Peaceful Reader

Book Magic

I absolutely love it when I am able to see the fruits of my labor come alive. It doesn’t happen everyday and somedays it comes in such small doses that you have to look closely to see it. Today though the magic swirled up like fairy dust!

Two days ago the 5th grade girls in my book club-ten of them!- choose Ninth Ward for their next reading choice. I only
had 6 copies so I placed an emergency rush order through my wonderful Scholastic rep, Carmen. I expected the books to come on Monday so I was happily surprised to see them this afternoon in my mailbox. I plopped a sticky note on top of each book addressed personally to each young reader and then took all 10 books down and delivered them.

This is where the magic dust sprinkled down in a frenzy as I delivered the books the girls were gleefully dancing and prancing to get their copy much to the dismay of their classmates NOT privileged to be in the “reading club of cool”. I loved hearing the giggles and watching smiling faces of girls just learning to fall in love with reading!

Movie treats!

My husband and I went to a matinee of the new movie, Lincoln. We eat pretty healthy most of the time but when my husband goes to the movies he loves to get the BIG bucket of popcorn (not the wimpy size pictured above) and a large cherry coke. I even wait in line to get these snacks and sometimes I’ve even paid for them! It makes me feel like a hypocrite. There have been a few exceptions like when we’ve just eaten a big meal or one time we were at an art house theatre and the snacks were extremely expensive so we skipped it altogether.

It does not matter that my husband religiously reads Runner’s World and that we both choose pretty healthy food outside of our theatre time. So much so that we are now getting a little backlash from Teenage Boy who has taken to buying a secret loaf of white bread when he puts fuel in his car-so yes, gas station bread (blechhh), because he’s tired of our 100% whole grain bread everyday. If he’s going to rebel I’d prefer he do it at home instead of next year when he’s off at school but really, WHITE bread. I shiver just thinking about it. Better than rebelling with a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine I guess.

But I digress which often happens when I talk about food. Back to the bad for you popcorn and syrupy soda. We don’t even have soda at home except for the occasional Whole Foods soda, Jones soda or a yummy root beer, but all without high fructose corn syrup. And I make lots of homemade popcorn both on the stove and in an air popper-all delicious-but at the movies you’ve got to have the big bucket with a little of the fake butter sloshed on-not too much or it’s easily overkill.

When we first started going to the movies together I loved to get a box of Junior Mints to share, the salty and sweet made me happy but now the overly sweetness of the Cherry Pepsi is enough for my taste buds. Our theater switched from Coke to Pepsi a few years ago and we both miss the real Coca-Cola tang but did we stop buying a soda? Nope, we suck down that Cherry Pepsi still but we cheat on it by wishing it were a Cherry Coke. Luckily we don’t go to the movies very often or we’d have to cut back on this crazy addiction. Since we don’t I think we are safe to indulge in our movie treats.

It’s a little like a holiday.

The movie, by the way, was excellent. The entire theatre watched in near quiet rapport on the edge of our seats hoping the 13th Amendment would pass as we quietly chomped popcorn and slurped our sodas, Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field and the rest of the cast were impeccable. This should be nominated and win in many Oscar categories. If you haven’t already made it out to see it, do, and let me know if you had the big bucket of popcorn with it.

Weekend Cooking; Thanksgiving Menu

Some people eat turkey every Thanksgiving but I’ve actually had the opportunity to eat a wide assortment of food as a long time vegetarian and now as a locavore. As a teenager I ate Thanksgiving meal at my grandmother’s table-the same cherry wood table that sits in my dining room-and ate lots of salad and mashed potatoes as my meat-eating family devoured huge birds and ham slices around me.

A few years ago my lanky Teenage Boy begged for meat to have a place at our table. He, like his dad, is very active athletically on top of being a growing boy. Many strapping young men can be just fine with tofu but he was not. We live in Iowa where I knew I could locate plenty of healthy meat choices and I think now that is probably true of anywhere in the U.S. Wherever you live someone is choosing to farm in a more respectful, humane manner, it just takes some research. I found our sources through friends and our local farmer’s market so it was easy to chose the life of a locavore or perhaps even a flexitarian as we transitioned from vegetarian to carnivores. We eat mostly meat free meals but we balance with a little farm fresh meat. This Thanksgiving we had such a simple meal it was exquisite.

