Author: simchajfisher

How much of Mass do you have to be at, for it to count?

The other day, we had a heck of a time getting to Mass. The boring details included three cars, a sick kid, a kid who got sick in a different way on the way to Mass, and multiple texts and multiple trips back and forth to pick up stragglers.

When I was finally headed back to Mass with one final kid, I said I hoped we would make it on time. I had been taught you have to be at Mass for the Gospel reading for it to count as fulfilling your Sunday observation.

“Kind of a weird thing to have a rule about,” the kid said.

I said, “Well, it’s because if they don’t make a rule, people will pull some kind of nonsense like sticking their heads in the door for a minute, and saying they technically went to Mass.”

I told her that, when I was little, I had heard that you couldn’t spend a dollar bill if more than half of it were missing; so I spent a clownishly long time trying to work out how I could cut a bill in two in such a way that each part would be bigger than half, so I could spend them both. (Yes, I was kind of a dumb kid.) I wasn’t thinking about it having some particular value; I just wanted to get away with something. 

Well, when we got to the Mass, it was almost the end of the sermon. We didn’t make it in time. And then yet another kid bailed out for complicated reasons, and my husband went to check on her, and the upshot is that very few Fishers were truly at Mass for very long at all. 

The more I thought about it, the less it made sense that I could tell by looking at the clock whether or not we had fulfilled our obligation. It is a true obligation, and obligations come with rules; and yet it didn’t feel right to be looking for a rule that had nothing to do with our intentions. So I looked it up and discovered that in fact there is no “cut off” time that makes it “count” or not.

The rule, such as it is, seems to be: “All of the Mass is very good and very important, so get to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation unless you can’t; and be there for all of it, unless you can’t.”

I thought about it some more. (I am still kind of dumb, to be honest.)

I thought, when I was little, I couldn’t solve the riddle of the magically doubling dollar bill because the rules of geometry and the rules against counterfeiting are both pretty inflexible. They have to be, because they were made to protect something that is, in itself, perilously close to nothing. A dollar is just a piece of paper; it’s just an idea in the mind of an economist. It needs rules to make it actually be something. The rules are like an exoskeleton helping to define an amorphous blob.

But the Mass is nothing like that, in any way. And the reason it has rules is for entirely different reasons …. Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor. 

Image by Catholic Church of England and Wales via Flickr  (Creative Commons)

What’s for supper? Vol. 432: S’more licht

Happy Friday! Let’s hop to it! Here’s what we had this week: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

Just a regular Saturday, chores and leftovers. I will say, first I had to spend fifty years being an undisciplined slob, but I am finally, finally learning the charms of doing little mundane things the same way at the same time every day — just stuff like feeding the animals, watering my garden, lifting weights, saying my prayers — rather than letting everything slide and then scrambling to catch up in a panic. Not that everything is neat and tidy and under control around here. But I guess I’m feeling like I’ve hit my stride a bit, and it’s really nice! 

SUNDAY
Tuna noodle for kids, pub food for grownups

For my birthday back in December, Damien gave me tickets to see the incomparable Samantha Crain, and Sunday was the day! So around noon, we took off, and set up a tent in a campground in the DAR State Forest in Goshen. 

Actually we set up the tent, started driving to the concert, suddenly realized we had set up in the wrong site,

and sheepishly dragged the tent over to the right spot.

And THEN we went to the concert. It was at The Iron Horse in Northampton, MA, and we had a great dinner. I had some kind of tasty pulled chicken sandwich and fries, and then the show was SO GOOD. The photo I took made it look gross, though, so instead, here is a picture of the wall.

Samantha Crain is the greatest. She is just a tremendous song writer, a tremendous musician, a tremendous singer. She rocked pretty hard for the first part of the show,

and then the drummer and bassist left the stage and she switched gears into a more indie mode.

Both halves of the show were great, just banger after banger. And she sang “Elk City” for the encore, which is the first song I ever heard by her, and it just about wrecks me every time. 

I really enjoyed the way The Iron Horse is set up. It’s spacious enough so you don’t feel stifled, but small enough that there aren’t, I don’t think, any bad seats. Acoustics are great, but you also feel like it’s okay to move around and eat your food without being disruptive. 

So then we got back to the campsite and decided to walk down to the lake and look at the stars, maybe catch some Perseids. We did see a lot of stars, and then we heard a weird kind of blowing/screaming noise coming from the trees. We weren’t even sure what animal it was, but it was very clearly saying “GO AWAY OR ME KILL YOU” so we scuttled back to the tent! (Pretty sure it was a buck.)

Then we went to bed, and this is the part where we are fifty years old, and I hadn’t been tent camping in about thirty years, and Damien had never been tent camping before, and we were both like, Boy, we are really lying on the actual GROUND, here. The hard, hard, really, really hard, hard actual ground. We had brought three yoga mats and an extra sleeping bag to lie on, but we had underestimated . . . how necessary beds are, I guess. So not a lot of sleep was gotten. But it was still extremely pleasant to start the day in a cool, breezy tent with leaf shadows drifting back and forth overhead, and birdsong all around.

We had brought a coffee machine and battery pack, but couldn’t get it to work, so I sat in the car like a bleary, smelly princess while Damien packed everything up, and we drove off in search of coffee. Stopped at Shelburne Falls and got coffee and muffins, and Damien and I both felt like if we stayed there a minute longer, some crusty old-timer in bib overalls and crinkly smiling eyes was gonna give us a life lesson whether we wanted it or not, and there was a good chance we would get welcomed right off the premises with garden shears or possibly a falling church tower. Good coffee, though.

Despite the terrible sleep, we both enjoyed it enough that we want to go tent camping again soon! As soon as we get a really good air mattress. 

MONDAY
Cobb salad

Good thing I took pictures of Monday’s meal, because the whole day is a blank to me. We apparently had Cobb salad: Roast chicken in chunks, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, red onion, hard boiled eggs, and avocado in chunks. I substituted shredded cheddar cheese for blue cheese. 

Very popular meal. 

I think I had mine with ranch dressing, but possibly blue cheese dressing. Keep reading for more thrilling details like me not quite remembering what kind of salad dressing I chose!

TUESDAY
Smoked pork shoulder, tater tots, grilled corn

Tuesday Damien had to get up early to do his weekly radio spot, so he started a pork shoulder smoking in the morning. I think he ended up smoking it for six or eight hours, and my dears, it was TREMENDOUS. 

 
Sadly, there is not a recipe for this; he just followed his heart with some kind of sugar spice rub and a spray bottle of cider vinegar. He used charcoal and apple wood chunks and babied this thing all day, and it was SO juicy and tender and packed with spicy, smoky flavor inside, with spicy, sweet, sticky charred crust. Amazing. 

I had mine on a sandwich with red onions and just a tiny bit of BBQ sauce, which I was hesitant to use because I didn’t want to miss the flavor of the meat. 

He grilled a bunch of corn in the husks, and cooked a bunch of tater tots, and this was a VERY popular meal. 

That evening, we made the world’s smallest s’mores: Mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and Teddy Grahams, carefully toasted over a birthday candle. 

Irene came out, saw what we were doing, and goes, “Okay, be honest. How poor ARE we??” Irene has been making me laugh since before she was born. 

But the tiny s’mores party was lots of fun! Clara came by and it was lovely. 

and the s’mores were indeed tiny. 

I don’t even like s’mores, but gosh, and I love my backyard, and I love my family. 

Later in the week when I was at the store, I got normal sized marshmallows, regular graham crackers, and regular chocolate bars, so we can proceed on to normal sized s’mores.

Naturally, the kids are now expecting the next week to feature the world’s biggest s’mores, and there is a very big part of me that wants to pull it off somehow. We did get one of those surprise EBT cards in the mail (even if you don’t qualify for food stamps, they send you a card for summer food expenses if you qualify for free or reduced lunch at school, even if the school your kids go to doesn’t offer lunch anyway, which ours doesn’t!) But the state of the country is such that I kind of want to blow the whole thing on enormous s’mores. Waste, fraud, and abuse s’mores. Abus’mores, if you will. I know there are recipes out there for homemade marshmallow, and a giant graham cracker can’t be too hard to make. Not sure what to do about the giant chocolate. Probably I could just melt a bunch of chocolate into a baking sheet, actually. HMMMM. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork quesadillas, pico de gallo 

The pork shoulder I bought was so big, I knew we would get at least two meals out of it, so meal #2 was pork quesadillas. It turned out only Damien and I and two of the kids actually wanted this. Which is nuts, because it was SCRUMPTIOUS. The melted cheese with the smoky meat was just meltingly delicious. 

As you can see, I made pico de gallo. Diced tomatoes and onions, lots of cilantro, lots of fresh lime juice, some minced jalapeños, and some kosher salt. So good. 

I cut up a whole onion, but only used about 3/4 of it, so I put the rest in a sandwich bag and thought someone could use it later. Then I put the rest of the ingredients in, and then I was like, “Oh look, there was a bag of onion already cut up! I should have just used that instead of cutting up a whole onion.” 

I tell you, life is full of surprises when you spend every day playing hide and seek with your own brain. 

THURSDAY
Stuffed shells and french bread

Thursday I had a million things to do, but it was also the day we had planned for Benny to do her Kids Make Supper turn. Last week, Corrie made oven fried chicken and mashed potatoes; this week, Benny picked stuffed shells and french bread. She did so great! We started off the bread dough in the early afternoon. Here is my recipe

Jump to Recipe

and let me tell you, when you are watching a novice use one of your recipes, it really brings home how terribly written your recipes are. I guess they are really more suited for people who are used to kind of winging it in the kitchen. Sorry about that! 

Anyway, like I said, she did great anyway. 

Got four nice long loaves rising, and only one of them was shaped really weird, which is about my record, as well. 

Then we started on the stuffed shells, and dang, the way I wrote the recipe was messed up! I fixed it (I hope), so here is that:

Jump to Recipe

She did use fresh basil instead of dried, which is vastly preferable.

I showed her how to stuff the shells, and then I ran out to pick up Corrie from her friend’s house. I didn’t want to be late, so I didn’t stop for gas, even though the “empty” light was on. Smart! So I get there, and it’s further out in the country than I remembered, so I’m like, hmm, I should get some gas. So I ask the map app where there is a gas station, and it’s even further out in the country. At this point, I’m coasting, and I finally get there, and . . . .there is no gas station. It’s just someone’s house. So I retrace my steps, coasting like CRAZY, but at this point Corrie is in the car, so of course we’re talking about what it might mean to switch bodies with a dog, so I was a little distracted and suddenly realized I was in Gilsum. Which is a very pretty town, but really falls down in the area of having gas stations. 

But it was gorgeous weather, I don’t have a baby, my phone was charged up, and I was just . . . so unbothered. We did actually make it to a gas station in Keene eventually. I guess this isn’t really a story, huh? It’s kind of an anti-story. Ten years ago, something like this would have ended up with lots of crying, several people wetting their pants, and some kind of encounter with law enforcement, if not a murderous deer. But as it was, we just got home late. 

And Benny was just finishing up stuffing the shells! So I cranked up the oven and we baked them for half an hour instead of 45 minutes, and it was absurdly late by the time we ate, but it was very delicious. And she was rightly proud of herself. 

Bread was great. We have a pressurized water sprayer Corrie uses to keep up the humidity levels in her turtle tank, and it’s very useful for putting some moisture into the oven when you’re baking french bread. Check out this lovely little fragile crust on the bread. 

She did so great! The cheese filling was rich and creamy. The other kids are starting to get enthusiastic about their meals, coming up. I’m very happy with this plan. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular old pizza. 

Last Friday, though, I made macarona bil laban and I loved it. I think one of the kids liked it, and a few thought it was okayish, and everyone else had plain noodles. So I probably won’t make it for the family again, but I thought it was so tasty, and it came together in like twelve minutes. 

Most of the recipes I found called for meat, so I just read a bunch and winged it. I cooked a few pounds of farfalle, and browned up a bunch of minced garlic in a lot of butter. I added the garlic butter to the yogurt sauce and stirred in some lime juice, aleppo pepper, and green za’atar, which is kind of a weird combination, but it worked! So I drained the noodles and mixed them up with the yogurt sauce, and then topped the whole thing with the toasted pine nuts (dry toasted in the microwave) and more chopped mint. 

Absolute comfort food. So yummy.

My mother would have adored this dish. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t really get into experimenting with cooking until after my parents died, because they really would have liked some of these dishes! We did have my father over for dinner shortly before he died, and we had some kind of shrimp scampi, which I remember him loving. You can have a really complicated relationship with someone and still get a lot of pleasure out of cooking them a meal.

Heck, you can get a lot of pleasure out of cooking a meal that a dead person with whom you’ve had a complicated relationship would have enjoyed, for some reason. What do you know about that? Oh death. O life! Mehr licht. S’more licht, if you will. 

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French bread

Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!

I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.

Ingredients

  • 4-1/2 cups warm water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 5 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup olive or canola oil
  • 10-12 cups flour
  • butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
  • corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)

Instructions

  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.

  2. Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.

  3. Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.

  4. Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).

  5. Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.

  6. Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.

  7. Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.

  8. Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.

  9. Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.

  10. Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.

 

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Stuffed shells

Just a basic recipe. You can add meat to the sauce or spinach to the cheese, or anything that strikes your fancy. Serves about 10.

Ingredients

  • 2 12-oz boxes jumbo shells
  • 2 32-oz tubs ricotta cheese
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 Tbsp dried basil
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 4-5 cups pasta sauce

Instructions

  1. Cook the shells in salted water, drain, and rinse in cool water. Mix them up with a little olive oil so they don't stick together. Or if you will be using them soon, let them stay in the pot of cool water.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350. Mix into the ricotta cheese all the seasoning, the beaten eggs, the parmesan, and 3 of the cups of mozzarella, setting aside the rest of the mozzarella.

  3. Spread a little sauce in the bottom of an oven-proof pan or dish. Spoon a few tablespoons of the cheese filling into each shell and lay the stuffed shells close together.

  4. Top with the rest of the pasta sauce, and sprinkled the remaining mozzarella on top of that. Cover loosely with foil and cook for 45 minutes or longer, until it's bubbly. 

Raising teens? Raising ducks? Here’s what you need to know

We have four adolescent ducks who have grown out of their brooder box and it’s warm enough outside that they can play in the yard during the day.  

They’re getting along well with the older ducks, and it’s great to see them having a bit more freedom, growing bolder, and discovering the wonders of the wider world.  

Also, last night my husband ended up wading through the still-frigid stream to rescue these same imbeciles, who somehow managed to cross to the other shore by themselves but couldn’t cross back.  

They got back indoors, wet, upset, and decidedly lacking in affectionate feelings. Back in the box they went, with fresh cedar shavings and a nice heat lamp to take the chill off, a bowl of their special food, and a little tub of water, which they immediately stomped through and pooped in. 

I don’t know if we would have been better parents if we had tried to raise ducks first, but I do know we’re better duck handlers because we’ve raised so many kids. Here are a few of the things we’ve learned, that could apply to raising young’un in both the family anatidae or the family hominidae.  

Don’t go it alone. Ask for help from people with more experience, or at least listen in while they talk to each other. There’s no reason to assume you just naturally know how to do this. Why would you?  

But also, there’s no reason to feel bad for not knowing how to do this. There definitely some wrong ways to do this, but there are lots and lots of different kind of right ways. …. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.

What’s for supper? Vol. 431: Not a bad record for this vicinity

Happy Friday! This week, we launched something I’ve been wanting to do for years: Kids Make Supper. That’s the snappiest name I can think of, but the concept is sufficiently thrilling to me. The kids all kinda sorta know how to cook and bake, but I wanted them know how to to plan and make an entire meal for the family. So this week, we started! With Corrie, whose natural habitat is the kitchen. 

SATURDAY
Leftovers with French bread pizza

I honestly have no memory of Saturday. I suppose we went shopping. I remember making like three extra stops, but I forget why. 

Oh you know what, we had a great dessert, though, because I planned in advance! We had cherry-blueberry crisp with rhubarb ice cream. 

Now I do remember. On Friday I harvested my first rhubarb from my beloved rhubarb plant, which I put in the ground a few years ago, and whose mother plant is a descendent from a plant the nursery guy’s grandfather brought over on a boat from the old country. 

It never turned red, but it was definitely ripe. I made two batches of rhubarb ice cream more or less following this recipe from Zoë Bakes, except rather than reserving some of the rhubarb mix as a sauce to pour on top, I just folded it in to the ice cream after it came out of the machine. 

I also pitted a bunch of cherries. I had bought something like eight pounds of cherries because they were $2.49 a pound and I was powerless to do otherwise. 

Here’s what your hands look like if you’re having a good July: Garden dirt under your nails, cherry juice on your fingers. 

In retrospect, maybe I should have cleaned my nails before I started pitting cherries, but ah, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? (P.S. this line expresses one of the dumbest ideas ever. I just want that on the record.) 

So I did those things on Friday night, and then on Saturday afternoon, it was super quick to put together a cherry-blueberry crisp. The last few times I attempted a fruit crisp, it was definitely fruit, but definitely not crisp; so I tried a recipe with oats, and it turned out GREAT. 

The recipe calls for shredded coconut on the topping, but not everyone here likes coconut, so I skipped that. It was perfect as is. Mayyyybe a tiny bit too sweet, but nobody was complaining. The tart rhubarb ice cream really set off the juicy, syrupy fruit, and it was truly everything a summer dessert should be. I was very pleased. 

There’s enough rhubarb left on the plant to make one other thing, but I haven’t decided what, yet. 

I see from my camera roll that we also went to the pond on Saturday! Here is Benny catching a water lily I tossed to her. 

Oh what a life. 

SUNDAY
Grilled pork chops, smoked chicken wings, grilled corn on the cob

Damien is still learning the ropes of his new (to him) grill, which has a charcoal part, a propane part, AND a smoker. AND it’s next to the patio, which is nice! His old grill (the late great Interchangeable Cinder Block Meat Altar Situation) was marooned way off on the other side of the yard under the trees, and it was lonely. 

It’s under a tarp here, but you can see the new location. And see my pretty patio! Lots of stuff blooming, including a bunch of violas that seeded themselves in the cracks between the bricks; and lots about to bloom. 

Sunday we were supposed to go to the ocean, but one kid after another got sick. And each one was sick with a separate thing! Amazing. So we decided to be smart and stay home, and Damien grilled and smoked a bunch of meat and corn in the husk. 

I don’t think I’ve ever had grilled pork chops before. Man, they were delicious. Excellent spicy crust outside, juicy inside. 

For the pork, he made a marinade of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and a few tablespoons of brown sugar, garlic powder, salt an pepper. 
For the chicken wings, he made a sugar rub with lots of cayenne pepper and paprika, and then smoked them for a few hours; then he slathered them with BBQ sauce and grilled them long enough to make them sticky. SO GOOD. 

On Sunday, we also set up the tent Damien got last year for $5. It hadn’t been out of the bag yet, so we had no idea what to expect. 

It’s very nice! Much more spacious on the inside than it looked like it would be, and it’s just a very pleasant design, and does not smell weird or anything. 

It does have a rain fly; we just hadn’t put it on yet in this picture. Damien and I have both been tent camping before, but not together, so we’re going to do that this weekend. 

MONDAY
Oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes MADE BY CORRIE

Corrie’s big cooking day! She really did it 90% on her own. I just supervised and clarified, and occasionally demonstrated.

First she made an egg, milk, salt, and pepper mixture for the chicken, and let that soak for a while. 

Several hours later, she peeled a bunch of potatoes, cut them into smaller pieces, and left them in a pot of cool water. Then she preheated the oven and put a stick of butter and a cup of oil in it.

Then she added spices to flour and dredged all the chicken in it

and carefully added the floured chicken, skin side down, to the hot pan of butter and oil. Then she started boiling the potatoes. 

About half an hour later, when it was sufficiently browned on the bottom, she flipped it. 

She did need some help for this part, because we were making so much chicken that you really had to get your whole arm into the hot oven, and it was tricky. 

While the other side of the chicken was cooking, she drained the cooked potatoes (again, I helped with this, because she’s just ten and that was a big pot!) and added milk and butter, salt and pepper to the potatoes, and mashed them.

And then the chicken was done, and she served her meal!

She was very proud of herself, and rightly so. Everything was delicious. And because it was her meal, we had No Vegetable. 

We went to the pond Monday evening, too! Lovely spot, and there was only one other family there, and for some reason they left when it started raining. 

TUESDAY
Koren beef bowl, cucumber salad

Tuesday we somehow had three separate medical appointments that couldn’t be rescheduled, so we divode and conquered. More or less. 

Got home, made a quick and tasty meal of Korean beef bowl

Jump to Recipe

over rice in the Instant Pot, and a simple cucumber salad. 

Jump to Recipe

and it was nice. I did take the time to use fresh garlic and ginger, which really pays off. 

This photo was taken on top of the hamper in my bedroom, which leads me to believe I was hiding from my family. 

WEDNESDAY
BLTs, salt and vinegar chips, sharky fruit salad, ice cream pie

A birthday! A birthday for Lucy.  She and Sophia and Irene made a couple of ice cream pies. One was a pineapple, for the TV show Psych (?) and I guess one was Homer 

and because she didn’t want a cake this year, I decided to make the most festive fruit salad I could think of:

I tried to make those banana dolphins, but the bananas were so ripe, the snouts kept falling off. She still liked it, though. 

All the kids got her weird and thoughtful presents and feted her throughout the day, and it was a nice time. 

Happy birthday, my deary dear. 

Wednesday night, we had a little tragedy, though. Bebe the duck never came home with the others. We tromped around in the dark for a while looking for her, but there was no trace. We hoped maybe she just wandered too far and was holing up under some leaves somewhere, but it did not seem likely.  

THURSDAY
Caprese chicken burgers, chips

Thursday we looked again for Bebe, but I guess she’s just gone. Probably a coyote took her. Poor Bebe, she was my favorite. All ducks carry on and make a ruckus for no reason, but Bebe elevated this to incredible levels. She was the loudest, rowdiest, silliest, bossiest, nuttiest duck ever, and I will really miss her!

Here she is, executing a classic Bebe move of wandering off from the flock, yelling at them, getting stuck in some branches, and then falling into the water. 

 

I hope she bit the hell out of whatever caught her. 

So on Thursday, I drove out to Spofford to pick up some SLATE. I am still a brick girl at heart, but gosh, slate is beautiful. 

I am going to use it to pave the area in front of the front door. It’s a similar process to laying bricks for the patio, but it’s a much smaller area, and the pieces of slate are much bigger than bricks, so I’m lying to myself that it’s going to be a simple and fast project. 

While I was gone, Damien and the kids got supper together. My garden is making SO much basil, it’s wonderful. 

I thanked Damien for always being so supportive of my projects, and he said, “I love your projects. Everything you do either increases the property value, or makes it completely unsellable.” And he’s right! Sounds perfect to me. 

I forgot to put the fruit salad away overnight and it’s been incredibly hot in the house all week, so I just fed the leftovers to the ducks. They were understandably slow to warm up to it., but eventually they ate it. The thing about ducks is, eventually they will eat everything. 

FRIDAY
Macarona bil laban 

Something new! I saw a reel of this and it looked tasty. I haven’t settled on a specific recipe yet, but it’s pasta in a garlicky yogurt sauce with fresh mint, with toasted pine nuts on top. It’s often served with spiced ground beef, but I’m just doing the meatless version for today. Prolly gonna make some plain pasta, too, so people have options. 

We had an exciting moment when my daughter texted us about a lost duckling at a local store

but by the time we texted back to say we would take it, Fish and Game had located the rest of the flock and reunited the family. Which is obviously the best outcome, but we’re a little disappointed. But then Damien pointed out that it’s a wild duck and would just fly away when its wings grew in, anyway! Our domesticated ducks are not built to fly, so we don’t have to clip their wings or anything. So, all for the best. Still. Le sigh. That is the other thing about ducks: Ducks come, and ducks go. Le sigh. 

Anyway, I think I’m gonna try digging up my garlic and see if it’s done yet. If it is, I’ll make supper with it! What a joy to cook with home-grown food. 

Also, wish us luck for our camping trip on Sunday! And look at us, trying new things in our old age! I didn’t expect that, but I’m digging it. But yes, we are going to bring a power pack and a coffee machine. Because we are old. 

5 from 1 vote
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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

 

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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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spicy cucumber salad

A spicy, zippy side dish that you can make very quickly. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 cucumbers, sliced thin (peeling not necessary)
  • 1/4 cup rice vinegar or white vinegar
  • 1+ tsp honey
  • 1 tsp sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt

Optional:

red pepper, diced

  • 1/2 red onion diced

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Serve immediately, or chill to serve later (but the longer you leave it, the softer the cukes will get)

Before the world ends, plant a tree

What would you do if you knew the world would end tomorrow?  

Some people would probably go the “orgy of worldly pleasures” route. Loot the stores, max out all the credit cards, drink yourself blind, and bed anyone you can, because tomorrow we die. I hope nobody reading this finds that even vaguely appealing.

Some people would probably say it’s best to head to the church, go to confession, receive Communion, and then spend your final hours in penance and fasting, using up your last chance to stave off God’s just punishments. I can’t really argue with this, but I also can’t claim this is what I would do (except for the confession part. Always go to confession!).

So what would I do?

The other day I read a post on social media that said: “If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree today.” This is a paraphrase of a quote often attributed to Martin Luther, but there’s not really any evidence he said it, and it doesn’t really sound like him to me.

What it did sound like is the kind of whimsical, glitter-tossing sentiment that generally makes me roll my eyes. Something along the lines of “Dance like nobody’s watching” or “Angels are just teddy bears with wings” (an actual bumper sticker I saw one time, which still haunts and baffles me).

But the more I thought about it, the better I think it is. Possibly the best possible answer to the question, “What would you do?”

Don’t think of it as a statement of brainless optimism, sassily tra-la-laing in the face of reality because you are a magical being that dances like nobody’s watching and then posts about it on Instagram before everything goes black, and we are supposed to find this in some way beautiful.

Don’t take it that way. Think of it instead as doing your Father’s work.

I actually have planted a lot of trees in my life, and there is something about planting a tree, and always has been….Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Detail of  “Christ Appears to Mary Magdalen as a Gardener (‘Noli Me Tangere’),” ca. 1603 National Library of Wales via Wikimedia Commons

What’s for supper? Vol. 430: deal w/ ur own Beans

Happy Friday! This will be the shortest WFS post known to man, because I have had and continue to have SO much to do. But I just had to share something. 

This morning, I woke up, started the coffee, let the dog out, fed the ducks, collected eggs, fed the dog and the cat, cleaned up a mess the cat had made, looked at an oil bill, and then went into the kitchen to take my meds. And here is what I saw:

and I laughed so hard the dog came over to see what was up. DEAL W/ UR OWN BEANS, said the child who cleaned the kitchen last night. And you know what, they were my beans, and I hadn’t dealt with them! I was rushing around and looking for some quick protein for lunch, so I had half a can of beans, and I forgot to recycle the can. It happens that I overheard this child complaining about this last night, and they also has some pretty hard feelings about the way I bought fruit, even though fruit attracts fruit flies.

And that is how it came to pass that a teenager who lives in my house had the inconceivable experience of having to clean up someone else’s mess. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE WHAT THAT WOULD BE LIKE, CAN YOU????

They don’t realize it now, but I’ve given them a great gift: The chance to feel self-righteous. That really is what makes the world go ’round. I get annoyed that my husband doesn’t turn off lights, and he gets annoyed that I don’t put towels in the laundry. I snap at my kids for leaving ice pop wrappers all over the place, and they roll their eyes at me for not dealing with my own beans. We’re like the island where the entire economy is based on taking in each other’s laundry, except everyone is mad about it. And then the cat throws lentils all over the place, because he’s just trying to do his job. 

The good news is, there’s plenty of summer left! I just asked the kids what they were doing on Sunday, thinking we could do a day trip to the ocean if they were free, and they answered with such hostile suspicion that I decided . . . well obviously we’re going to the ocean. I love the ocean. Maybe they’ll have beans there. 

Anyway, how are you? We had a big, superfun party here last Friday, which is why I didn’t do a WFS that day. In the morning, I went to Millie’s memorial service, and her sister, who is also a tiny, wiry, white-haired, bright-eyed taker of no crap, got up and told a story about the time Millie went to meet her boyfriend’s family and went to cut a pickle, and it flew off the plate and landed right in the grandfather’s lap. I brought a little bouquet with the peonies I had stored in the fridge as buds during peony season, and that was that. Requiescat in pace, my friend. 

Then the party! Lots of family and friends came, Damien grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, smoked chicken thighs,

Jump to Recipe

and brats, and we had millions of chips and millions of sodas, Benny made square brownies that looked round

and I made 18 cups of Shine, Perishing Republic Jell-o

I also made 15 pounds of this potato salad from Sip and Feast and ate most of it myself. You have to brine it overnight before adding the mayo, and it was a pain in the tuchus, but I gotta say, that was not a bland potato salad, and the texture was great. Would make again. I did add hard-boiled eggs and chopped celery, because I like that.

We had vegetable platters with dip, and tons of watermelon, and people brought fruit salad, a more German-style potato salad, and a lovely tabouli salad. And we had ice cream, and I bought uhhh 10.5 pounds of candy. And we rented the cotton candy machine again! I got sticky all the way up to my armpits, but it was so much fun. Couldn’t find temporary tattoos OR face paint, so I got edible paint meant for cakes, and it certainly does cling to the skin, it certainly does! My sister brought sparkler and fireworks and we had glowsticks and pool time, the little guys enjoyed the sandbox, and maybe best of all, people brought musical instruments.

 

And it didn’t rain! It almost always rains on our July parties, but this day was sunny and breezy, just perfect. A lovely day, including THREE babies. Here’s a bunch of pics on Facebook if you’d like to see. 

 

We dearly missed family that couldn’t make it, but like I said, there’s plenty of summer left. 

Then the Sunday we had leftovers, and then Monday, Damien cooked some food I bought that we didn’t cook; and then Tuesday, we had Aldi pizza. On Wednesday, I shredded up the leftover chicken and made quesadillas, and on Thursday, I went shopping and got ingredients for Italian sandwiches. Which I did not take a picture of, but I did take a picture of the lovely basil I gathered from the garden. 

I have been assiduously pinching off any hint of a blossom, and it’s paying off! Or maybe it’s just a good year for basil. Either way, usually my basil gets all leggy, but this year I have four lovely basil bushes. 

What else is new? I got a haircut. One of the ducks (Faye) died. We saw Superman and the kids liked it but I thought it was meh. The 10.5 pounds of candy are mostly gone, except for a few Tootsie Rolls and seven or eight mini boxes of Dots. 

Today we are having spaghetti and Damien has promised to take the kids to the pond. I have so so so much work to do (I’d been telling myself I had one big project due in July and one in August, which is true; but it turns out one is due July 28 and one is due August 1. 

I shall now go and deal w/my own beans. Adieu. 

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Smoked chicken thighs with sugar rub

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups brown sugar
  • .5 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp chili pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper
  • 20 chicken thighs

Instructions

  1. Mix dry ingredients together. Rub all over chicken and let marinate until the sugar melts a bit. 

  2. Light the fire, and let it burn down to coals. Shove the coals over to one side and lay the chicken on the grill. Lower the lid and let the chicken smoke for an hour or two until they are fully cooked. 

Shifting borders: The remarkable art of Anastassia Cassady

Anastassia Cassady doesn’t have one particular style of painting — and that’s kind of her style.

Cassady, 35, who sometimes goes by her childhood nickname of “Tess,” is a painter, iconographer, mother of three young children, part-time high school art teacher, and something of a hurricane of words and ideas.

“I don’t have a personality disorder!” she said. “But I feel like there’s so much going on in my life, that to sit down and be in the same headspace every day would make me feel like a copy machine.”

Instead, she leans into what she calls her “erratic nature of switching styles.”

Her sister, a photographer and co-owner of an art gallery, says she can always spot Cassady’s work, though, because of her trademark color palette.

“The deep colors, the reds, the golds, that would have been in pysanky and in icons” are in all of Cassady’s works.

Cassady grew up in South Bend, Indiana, in a house heavily influenced by her Ukrainian mother.

“We had icons everywhere, in an age when icons weren’t cool,” she said.

She and her five siblings grew up making pysanky, the intricate, jewel-toned traditional wax-resist Ukrainian Easter eggs, every year.

“All Lent, that was our penance on Fridays: water, bread and pysanky,” she said.

Cassady, an Eastern-rite Catholic who is a parishioner at both the local Ukrainian church and the cathedral in South Bend, has worked hard to instill a sense of Ukrainian heritage in her own children — and also to retain a sense of humor about the faith she learned from her parents. She recalled the evening when her father, a convert, once again tried to corral his kids to say family prayers, waving away their excuses and hollering at them to sit down.

“He played in the NFL; he was a big guy. But he had a soft reading voice, and he would say, ‘And the angel of the Lord declared to Mary –‘”

A sudden burst of flatulence, courtesy of her brother, interrupted the angel’s words. Their father finished the thought: “WOULD YOU SHUT THE H*** UP?”

“He tried so hard to push this piety on us. We ate him alive,” she laughed.

This push and pull between the sacred and the lighthearted seems to be another hallmark of Cassady’s work. A family portrait she painted is something of a puzzle, including dozens of references to various artists. Her watercolor of St. Benedict, one of the illustrations from the 2023 book “Saints: A Family Story,” shows him relatively young, his head mere inches away from the feathers of an incoming raven. Even her icons, which she writes with careful adherence to tradition, have a blithe feel to them.

Fresh it may be, but her work is not careless; it is born of hard-won skill. Cassady teaches her students at Trinity School at Greenlawn, where every student learns art history and studio art, how to master tools and techniques in a methodical way, and how to put them to use with intention, with a thorough foundation of art history.

“It’s not just about ‘expressing themselves,’” she said. “If you want to express yourself, you have to understand the process, the technicalities.”

Cassady wishes some priests, especially those choosing artwork for their parishes, had taken art history in seminary. They have good intentions, but many have never been formed aesthetically.

“People just kind of streamline one style as beautiful. They just want to go back to neoclassical,” she said. But that just won’t work if the building is more suited to cubist art, or art deco.

She will argue with potential clients if she doesn’t like their ideas, and has turned down some large commissions because experience tells her the project as requested would look awful.

Cassady has high standards for herself, as well. One rule she keeps: As long as she’s working on a piece of secular art, she also has to be working on an icon.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Cassady speaks of icon painting as a process in which the artist’s  grip on the reins of control is looser …. Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 429: Bao chicka bao bao

Happy Friday! The heat has broken and we are all back in humanform, more or less. Hope you are same. 

It was the second full week of my car being in the shop. I have hope of getting it back Monday, which may or may not make me less crazy.

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers, pork fried rice, mozzarella sticks

I had a ton of pork left over from last week’s char siu, so I chopped up about 1/2 of it and put it in some quickie fried rice. Here is my basic fried rice recipe:

Jump to Recipe

I did use fresh ginger and garlic, which is always worthwhile, and also chopped up some sugar snap peas. Corrie helped me make it, and confided in me that she likes cooking because she just likes being in the kitchen. ME TOO. 

The shopping turn kid chose mozzarella sticks for the frozen food supplement, and it looks like we had that, fried rice, reheated quesadillas, and a smidge of spaghetti carbonara. 

Very important to stay carbohydrated in the summer, ho ho. 

SUNDAY
Pork buns, rice, watermelon, spicy cucumber salad

Sunday was when it really got hot in earnest. Our parish had a Corpus Christi procession after Mass, which I dearly love, but last time we did it, one of our kids fainted, and this time, I’m wearing an air cast, and one kid was already melting down and the rest of us were just sort of melting in general; and you can tell yourself, “Hey, if the priest can do it in several layers of synthetic fabrics, I can, too!” and that’s true, but that doesn’t mean it’s smart. So we went home. 

I gathered up all the fans we could spare and tried a new recipe: BAOZI. Pork buns! You know that feeling of sitting in a Chinese restaurant and they bring the bamboo steamer over just for you, and you take the top off and inside, all snuggled together, is happiness in bun form? I wanted that. 

So I chopped up the last bunch of leftover char siu

(THREE MEALS with this pork! I’m gonna do this more often — cook an extra bunch of char siu and save the rest for another meal or two. Here’s the char siu recipe I used, by the way) and then started making the dough. 

I returned to dear Nagi for the bao buns recipe. It’s a very different kind of dough from anything I’m used to making: It calls for a cup of corn starch per two cups of flour, and then you let it rise for two hours, and then you mix in baking powder. This results in a really pillowy soft and tender dough.

I was doubtful I had chopped the pork filling up small enough, because it seemed kinda soupy, so I threw it in the food processor, and it came out a bit more cohesive. 

It wasn’t until later that I realized I completely forgot to cook the filling! Duh! Don’t ask me why I thought a mixture with cornstarch in the sauce didn’t need to be cooked. I guess I figured it was already such a weird recipe, all bets were off. This is the kind of thinking that led me to do what I thought was just shrugging my shoulders and trusting the directions when I was in seventh grade in Mrs. Dakin’s sewing class, and I was making my very first skirt and I had cut out two bell-shaped pieces of fabric, and it said to sew the long edges together. That’s what it said!

So . . . I sewed the long edge to the long edge on one piece, and then I sewed the long edge to the long edge on the other piece. And ended up with two extremely skinny skirts. THAT’S WHAT IT SAID, MRS. DAKIN. So that’s what I did.  

Anyway, that’s how I learned how to use a seam ripper. 

Anyway, I watched the video of how to shape the buns a few times, and then did my best. Some of them turned out nice

Some of them less nice! But I made a double recipe and ended up with 24 good-sized, if not good-shaped, buns. 

I did make a couple of videos showing the process — one in normal time, one speeded up), if you want to see what it looks like when someone is making bao buns for the very first time! It would absolutely have been easier if the pork mixture had been cooked properly, but it wasn’t super hard.

For some reason when I use my bamboo steamers, every other single time, I have put off making liners until the kitchen is already steamy and I’m a little hysterical, and I end up just smashing something in there, and it doesn’t go well. So this time, I didn’t do that! Earlier in the day, I traced the steamers onto parchment paper, cut the circles out, and then folded them like paper snowflakes and snipped out steam holes. So the whole process went better. 

I have two large steamers and one small one, each with two layers, and I was able to steam all 24 buns in at the same time. 

Ladies and gentlemen, they were excellent. EXCELLENT. 

They were cooked perfectly, incredibly light and fluffy inside with a beautifully tender, satiny outside. 

The ones in the smaller steamer were, predictably, a little crowded, but they still steamed up fine. 

The only photo I got of the inside is not actually a great example; it’s one that got a little squished. Most of them were loftier than this. 

It does show that there’s not quite enough filling, though, which is the only thing I will do differently next time (besides actually making the filling right!). I think everyone liked them, and it was overall a great success. Yay!

As you can see, I also made rice, cut up some watermelon, and made a quick cucumber salad. Great meal. 

The cucumber salad is a super easy side dish that I really like. It’s piquant and refreshing, and you can make it as sweet or spicy as you like.

Here’s that recipe: 

Jump to Recipe

And that’s my story! Yay bao buns! Yay for future us, who will definitely be having more bao buns. 

MONDAY
Honey mustard kielbasa, potato, and brussels sprouts 

Monday was actually so terrible. I think it was in the high nineties, and I understand that’s normal for some of you, but our houses are not designed for that, and our bodies are not used to it, and also the air conditioner was stuck in the attic for various stupid reasons. So we sat in front of fans and ate ice pops and went in the pool, which, now I’m embarrassed to say that it was a terrible day, because that doesn’t sound so bad! 

What happens is, when it gets hot, my brain scrambles, and I get tearful and irrational and just generally intolerant of life. It’s not great. I did make supper, however. I made a kielbasa, red potato, and brussels sprouts one-pan meal. 

Here’s that recipe: 

Jump to Recipe

The recipe says “cabbage,” but I finally wised up that I’m the only one who likes cabbage, so now we have it with brussels sprouts. 

I made the honey mustard sauce, cooked the food for about 15 minutes, then drizzled the sauce over it and shoved it back in. Usually I stir up the food before or after adding the sauce, but it was so dang hot, I just let it be. It turned out so much better that way! The sauce had more of a chance to permeate the food where it was, and it developed a really lovely little glazed situation, with the outer leaves of the brussels sprouts getting a little crunchy char. 

Delicious. 

Eventually I will get around to updating the recipe card.

You can also make this with broccoli for the vegetable. It’s your life! 

TUESDAY
WHATEVER WHATEVER WHATEVER

Oh mercy it was so hot. It was one of those days when you go in for a five-minute check-in with your kid’s therapist and 30 minutes later, she’s handing you tissues and reassuring you that parents’ mental health is a legitimate part of the treatment plan. SIGHHH. 

For supper, I decided I would cook some chicken in the Instant Pot, because that doesn’t heat up the kitchen much. But guess what! I plugged it in, and all the lights started flashing and it started beeping in a really ominous way. It’s probably just a sensor that needs to be cleaned, but that involves taking the bottom off and messing with electronics, which is not recommended when you’re suffering from profound brain scramble.

So Damien said he would come home with charcoal and grill the chicken  when he got back. But guess what! I had stuffed the freezer with so much ice pops and bananas and stuff that there was no room for the meat, so I left it in the fridge, and when I opened it, I discovered it had gone bad.

No matter, I could switch to pork.

But guess what! The pork had also gone bad. 

You know, I feel that you should be able to buy pork and chicken on Saturday and keep it in the fridge until Tuesday, and it should not go bad. I don’t feel like that’s unreasonable. But nevertheless. 

So, we did something I almost never do: I told everyone to just find something for supper. I myself had a couple of PBJ sandwiches, and I truly don’t know what everyone else ate. I was grateful the kids are old enough that I can do this, but mainly I was just miserable because it was so hot. 

I think it was that evening that Elijah pushed through our various personal difficulties and got the air conditioner unstuck, and Damien got that set up in the living room, and WHEWWWWWWWWW. 

WEDNESDAY
Grilled pork ribs and chips

Wednesday Corrie had her pal over, and while they played in the pool, I got caught up on some gardening. It had dropped down to a temperature where I had to take breaks and drink water in the shade every half hour or so, but it didn’t feel like the sun was screaming at you as soon as you stepped out the door, so that was nice! 

Then when Damien got home, he brought pork chops and grilled them. Here is the dog, acting as Remote Supervisor with Extreme Longing. 

I just seasoned the chops heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) with salt and pepper, and Damien grilled them to perfection. 

I think we had chips for a side. Perfect. 

THURSDAY
Roast chicken and pasta salad

Thursday I had a post-heat-wave surge of energy and did I guess a landscaping project in the front of the house, although that seems like too professional and grandiose a description for what I did.

I had a wheelbarrow full of day lilies I had dug up several weeks ago. Every week or so, I threw a little water on them, and let me tell you, those mofos are tough. They actually produced flowers while they were in the wheelbarrow, without any soil besides what was clinging to their roots. So I did truck up a bunch of compost from the back yard and spread it on a bare spot, but I realized that might be overkill, so I just basically threw the lilies onto the spot where I want them to grow (one side of where the porch used to be), and I think they’ll be fine. 

Then I dug up a bunch more lilies and also moved them. Then I dug up and moved a bunch of rocks, and then, without a real plan, I dug up a giant concrete block that used to be in front of the porch, and was just sort of hanging out in front of the porchless house. 

You can see that, since we tore down the porch and then I realized we couldn’t afford a sunroom, we’ve been using a pallet on cinder blocks as a front stoop, which is a little demoralizing. And meanwhile, this cement block is marooned next to the driveway, getting tripped over. 

I could budge it with my shovel, but I most definitely couldn’t move it myself. So I bribed two teenagers and slowly, tediously, maddeningly inefficiently, WE MOVED IT. 

First I levered it up with a shovel, and one of the kids would jam a rock under it. 

Then I levered it up from the rock, and they would stick more rocks under it. Then two of us would lever it up from those rocks, and the second kid would stick more rocks in. It was just a couple inches at a time, and I’m so incredibly impressed at how much these kids mostly kept their remarks to themselves until I had my back turned. They are really very great kids, and this was a really dumb and dangerous project!

So eventually we managed to lever it up until it was nearly vertical, and I dug a little trench on the other side, and then we hooked a strap around it and the two kids pulled on one side and I pushed on the other, and we flipped it.

You can see by the rocky bottom that no one has ever moved this block before, and it was poured directly onto the ground when they made it. Which is the normal and sensible way to do things. 

So we all took a little break and then we repeated the process, and flipped it again, so this time it was right side up.

I DID measure it, and I was aware that it wasn’t high enough to make a step to get to the door. But I figured it would be better than what we had before. 

What I didn’t anticipate is how far from the door it would end up. Even though we had spent the last hour or so straining our muscles to the limit to move it as far as we did, I was convinced we could just sort of nudge it into place to get it the final ten inches or so.

I was wrong! It’s that freaking last mile problem! 

But it was already 4:45, so I just shoved some cinder blocks in there so no one would break an ankle in the gap, and ran inside to make supper. I put some chicken drumsticks and thighs on a pan, drizzled them with olive oil, and seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin, and roasted them at 450. 

Again: Usually when I roast chicken parts, I will put it on a rack and flip it halfway through cooking. Instead, I elected instead to take a shower and just let the chicken cook. And guess what, it was perfect. The meat was super juicy, the skin was wonderfully crisp, and yeah, I’m gonna do it that was from now on. 

I also made some unremarkable pasta salad. I cooked some farfalle, drained and cooled it under cold water, and dumped on a bunch of Italian salad dressing, some crumbled feta, and some basil from the garden. Perfectly adequate. 

Sad to say, I didn’t find anything especially interesting in the dirt where we were digging. There are usually some vintage beer cans or sometimes a limb from some long-defunct cartoon show

or some mysterious bits of hardware or old-fashioned tools or pottery. Once one of the kids found a key from a door on a ship! This time, all we got was a knife and two spoons.

So, I totally understand forks and whatnot ending up in the back yard. You were eating out there, kids were playing, you were shaking out a tablecloth, and so on. These things happen. What I don’t get is how they end up in the front, where there is very little besides a driveway and then the road. What happened? What was the mechanism? I can only imagine a George Booth-type guy going, “It’s a beautiful night, hon. Want to step out front and throw some cutlery around?” Maybe it was really hot. Things happen. 

In any case, by evening, it was so chilly, I wore a sweater to water my garden. New Hampshire weather needs to access its uncrazy side. 

My gardens are doing okay, considering I wasn’t planning to do any gardening this year. 

Corn, pumpkins, and rhubarb:

I have since planted some more corn, since this came up kind of sparse!

Here’s my poor strawberry patch, that I really neglected and it shows:

and we have garlic, onions, basil, and potatoes over here, with two peach saplings in buckets:

and a few eggplants I threw in late, and which I couldn’t find any more fence to protect, so they look like dangerous criminals in an old dog crate:

and my mostly-marigold mixed seeds are chugging along. This is about half of them:

and I planted tons of zinnias, nasturtiums, and tithonias in pots, and some other stuff that I can’t remember. I also planted some broken peony roots and a bunch of lupine seeds, with no luck yet. They may just need a while, so I’ll keep watering them. 

The two $2 dry pomegranate sticks I got on clearance at Walmart are leafing out nicely! Kind of excited about that. 

Pretty good year for all the old stand-byes, the mock orange, the stella d’oro, the roses, the hydrangeas,

and the catmint. I managed to wreck all the sunflower seeds I had saved, but I got a volunteer anyway!

I will resist giving a report on the rest of my flowers, as I’m even boring myself at this point. I do have a little mystery on my hands, though, that maybe some of you knowledgeable folks can help with. The little tree in front, that grew up from the root stock after the apple tree got eaten? I still don’t know what it is. 

My best guess is Red Baron Crabapple. It did have deep pink blossoms in the spring, and the leaves were dark red in the spring, but I don’t recall it turning orange in the fall. Also the fruit is kind of inconclusive. 

I tried cutting it open to see if it has five chambers or a pit, and it was, as I say, inconclusive. I guess we’ll find out! 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Regular old, begular old pizza. Goodness, what a long post this turned into. And a long week. But it’s Friday! Last Friday, I managed to complain about someone else in adoration in such a way that my neurodivergent friends are mad at me and Facebook took my post down for threatening violence. So that’s the bar to clear this week. Excelsior. 

 

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Basic stir fried rice

This is a very loose recipe, because you can change the ingredients and proportions however you like

Ingredients

  • cooked rice
  • sesame oil (or plain cooking oil)
  • fresh garlic and ginger, minced
  • vegetables, diced or shredded (onion, scallion, peas, bok choy, carrots, sugar snap peas, cabbage, etc.)
  • brown sugar
  • raw or cooked shrimp, or raw or cooked meat (pork, ham, chicken), diced
  • soy sauce
  • oyster sauce
  • fish sauce
  • eggs

Instructions

  1. In a very large pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the ginger and garlic for a few minutes. If you are using raw meat, season it with garlic powder and ginger powder and a little soy sauce, add it to the pan, and cook it through. If you are using shrimp, just throw it in the pan and cook it.

  2. Add in the chopped vegetables and continue cooking until they are cooked through. If you are using cooked meat, add it now.

  3. Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar is bubbly and darkened.

  4. Add in the cooked rice and stir until everything is combined.

  5. Add in a lot of oyster sauce, a medium amount of soy sauce, and a little fish sauce, and stir to combine completely.

  6. In a separate pan, scramble the eggs and stir them in. (Some people scramble the eggs directly into the rest of the rice, but I find it difficult to cook the eggs completely this way.)

  7. If you are using cooked shrimp, add it at the end and just heat it through.

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spicy cucumber salad

A spicy, zippy side dish that you can make very quickly. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 cucumbers, sliced thin (peeling not necessary)
  • 1/4 cup rice vinegar or white vinegar
  • 1+ tsp honey
  • 1 tsp sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt

Optional:

red pepper, diced

  • 1/2 red onion diced

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Serve immediately, or chill to serve later (but the longer you leave it, the softer the cukes will get)

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One-pan kielbasa, cabbage, and red potato dinner with mustard sauce

This meal has all the fun and salt of a wiener cookout, but it's a tiny bit fancier, and you can legit eat it in the winter. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs kielbasa
  • 3-4 lbs red potatoes
  • 1-2 medium cabbages
  • (optional) parsley for garnish
  • salt and pepper and olive oil

mustard sauce (sorry, I make this different each time):

  • mustard
  • red wine if you like
  • honey
  • a little olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • fresh garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. 

    Whisk together the mustard dressing ingredients and set aside. Chop parsley (optional).

    Cut the kielbasa into thick coins and the potatoes into thick coins or small wedges. Mix them up with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in a shallow pan. 

    Cut the cabbage into "steaks." Push the kielbasa and potatoes aside to make room to lay the cabbage down. Brush the cabbage with more olive oil and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. It should be a single layer of food, and not too crowded, so it will brown well. 

    Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the food as well as you can and roast for another 15 minutes.  

    Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish. 

The wealth we all have

Worried about money? Me too! So is everybody I know. Everything that was already expensive, which is everything, is getting more expensive and is poised to get even more expensive. It’s hard to find even one glimmer of hope for the financial future. Taxes? Horrendous. Retirement savings? Dust in the wind. Treats for vacation? Don’t make me laugh. I’ve already warned the kids we’re going to have an Imagination Summer, and possibly an Imagination Christmas, because I’m the one who tends the budget in our house, and the writing on the wall spells out B-R-O-K-E.

That phrase “Imagination Christmas” is from “The Simpsons,” in the episode where the eye-wateringly wholesome Flanders family is broke because they spent all their money charitably sending Bart and Homer to Hawaii to have their fake leprosy treated. The Flanders family is there as a foil to their dreadful neighbors, but they’re also undeniably happy. And they are very clear-eyed about what is important in life.

I mention this because what I am going to say next may come across as unbearably Flanders-like in its optimism. But I can’t help it. The truth is, our family, broke as it is, is doing great. We are incredibly wealthy, and the more I look for it, the more evidence I find of our wealth. It just doesn’t happen to come in the form of money.

I told the kids: “Look, everything is expensive right now, and we probably won’t get to buy a lot of cool stuff this summer. But it’s O.K., because we already know how to be poor.” And they more or less agreed. There are so many things you can enjoy when you are poor—and some, it seems, that are easier to enjoy when you’re poor because you cannot lean on the crutches and the shortcuts that litter the path of the rich.

Let’s start with that line from “The Simpsons,” which our family quotes frequently. If you have running jokes in your family or friend set, do you know what a gift that is? It sounds like a little thing, but think about how bereft and impoverished you feel when someone has an inside joke that you’re not in on. Running jokes are gold. It is evidence that you’re so wealthy you live among a group of people who reliably laugh with you and also understand you completely when you say two or three words in a certain tone of voice. What a gift! Security, community, laughter, and it’s all free.

Also “Simpsons”-related: At age 50, I have calmed down, and I no longer torment myself over how thoroughly pop culture has saturated my family’s psyche. There was a time I would have rent my garments to think of how often we communicate via lines from TV shows, but I’ve let it go. We live in the time we live in, and we’re not hermits, and my kids have screens. That has not all been good, but it certainly hasn’t all been bad, either. We talk often about when it’s important to buck the trends and be uncool, and my kids seem to be willing to do that; so I don’t need to feel like a failure just because they are not cultural aliens. So that is another sign of my wealth: I look at my life and see that I’ve gotten a little wiser, and I can see that my kids are reasonably wise, too, according to their age. That is incredibly valuable, and definitely not something you can buy.

A big one: The great outdoors. I don’t even mean white water rafting or tent camping or knowing how to thrive for six weeks in the wilderness; I just mean going outside for a bit and knowing how to enjoy it. Not everyone knows how.

Our family is extraordinarily lucky to have a huge backyard with a little pine grove, a babbling brook to wade in and rich soil where just about any seed will thrive. But even when we lived in a dense neighborhood with only a little scrap of yard, we still had the sky. We had treetops that waved in the wind. We had birdsong and tenacious weeds finding a place to root in sidewalk cracks. It is a skill, learning to seek out emissaries from the natural world wherever you are, but like any skill, it can be learned.

Here’s how to learn it, even if you’re very busy: If you’re driving, slow down to get a closer look at passing wildlife. Occasionally, take the long way home, so you can coast through a side street where the trees are especially lovely in the fall. Think about fog, and notice how the light passes through it; roll the windows down and listen for moving water. See what you can smell on the wind when you pass by a forest or field. If your neighborhood is bright at night, spend an occasional evening staying up late to drive out to a spot where it’s dark, and go see what the stars are up to.

It is all free, and once you start becoming aware of the vast riches that surround us, it is hard to stop looking for more.

This may seem like a random list, but that’s kind of the point….Read the rest of my latest for America Magazine. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 428: There must be … fifty ways to stretch a meatball

Happy Friday! Let’s hop to it! Here’s what we ate this week: 

Oh, but first, last Friday I made something I don’t normally: French bread pizza. I got store-bought bread but made homemade mozzarella , which is very soft and mild. 

The kids love frozen french bread pizza, so I thought the homemade version would be popular. I WAS WRONG. Why? Who knows. Oh well! 

SATURDAY
Leftover buffet (?) 

I have no memory of Saturday’s dinner. Damien and I went to the No Kings rally, and I must have made supper at some point?  Here’s a collection of signs I saw. 

Possibly my favorite:

Huge crowd, great energy, no violence or litter or unpleasantness, just an extremely diverse crowd of people, including lots of people who were pretty clearly at their first protest. I got my picture in the local paper!  We’ll definitely be going again. 

SUNDAY
Chicago-style hot dogs, fries

Sunday I went shopping and then we had a low key father’s day, with a few of the big kids coming over for supper. We had Chicago-style hot dogs, which are supposed to be on poppy seed buns, which I couldn’t find; but we had mustard and then “dragged them through the garden” with pickle spears, fresh tomatoes, chopped onions, pickled peppers, and celery salt. I skipped the pickle relish because I didn’t think anyone would eat it. 

Looks like I ran out of room before I put any peppers on, actually. 

I made some brownies from a mix (and the kids did not miss their chance to torment me about having bought brownie mix on purpose for the first time in my life, after a long and tragic history of being incredibly stupid about brownie mix for some reason). Ice cream on warm brownies topped with hot fudge sauce, mini M&Ms, whipped cream from a can, cherries. 

Unsophisticated and delicious. Americans really get some things right. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, raw vegetables

Monday I suddenly found the giant pile of scrap wood in front of the house intolerable, so I flung it onto the other, even gianter pile of scrap wood on the side of the driveway. Follow me for more curb appeal tips. I’ll fling you, too. 

In the afternoon, I started some pork marinating for Tuesday. Corrie helped with this. This recipe has a certain appeal for her:

namely, that I used an entire tube of red food coloring. Walmart was selling sets of food coloring for like fifty cents, so I bought uhhh all of them. In anticipation of the day when food coloring becomes outlawed but we won’t have the energy to fret about birthday cakes colored with beet juice because we will all have polio!

Then we had grilled ham and cheese and veggies. 

Also on Monday, Clara stopped by to pick up Benny for play practice, and dropped off a sample of the tarts she had made for the cast. 

It is a graham cracker poppy seed and ginger crust filled with grapefruit curd tart and topped with basil-infused whipped cream. All made from scratch, and, as far as I can tell, a recipe she invented.  I’ve been off sugar all month, but I made an exception, yes I did. I nearly wept at the marriage of flavors. It was like, I don’t know, pirouetting through a garden.

TUESDAY
Char siu, rice, pineapple

Tuesday I was still in a bit of “MUST ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING ACCOMPLISHABLE” frenzy, so first I sternly informed myself that, if I were really ever going to upcycle all those animal feed bags, I would have done it before we had eighteen of them. 

So I listed them on a “buy nothing” group, and a capable-looking woman claimed them right away. These are actually really useful items! You can use them to insulate your bird coop, lay them down for a weed barrier, use them to line a compost bin, fill them with dirt and grow potatoes, use them for outdoor trash bags (I actually do this), or make a few modifications and turn them into sturdy tote bags. Or you can just list them on Marketplace and say hail and farewell. 

I also sorted through a couple of bags of seeds I saved last summer. It was mostly marigolds, but also zinnia and something I couldn’t identify, plus lupines, and some rose hips I gathered on the island we visited last summer.

I broke open the lupine pods and set the seeds to soak, and I cut open the rose hips

and put the seeds in a bag in the fridge. Then I took my vast collection of plant pots and filled them with compost, and planted all the rest of the seeds, and sternly instructed them to grow. Accomplishable!

I actually forgot about the lupine seeds until this minute, so I hope they haven’t soaked too long. 

Speaking of soaking, though, I was extremely pleased to remember I had been marinating that pork for 24 hours. I had followed this char siu recipe from Recipe Tin Eats which has you basting the meat every half hour or so. It turns out MAGNIFICENT. 

Just perfect. Super easy, and mainly an investment of time. The pork is tender and juicy, but not shreddy like pulled pork. Just lovely in thin slices. I cut up a few pineapples and cooked a big pot of rice, and it was a great meal. 

There is quite a bit of leftover pork, so get ready for pictures of leftover pork. 

WEDNESDAY
Meatball subs, cheezy weezies

Wednesday, I spotted the glorious spectacle of one of my teenagers planning a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with the two youngest kids. I’m trying to be better about not sharing too many photos of them, but believe me, it melted my gorgon heart. My kids are turning out pretty great. 

In sadder news, we are at the point in our history where it’s exciting when ground beef falls to $3.49 a pound, and we still have eight people in the house. So I put on my thinking cap and combined a few pounds of ground beef with a few pounds of ground turkey that is cheap at Aldi, plus some breadcrumbs, which I normally use in meatballs, plus a bunch of leftover cooked rice. (I also mixed in a bunch of beaten eggs, a ton of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.) I got fifty good-sized meatballs out of it. 

I documented it because I’ve never stretched meatballs with rice before. So here is a picture of raw meatballs with rice. 

I’m giggling at how not-round they are. What the heck was I doing? Probably thinking about some other food. I’m always thinking about food. 

Anyway, unless I’m being fancy, I generally bake meatballs in the oven on a rack. Then I put them in a crock pot with sauce and keep them warm until supper. 

They turned out great! You really couldn’t taste the rice. You could see it

but otherwise they were completely normal meatballs. So, phew! Take that, expensive ground beef!

I spent the rest of the day tearing around doing various tasks I’ve been putting off, culminating with sorting through every last one of Corrie’s stuffed animals, packing up half to put in the attic, moving a dresser from the dining room into her newly-clean closet, and hanging a net for the rest of the stuffed animals. 

And here was my vibrantly-colored reward.

You can see in the background the trash can, brimming with exactly four items I was allowed to throw out: A pilled dollar store Christmas stocking, an especially ratty snake, a box with a shattered plastic lid, and a one-legged dinosaur with no head. Everything else Must Be Saved. I really can’t blame any of my kids for being pack rats, because I honestly had a really hard time throwing away that dinosaur. It was a dinosaur with :::memories::::. 

The super glue is to hold my brain in. Keeps falling out. 

Oh, but this made me laugh. I did Google how to stretch ground beef, but I made a small but significant typo, resulting in this response:

Normally I loathe and despise anything AI, but this time I felt kind of bad for it. It tried so hard to make sense of my question. “It seems there might be a slight misunderstanding . . . ” Story of my life, pal. 

THURSDAY

Spaghetti carbonara

Thursday it suddenly got really hot, and I was having some doubts about my plans to serve carbonara. Then it turned out three of the kids were going out for dinner with their friends, and one kid was at work, and of the two kids at home, one doesn’t like carbonara and one is neutral on carbonara, if you can imagine. To me, carbonara is still one of those things you go around telling people about, and possibly making them come over and admire!

So I was a little flummoxed about how to proceed. Was it sweating over a frying pan and steaming up the kitchen for a meal that only a few people even wanted?

The answer is: Yes, if it’s carbonara. I ended up saving out several pieces of bacon for the weird kid who doesn’t like it at all, and making two pounds of spaghetti with the rest. And you know what, it was the best carbonara I’ve ever made, and everybody liked it! 

And I had mine outside, feeling very wealthy indeed. Earlier in the week, I broke the mower and Damien fixed it and then I broke it again and he fixed it again, so I had done a bunch of mowing and weeding and mulching over the week, and dang, it’s so pretty out there in June.

And it was not too hot for carbonara! For some reason pasta with tomato sauce feels like a cold-weather dish, but you can be sweating all your limbs off and still feel good about eating carbonara. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, chips and salsa

Regular old quesadillas, perfectly fine.  I’m hoping against hope that the mechanic will finish my car today. It’s been in the shop all week and I truly don’t know if the bill is going to be a “well, we’ll just tighten our belts for the rest of the month” situation, or more of a a “Merciful Lord, please make someone dumb enough to give me a loan” deal. Oh the suspense! At least we have June. And leftover pork! 

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Meatballs for a crowd

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.