasted these pickles yet, but the kids told me (about 48 hours after I made them) that they are slightly mushy, but tasty. Good enough for me. 

For supper, I picked the chicken off the carcasses and shredded it in the stand mixer with a little Tony Cachere’s. I was sort of following this recipe from Sip and Feast, except for the seasoning, and also I used American cheese. He has you cook the peppers, then take them out of the pan and cook then onions, then add the chicken, and then melt cheese onto the chicken and onions. Then you melt more cheese on top of it, scoop it onto rolls, and add the peppers. 

I opted to just do one dose of cheese per serving

and I had mine with BBQ sauce. 

I thought it was totally delicious. I think about half the family liked it, which is a pretty good score. It’s nice to have a new idea for leftover chicken, anyway! 

WEDNESDAY
Whatever

On Tuesday I heard a cheerful chirping noise, and looked out my window to see Corrie clambering around picking grapes and singing. (Singing a violent parody of “Frosty the Snowman,” if you must know.) She has been steadily working her way through the first batch of grape juice we made the other week, and wanted more, so she went ahead and picked about a bushel of grapes. Her enthusiasm lasted right up until the moment I suggested she help me sort them, and then grape juice suddenly appeared overrated. WHICH I GET. 

On Wednesday, Damien, that lucky man, got to drive to Boston again after school, to bring Lucy and Irene to a Brandon Flower concert. Moe and Sophia were at work, so that just left me, Corrie, and Benny at home for dinner. We had french toast and boxaroni, and then Sophia got home and took Benny and Corrie out to the movies.

And so I found myself ALONE. Which VERY rarely happens. So I dragged the bucket of grapes into the living room, put on some disposable gloves, opened a can of diet ginger ale, and slowly, slowly sorted grapes while watching Best In Show and then an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Sometimes it’s a little startling to be by yourself, to be able to do whatever you want, and then your heart’s desire turns out to be a little weird. Anyway, I got the grapes sorted. 

THURSDAY
Meatloaf and rice

Thursday I got started on Clara’s birthday tiramisu! Usually Damien is the tiramisu guy around here, but it turns out I really can do kitchen stuff, as long as I allow myself three times the normal amount of time. I more or less followed the Betty Crocker recipe, except I realized we were out of eggs, went to collect eggs from the duck house, and then realized the water was off in the house, and sent Sophia to the store for eggs from the clean world. I also skipped the rum, ran out of vanilla, supplemented it with almond extract, and made a double recipe, and I decided to fit it into a large springform pan, with a little fence of ladyfingers around the outside, rather than serving it still in its glass dish. 

I have no idea if this will hold up to having the side removed, but I guess we’ll find out! I wanted to make it fancy, because we’re celebrating Clara’s birthday, but of course the whipped cream tends to deflate over time. So I did the inside layer with regular whipped cream (it’s ladyfingers, custard, whipped cream, ladyfingers, custard, whipped cream), but then I took the rest and did the thing where you bloom a little gelatin and then add that to the cream as you whip it, and I piped that over the top. 

Actually, what I did was whip the cream, realize it would fall apart overnight, mix up some gelatin with a random amount of hot water, and add that to the already whipped cream, which of course resulted in some horrible buttery rubber cream curds. So I threw that out, gave myself a stern talking to, found some more cream, found my reading glasses, and very carefully followed the actual instructions, and then piped it on. 

Yes, that’s the same picture, but I’m not lying this time. 

I also made a batch of sugared raspberries. You find the firmest raspberries and brush them with foamy egg whites using a pastry brush. I think last time I made these (for my raspberry lemon pavlova birthday bombs), I just brushed them with egg white that I had rustled up a bit with a fork, but this time I really whipped them and just brushed the foam on. Then you carefully roll the berries in sugar (supposed to be sanding sugar, but I never have that in the house) and set them to dry overnight.

It’s not difficult, but you can’t really do it quickly. (Believe me, I tried every dumb idea.)  A few of them are a little weepy this morning, but who among us. They turn out with this lovely, fragile, crackly sweet shell. And again. Who among us. 

While I was preparing the raspberries, I asked the kids if there were any wild blackberries left in the yard (there were not), and then I was musing about maybe buying some cultivated thornless blackberry bushes in the spring, so we could enjoy the sweet juiciness of the fruit without having to deal with the thorns. Well, they were unanimously appalled, and felt strongly that getting torn up a little bit was an indispensable part of the experience, and made the berries even sweeter. Which just goes to show: They certainly are my kids. 

So my plan is to dust the top of the tiramisu with cocoa powder to bring out the piping, if any, and then add in the raspberries in between, and maybe some fresh mint leaves. Won’t that be pretty? And if it collapses when I take the side of the pan off, at least it will be yummy, because I did NOT burn it. (This is a big deal, as I’ve been burning EVERYTHING lately.)

Oh anyway, after I got this squared away, I made a couple of big meatloaves. Here is my recipe,

Jump to Recipe

which is honestly nothing special, but we haven’t had meatloaf for a while, and it’s pretty popular. I couldn’t find the worcestershire, so I added some soy sauce. And yes, I slathered on plenty of ketchup as the good Lord intended. 

I forgot to take the soy sauce into account when I was adding the salt, and it was PRETTY SALTY, but no one complained. Made a big pot of plain rice in the Instant Pot and it was a perfectly fine supper for a chilly day. 

Damien, luckiest of men, spent much of his day repairing the water heater (which is why we didn’t have water earlier). The lurkworm showers were kind of annoying in the summer, but now that it’s getting into the 40’s at night, we’re all pretty happy about hot showers again! The man can fix just about anything. 

FRIDAY
Pizza and tiramisu

Clara and Wesley are coming over, and I believe they are bringing pizza.

OH. And I mentioned this on Facebook, but not yet here, so I am EXTREMELY HAPPY TO TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE ENGAGED. I love these two so much, and I’m so glad they found each other. 

What a month it has been! My goodness. My goodness. I am slowly making some headway into writing thank-you notes to all the wonderful people who pitched in. It was so immensely helpful not to be freaking out about money while I was (am) recuperating. 

I did get some grape juice going, finally. Once you sort the grapes, the rest is so easy. You just mash them up a bit, bring it to a simmer and let it simmer for ten minutes, occasionally mashing,

and then strain it all through cheesecloth. Usually I am dumb and attempt to squeeze it through while it’s still straight out of the pot, but this time I am smart, and I put the cheesecloth in a colander and let it drip. 

Looks like maybe six quarts or two gallons of juice (this is the second pot). If it’s too tart, you can add sugar, but we usually don’t do this. Still thinking about making some gummies, which is just grape juice, sugar, and gelatin mixed and poured into molds. I have silicone skull molds, but have yet to mold any skulls this year! Besides my own, I mean, ho ho. 

Anyway, I am feeling pretty good about having made supper this week. My next goal is to Bring Back Vegetables, but one thing at a time. I have been trying and trying to get some writing done, and as much as I wish I could blame my struggles on the brain surgery, I think I’m just rusty. Alas. Maybe some grape juice will help. It couldn’t hurt. 

5 from 1 vote
Print

Meatloaf (actually two giant meatloaves)

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground beef
  • 2 lbs ground turkey
  • 8 eggs
  • 4 cups breadcrumbs
  • 3/4 cup milk OR red wine
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

plenty of salt, pepper, garlic powder or fresh garlic, onion powder, fresh parsley, etc.

  • ketchup for the top
  • 2 onions diced and fried (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450

  2. Mix all meat, eggs, milk, breadcrumbs, and seasonings together with your hands until well blended.

  3. Form meat into two oblong loaves on pan with drainage

  4. Squirt ketchup all over the outside of the loaves and spread to cover with spatula. Don't pretend you're too good for this. It's delicious. 

  5. Bake ninety minutes or so, until meat is cooked all the way through. Slice and serve. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 483: Smooth dinner, smooth brain

Happy Friday! Happy nopioid day to me! Warning: This post has some scar pics in it, plus a lot of complaining, so don’t read if it you hate that! 

There have been some freaking UPS AND DOWNS this week, but I am completely off rotten old oxy, and yesterday they took all 41 staples and one super itchy lumbar stitch out, and just now I did the thing where I greeted the dog by pretending to kick him to death (which he likes! He thinks it’s funny!) and I suddenly realized I would not have been able to do that a couple of days ago. My sense of balance is back! 

I have never been so cared for in all my life. I remember several years ago taking a baby to the ER for croup or strep throat or something, and the nurse noticed my throat was stitched together (just had a thyroidectomy), and she was like, “. . . are you OKAY?” and I was like, “. . . SURE” because I really didn’t have a choice! That was some year. That was the year we lost our apartment and our car died and my husband’s job was laying people off and I was pregnant and the OB/GYN noticed I had what may or may not be thyroid cancer, but the biopsies were inconclusive and I couldn’t really think about any of that because I had to find a new apartment, and let me tell you, some of that process was a little demoralizing We ended up moving in with my poor old parents, and all I remember about the trip there was that we brought the very last food we owned, which was half a box of Kix, and when I drove away from our old place I had an aquarium full of fish strapped into the front seat, and when we got to our new place, there was only a little water and one fish left, and I never did find the missing ones.

ANYWAY, what I’m trying to say is life sure has changed, and I haven’t done a damn thing for the last two weeks except accept help, listen to music, nap, cry a little bit, and eat peaches. Damien has been stupendous, not only keeping up with everything, but making sure the kids are getting little treats and everything is calm and stable, and telling me repeatedly that every crazy thing I say is normal and understandable. My friend Elisa send a fun package of little crafts I’m doing to keep my hands busy, which helps a lot. My friend Sadie came over, I think my sister Rosie is coming this weekend, my kids’ teacher and principle each sent a yummy dinner, and the dad of one of Corrie’s friends stopped by with a gift card to the local pizzeria. Damien has been making excellent dinners — buffalo chicken wings, roast beef sandwiches, homemade spaghetti sauce, all kind of great stuff. Elijah’s going to come over and make homemade pizza this Sunday. 

I myself have been sticking mainly to soup, smoothies, and peaches, because my jaw and mouth muscles took quite a beating. I somehow missed the whole smoothie phenomenon when it first took civilization by storm (some of you probably don’t even remember life before smoothies!), but Damien got me a ton of Greek yogurt and frozen fruit, and so far none of it has been specifically named in a recall, so that’s been working well for me!

Very smooth indeed.

When I was still in the hospital, my poor peach tree split. Damien knows how much I love this tree and how much I’ve been looking forward to the big year B harvest, so before he even told me about it, he got some special tree wax and straps and put it back together. It did lose a lot of branches, but he did such a good job, and I think it’s gonna make it.

Look at this beauty. 

I went out yesterday afternoon and gathered up a nice little harvest.

When Clara and her boyfriend were over last week, they gathered up hundreds of fallen peaches, dumped the spoiled ones in the compost heap, and started blanching the salvageable ones. I was able to throw a bunch of peeled peaches in the blender and now I have a little stock of peach puree socked away for winter! It seemed super, super important at the time, and I’m grateful everyone humored me with this important peach work.

My garden is actually doing so well. I picked a ton of basil, coated it in olive oil, and froze that, too. I think the eggplants are beyond saving, and all my lettuce bolted, but there is tons more basil, tons of green tomatoes still marching along, and so much corn just begging to be picked. The pumpkins are still smallish but numerous, and the carrots and potatoes can be dug up any time, I guess. The grapes are also having a crazy good year, and I think maybe we will do some harvesting this weekend and make a little juice. Or just let the birds have them, I don’t know.

One of the mixed flower patches I planted has actually started growing flowers. Not a ton, but maybe there will be more next year. I think it’s mainly annuals coming up, and maybe the perennials will show up later.

The other mixed flower bed I started only has a few flowers, but it does have tomatoes and squash growing because I added plenty of compost, so that’s something! I also–

okay, I am making it sound like I’m up and about and doing projects and getting work done, and truly, I am not. I am mostly just lurking around in bed, and I do like one thing per day just to keep myself from going nuts. Sometimes that one thing is picking flowers.

Sometimes it’s just heating up soup and eating it in the most repulsive way imaginable because my lips and cheek are still leading a life of mystery and unpredictability. Yesterday was the first day I took only one nap, instead of two or three or four or six.

That being said, I did happen to notice that Marvin, the apple tree, is having an incredible year for some reason. We have never done one single thing to care for this tree, except to name it Marvin, which isn’t much; and it’s always understandably produced a medium harvest of truly terrible apples. But this year, they are tons of them, and they look NICE (relatively). No idea why. So the other day, I got to that typical stage of post craniotomy recovery where you find a free 8 ton hydraulic jack on Facebook marketplace, and you happen to know that your husband could really use one for his ancient SUV, and he’s already out driving around to pick up kids, so you set up a pick-up for the jack because you love him, and also SECRETLY, your plan is to steal his old scissor jack and use it to make a CIDER PRESS. 

Basically you just have to built a rough wooden frame with room inside for a bucket, and a little stack of wood the same diameter as the bucket, and the jack on top of that. You fill up the bucket with apples and start cranking the jack, and it compresses the apples, the juice runs out the holes in the bottom of the bucket, and you need some kind of catch basin obviously. It’s possible this is a dumb idea and I should not do it, but I have a few weeks to think about it, anyway! The kids LOVE cider, and goodness knows I have plenty of wood scraps from the treehouse

(which I don’t think Corrie has gone in even one time since I finished it, OH WELL). I also have a giant metal pot with a spigot built into the bottom, which I got on the side of the road and have been using as a rain barrel. I have no idea what it was originally for, but I think it would work great as part of a cider press. 

Anyway, I talk big, but I was smart enough to stop myself from contacting the new restaurant down the road to tell them I’m really good at making cheesecake if they want to make a deal; so probably I will be smart enough not to make a cider press. But who can say. 

The truth is, now that I am off oxy and my mind is pretty functional again, even though the worst is over, and I’m truly so so glad I don’t have cancer or any real permanent disability, I am now capable of mentally addressing it all, and I am having a wee bit of trouble processing what the hell happened to me. The time in the hospital was really rough, and even though Damien came every day, it was scary and lonely 

and the pain there and the first week back home was . . . well. It was something that made me feel slightly but probably permanently different about human experience and our relationship to God.

This next picture is a pretty good illustration of how amazing and optimistic I felt when they finally let me go home, haha:

So I am a little upset, off and on. So, I’ll build a cider press if I want! Do not argue with me about that! Not that you would! You are all very nice. 

But really, the pain is just worlds better now, and that is an unspeakable relief. It’s just a medium to bad headache now, and a lot of numbness, plus some rather entertaining sensations as the nerves in my cheek, tongue, lips, and jaw either wake up or regrow, and my whole left side from my neck up is still kind of a mess. And my ear is blocked up and loudly crackling, and they said whatever was in there was probably too deep for a normal cleaning to take care of, but oh well. I still haven’t gotten the pathology report back, but I’m really expecting it to be clean. And my eye works again! I didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten before surgery, because it went haywire gradually, but getting rid of that tumor really fixed it. 

I am going to ask someone to take me to Supercuts this weekend so they can give me an identical undercut on my other side, because why the hell not.

The hair in the spot they shaved is growing in white, as you can see here from a pic taken shortly before I got the staples out

so I might as well even that out and have some fun with it.

The swelling is taking its sweet time to go down, and I’m still giving Surgeon General of Beverly Hills vibes

but I am VERY VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THOSE STAPLES GONE. They were starting to make me so angry! And yes, I’m incredibly grateful I’m not doing radiation or chemo right now. As yucky as this has been, it could have been SO so much worse. I was sorta kinda getting ready to maybe die on the surgery table, so I’m just . . . I’m working on stuff. 

In a couple of weeks, Damien and I are going to Boston so he can [pause to catch breath from surge of wifely pride] accept his award from The New England First Amendment Coalition. Gosh, I am so happy about this. They only bestow three awards per year, and last year’s winner of the Freedom of Information Award was The Boston Globe. This year, it is my husband. 

They are putting us up in a swanky hotel and it is going to be FUN. 

Okay, thank you for listening to all of that! Or skimming, or just clicking and then sighing and closing the tab! I get it! Let’s all go have some soup.

What’s for supper? Vol. 482: Not my problem

Hello! Happy Friday! Happy DEFINITELY RECOVERING NOW day to me! 

My brain tumor craniotomy was nine days ago, and it went very well. I’ll share some medical details next, for those who find such things interesting!

They removed a piece of skull, detached as much of the tumor as possible, leaving only “a nubbin” the size of a grain of rice; reattached the skull bit with some titanium discs and hardware, and stapled my head back up with 41 staples. They also put in a lumbar drain to lower spinal fluid pressure during the procedure, and that needed to be stitched up. I had needles throughout my scalp during surgery to monitor brain activity, and I had a complex rig on my arm to track my blood pressure directly from my arteries. The surgery took about four-and-a-half hours,  and I either did or did not have a seizure during it (the notes are confusing!), but I’ve been on medication to keep that from happening or happening again. I was in the ICU for three days and then moved to the regular neurology wing for another two days. I am still waiting to hear on the pathology report, but I am expecting confirmation the tumor was benign, and I may not even need radiation for what remains. 

I am so, so glad to be home. Recovery has been one step forward, two steps back. The pain level is gradually receding, and so is the amount of time it feels really bad each day; and the nerves on the left side of my face are slowly waking up. My left eye, which wasn’t acting right because of the tumor, is totally functional again. I can’t really chew yet, but luckily I have always been a big fan of soft foods, so I’m having all the gruel, beans, and smoothies I want. I am just feeling a little, little bit more like myself every day, for better or for worse! 

I haven’t been accomplishing a single thing. I’m trying to walk around the yard once or twice a day to keep away blood clots and whatnot. My friend Sadie came over when I got home, and she got us set up with a medication schedule and tracking system, and spent the night to make sure we were all okay. One of the kids’ teachers sent home some delicious quiche and salad and bread and butter. The kids have all been pitching in, and Damien took the kids back-to-school shopping and has been getting everyone to school and work on time, keeping me supplied with hot packs and cold packs and endless pillows and drinks, and just basically making sure my body and mind are completely at rest while he takes care of everything. A ton of people sent donations to help us pay for all the gas and meds and to make it possible for Damien to care for me and the kids without getting in too much of a pickle, and we REALLY appreciate that, and all the prayers and words of encouragement.

I feel so incredibly lucky to know so many generous and helpful people. At the hospital, I met a few folks (Jennifer and Paul. Please remember them in your prayers!) who just don’t have anything like this level of support. All of the nurses were nice and caring, and a few of them were really extraordinary. It’s a great hospital, and again, I feel really lucky. And happy to be home. Because even a really good hospital kind of sucks. 

There were a couple of times when the pain and fear really overwhelmed me (specifically, in the immediate post-surgery MRI, and one of my first evenings at home), and you know, at a certain point the jokes and lessons and well-expressed thoughts run out, and you’re just up against the wall with suffering, and the only thing to hang onto is the hope Jesus is there somewhere. Some of you guys end up in this spot a lot, and I am just in awe of you. 

I also gotta say, I do not see the appeal of oxycodone. I am glad I have it, because it makes the pain manageable, but everything else it does sucks, and I’m really looking forward to getting off it. There’s no joy in it at all; it just tucks normal human experience up on a high shelf where you can’t touch it. 

I’m supposed to get my staples and stitches out on September 3, and then I have another MRI in October. In the mean time, I have an actual metal question mark traced out on the side of my head, which just seems fair. I must say, the surgeon did a neat job doing a rather cute undercut, so my hair actually looks pretty normal. I may go to Supercuts and get the them to shave a matching pattern on the other side! Or maybe I will just have some more bean soup. 

And that’s my story! Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out. I am praying for you all!

 

 

Dear Piggy

One of the more pleasant accounts I follow on social media is by a “mudlark” — someone who scavenges for lost and discarded items in a riverbank, especially on the river Thames.

I enjoy the tidbits of information about history, culture, industry and fashion she shares along with photos of her finds; but even more, I enjoy her delight in finding things. She seems just as enchanted with the 967th boot nail or marble or pipe stem as she was with the first. She understands deeply these aren’t just prizes or accomplishments to tick off a mudlark list. They’re belongings, things once owned and used and maybe cherished by specific people; and she honors their lives by finding their lost things, cleaning them, naming them, learning about them. Recalling that someone real and important once lived here.

I do a bit of mudlarking myself, albeit in a body of water without any historical pedigree. It’s the little brook that runs through our backyard, and when the water is low, I sometimes clamber around and see what the current turned up.

I’ve found a toy Roy Rogers gun, a miraculously intact vintage lightbulb, and one time, a key from a berth on a boat that sailed out of Boston many decades ago. We find a lot of bottles, some still labeled as lineaments or tonics, and lots of bits of pottery still printed with hints of roses and suggestions of filigree. We find so many forks and spoons and knives, and chains, hooks, latches, bolts, and peculiar wrenches. And we find toys of past generations: a plastic mummy leg from a defunct cartoon; a dinosaur with washed-out eyes; and endless wheels and chassis from toy trucks. Boys’ toys are most common, I suppose because they’re built sturdier and last longer, even if only in pieces, smothered in mud.

One year I was digging up the yard for a patio, and I found a rare delicate toy: A little ceramic pig, bleached featureless, but intact. I was happy to take a break from work with bricks, so I cleaned piggy off, polished it up, and looked for a safe spot so I wouldn’t lose it. I was so pleased when an idea popped into my head: I’ll give it to the baby. The patio I was building features a little statue of St. Joseph, and he’s holding a toddler Jesus. I tucked the pig into Jesus’ outstretched hand and mumbled a quick, sheepish prayer for him to take care of it.

Take care of me.

Why is it so thrilling and moving to find these little bits from the past? It’s not as if we thought we were the first humans ever to live here, and are amazed to discover that this is not so. Goodness knows the evidence of previous families is everywhere, from the old-fashioned, elderly rose bush in front, to the bewildering layers of linoleum I had to chip my way through like an archeologist when I was renovating the kitchen. So yes, of course, we knew there were people here before us.

But somehow, finding their stuff feels like a tiny victory. It feels, sometimes, like it’s something I myself have lost, and am finding again. Even when it’s something unfamiliar, or something I can’t identify, there’s often a sense of relief: Ah, HERE it is. As if I’d been searching everywhere for my inscrutable rusty wrench, or my plastic mummy leg. (I have not).

It’s a displaced emotion, like a false memory you have in a dream. If I were superstitious, I would say it’s a sign of the spirit realm trying to make contact, or a lingering memory from a past life. But I’m not superstitious; I’m a Christian. So here is what I think it is.

I think it’s a sign that we know we’re immortal, and suffer a constant, outraged grief that our bodies are not. We know that we are destined for eternal life, and also that we are always in danger of falling to pieces, floating apart, drifting away, being buried in the mud. Not being found. Being forgotten.

Read the rest of my latest column for The Pillar (paid subscriber content)

 

Parents of older kids: You’re not done yet

Hello, parents of adult children. How you doing? Things are so much easier now than when your kids were little, right? 

Yeah, I know. Kind of yes, but also very much no. Things are easier because you’re not constantly fixing snacks and breaking up fights and soothing them through night terrors. But they’re also so harder because . . . well, if you know, you know.  

It’s easier because your children are adults, and they make their own choices, and they don’t depend on you for every little thing. It’s also harder because your children are adults, and they make their own choices, and you don’t always get to pick which things they depend on you for.  

They’re big and they have cars and bank accounts and relationships and politics and worldviews of their own, but also they are still your children, and they are still, in some ways, what you made them to be. It’s still personal. It will always be personal.  

This is not going to be a ‘parenting as death march’ essay where I lament over the unceasing agony of it all, or where I beamoan the lives my older kids are living, and then tell you how I’m managing to soldier on in spite of the pain.  

Actually, I think my adult kids are neat. Wonderful, even. Like every human being I know, all of them are struggling with various things, but all of them are also succeeding in various ways, and I’m proud of them all, and I like being with them.  

They’re good people, and interesting beyond words. And yes, it’s a relief that they can all pour their own dang milk! Sometimes they even run to the store to get milk for me.  

Sometimes I think about how, when my husband and I first became parents, we were still more or less kids ourselves. We had a lot of growing up to do, and that meant our parenting was sorely lacking in many ways. Then I think about how that’s still true.  

Now firmly middle-aged, with seven kids who have reached adulthood, we’re still growing up. Knowing that makes it much easier to be at peace with our undeniable flaws, because now I know that when growing and learning ends, that is death.  

In life, all human processes are in flux. Nothing that matters is static. Learning, love, trust, dependence, guilt, pride, memory, attachment, you name it, all of these states of being are constantly shifting, developing, waxing and waning, transforming. This is normal, and isn’t supposed to have an expiration date of 18 years.  

I know this because my relationship with my parents is still a work in progress, and they are both quite dead. I’m still learning new things about them, some that make me furious, some that make me groan with pity. I’m revisiting what I already knew, and I’m still moulding and kneading the memories I have of being in their care.  

I’m still working on that strange, comic balancing routine of trying to give my kids what my parents gave me, but also spare my kids what my parents did to me, all while missing them, all while breathing a little sigh of relief that they are gone.  

The years my kids spent under our roof didn’t feel like they were flying by at the time, but still, they flew. The time of actively raising your kids is very, very brief. Whether that idea brings you panic or relief, here’s a thought I return to again and again:  

Most of your relationship with your children happens when they are adults.  … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.  

Photo by irelyn via Flickr (Creative Commons)

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 481: Free to be… you, a bee

Happy Friday! Today’s post will be largely about the treehouse I’m building, but with a surprising amount of food. Well, I was surprised, anyway.

Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftover delite

We stopped at a few yard sales while we were out shopping, and didn’t find much, but then someone was giving away these gorgeous strawberry pots! Terra cotta, or at least some kind of clay, and not plastic. 

I have two well-rooted pineapple tops that I may plant in the main opening, and maybe the rest can be hen and chicks or whatever it’s called. Just yesterday I found out you’re supposed to pull off the dry leaves from your succulents as they grow, and WOW is it satisfying.

Shopping turn kid chose Hot Pockets, and why not? I had one, plus leftover Korean beef bowl and rice, and a little pesto pasta for a vegetable. 

My mental state was such that I got Corrie a kid’s meal from Wendy’s, and when I saw the toy, I teared up because it was just so beautiful. 

Here is the toy: 

Well, I guess that would be more my emotional state than my mental state. Unless you mean “mental” like the British use it. Tra la la!

SUNDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches

Sunday after Mass, we were planning to go check out a waterfall that’s nearby that we’ve never seen before, but we were all feeling kind of gross and exhausted an unambitious. So I mixed up a big tank of sugary frozen coffee in the slushy machine and then tackled the treehouse before I lost momentum. 

I wanted to start on the floor, but realized I should really install corner posts first, so they could be attached to the inside of the frame, rather than the outside. I had already done the two on the more accessible side, but, due to last week’s knuckleheadery, I had made it nearly impossible for myself to get up topside to do the other two. Damien is much narrower than me, though, so he got up there and attached the remaining two posts. 

Even though he doesn’t like heights and had a sinus infection. How lovely on . . . the treehouse are . . . the feet of him . . . who bangs good nails . . . bangs good nails! [sorry, I was briefly in a Baptist choir in high school, and that one stuck]. 

Then I started laying the floor! First I put down all the long planks that I could, on either side of the tree, and that was so gratifying, because it got easier and easier to BE up there, the more floor I installed.

Then . . . I was not sure what to do. 

Wood is straight, but tree is curved?? What do???

After much consideration, and after discarding many insane ideas, I fetched a roll of brown paper and sort of wadded it around the tree, and stapled it in place.

Then I carefully cut around the tree, and noted a bunch of measurements.

Then I pulled up the paper, laid out my wood back in the yard, and re-stapled the paper to the wood, and traced the shape of the tree onto it.

If I’m making this sound efficient and sensible, I’m telling it wrong. Just imagine me getting sweater and sweatier, getting innumerable splinters in my hands and legs, and startling the little forest creatures with my profanities as I repeatedly forgot the [whatever} either back in the yard, or up in a tree, or, if I were up in the tree, at the bottom of the tree. 

So clearly all I had to do was cut out the tree shape. I thought long and hard about how I don’t have a jigsaw, and how much of a problem that really was. What I do have is a circular saw and a reciprocating saw, and one of those little Japanese hand saws. So I tried this and that, and it got pretty ugly, but the best technique I hit on was just to make lots and lots of straight cuts into the curve,

and then knock the pieces out, then cut them as smooth as possible with the hand saw.

It was THE WORST. I mean it worked, but it was so terrible. I did as much as I could (which was one board)

before I lost the will to live (which happens around 7 p.m. in these parts), and then I remembered dinner. Happily, earlier in the day, I roasted some chicken breasts, cut up a bunch of basil, and made a balsamic vinegar reduction. 

Oh dang, wait, I think I also made cheese. Elijah was over and was interested in learning how to make mozzarella, so we made it together. By which I mean he was shouting instructions to me over the noise of the slushie machine, and well, something got lost in translation, and I dumped the rennet mixture in at the wrong stage, so it immediately turned into lumpy curds, rather than being one single block that needed to be chopped up. I predicted that we’d get cheese, just very grainy cheese, and I was right. 

It was like if ricotta tried to turn into mozzarella but gave up halfway through. It tasted fine; it was just grainy! Like I said. 

I was also determined not to overboil the balsamic vinegar, because last time I made it, it turned out way too thick. So this time, I overboiled it and it turned out way too thick. I ended up having to gouge it out of the gravy boat and kind of lay it on my sandwich like it was a ganache. 

STILL DELICIOUS. Also I was freaking starving by the time I sat down to eat. 

MONDAY
Chicken enchilada(?) bowls

Monday I spent a big part of the day putting in the treehouse floor. Some of the curves I had to cut were really quite curvy, and the process was completely ridiculous. I kept making inquiries on Marketplace about cheap jigsaws for sale, and finally made plans to pick up one in the evening on Monday. I figured I would do what I could until then, and then use the actual proper tool, when I got it, to clean up my work.

Not that you could possibly improve on craftsmanship like this.

The good news is, I only had to do it eight times. Anyway, I kept at it and kept at it, and I got all the pieces cut and installed. And it actually looked pretty good! I left some room for the tree to grow. 

At some point during the day, I took some chicken leg quarters, pulled off the skins, and seasoned them heavily with . . . I don’t know, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, and chili powder; and then I cooked them slowly in oil in a pan. Then I cut the meat off the bone and put it back in the pan with a bottle of this stuff

because darn it, I miss cilantro. I always think I don’t eat enough leafy greens, but I must, because trying to summer cook without them is really difficult! Bah. 

Anyway, I made a pot of rice and dug up some shredded pepper jack cheese and sour cream, and we had quite yummy chicken rice bowls. 

Looks like we had beans, too. I guess I put some kidney beans and diced tomatoes in a pot with … I don’t know. Mexican things. They were yummy. 

That evening, before picking up Lucy, I went to get that jig saw, and the dude couldn’t find it. I had to laugh, because I always think I’m the only one who does stuff like that! But no jig saw for me, very sad. But honestly the hole I cut was not half bad. 

One really cute thing that happened was I had labelled the boards with letters so I would know what order the went it, and I added an arrow so I would know which way was downstream. So I’m working outside, and this bee comes around and, well

That oughta clear up a few things around here. 

TUESDAY

Tuesday, I really don’t know what we ate. I do remember going to Home Depot, AGAIN, with this magnificently lucid list

which is written on a piece torn off a box of nails. I stared at the bolts for a really long time before deciding not to get any, which is what usually happens when I got to buy bolts. Then I just got a whole bunch more wood. 

And Tuesday I started to work on the railing. This is where my confidence in the whole project really took a nosedive.

 

The railing is more sturdy than it looks, because it is nailed into the inside of the frame, and the floor is built around it. Buttttt it’s still not as sturdy as I would like, especially when I think about, you know, people who are eleven and maybe have some issues with impulse control. And physics. So I just kind of kept adding more and more reinforcements, and going on a kind of roller coaster of confidence and despair as I went. Which I always enjoy. 

Ah! Irene reminded me we had bratwurst on Tuesday. I asked Damien to grill it, and I served it with the pickled peppers and onions I made last week. They got pickled good!

In the evening, I suddenly remembered I had a garden. Yipes! It had been raining off an on, so nothing was too horribly dried out, but it was not happy. So I gave everything a good soaking, and deadheaded a bunch of flowers and did this and that. My carrot patch is absurd. I DID thin it, but not nearly enough, and now we have ten thousand bushy-topped, threadlike carrots all competing for a few square feet of space.

Corrie sees absolutely no problem with this, so I guess there is no problem!

And I picked a bunch of eggplants! I have a few ichiban plants, which make long, thin eggplants, and a bunch of — okay, I forget what they are. They are streaky purple and white, and they’re producing like crazy, which makes me happy. 

That night, the kids made s’mores while I stayed inside and melded into my bed. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork gyros, stuffed grape leaves, fried eggplant

Wednesday, you’ll never guess, I worked on the treehouse. But first I did a bunch of prep for supper. I really wanted to use the eggplant, and also make some stuffed grape leaves before the grape leaves start to get tough. So obviously it was GYRO TIME. I made a marinade and cut up a pork butt into thin pieces, and set that marinating. Here is that recipe (oh yeah, this is a food post!)

Jump to Recipe

Then I sent Corrie out to pick me a 40 grape leaves and 40 mint leaves. We blanched the grape leaves in salted water, and I decided we’d do cheater grape leaves, with leftover, already-cooked rice. I put some fresh mint a dill and some diced red onion in a pot with a bunch of sumac, salt and pepper, butter, olive oil, and oregano, and warmed that up a bit, and then mixed in the rice. Then Corrie just went ahead and made forty grape leaves!

When she was done, I put them in the slow cooker with water and lemon juice, and let that go. Then I made some yogurt sauce and cut up all the eggplants, salted the slices, and laid them between paper towels to dry out a bit. I also mixed up the dry part of the batter for the eggplant. 

I spent a good part of the day building a reinforcing the railing. Then, when it got close to supper time, I started some spicy french fries cooking, and when they were almost done, I took the meat out of the marinade and spread it on a pan, and roasted it. 

Then I added the oil and water to the batter mix for the eggplants. Here is my recipe for fried eggplant. 

Jump to Recipe

I really love this recipe. It seems mild at first, but the warm spiciness sneaks up on you; and the texture is wonderful. It puffs up and then crisps, and in the time it takes for the outside to get crunchy, the inside (the actual eggplant) practically melts. Aghh, so good. 

Most of the eggplant I was cooking was baby eggplant, so it was just penny-sized, and let me tell you, that was a pain in the neck to dredge in batter and drop into oil. I burned the hell out of my fingers several times. WORTH IT.

You give it a little sprinkle with kosher salt while it’s still piping hot, and it’s amazing. 

So we had an actual two-course meal: Fried eggplant and stuffed grape leaves with garlic yogurt sauce: 

and then gyros, with pork, tomatoes, cucumbers, spicy fries, feta, and more yogurt sauce, hot sauce, and more fresh mint leaves. I did store bought pita because I know my limits! More or less!

I wished, as I always do when I make this meal, that I had set aside some of the marinade before I put the meat in, to use as a dipping sauce for the eggplant. Maybe next time. And I kind of wished I had made the grape leaves with parboiled rice, because they had gotten rather mushy. But these are minor complaints. It was a fantastic meal, and I was very pleased with myself and with Corrie. 

At some point during the day, I made some ice cream, because Corrie was having some friends over the next day. I made one batch of coffee ice cream, which is just the sweet cream base (two eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, one cup of milk, two cups of heavy cream) plus two tablespoons of freeze dried instant coffee churned in, plus a third tablespoon stirred in after churning. I also dumped in half a bag of mini chocolate chips. 

For the second batch, Corrie asked if I could make purple cow ice cream, which is raspberry with chocolate and white chocolate chunks. I could try! I started off making raspberry ice cream, but didn’t have quite enough raspberries, so I went into the yard and found a very small handful of wild blackberries and some blueberries from our poor neglected bush. Still not quite enough, so I dumped in the last of the strawberry rhubarb compote from last week’s cheesecake. So it was raspberry-blueberry-blackberry-strawberry-rhubarb flavored. I churned it and then added the rest of the mini chocolate chips and half a bag of white chocolate chips. (I pre-freeze any add-ins while the ice cream is churning, so they don’t melt when I add them.) 

THURSDAY
Burgers, chips, fruit salad, ice cream cones

Thursday in the morning, I went and got a NEW (to me) SACRAMENT! Anointing of the sick. Surgery is next Thursday, so we’re getting down to it. I like our new pastor a lot, and it turns out he has a DOG. This dog was so incredibly overjoyed to see us, she bounced straight up in the air like a toy on a spring. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, Sonny bounces like that sometimes, but he’s proportioned so oddly, it has a different effect. Anyway, I got anointed, and I got to meet a nice dog, and had a good talk with the pastor, and it was a very good way to start the day. 

I went out to assess the treehouse, and decided the railing was about as strong as it was going to be without some major additions, and Clara’s boyfriend is going to come over on Sunday and tell me if it needs any major additions, or I’m just being crazy. I did want to add something to function as a sort of net, to prevent people from accidentally slithering through the railing to their death below.

But also, I truly, ardenty, profoundly did not want to spend any more money on this friggin thing. 

So we went to the pumpkin patch, which I fenced in early on to keep the ducks out. Actually, it was really the flower patch on the other side that I was hoping to keep the ducks out of. Pumpkins are pretty hardy even when they’re just little sprouts, but I really had high hopes for this spot. Remember this? 

I was imagining a glorious blaze of color as a carpet of brilliant flowers sprung up right outside my bedroom window. Well, in just two short months, with constant attention, that plain bare soil has been transformed into

. . . this.

Not a flower in sight. I think there are two little purple thingies in there somewhere. The rest is all just bullshit that was already growing there, but now it’s growing better because I tore out blackberries and Virginia creepers, and composted it. Hooray! The good news is, there are several tomatoes plants in there that seeded themselves, presumably from the compost, and they’re doing great! Whatcha gonna do. Gardens, man. 

Anyway, what I was saying was that I actually put up the fence to keep the ducks out of the flower patch; but since there are clearly not going to be flowers, I figured I might as well use that fencing (which I got on the side of the road anyway). So I started to disentangle it from the pumpkin vines. I had to cut two pumpkins off, which is a bit of a shame, but oh well. Then I found one last pumpkin, and that procedure was a bit more involved. 

Poor thing! I ended up gradually bending the wire just enough so we could push the pumpkin out, and it did finally pop out, no episiotomy necessary. We’ll see if it rots or heals. Poor pumpkin. Poor everyone. 

I also found Tulip, one of our Pekins who has been disappearing for large swaths of the day and every night. I figured she must have a nest, and I was right. I don’t know how many eggs she has, because she was pretty furious that I found her, and I don’t need any of that action. Ducks, man. 

SO ANYWAY, so then I had some fencing! Not quite enough to go all the way around the three sides, but I was able to patch it with some cattle fencing from a failed grape arbor project. I stapled it in place and then pinned it down with all the 1×4’s and leftover bits of 2×4 I could find.

At this point I had come to feel extremely awful about the whole project. All I could think about was children tumbling down out of the sky onto the rocks below, with any survivors being swept downstream and ultimately nibbled to death by ducks.

And that is how I knew it was time to quit for the day. Also I was out of wood. 

Corrie’s friends came over and played in the pool until the inevitable rain came, and then Damien cooked burgers, and I made a little fruit salad with watermelon, grapes, and nectarines. 

I opened the second jar of refrigerator pickles, and whew, they had just gotten more vicious! I am so pleased with these pickles. I love a good snarly pickle. Woof!

The ice cream was also a big hit. 

I didn’t have any because I put chocolate it all of it, but the kids proclaimed the multi-berry one my best ice cream yet, so that was nice! 

FRIDAY
??Tuna

This morning I went to see the treehouse, and you know what? That sumbitch is really strong and stable. Maybe I will have to put some posts under two corners to make it stronger, but maybe I won’t. Probably I’ll get some kind of specialized metal reinforcement pieces and bang those on, and that will be that. Moe offered to go to Home Depot for me to get the last little bits of wood I need to secure the wire fence, plus two extra 2×4’s just because (because you never have enough 2×4’s) and then I just need to add a kind of sill to attach the ladder to, and then it will be . . . .done? Maybe? For now?

Well, they’re about to cut my head open, so I guess I’m right up at the end of this project, whether it’s done or not! Tomorrow we are going to Rhode Island to visit my niece and maybe swim in the ocean if we can. Right now I gotta get to adoration, and then I’m going to ask this cute guy with pretty eyes and long legs to take me out to dinner. He’s been hanging around a lot lately, and I think he likes me! Wish me luck. 

Print

Marinade for pork gyros

Marinate thinly-sliced meat for several hours, then grill over the coals or broil in the oven. Serve wrapped up in pita with cucumbers, tomatoes, french fries, hot sauce, and yogurt sauce. This marinade is enough for about five pounds of meat. 

Ingredients

  • 4 medium tomatoes diced and smashed a bit
  • 2 onions grated
  • 2 Tbsp oregano (or a large handful of fresh oregano, chopped)
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 3/4 cup lemon juice
  • 2 Tbsp paprika
  • 12 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
  • kosher salt and pepper

 

Print

Fried eggplant

You can salt the eggplant slices many hours ahead of time, even overnight, to dry them before frying.

Ingredients

  • 3 medium eggplants
  • salt for drying out the eggplant

veg oil for frying

3 cups flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 2-1/2 cups water
  • 1 Tbsp veg oil
  • optional: kosher salt for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Cut the ends off the eggplant and slice it into one-inch slices.
    Salt them thoroughly on both sides and lay on paper towels on a tray (layering if necessary). Let sit for half an hour (or as long as overnight) to draw out some of the moisture. 

  2. Mix flour and seasonings in a bowl, add the water and teaspoon of oil, and beat into a batter. Preheat oven for warming. 

  3. Put oil in heavy pan and heat until it's hot but not smoking. Prepare a tray with paper towels.

  4. Dredge the eggplant slices through the batter on both sides, scraping off excess if necessary, and carefully lay them in the hot oil, and fry until crisp, turning once. Fry in batches, giving them plenty of room to fry.

  5. Remove eggplant slices to tray with paper towels and sprinkle with kosher salt if you like. You can keep them warm in the oven for a short time.  

  6. Serve with yogurt sauce or marinara sauce.

More than many potatoes

My garden, if I may say so, is doing great this year. I added many native perennials to my flower beds, but my pride and joy is the food I am growing. My peaches, apples and grapes are bounteous, my pumpkins are unstoppable, carrots are coming in strong, my sweet corn is putting out tassels ahead of schedule, and my various basils, eggplants, garlic, cucumbers and dill are doing yeoman’s work. Even my rhubarb, strawberries and asparagus are still producing a bit, well past their allotted season. 

But for a real thrill, I go and gaze at my potato plants, which are dying. This is good. This is what you want to see at this time of year. A few weeks ago, the stems were sturdy, and the leaves were thick and lush, and when I watered them, they danced and bounced under the shower. But after briefly flowering, the blossoms are now gone, and the leaves are taking on a dusty look, drooping and tired. Soon the leaves will start to fray and dry up, and then they will go brown. That’s how I will know it is time to harvest.

And getting to the point where it is time to harvest is the whole point of growing potatoes. The trick is not to get overly attached to the intermediary stages.

The other trick is understanding that all stages are intermediary stages. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 480: Peter Piper, meet Mike Mulligan

Happy Friday! I just want to say thank you to so many people who were so kind and sympathetic about my dumb ocean scare the other week. It’s crazy that it’s something that it’s such an incredibly common experience, but it was still genuinely traumatic. It really got to me. But I have been feeling SO much more myself this week, and I appreciate your prayers and kindness so very much. Basically I decided I am not going to die this month, or even this year, and then the world went back to being beautiful again, which was a relief. 

I was going through my camera roll and was surprised at how much nice food we had this week! Although I leaned pretty heavily into watermelon as safe produce. Could be worse. Leaning into watermelon sounds so cool and refreshing, doesn’t it? 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

Just a regular shopping day during the day, as far as I can remember. The shopping turn kid chose Hot Pockets for a frozen food supplement to the leftovers. Looks like I had one of those, plus pulled pork, and yes, watermelon.

At some point I cut up a bunch of strawberries and put them in a pot with the rhubarb I harvested last week, and I made a compote.

I knew this was the prettiest it was gonna look, because my rhubarb plant doesn’t turn red, so when you cook it, it always goes dull in color. I may violate one of my stupider principles and add a few drops of red food coloring next time. 

Then I made a cheesecake! I have backed away from selling cheesecake for the time being, but I figured I might as well make one for my own dang family for once. I layered cheesecake batter and compote, and then swirled it with a skewer and baked it. Turned out purty. 

Put that in the fridge to chill and went to bed. 

SUNDAY
Bacon egg cheese sandwiches, hash browns; strawberry rhubarb cheesecake

Sunday after Mass, I picked all the cucumbers I could find in my garden. I honestly thought growing cucumbers was a no-brainer, but it turns out you need to use at least a little bit of your brain. And I did not do that. So this is my first cuke harvest:

Apparently the shape indicates that they are low on potassium(?), or else there was some kind of pollination problem. But what is life for if not for giggling over cucumbers?

I had that dill-infused vinegar I started two weeks ago

I sliced up most of the cucumbers, except for the two round ones, and more or less followed this recipe for refrigerator pickles. And YES, I used dill, garlic, and cucumbers from my garden, AS PLANNED. I cut them into chips, rather than spears, because burgers were on the menu later in the week. They looked very promising!

Although in retrospect, I could have packed them a lot tighter. 

I still had some vinegar left over (you mix it with water to make the brine), so I sliced up . . . now wait a minute. I was going to say “leftover peppers,” but it looks like I didn’t actually cook any peppers until Monday. Well, clearly I am confused, so let’s just put a pin in this for the moment.

One thing I did definitely do on Sunday was repair the grape arch that got knocked down in a rainstorm. It was one of those cheapy metal arches, and it just collapsed. 

People kept walking on my grapes and it was stressing me out so much! So I cut down a bunch of saplings and thin branches, stripped off the leaves and twigs, and zip tied the heck out of them, to make a new arch. Then I cut down a few more branches and twisted them around the whole thing and zip tied that to itself. In theory, as it dries out, it will just become stronger. So far, so good. 

I spent the rest of Sunday finishing adding diagonal braces to Corrie’s treehouse. They each had to be cut slightly differently, and even when I put a ladder in the stream, I couldn’t reach the two corners on the far end, so Damien nailed in the ones I couldn’t reach. We also added a sister joist to one that came up a bit short, and I attached four hurricane ties. 

Her Corgnoness was pleased with our work. 

And at this point, the platform was officially strong enough to hold my weight! That’s what I kept telling myself, and everyone else. 

For supper, we had toasted bagels, fried eggs, bacon, and cheese sandwiches, with hash browns and OJ. 

Breakfast for dinner eaten outside after swinging a hammer all afternoon is incredible. I should write a cookbook pairing recipes with activities, for peak enjoyment. 

Oh, and then we had the cheesecake! It was very nice. I think I underbaked it a tiny bit, or maybe it was just that the compote destabilized it a little bit. It was good, though, and I got to use my portion marker I got at the thrift store (one of these dealios). Not really necessary for family use, but it’s a handy thing to have if I ever want to sell an evenly-portioned cheesecake. 

We had the cake with more strawberry rhubarb compote ladled over the top

See, just not the most picture-perfect dessert ever! But it was good, and I was pleased with myself for thinking ahead to have a nice dessert ready.

MONDAY
Spicy chicken sandwiches, pesto pasta, watermelon

Okay, so MONDAY was the day I cooked peppers and therefore had leftover peppers to pickle. I made those spicy chicken sandwiches with pepper and cheese from Sip and Feast, except I had bell peppers instead of shishito peppers. Which is fine, except I forgot they take FOREVER to cook on the stovetop. They’re just so much heftier than shishito peppers. To speed up cooking, I squashed them down using the pan full of chicken and cheese, and that worked out fine because it kept the chicken warm. 

The peppers eventually cooked through, and they sure looked pretty in the evening sun 

So the sandwiches are spicy chicken thighs, peppers, raw red onion, American cheese, and BBQ sauce on a toasted roll. Really delicious. 

Oh, I forgot, I made a quickie pesto with basil from the garden. And garlic from the garden! I just threw a ton of basil into the food processor with some cloves of garlic, a bunch of parmesan cheese, some olive oil, and pepper. I was gonna throw some nuts in there (you can use any kind of nuts for pesto; it doesn’t have to be pine nuts), but, I don’t know, it was hot and I gave up looking. The pasta salad was delicious anyway, very green and pungent. 

And more watermelon! 

TUESDAY
Korean beef bowl, rice, sesame broccoli 

Tuesday was crazy busy. Two appointments, and a ton of errands, including multiple pharmacies, and I also bought a used fire escape ladder from someone off Marketplace. This will be for the treehouse. I think I may have also gone to Home Depot. Seems likely.

I made supper super fast when I finally got home. Here’s my Korean Beef Bowl recipe

Jump to Recipe

I was tempted to use powdered ginger and garlic to speed things up, but I haven’t made this dish in a long time and I wanted it to be good, so I went for the fresh stuff, and it’s so worth it. 

I also cut up some broccoli and roasted it quickly in the oven with sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and pepper. This dish really wants chopped scallions on top, but not These Days. I was kicking myself for not having some scallions growing in water on the windowsill. Got out of the habit, and now we are scallionless. But it was still a very tasty meal. 

Oh how I love eating outside. 

Oh dang, the leftover peppers! So like I said, I had leftover brine from the refrigerator pickles, so I sliced up the leftover peppers into thin strips and threw them in a jar with some sliced red onions leftover from who knows what, and poured the rest of the brine on top of that. 

I’m not sure what I will do with this or how it will taste, but it sure is pretty. I might chop it up and serve it with brats. That sounds good! Or maybe I will add some olives and make muffaletta sandwiches. Or maybe I will just eat pickled peppers like a fermentation goblin. 

On Tuesday I made a bunch of ice cream, because Benny was planning to have some friends over later, and I wanted to try making fried ice cream. I made two batches of vanilla and one batch of coffee. For that, I just did the normal sweet cream/vanilla base (two eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of heavy cream), and added I think three tablespoons of instant espresso powder to it. Turned out WONDERFUL. Really rich and creamy. 

WEDNESDAY
Mussakahn, taboon, cantaloupe and dates

I was freaking busy on Wednesday, and I don’t even remember why, but I remember being mad at myself for planning a relatively complex meal. Then I was even madder when I realized we didn’t have sumac, which is the primary flavor in this dish! And one of my errands is Home Depot, which is near a Price Chopper, and THEY ALSO DIDN’T HAVE SUMAC. New Hampshire is just… so caucasian. Anyway, I just made the recipe without sumac. I more or less follow this Saveur recipe. So I got that marinating and then at some point started some dough for taboon.

Jump to Recipe

Every single time I make this bread, I think, “That must be a typo. It can’t possibly need that much salt.” But it does. It is a salty bread, that’s all! 

It’s not really a hard meal at all; you just have to start the chicken several hours before supper, and start the taboon maybe an hour before supper. But then the actual cooking and baking is super simple. You just throw the chicken in the oven on a pan and cook it for about an hour. Right before it’s done, you brown up some pine nuts to throw on top. For the taboon, it rises for an hour, rests for ten minutes, and then you stretch it over the pan, give it some dimples, and bake for another 12 minutes or so, so basically it’s just throwing two things in two pans and letting them go. I think I had the oven at 400 the whole time (which is hotter than what the chicken recipe calls for) and it still turned out great. 

For a side, I cut up a cantaloupe and served it with some dried dates, because I am freaking running out of ideas for safe produce dishes. 

For the taboon, I couldn’t find my second giant sheet pan, but it was a smaller crowd for supper anyway (Lucy and Sophia went to see BTS!), so I baked it in a pizza pan and we had ROUND mussakhan. 

Leading Moe (who had moved out before I discovered this dish, and had never seen it before) to say, “Mama, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is the weirdest pizza you’ve ever made.” 

It was tasty, though, even without the sumac. Just not as piquant. The taboon turned out really nice, soft and chewy. And salty!

On Wednesday, Benny used a half-cup measure and made the ice cream into balls, and put them back in the freezer on parchment paper. (Oh, come to think of it, that’s where my second pan was, duh!) The idea was to give them plenty of time to freeze very solid, for frying on Thursday. 

I also mowed the heck out of the yard in the evening, when it cooled down a bit. We’ve been getting giant dumps of rain, and then periods of scorching hot sun, so the yard was looking pretty disreputable. The lawnmower was making really tragic noises and kept quitting, but I forged ahead. I honestly think that, between yoga and mowing and swinging a hammer, I’ve bullied my arm into healing. My range of motion is definitely improving, and it doesn’t ache so much at night. I dunno. Maybe I should become a physical therapist. “Here’s a hammer, now quit whining.” 

THURSDAY
Burgers, chips, fruit salad, fried ice cream

Thursday I spent allllll day on the treehouse. I wanted to add in a bunch of diagonal supports to the frame before I put the floor on. I started out really well

and then things went. . . a little silly. I don’t think I really made any mistakes, per se, but it looks like a deranged person was building it, which is absolutely accurate.

I had to trot back and forth between the treehouse and the saw, which can only be plugged in in a certain spot to avoid tripping the house circuit; and you know, a lot of things can happen in between measuring a piece of wood and cutting it! For instance, you can get really hot, and get dumb. Or maybe you can measure and cut the wood right, but then when you get back and climb up the ladder, you forget where you meant to attach it. You would think the solution would be to mark directly on the wood where it’s supposed to go, but this only works for a while until you drop both your pencil and your marker into the stream, and also your shoes. I also dropped my hammer multiple times, but eventually tied it to the freaking tree, so score one for the slow learner there! 

Anyway, here is a quick video from earlier in the day, where you can see my view from up in the tree, and also my view climbing down the ladder, stomping through the woods, and then trudging through the yard. 

So here is what the frame looked like when I was done: 

My basic theory was: Triangles are strong. Must make triangles.

And you know what, that thing is freaking solid. As I mentioned, I had kept saying to everyone, “As soon as I get the braces in place, it will be strong enough to support me!” but actually making myself get off the top of the ladder and sit on just the platform was really scary! But the more I stayed up there and moved around, the more secure I felt. It really is strong. Triangles, man. 

And it is GORGEOUS up there. Just absolutely dreamy. 

Look at that cool, green light. The spot under the treehouse is right where the ducks like to hang out during the hottest part of the day, and it’s just a fairytale up there. Ducks bobbing, water sparkling and babbling below, green leaves and dappled sunlight dancing around you and boughs waving gently overhead. I am so very pleased. 

I was less pleased when I nailed the final support in place, looked around, and realized I had Mike Mulliganed myself. Yes, I built so fast and so well, I forgot to leave a way to get out. I could not believe it. I kept trying to find a spot that was big enough for my ass and also near a ladder, and there really wasn’t one!

Which is good! I was hoping not to have gaps. But also, I really needed to get out of the tree at some point. Eventually I rotated myself around so I was aligned with the biggest gap I could find, then I started slithering and scooching, and shimmying myself downward, at one point manually stuffing my belly and then my boobs through the gap, and giggling insanely to myself while feeling grateful that at least the entire town of Popperville hadn’t come out to watch. 

Well! It was almost time for Benny’s friends to turn up. Benny never really got a birthday party back in December, despite my best bullying efforts, so we figured we owned her a party. It’s a complicated situation where she has different friend groups and loves them all, but they do not love each other, and the one thing Benny is allergic to is drama. So she ended up inviting over four boys for a pool party.

When I was fourteen, this is not what I would have done. But she had a great time. Where she gets her confidence from, I have no idea. They went to the stream, played in the pool, played in the pool in the rain, and got out for burgers, which Damien grilled. 

The burgers were super juicy and delicious. I also made a nice fruit salad with watermelon, cantaloupe, kiwi, peach, and nectarine, which is what I happened to have in the house because I forgot to buy fruit for a fruit salad, oops. We also had chips and leftover pesto pasta. 

AND, we had the refrigerator pickles, and wow. they were delicious! Just delightful. Crisp and garlicky and hotter than I was expecting. Everyone who likes pickles was really impressed by these, so I’m definitely making more, although I may need to buy some cucumbers. 

I was feeling somewhat smug because I had had so much foresight about making the ice cream balls ahead of time. Then I uhh read the rest of the recipe, and it turns out you’re supposed to roll them in the coating and freeze them for an additional four hours! OH WELL. Luckily, Benny wanted to play games with her pals before dessert, so the ice cream balls did get nearly four hours in the freezer by the time I fried them. 

I think I made 24 total, and they turned out pretty okay. 

The recipe I used calls for a coating made of crushed corn flakes, a little salt, and cinnamon, and then you serve it with a drizzle of chocolate sauce or honey, and top it with whipped cream. Sadly, the heavy cream had frozen and then thawed, so it separated, and I thought maybe if I just whipped it real good, it would reintegrate itself.

This did not happen. 

So I junked that and just served the ice cream with honey or chocolate syrup. It was good!

Just not amazing. Probably 1/3 to half of the ice cream balls opened up even during a very quick frying, which wasn’t disastrous, but it kind of broke the enchantment of having something hot and crispy outside and frozen inside. I don’t know if it’s because I was rushing so much to get the balls coated, and I didn’t coat them well enough, or what.

I do think I want to try this again, but probably with a batter coating, rather than crumb. But honestly, nobody was really enthusiastic about trying it except for me, so I may just let it go. Oh well! The ice cream part was good. Definitely gonna make the coffee flavor again. I have to say, the combination of coffee ice cream, cinnamon, and honey was really nice. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular old pizza! I didn’t have time to work on the treehouse today, but I I did go out to look at my work, and I forgot that I had added two posts for the railing!

They’re a little crooked, but this is just the initial attachment point, and that will get fixed. Corrie wants to me to string barbed wire around it, but I will not be doing that. I may add railings and then make a fence with rope; not sure yet. 

And it’s just nice out there. My annuals are finally off to the races, and it’s real pretty in our back yard.

Front’s not bad either! 


A little shaggy, but who among us. The two big patches of mixed wildflowers I planted on the sides of the house yielded mostly queen anne’s lace, oh well. A lot of the stuff I planted this year grew leaves, but no blossoms. At least not yet! Gladioli, rain lilies, dahlias, and dianthus, all just keepin it green this year. It’s okay. We do what we can. 

Just got back from adoration, and prayed for yez all. 

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Korean Beef Bowl

A very quick and satisfying meal with lots of flavor and only a few ingredients. Serve over rice, with sesame seeds and chopped scallions on the top if you like. You can use garlic powder and powdered ginger, but fresh is better. The proportions are flexible, and you can easily add more of any sauce ingredient at the end of cooking to adjust to your taste.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup brown sugar (or less if you're not crazy about sweetness)
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 3-4 inches fresh ginger, minced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3-4 lb2 ground beef
  • scallions, chopped, for garnish
  • sesame seeds for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a large skillet, cook ground beef, breaking it into bits, until the meat is nearly browned. Drain most of the fat and add the fresh ginger and garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is all cooked.

  2. Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes the ground beef and stir to combine. Cook a little longer until everything is hot and saucy.

  3. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds. 

 

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taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 4 packets yeast
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.

  3. Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.

  6. Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 479: It is Monday, my dudes

Sorry for not getting this out on Friday! But I assure you, it is Monday. I can tell because I’m on my backup to the backup computer, and it took my all weekend to figure out how to persuade it that I UNDERSTAND simchafisher.com is a suspicious website, but I really do want to go there anyway. Hope this finds you same.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m living in a somewhat preachy folk tale where the slovenly vegetable-hating housewife gets taught a lesson by the fairies, and, through a complete deprivation of fresh vegetables, she comes to understand just how much she really actually enjoyed fresh vegetables. Except the fairy in this case is RFK Jr., and, instead of magic, he uses, well, sorry about that mental image. What I’m trying to say is, I picked some lettuce from my garden and I’m going to eat it for lunch, and I am EXCITED.

It alternated between very hot and pouring rain last week. It turns out that when it’s really hot outside, and I can’t make salads, I just make various kinds of sandwiches. Here is what we had last week: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers plus pizza and loaded potato skins

‘Twas another super long shopping turn with multiple side quests and pick-ups and drop-offs, but I must have had some steam left when we got back, because I did a little harvesting of the last of the rhubarb, plus some lupine seeds from my most magnificent lupine beast, and some zinnias and wildflowers. 

Big year for Queen Anne’s Lace! It is everywhere, and very tall. 

I also dug up the rest of the garlic, because I was tired of thinking about it. 

We lost a duck on Saturday. It was poor little Dolly, the one who struggled to get out of his egg, and who never really caught on how to live right. Poor thing! He did have lots of companionship his whole life and had a fine share of sunshine, grubs, green grass, fresh water, and butterflies. Vaya con Dios, Dolly, you little dope. Sorry we thought you were a girl when we named you. 

A few days later, another duck went missing. Sometimes they go on adventures and spend the night outside, but this one hasn’t come back yet, so it’s not looking hopeful. These are the perils of having free range ducks. I think it’s still the best life for them, because they have the stream and the woods and so much mud and tasty bugs at their disposal, but there are perils! 

That evening, Benny and I went paddling out on the pond. I left my camera in the car, so just imagine the New Hampshirest thing you can imagine as the sun goes down.

We were planning to explore the little St. Francis chapel on the other side of the water, but someone was doing a maternity photo shoot, which I was fairly slow to catch on to, oh well. Sorry, lady. 

SUNDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches, chips

Sunday after Mass I finally got the rest of the garlic hung up to cure

and chopped up and froze the rhubarb. This time I remembered to string it first!

Then I made a little progress on Corrie’s treehouse! This is probably the closest I’ve ever come to real carpentry. A treehouse built around a single tree needs four diagonal braces to support the platform, and the braces need to be cut to fit inside the corner of the frame.

This is my first one. I ended up getting better as I went! But they all seem to be doing the trick. I used my little Japanese pull saw, which I love. 

It looks a little Dr. Seussy, but that’s to be expected. (I did add some nails to the bottom end after I took this picture!) 

For supper, I asked Elijah to roast some chicken breasts with olive oil, salt and pepper, and Irene to cut up some tomatoes, and then I picked a bunch of basil and made a balsamic vinegar reduction — super simple, just two cups of balsamic vinegar and one cup of brown sugar, simmered until it was about half the volume. 

Cut up some mozzarella and some baguettes, and it was yummo.

I hope I remember to do a balsamic reduction and grill some peaches, when the peaches are finally ripe! That will be lovely with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Gosh, I was busy on Sunday. At some point during the day, I baked some brownies and some lemon squares, because after supper, when it got dark, it was OPERA NITE. We watched the 1987 Met production of Turandot, which none of us has ever seen before. It has Luciano Pavarotti and is conducted by James Levine, with incredibly lush, intricate sets by Zeffirelli. I didn’t recognize the other names, but it was Eva Marton as Turandot, and her voice and presence were wonderful; but even with the spectacular costumes, we struggled a bit with accepting her as the most beautiful princess in the world. But Leona Mitchell as Liu was heartbreakingly good. 

Unfortunately, my kids are simply too Gen Z to be able to tolerate the whole “Ping, Pang, Pong” thing going on in Turandot, and they also felt like Turandot was justified in killing everybody and keeping all her subjects in fear of torture constantly? So it was not especially well received. Oh well! They did like the snacks, and we watched it outside on the projector, which is fun. The actual moon, nearly full, was rising just as they were singing, “Perché tarda la luna?” so that was lovely.

We watched Act One, had a break for cheese and crackers

watched Act Two, had a break for brownies and lemon squares

and watched Act Three. It’s only about two hours in total. And that was Opera Nite! Another summer goal checked off the list. 

MONDAY
Beach food and McDonald’s

Monday we went to the ocean! Everyone made a sandwich and I packed up a bunch of chips and cherries, cookies and soda, and we went to dear old Hampton Beach. Perfect weather, sparkly water, decent waves. Everyone went in, and Corrie and I stayed in, and then uhhhh we almost drowned. This has actually been causing me a medium amount of anguish, because I’m having trouble sleeping because my arm hurts, and while I’m awake, my mind keeps replaying the scary part in the water over and over. I’m making progress! My siblings gave me some good tips for how to integrate what happened into my life, so it’s not just this chaotic scary thing that I can’t handle, but something that happened and turned out okay. But still, yeesh. 

What happened is we were out past the breakers, still shallow enough where we could touch bottom, and we were having a lovely time, bobbing up and down with the waves and periodically checking our position to make sure we weren’t getting pulled past this outcropping of jaggedy rocks. I truly felt like a little kid again, and was so happy and carefree, and Corrie was just in absolute bliss. Then suddenly Corrie goes, “Hey, the rocks are right there!” and dang, they were, and dang, we were suddenly a lot closer to them than we had been, and DANG, we COULDN’T GET AWAY FROM THEM. 

Corrie had a boogie board, so I grabbed her hand and told her to hold on to the board, and we kicked together. Every time a wave came, I shouted, “Let’s kick!” and we did, but we didn’t make any progress at all. My feet and hands were hot and I started panting and swallowing water, and I was getting tired so, so fast. Corrie was just excited and having a good time, and I didn’t want to freak her out, so I just kept saying, “We need to kick!” I waved my arm in between waves while holding her hand with the other one, but I kept swallowing water, and every time I turned around, the rocks were closer. 

THEN, this beautiful, serene water nymph in red appeared. She put an orange torpedo buoy in my hands and told me to hang on, and someone else was on the way. Then yes, a second beautiful, serene water nymph appeared and put a buoy in Corrie’s hands. And they just towed us right in. They kept telling me to hold on with both hands, but I could not get myself to let go of Corrie. I have had this dream, you see, probably twenty times over the last few decades, where I am with a child in the ocean, and we’re holding hands, and a wave comes, and … I let go. Then the wave recedes, and it leaves a shining empty beach, and the child is gone.

So, sorry, ladies, I did not let go, and probably that impeded our rescue, but anyway, this time I didn’t let go. 

Feaking ocean. I still love you, but sheesh. I guess that was a rip current. I’ve read this sign many, many, times

but when we were in the middle of it, I wasn’t thinking “oh, this must be a rip current. Good thing I know my options!” I was thinking “AGGGGGGGGG ::splut splut:: Oh AIEEEEEEE ::spit sputter:: AUGGGGGGG.” So, thank God for those lifeguards! They really appeared out of nowhere like divine apparitions, and they were so calm and kind, and as soon as we were on our feet and made sure we were okay, they just went back to work. 

Corrie just thought the whole thing was neat. I let Damien put me in a chair and wrap me in a towel and I cried a bit, then ate a bunch of cherries. I was so shaken up. I’ve been struggling a bit with “but what if I die?” thoughts lately, because of my upcoming surgery, and this did not help! 

Anyway, we went to the arcade and then got some beach snacks (I opted for a snow cone)

In the pic, I am wearing the bracelet Damien won for me at Ski Ball. Then we drove part way home, stopped for McDonald’s, and went the rest of the way home. What a to-do, my goodness. 

TUESDAY
Burgers and fries

Tuesday it rained most of the day, and I was so glad we had gotten to the beach while the weather was good. I spent a good long time sorting Benny and Corrie’s outgrown clothes. Bagged ’em up and immediately found someone on a buy nothing group who wanted them. 

Usually we are kind of the end of the line, clotheswise, and by the time we’re done with something, absolutely nobody wants anything to do with it; but Benny had a LOT of clothes! I didn’t even recognize some of them. Clothes just flow through our house in a never ending river.  

Even though it was raining, Damien grilled the burgers, and I just made a big batch of frozen fries, and I took this ultra glamorous photo

And that is finally the very last of the burgers I got for July 4th! Phew. That was a lot of burgers. 

WEDNESDAY
Buffalo chicken wraps, corn and zucchini salad

Wednesday it was absolutely pouring rain all day. Tremendous amounts of rain. I had a doctor’s appointment that was like “you are taking your meds wrong and are just asking for uterine cancer, and your blood pressure has crept up again, and we are out of meds for your reflux so I’ll order an endoscopy, but not until after your brain surgery, but in the mean time, here is a PT referral for your frozen shoulder.” I didn’t even get a sticker! Oh well, at least I didn’t drown. 

So I got home and heated up some chicken tenders, and for a side dish I made a little salad. I cut up a few zucchini into spears and seared them in olive oil

then did the same for some leftover corn cut off the cobs. Then I mixed it with Taijin seasoning and red onion. 

Really could have used some fresh cilantro, but it was pretty good. 

I took a truly terrible picture of supper (we had the chicken with buffalo sauce and pepper jack cheese on tortillas)

and that was Wednesday. 

THURSDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches, baked potatoes, watermelon

It being the end of the month, I suddenly realized I have a job, and spent most of the day writing furiously. In the morning, I hacked up a pork shoulder and started pulled pork cooking in the Instant Pot. Here is my recipe for that:

Jump to Recipe

I didn’t find the apple juice, so I used ginger ale, and it turned out nice. This is your reminder that you can use your standing mixer to shred cooked meat, and it takes about four seconds.

An hour before supper, I threw a bunch of potatoes in the oven. When they were done, I toasted some buns, cut up some red onions, cut up a bunch of watermelon, and we had yummy sandwiches. 

Not sure if you can tell, but it was still raining. I was sitting under a tree and just decided to be wet. It is summer and I am going to eat outdoors, dammit!

FRIDAY
Pizza

I also spent Friday furiously writing, and miraculously got everything turned in that I really needed to! I did forget to take the pizza dough out of the freezer, so after adoration I just bought some thawed pizza dough and, this may surprise you, but then I made some pizza. And very good it is, pizza. 

Okay, phew that’s it!

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Clovey pulled pork

Ingredients

  • fatty hunk of pork
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for browning
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2/3 cup apple juice
  • 3 jalapeños with tops removed, seeds and membranes intact
  • 1 onion, quartered
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 tsp ground cloves

Instructions

  1. Cut pork into hunks. Season heavily with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat oil in heavy pot and brown pork on all sides.

  3. Move browned pork into Instant Pot or slow cooker or dutch oven. Add all the other ingredients. Cover and cook slowly for at least six hours.

  4. When pork is tender, shred.

Body weight

Remember the Shake Weight? Remember the Abdominizer? Remember the Ab Roller, ThighMaster, Bowflex Xtreme?

Once we believed all we had to do was buy this stuff, set it up, and inevitably proceed to become ripped, buff, jacked, swole, or achieve buns of steel, possibly for only five easy payments of $19.99.

Maybe we tried these gimmicks for a while, and they were good for a while. Then they got boring, then they got wretched, then they went under the bed to gather dust. Sic transit gloria ThighMaster.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying equipment to help you get more fit. Some of it is actually really effective. But as someone who recently bought, failed to use, and then threw away a knock-off version of that ridiculous weighted hula hoop, I will tell you what I already knew in my heart: It’s not the equipment. It’s me.

External stuff I can buy and use is not what is going to change my life. What will change my life is (a) doing the thing and (b) continuing to do it. That’s one of the reasons why I return, again and again, to the simplest exercises: The ones that take advantage of my own body weight.

Broadly, this category of exercise is called “calisthenics,” and it just means you’re working against your own self, and gravity. It’s very easy to adjust the difficulty of the resistance you’re using, because it’s just . . . you. You vs. you; and you, as equipment, are automatically tailored to you, for better or for worse. No app or monitor or sensor could possibly do a better job of calibrating a suitable volume for you to work against, than you just being who you are, and deciding to go from there, and keep going.

Well, as you may have guessed, I’m talking about physical fitness, but I’m really talking about spiritual fitness, and there are a NUMBER of directions you could take this idea in.

You could think about how grace builds on nature, and the Holy Spirit prompts you to develop the gifts you already innately have, to become who you’re supposed to be. Or you could think about how, at the end of the protracted workout routine called human life, all extraneous gimmickry will be stripped away, and you will stand alone before God who will judge your fitness only and solely as you qua you.

Let’s instead take a gentler road. … Read the rest of my latest column for The Pillar (paid content). 

Image from DoD (public domain) via Picryl