One of the easy choices was to stay home and relax instead of traveling to relatives. After driving the 10 hours to Oberlin two weekends ago we knew we needed a break. I’d questioned the three family members that would be sitting at our table if they were interested in turkey as I needed to place an order with my farmer, Tim Daley of Daley’s Shamrock Acres. My peeps opted out of the turkey choosing instead to go with a more reasonable chicken for the holiday.

I’ve used Tim’s chickens now for about 3 years and I’ve tried a variety of recipes. this year I chose PW’s easy roasting method based on the fact that I easily had all the ingredients at hand. The rest of the menu was rounded out with mashed potatoes, which TB requested to be mashed WITHOUT the skin, so I had to peel the beautiful farm grown potatoes. What a pain he’s becoming-so opinionated! I don’t know where he gets that from? We had a tossed salad with greens from a local farm. We always have fresh cranberry sauce-I love to watch them burst as they cook. I made a cranberry tart for one of our desserts and I surprised my husband with a pecan pie baked fresh at our local co-op. I had planned to make one myself but after gasping at the price of pecans I thought the $9.00 they were charging for the pie was a terrific price. I scooped it up. I make fresh whipped cream for both desserts and our vanilla ice cream came straight from our local dairy farm. My mouth is salivating all over again.

We went for a nice hike through our nature reserve and then headed home for dinner.

Here are the links to the recipes I followed to create our meal.

PW’s roasted chicken

F&W’s Brown Sugar-Cranberry Tart

PW’s Cranberry Sauce

We finished off the cranberry tart earlier this evening and we were pretty sad to see it go. I’m happy because a pie has finally been created that all four of us enjoyed! The pecan pie on the hand is just for husband and I to enjoy together and it was better than I could have done on my own. Truly one of the best pecan pies I’ve tasted. It brought back the flavor of my grandmother’s pecan pie.

I love how as we go through this journey we gather new traditions to add to the favorite old ones. I know that cranberry tart will become one of our new menu additions and that we will probably never go back to a tofu thanksgiving now that we have such a wide range of local options. And what of your holiday traditions? What came with you from your parent’s home and what have you created on your own as a family?

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly food meme-click to her link to find many other food-related posts to check out.

Top Ten Tuesday; I am thankful for these authors…

The Broke and the Bookish host this weekly meme. Today we celebrate at the proverbial table to give thanks to those whom we love and those that keep us reading. This was an easy list to create and if you’d like to play along or just read other lists click to their site and find many more authors and books.

I’m thankful for:

1. Barbara Kingsolver-I’ve read nearly all of her books and loved them all. We could be friends.

2. J.K. Rowling-She brought magic back to reading and I will always be grateful to her for that. I loved the anticipation of getting a new one in the mail from Amazon and cracking open the cover, not letting go until it was finished.

3. Jodi Piccoult-I’ve enjoyed her books and her willingness to bring unique topics to light.

4. Kate DiCamillo; Love all of her books especially The Tale of Desperaux, Winn-Dixie, and Edward Tulane.

5. Mildred D. Taylor- As I read about Cassie Logan and her family’s struggles I fell in love with historical fiction.

6. Stephen King-In college I read a lot of his books and spent one freezing weekend in a cabin on the outskirts of Duluth and the main source of entertainment was me reading some of his short stories aloud to several friends. It was perfectly creepy.

7. Maya Angelou-Phenomenal Woman.

8. David Leviathan-Love his humor and and his memorable characters.

9. Rick Riordan-Like J.K. Rowling I will always be thankful that Mr. Riordan keeps boys (and girls) reading and hungering for more.

10. Suzanne Collins-Before The Hunger Games there was Gregor and I cheered for him.

11. Cornelia Funke-Just for Inkheart. I heart this book so much.

I know I could have come up with more and I’m sure throughout my day I might think of others but off the top of my head this is my list. Enjoy. What ten authors are you thankful for?

Chilly weather makes me think of soup!

Last week as the temperatures dropped down, giving me a reason to don gloves and my winter coat as I headed off in the morning, I dreamed of soup. I had lentils in my pantry and vegetables in the crisper. I have a usual lentil soup recipe but I wanted to try something different.

I pulled down Soup; A way of life by Barbara Kafka, one I don’t use often even though I love soup.

I found a delicious soup and I had most of the ingredients on hand.

Lentil Soup

(adapted)

1 T olive oil

2 strips of bacon, sliced into small pieces

3 large stalks of celery, chopped

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into small chunks

1 small yellow onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and minced

1 T cumin seeds, ground

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

3 cups vegetable stock (it called for beef but I still only ever have veg. on hand)

1 1/2 cup brown lentils, rinsed

1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Freshly ground black pepper

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil and bacon over medium high heat. Stir in the celery, carrots, and onions and saute a little to soften. Add garlic, cumin, and chili powder and stir to coat veggies.

Stir in the stock, 3 cups of water, and the lentils. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 40 minutes, or until the lentils are soft.

Remove from the heat. In a food processor, puree about half the lentils. Stir the puree back into the pan, add the lemon juice, and black pepper. Heat thoroughly. Top each bowl with parsley sprigs. Can be served with soar cream dollop. Served with big chunky bread to dip.

The soup was delicious…for my husband and I. The kids noticed the kick right away and Teenage Boy managed to finish his bowl using the bread to absorb the heat but Groovy Girl, even after stirring in several heaps of sour cream, still couldn’t make it through. She ate two more slices of the fresh bread to compensate.

The recipe originally called for bacon rind with an explanation of what that was, but I had good, farm fresh bacon in my freezer so I used that instead which pleased the teenager a lot as he has come to believe that every meal should include meat. So much for his vegetarian start to life. He is very much in the growing stage though. Hungry all the time.

I made this one day and served it the next and so somehow completely skipped the blender part of this recipe. Next time I will do it because I know it would add a nice thickness to the soup. I also thought this would be wonderful over brown rice.

Now it is much warmer out and it may stay that way for the next couple of weeks but I’ll be ready when it decides to get cold on me again.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. Click on her link and find many other wonderful food-related posts. I’m not going to think about soup though again until the weather takes another dive.

Brave New World

For ten days I’ve been blog free-missing all the crazy political disagreements. We took a road trip to Oberlin, OH soon after election night. Long drive. Parent’s weekend. I still haven’t recovered. Car rides of that length showcase our age limitations as I struggle to unfold my small frame from our small/old Saab each time we stop for fuel and bathroom breaks. At least now we have three drivers so on the way there I didn’t have to drive at all. I played with Groovy Girl, read, and did some knitting. Bliss.

Friday night dinner-probably should have edited out all
that table clutter but hey, it’s real life.

My in-laws met us in Oberlin coming from the D.C. area and we had a wonderful time visiting together and exploring Oberlin. My mother-in-law is an amazing woman, truly. She is a successfully crafty woman, taking on new projects with gusto, turning out finished projects that look far better than the original picture. She turns out award-winning quilts, scarves, hats, towels, American Girl accessories, and period costumes for smallish children to wear to colonial villages. I have many of her handmade gifts and I treasure each one.

(Teenage Boy’s Graduation quilt)

She made a quilt for our oldest daughter for graduation and completed Teenage Boy’s quilt in time for his early graduation. She sent a photo of the quilt for graduation as they were traveling out of the country at the time so we waited until this weekend to actually pick up the quilt-I wanted her to be able to present the quilt to him. Isn’t it beautiful! It is a t-shirt quilt. She wasn’t very excited when I told her I wanted a t-shirt quilt for him. Her mind bleeped “tacky”, I’m just sure. But instead of tossing my idea aside she went to a quilting class and t-shirt quilts just happened to be one of the topics. I’m pretty sure Teenage Boy will love this quilt forever and for me, it makes me smile and teary as I can look back on all his adorable stages and activities; from the Winnie-the-Pooh theatre shirt, the “I need my space NASA shirt” that he wore for days on end as a four-year-old, to his love for various sports teams, HP, and his travels to Alaska, Montana, and Colorado. It’s all there, one pretty great life, wrapped up on a gorgeous quilt.

Every once in a great while I think I could trade my husband in but then I remember how much I love his parents and decide to keep him forever again and again.

Happy travels…

I read the best book over the weekend…

Don’t you love a sentence that begins that way? I’ve been hastily doing all I can for the upcoming election and did some canvassing this weekend for Organizing for America. I’m very ready for Tuesday to come and go as I’m exhausted from this campaign. In between family events and chatting up my favorite president to local residents I actually did read the best book!

What Happens Next (October, 2012) by debut author Colleen Clayton took my breath away with how real and wonderful the story was. Cassidy Murphy, a voluptuous cheerleader, heads off on a school ski club excursion with her two best friends. She’s never skied before and ends up on the bunny slope for the first day while her more experienced friends, Paige and Kirsten, head to the black diamonds remorsefully leaving Cassidy behind. She’s determined to better her skiing skills and while making attempt after attempt meets a hunky older guy, Dax, on the chair lift. Because of her over-sized chest and shapely figure she’s had little experience with men and is an easy target for the suave Dax who wins her over with a few well placed compliments and some coy memory tricks. He asks her to a party after they’ve spent the day flirting and laughing as they ski down the easier slopes. She knows she can’t really accept the invite as it would be breaking curfew for the trip and she’s pretty sure Paige and Kirsten won’t help her but she tries to get them to go along with her party plan anyway. They turn her down and yes, she sneaks out because this cute boy was nice to her. Cue the ominous music.

We get inside Dax’s condo where there is no party but he does invite her into “his parlor” to watch a movie. We leave them laughing together and then speed zip to Cassidy waking up in a bedroom by herself, feeling sick like a hangover. She walks back to the condo where she is bombarded with her friends and the chaperone’s disappointment. Her brain jiggles with worry about the events of the previous night but she can’t quite say exactly what happened but her life has altered, tipped a little, keeping her mentally and physically off balance. Her grades suffer, her friends disappear. She gets kicked off the cheer leading team, drops out of one class only to be assigned to the AV room as an aide which is where she meets Corey Livingston. He turns out to be the perfect slacker dude; someone who is easy to talk to, doesn’t ask a lot of questions and has secrets himself. I could have used a Corey Livingston dream date while I was in high school.

Random quote:

I don’t know how it happens. It just does. I search and search for clues to tell me what happened, where he is, who else he has done this to. I find nothing but inner sickness. I get so torn up and panic-stricken that I have to slam my laptop shut and raise my window, stick my head out into the cold night, and try not to scream. I don’t know what to do with it, this lack of peace, this need to know. I want it to go away but it won’t.
Every night it comes back.
Every night I am searching. (90)

There is a hint of fairy tale to me with Dax’s yellow eyes and Sid’s long red locks but this book definitely tells a real life story of what many young women go through as they evaluate themselves harshly, trying to live up to false images of the perfect women while they steer their way through uncertain relationships with men. It’s not that every strange man on the ski slope is going to be a Dax Windsor but they are out there. Luckily Cassidy meets Corey who likes her for who she is which is what all young women deserve.

Just like Ask the Passengers by A.S. King I will recommend this to our high school teacher-librarians as a must purchase! Review copy received from Zoe at Little, Brown, and Company. In no way did this influence my review as the book stands on its on merit.

*Just as a warning this book does have a ton of swearing.

Ghosts of the Titanic by Julie Lawson

Ghosts of the Titanic

Julie Lawson

2012

168 pages

I plucked this title from the library shelves on a recent visit. I was thinking of my students who just love anything to do with the sinking of the Titanic. As I’ve written about in other posts it is always fitting to find out a book is worthy of its price tag before I buy it for the library.

I wasn’t sure this one was going to be with it until I’d made it more than half way through. I often tell my students that the best part of the book doesn’t come until the middle of the book-good thing I took my own advice. I struggled with the narration, which gave me little empathy for Kevin Messenger, the young man telling the story. He seemed whiny and filled with negative energy and his relationship with his father is particularly difficult. But I love stories that intertwine and this one does just that. Mixed in with Kevin’s story is Angus Seaton’s tale, a 17-year-old seaman who was on the Canadian ship first on the scene to rescue Titanic survivors. Through Angus’s early actions he forever connects his life to the Messenger family. This insider look at those days immediately following the Titanic disaster are little known treasures of information and will delight my students. The fact that this also becomes a real ghost story for Kevin Messenger will make this tale even more thrilling!

Random quote:

Angus had lost count of the number of trips they’d made to the ship. Ten? Twelve? Back and forth to the ship, pulling hard at the oars or taking his turn at the tiller, breath steaming into icy clouds, the grim task never easing up. More bodies to be numbered and recorded, more personal effects to be bagged and tagged. He longed to be back in port, to tear off his clothing, peel away his skin, throw himself into something that didn’t scream of death. (36-37)

The difficult task of pulling bodies from the freezing water and then recording their personal items so they could be identified was a horrific experience for this group of seamen and one that affected many for years after. Angus is overwhelmed and because of his weariness he ends up with an object in his pocket that should have been tagged for one of the bodies. This object links him to the woman throughout his days and makes him crazy with grief, regret and her ghost.

Pick up this book to find out how Angus and Kevin are connected through time.

Happy Halloween.

Weekend Cooking; What's good and right.

The family gathered.

Last week while the book fair was taking up all my waking hours I got a phone call from Teenage Boy, which is big in the first place as he texts but doesn’t “talk”. The reason for his anxious phone call was about dinner; specifically where everyone was for dinner? His voice belied that he was a teenager at all but more like the middle school boy I think of fondly. He was concerned that he was at home by himself and it was dinner time. At first I was less than amused because I thought he was asking why I wasn’t home to make his dinner. I kindly reminded him that he could easily make himself dinner, was quite capable of making a good meal for himself and tried not to sound annoyed. To that his response was “No, I can make my own dinner, it’s just that I didn’t know where everyone was and we usually eat dinner together.” Oh, yea, right.

We do usually eat dinner together. It does feel odd when one or more of us is missing from our vintage (old) linoleum table. And even though I think he’s listening as my husband and I make plans for the week he’s not always tuned in to the hum drum of what will transpire this week, like I’m won’t be home until after 8 on Tuesday and Thursday and my husband says I won’t be home Thursday night either and I’ll bring Groovy Girl to you at school. How he misses all that at said table I don’t know but we are making a new resolution to alert him to scheduling issues that will affect him.

The greater idea though was that he missed all of us being here at the same time, sharing a meal together. It is a tradition he’s had for the part of his life he remembers and I appreciate that this is important family time to him. He often is the one to start the “So what was the best part of your day?” even though when it comes back around to him he shrugs his teenage shoulders leaving that as his answer.

I made him happy this week by leaving 1/4 of a pan of these brownies at home when I made them for my 5th grade book club. Book club boys fought over the chocolate ones-I’d interspersed blondies I’d made for a funeral at church and Teenage Boy was thrilled to hear me say they were so easy I’d make more this weekend. He and his sister polished off the leftover goodies after school, leaving none for their dad much to his dismay. I guess I need to make sure big Daddy gets his fair share from this next batch.

I’m off to scrub potatoes for tonight’s dinner and once I have those boiling I will whip these up for late night happiness. What is your dinner hour like? Are you able to eat together or is it in shifts?

From The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman
(328-329)

Fudgy One-Pot Brownies

Makes 12 huge or 24 reasonably-sized brownies

1 cup (2 sticks, unsalted) butter, plus butter for greasing the baking pan
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar ( I used turbinado since the color wouldn’t matter)
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 T pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose (unbleached) flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350*F. Butter a 13 X 9 baking pan.
2. Place butter sticks and chocolate squares in a medium-sized saucepan over low heat and let melt, stirring until smooth. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cocoa powder, sugar, and salt, then blend in the vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring to mix quickly so they don’t have a chance to cook at all. Blend in the flour.

3. Scrape the thick batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake until the edges just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a wooden toothpick comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

4. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack. When completely cool, cut them into 12 or 24 squares.

(It should say hold the family back while they cool-they made the house smell delicious and people were hanging close to the kitchen.) