I’m crushed

I just went out to plant the Jonathon apple tree that we bought last Friday. We got one that needed a good home. It has many little apples on its branches, but it’s a little bigger than it should be allowed to get, living in a pot. Some of the leaves are starting to curl and dry out. I got a bunch of manure, and some liquid root feeder. We also got a Bartlett pear tree, with visions of fall plenty, and dried gold.

I had completely forgotten that “call before you dig” thing, and Derek mentioned it while we were carting our tree home, with the help of Derek’s friend from work who owns a pick-up. So when we got home, I called. It turns out you’re supposed to call at least 2 days before you plan to dig. I called on Friday night, so the two days started on Monday. That meant we had to wait until Tuesday night, when the utilities people would have had sufficient time to come out and mark where the gas, power, and water lines are. I worried for our little apple tree. I put it in a cardboard box that was bigger than the pot, and I fed it some compost and water.

So this morning, I planned on getting my poor tree in the ground. I decided to put it in a little groove in the back yard that marks where the previous owners had their garden. It was about 10 feet from the garage, and hence, from the gas line. It was far enough from my present gardens that it wouldn’t shade them, at least not for 15 years or so. It left enough space on the other side to plant the pear tree at least ten feet away, in the same groove.

I dug. I made sure the hole was twice as big as the root ball. My back is going to break. I put some compost in the hole, watered it with root feeder, put in the tree, and alternated the original soil with more compost, until I’d used about 60 pounds. When I finally had my tree looking happy, straight, and well-fed, I paused to admire my handiwork. I took in the tiny branches protruding from the trunk, the many little apples ready to swell, the top of the tree, reaching high up towards the… phone line. I managed to plant the tree almost directly under the phone line, with about 4 feet to spare.

I’m completely deflated. I can’t dig another hole. I’m gonna go watch a movie and mope for a while.

 

Asbestos hands? Check!

I just made mozarella cheese for the first time, using a kit that my cousin Liz gave me for my birthday at least 4 years ago. It always seemed so daunting, but after reading in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about using more local and home-grown/made ingredients, I decided to give it a whirl. Plus, she kept emphasizing how it only takes half an hour, literally.

I timed my effort, figuring that for a beginner, it would take longer, since that’s how cookbook recipes almost always go for me. I’m a mess in the kitchen, and while I’m cooking, it always looks like there’s been an explosion. So I gave myself an hour, just in case. I was shocked to roll up my ball of fresh mozarella in exactly 30 minutes, even with the heating of the gallon of milk on the stovetop.

I was really glad to have the two special ingredients for the cheese right where I needed them. Rennet is something that you can mail-order, or you can usually find it at health-food stores. Citric acid is also found at health-food stores, but even more commonly at ethnic markets, notably Indian ones, since citric acid it used to make things sour. I actually think you can get it at the regular supermarket, in the canning and preserving section.

The one thing that I had that comes from sheer force of will is my asbestos hands. I remember once, in Holland, I was staying with a friend and his family, and I was in some way involved in the preparation of dinner, and I grabbed something hot. Robert Jan said he would never do that, because he didn’t have “Mom hands.” I thought about it, and I realized that moms are a pretty large segment of society that is used to handling hot stuff, and can do it without flinching. Us and iron smiths.

I’m making pizza on Saturday, and I wanted to have the cheese ready. I figured I’d do it on Tuesday, in case I failed miserably and had to try again. I think I might do it again anyway, so I can have some really, really fresh moz for a grown-up pizza with fresh basil leaves and sun-dried tomatoes. You all know my tomato snobbery, and I realize dried tomatoes are not on the traditional Margherita pizza, but there just aren’t any fresh ones yet that didn’t travel across the globe to get here.

Also, it may not strike you as important or ground-breaking, unless you’re related to me by blood or marriage, but I found a local producer of tortilla chips. If you’re looking for local foods to eat, it’s a really good idea to find a local source of the items that take up a large percentage of you family’s food consumption. Something that’s at least 20% of what you eat can really add up in the petroleum column if you’re outsourcing to California and you live in Ohio. OK, we don’t really eat chips every single day, but it’s close.

 

Because I’m a cheater like that

Who has time to write a blog post? During planting season? And when your mom is coming to visit for a few days? And when there’s fresh rhubarb to make into a pie, and bread to bake, and laundry to wash and fold, and piles to sort, and cheerios to vacuum, and books to read? Who? Who has time?

So I am here providing you with an email that I just sent to elizasmom, since it has everything I would have written about anyway. Amn’t I smart?

That asparagus recipe… I tried it, and the smells wafting around the kitchen were intoxicating. I was so excited to taste it, but it turns out that if you only use a few mushrooms, instead of the requisite pound, you can’t taste them at all, and at $50 a pound, I’m not sure I’ll ever try it again. Plus, I used some “whole grain” bread from Panera, which, as it turns out, is only partly comprised of anything whole. Also, the bread had the perfect texture for disintegrating in the milk. I recommend a sturdy, maybe french loaf, one that will hold its shape after soaking, because you don’t want to achieve the mush pudding I got. And the recipe suggests steaming the asparagus until tender, but after the 45 minutes in the oven, they are completely smooshy. So I would maybe steam them for only 2 minutes, not until they’re done, but leave them a little crunchy.

I did make an asparagus frittata the other day, since I started making the pudding again, only to realize I had no bread, and no time to make a crust for a tart. I left out the mushrooms from the inside, and fried them in butter instead, until they were crispy but not burned. We put those right on top of the frittata, or ate them plain, with lots of salt. I had picked up some more morels and some chanterelles from the farmer’s market, and they are a great combination. That way, I didn’t feel like I wasted all the mushrooms, only to not be able to discern their presence. Even Noah had some of the fried chanterelles.

My garden is so far just tons and tons of work. I put in 2 4×12 beds and filled them with compost, peat, and vermiculite, per the “Square Foot Gardening” instructions, then laid out a grid, and started planting in my tiny squares. I went out to thin the lettuces, beets, and chard the other day, and since I planted such tiny plots of them, there was not much to thin. But I did get a handful of mixed greens that I promptly took inside, rinsed off, and put in a bowl with a few drops of salad dressing. I have to say that it was the most incredible, complex salad I’ve ever had. I could taste all the different greens, even though they were about the size of my pinky fingernail. I guess that’s why micro-greens are so popular.

I also started reading about companion planting… after I had already put a bunch in the ground. It turns out that you’re supposed to keep nightshades away from brassicas, so I went out and dug up my tomatoes, since they were all next door to the cabbages and broccolis. I’m pretty much a spaz. Now the tomatoes are in a separate bed, with petunias, marigolds, parsley, onions, carrots and basil, which are all supposed to be beneficial to tomatoes for pest control and better accessibility to nutrients in the soil. I also planted a separate 3×3 garden with just corn, pole beans, and pumpkins. You know, the three sisters. OK, I’m a huge spaz. Well, it turns out that there are traditional patterns for planting them, specifically suited to region, humidity, etc. I just threw them in all jumbled. Maybe next year I’ll be a little more organized.

We bought a couple of fruit trees the other day, and on our way home, realized we’re supposed to call the utility people before digging in the yard, so our trees are still in their pots. The apple tree has about 20 marble sized apples on it.

Derek got me a gift card for an hour long massage for my birthday. I’ve always wanted to do that, but I’ve felt like it would be weird. I guess I’ll find out! It’s so great to have him back. He’s pretty determined to never go away for that long again, if only so he doesn’t have to eat out for every meal for two weeks. It’s really validating when he says to me on the phone, from 2000 miles away, that he can’t wait to come home to my cooking and feel normal again.

 

This little piggy went to market

I’ve just returned form the first of undoubtedly many early Saturday runs to the Dayton farmer’s market. In a long, narrow warehouse, the quaint market can be forgiven for not being outdoors. It’s still spring, so my expectations were not high for fruits and veggies. At the very least, I hoped to come away with some fresh and fragrant strawberries, some tender asparagus, and maybe some local eggs.

I had to drive, toting my 3 wildebeests along, but in the future, I hope to be able to ride a bike, if I can figure out a suitable method of transporting the bounty home in the mid-morning sun.

As markets go these days, you can find much more than produce and local meat, and our market is no exception. Many permanent vendors featured hand made soaps, jewelry, handbags, honey, even some Ohio maple syrup.

The syrup vendor had a griddle set up, and made free plate-sized pancakes for market goers, requesting a voluntary donation to offset the rising price of grain. My boys took advantage. We parked the stroller in the aisle, and the boys sat right down on the floor, while I was forced to watch a steady stream of people buying artisan breads that looked irresistible.

There were also pastry chefs, a breakfast booth with diner-style offerings, a pet-treat baker, a middle-eastern booth, many fantastic flowers, and a new-age musician with his keyboard and karaoke machine set to extra loud.

I was dismayed to find, among the local seasonal fruits and vegetables, grapes from Chile, pineapples from Hawaii, and avocados from Mexico. They seemed so incongruous. There were also a few hard, pink tomatoes, and they just reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver’s essay on how the attitude in America of having everything now, regardless of season or regional availability, is hypocrisy in a culture that’s trying to teach teenagers to abstain from sex, to wait until the time is right. Buying tomatoes in winter, she says, is promiscuous. Which is funny to me. For several years, if I eat at a restaurant or home where tomatoes are served in the winter, I always feel a little dirty. Like I’ve sacrificed my morals for instant gratification, regardless of the fact that the object of my desire is inferior, and will never measure up to a real, ripe, height-of-summer tomato.

Having just read the late-winter and early spring chapters of “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” I was just itching to get something seasonal, and regional. That’s really not that hard in Ohio, but little did I suspect that I would find freshly dug morel mushrooms for $50 a pound (cough, cough, choke). Needless to say, I didn’t get a pound. I got about 7 small mushrooms for as many dollars. Alongside the mollys were the asparagus, and having just drooled over the recipe for Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding, guess what we’re having for dinner? I’m pretty sure I won’t be needing the whole recipe, which does, indeed, call for a full pound of morels. I’m reluctant to even offer it to the kids, because $50 a pound for mushrooms they will pick out and not eat is pearls before swine, for sure. They’ll undoubtedly object to the asparagus as well, but that’s what’s for dinner.

I also came away with two pints of red strawberries with no hint of a hard, white core, a pound of firm new potatoes the size of marble shooters, a pound of asparagus, a pound of rhubarb (for that pie I’m making for dessert), a dozen brown and almost green local eggs, a whole chicken, a loaf of crusty sourdough bread, and two bagels. Are you jealous? I know Derek is. He doesn’t get back until Tuesday.

 

I’ve got the plox

All’s quiet on the western front. Derek is in California for 12 days, we went to the movie store yesterday and loaded up on Max and Ruby, Bugs Bunny, and Super Mario Brothers, the boys’ bedroom is free of anything marring the fluffy pile carpet floor, as is the living room, the lawn is mowed (mown?), there’s no water in the basement (thanks to my daily vigilance with the shop-vac), nobody has been abused, there is relative sanity, and even, dare I say, peace in our Derek-less home. We had lemon-ricotta pancakes for dinner. The kids ate what I made. Well, I made lemon-ricotta pancakes, so if they hadn’t eaten them, I would have had to give them back and exchange them for humans.

I was cleaning the kitchen (!) and came upon a list. I am a list-maker. I list the items I require from the supermarket, or Target, or the library. I list the things I would like to do today, next week, next year. I list the things our house needs, the things I wish for, the things to pack for Derek when he goes to California for 12 days.

So this list had one item, among many, that was curious. Now it’s up to you, dear reader, to determine what the list was listing. The word is PLOX. What is plox, you ask? Well, if you were in 6th grade, it would look like this:

27. Plox
a) a communicable disease whose symptoms include rosy patches on the skin
b) events in a story, or, in this case, a series of stories
c) multiple distinct points on a graph
d) a groundcover with spring blossoming flowers
e) please and/or thank you
f) your head asplode

So what’s my list? I’ll give you a hint. There were other items on the list that also came from the Latin root for “flame.”

 

Adventures in the ER

Who wants to hear how much fun we had in the emergency room yesterday? OK, OK, I’ll tell you.

After school, we were diddling around doing nothing. I was probably reading blogs or something in the living room. The boys asked if they could take a bath. Good idea, I thought. Get them in the tub for an hour of splashing the bathroom soaking wet, but at least they will be occupied. Derek is in Utah for graduation, and he took Kiki, so it’s just me and the boys. I was happy to have them upstairs playing. They take baths all the time, and they both swim pretty well, even holding their breaths really well. Especially Calvin. Relax, this isn’t a drowning story.

Anyway, they had been in there about 10 minutes. They were fighting. They fight all the freaking time, so this was not cause for concern. Suddenly, the pitch of Zeeb’s wail became much higher, he started shrieking, “I’m sorry Calvin! I’m sorry! You’re gonna DIE! You’re Gonna DIE!!!!!” Calvin joined in the chorus. Now, there’s a considerable amount of shrieking that goes on in this house, but a mama knows when the shrieking just isn’t quite the same.

I ran upstairs to find Zeeb cowering in one end of the tub with his hands on his mouth and his eyes filled with terror, and Calvin completely drenched in blood, from the tip of his head, all the way down to where his skinny legs went in the water. The pink water. His face was covered, and I mean covered, with blood. He had his hands up on his head, but I couldn’t see what had happened.

In retrospect, I realize that I need to practice reacting calmly to scary situations, but all I could do was scream. While I was trying to find the wound and stop the bleeding, I yelled at Zeebie to get out and hand me a towel, I yelled at Calvin to tell me what happened, and too step out of the tub and lie down. I think my yelling confused them more, so they did everything in slow motion. I finally got Calvin to lie down on the floor, and took my hand off his head, and got the towel over the gash.

They had been fighting, and for whatever reason, Zeeb had picked up a jar that they usually play with (I actually don’t want a lecture about what a bad idea it is to have a jar as a bath toy. I’ve tried to remove it from the bathroom many times, but the kids always bring it back. It’s one of those jars that candles come in, or bath salts.) and he came down on Calvin’s head as hard as he could. He split the scalp right open, in a straight line about 1 1/2 inches long starting just behind the hairline.

I managed to get the boys into some underwear, and we drove to the emergency room. I always worry, when I go to the emergency room, that they will take one look at whatever I think is an emergency, and laugh in my face. This time, I got no such look. They gave us some warm blankets, cleaned it off right away, took us to a room, and left us for 3 hours. Apparently there were many emergencies yesterday. I wrapped Calvin up like he was in a cocoon, but Zeeb I wrapped like a little Tibetan monk, with the blanket wrapping around his body all the way, then up over his shoulder. He clasped his hands to his chest and walked around, his little barefoot, buzzed-head self looking so darn cute.

We sang songs, cuddled, complained, talked about stitches and staples, waited, waited, and waited. When the doctor finally did come, he reassured me that Calvin did indeed require stitches, and that I was right to bring him. Then he asked why he wasn’t wearing any clothes. I told him about the blood, and he deadpanned, “You were a little scared, were ya?” Only slightly did I get the idea that it would have been OK to dress my children before rushing off to the ER.

As he was sewing the running stitch and explaining to Calvin why it was a good stitch to use, Calvin said, “This is the second time I’ve ever gotten stitches.” “

“Oh yeah?” said the doc. “When was the first?”

“I don’t really want to tell you, because it was on my private parts.”

The doctor had to turn away to giggle at that response.

When the nurse came in, he asked Zeeb if he was the guilty party. Zeeb looked right at him and quietly said yes. The he continued, “But I’m 4. I’m gonna be 5, too.” Zeeb’s birthday was Thursday, so think he thought the question was about his birthday party. (This same nurse said he recognized me, which is entirely possible, since I spent the night there once last November with Zeeb, who had whooping cough, and couldn’t breathe. He also told me I couldn’t possibly be 32. Hmmm, even when you know it’s pure flattery, why can you just not reject the compliment?)

When we finally left, I could hear a couple of the nurses snickering and saying they wished they had a camera. There’s nothing quite like seeing two skinny boys in just their underwear running around the hospital, especially when one of them has the words, “Man of Steel” written across those cheeks.

 

10 things I’m doing to save the Earth

Or at least things I’m doing that aren’t going to kill the Earth as quickly.

1. My garden. I’m hoping to grow a large percentage of our family’s summer and fall food, and hopefully keep the garden producing through the winter, as well as keeping some of our harvest with root-cellaring. Our house has a perfect room for a root cellar. It’s cold, dark, and if we get a door on it, I think it will be ideal all winter. Plus, I just got a book on four season gardening, from some people in Vermont, so I have to trust that they’re serious about producing even in the winter.

2. Composting. I’m so happy I have my own compost bin, and I will have a separate heap to put all the yard scraps in. That way, when I need some brown to put on top of the kitchen scraps, I can just grab some from the pile. Less goes into my trash, and I have home-made fertilizer for my lovely garden.

3. Cloth diapering. I can’t stand the thought of putting those horrible “disposable” things in the landfills. The funniest thing is seeing how huge my baby girl looks in the giant cloth diapers, though. I had to buy some summer clothes for her yesterday, and I ended up getting a bunch of skirts and some shorts that are the 4 year old size, so they will fit over the diapers.

4. Buying recycled clothes. There’s really no reason to shop for new clothing, since there is so much out there that gets discarded, but is in perfectly good shape. Plus, I have a love-affair with thrift stores. The other day, when I got home from a thrift store spree (there are about 7 thrift stores within a couple of mile of our house), Derek asked me how my treasure hunt had gone. I giggled. But I do love finding treasures that have been cast off for whatever reason, and I feel like I’ve avoided adding to the burden of resource depletion and possible human rights violations. Keeping goods in the loop eases my consumerist mind.

5. Using the local library. I love reading, I love books. I can’t afford to buy all the books I want, but more importantly, I want to avoid using up more resources by purchasing books I will only read once. Which is to say, I still buy books, and I still love them, but I’m buying fewer books. Plus, one needs to support the local library for so many reasons. They have so many books you will never be able to buy, they support literacy, both the boo variety and the computer variety, they have so many community programs, and they are havens of peace and quiet. My sanity would be much more threatened without the local library.

6.Turning things off. I try to leave lights off as much as possible. I try to hang the laundry to dry whenever possible. I encourage my kids to notice when things are unnecessarily ON, and help them understand why they should be OFF. I’ve tried to use as many low-energy things in our house as I could, with all compact fluorescent bulbs, low energy refrigeration (lesser of two evils, as far as I’m concerned. I wish I didn’t have one at all), low energy (and low water) washer and dryer, etc.

7. Opening windows. This spring is so gorgeous, but it’s already started getting hot. I’ve been opening the windows for circulation, rather than turning on the air conditioner. If I do end up desperately hot, I will try to keep the thermostat at something in the upper 70’s, rather than actually trying to make my house cool. Seasons are good for us, and a constant 71 degrees is not good for our dear Earth. During the winter, we kept the heat at 61 at night (I know, we could go lower, but my baby girl won’t keep herself under any blankets yet, and even with two pairs of fleece pajamas, she still got pretty cold) and 64 during the day, except on the days that I just couldn’t take it anymore, and turned it up to 68. I believe in sweaters and wool socks. From the thrift store, of course.

8. Recycling. Yes, I know how cliche all my things are, but I believe in recycling. I recycle everything I can. I want to really reduce how much trash we send to the land fill, so I recycle the things that can’t be used again, use up what can be used, make regular donations to the thrift stores, send the organic stuff to my compost bin, and give stuff away. I also try to purchase things that aren’t excessively packaged. Sometimes I get the large size, sometimes I skip something I want because it has too much plastic on it. Packaging makes me sad, especially when it’s intended to make the item look bigger or more exciting, and when there are multiple, unnecessary layers.

9. Making my own. Last night, I made a bunch of flannel baby wipes, and poured some home-made wipe-juice on them. I like to make my own cleaning products, using vinegar, Borax, baking soda, essential oils, and other good stuff. I would love to be a brilliant craftswoman, designing and building furniture and clothing out of reclaimed materials, but I’m just too lazy. Yesterday, I was about to throw an umbrella away. It has been on our porch all winter, and it was a piece of junk to begin with. It was rusty, all the little wires were bent, and it was unusable. When I picked it up, I suddenly thought how it would make a cute (and waterproof!) skirt for Kiki. All I need to do is cut a circle out of the middle and add some elastic or a strip of fabric with a fastener. Then I could decorate it with some ribbon or embroidery. Or maybe some tiny tassels on each of the points. I’ll post some photos when I’m done. And maybe while I’ve got the sewing machine out, I’ll get to those curtains I’ve been meaning to make since last November!

10. Use less. I try to limit the use of things that aren’t totally waste free and non-toxic. I’ve started only washing my hair about once or twice a week, instead of every other day. There’s really no reason to wash your hair every day, since your natural oils help your hair stay healthy and shiny, and also help with the frizzies. Plus, washing your hair often makes your skin produce more oil than it needs, so it gets greasier faster if you wash it all the time. I also don’t put clothes in the laundry unless they’re really dirty. By that, I mean that they have discernible spots or smells. Clothes shouldn’t be laundered often, because each time you wash them, the fibers break down more and the color fades, so if you want your clothes to last, don’t wash them so often. Just because you wore a shirt doesn’t mean it’s dirty. I give my shirts at least two days, and this may be TMI, but pants can last a couple of weeks. After all, that’s what underwear is for: to protect your clothing so you don’t need to wash it as often. (I’ve also found some more environmentally friendly laundry detergent that I love. Seventh Generation makes some that does well in an HE washer, and it smells incredible, like eucalyptus and lavender.)

Happy Earth Day!

 

Folly

Ah, how excited I was to buy a house on a double lot! I envisioned growing lush, green grass along the west yard for the kids to play soccer, edging the entire yard with lilacs and flowering cherries and quinces, planting a border of lavender around the house, throwing in a couple of fruit trees, and planting my garden behind the house, with enough vegetables for lots of salads and lots of canning and drying in the fall. I love vegetables. I love fruits. I love herbs. I love flowers. What big plans I had!

I went out today to remedy my compost problem. I had started a compost pile just behind the house. I had really just started dumping kitchen scraps onto the lawn in a pile. Well, as it turns out, this is not a great idea, especially in a place where there are rodents and burrowing animals. How do I know we have rodents? The pair of shiny eyes I encountered one night in the driveway caused me to do a little googling, and I ended up with some lovely photos of opossums. We’ve got ‘em. So, needless to say, I don’t need egg shells and apple cores being dragged across my lawn, possibly to find their way to an unsuspecting neighbors yard.

Also, I had started the pile in the dead of winter, knowing full well there would be no actual decomposing happening with the frozen detritus of my culinary exploits. The funny thing about that is that once it starts getting warm enough for the scraps to decompose, it is also getting warm enough for flies. And yes, the flies do come out, and they do lay their eggs, MAGGOTS, in your compost pile. (Hey Lisa, remember that one time when we cleaned out the trash can full of maggots? Good times!) As beneficial as it may be to have someone eating the compost, it is most certainly not beneficial to have swarms of flies hovering about you back door. Plus, if you don’t add some “brown” to the compost, the smell does tend to overpower. But where do you get brown in the dead of winter, with all the leaves and clippings long gone with the fall clean-up?

I broke down and purchased a black plastic compost bin from Costco. They deliver. The bin has no bottom, so as to more efficiently let in the worms who do most of the work. I de-boxed the bin, put it together, and stuck it right on top of my existing pile, without moving anything. Voila! Except then I read on some internet site that is now linked on my sidebar that you shouldn’t build your compost in full sun, because it may overheat. I don’t know precisely what overheating will do to the compost, but it sounded bad. So today, I went out, removed the bin to a safe location between our garage and the neighbors fence, and trucked our brand new wheel barrow over to the slightly smelly, but already decomposing pile. I shredded some newspapers for the brown (hoping in my heart that they were printed with soy ink), hauled the gunk, dumped it, added more newspapers, some shredded 100% post-consumer recycled cardboard egg cartons, and some mulch that I stole from the edging, and closed the lid.

I covered the old spot with some more mulch, and everything was dandy. Until I started looking around at our HUGE yard. Weeds everywhere. There are more wildflowers in our lawn than lawn. I’m not sure they’re any good kind of flowers, either. The trees severely need pruning, especially the magnolia that scapes against the house all over the place, and has way too many dead branches. We also have one crazy bush of roses that are, I think, tea roses. But they need to be pruned. And the ivy. And the huge weed bushes in the back. And the dandelions. And on, and on, and on.

How am I going to keep up with this? Especially with exactly zero experience in tending a yard. Why did I sign up for this? Oh yeah, maybe this had something to do with it.

 

Hot Tamales!

I made two batches of tamales this week. Yes, two! I love tamales. My mom learned how to make them after we lived in Mexico in 1980, and I have loved them ever since. They’re not a thing you like to make often, because they are a little involved, but they are one of my favorite things in the world. And I’m not talking about the tamales you get in restaurants, I’m talking about the real thing.

This tamale obsession came about when I was in Boston, visiting my little brother. We arrived at his house in the evening, but I had run a race, and then ate lots of fantastic party food, and I wasn’t hungry. So NungNung just pulled a Trader Joe’s cheese and green chile tamale out of the freezer and warmed it up. I was so stinking jealous. We talked about the tamale issue, how utterly time-consuming it is to make them, how much we love them, how great it is to have frozen TJ’s tamales, even though they’re so inferior to the tamales we grew up with. I got tamales on the brain, and I couldn’t get them off.

So I bought 10 chicken legs (there was no turkey at the market), and found a local Mexican market where I bought corn husks, dried ancho chiles, dried poblano chiles, masa flour, and for good measure, some Sidral (the best apple soda in the world). And a couple of tamarind pulpos. Oh yeah, and I got about 2 pounds of jamaica blossoms, which they sold in bulk for $4.99 a pound. Actually, I probably only got 1/2 pound, but that’s still a huge bag of dried flowers. Tonight I will make some Agua de Jamaica, my favorite drink in the world (next to Sidral and this fantastic citrus drink I make with 1/3 orange juice, 1/3 Sprite, 1/3 water, and the juice of a lime. That was a life-saver while I was pregnant).

Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details of making tamales. It took me 3 days, making the meat and raisin filling, toasting the chilies and making the sauce, soaking the corn husks, putting them together, and then steaming them (after I searched the house for 2 hours looking for my steamer insert, which I never found. I ended up using a metal colander set over a green chile can that had both ends cut out, in my big pot. I fit about 24 tamales in there. When they were done and cooled, I put most of them in the freezer. Today, I made another batch with the rest of the chicken filling. It turns out 10 chicken legs is really a lot of meat. When I ran out of that, I finished the batch with cheese and the green chilies that had been evicted from their can.

I sort of feel like I’ve passed this huge rite of, er, passage. I made tamales all by myself! It seems like it’s traditional to have the tamale making be a social event, with many hands helping, but I did it, and survived to tell the tale. Somehow, I think my 40 tamales will last long enough that I won’t need to think about making any more any time soon.

Also, if you know anyone who needs some chile sauce, I think I ended up making about 2 quarts. It was a little too much. By almost 2 quarts.

 

Put down your torches and pitchforks

If you’ve come here to yell at me for my comments about the FLDS post, I welcome you, but ask you to at least not swear (feeble attempt at lightening the mood). I’ve been crying and trying to understand the motivation for creating the post, and I don’t believe there was a malicious intent. But it made me really, really sad.

The members of the FLDS church that have been in the news have had a great tragedy befall them. Whether you think of the tragedy as their upbringing or their being wrested from their homes and thrown into the spotlight of the national media, they are in turmoil. The feeding frenzy of the media has highlighted such interesting tidbits as the bed found in their temple, and the fact that sometimes, girls are married as young as 14. Mormons have enough in their history and current practice to make us need to think twice before pointing fingers at others and calling them weird. (Initiatory, anyone? To an outsider, that would surely seem weird. And how about that endowment prior to 1990?)

It makes me sad that people, throughout the history of time, have used religious differences as weapons. Nobody ever benefited from someone hating them, but as most religions teach, people do benefit from someone loving them, even if they are different.

So call me what you want, I just think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches us to love each other.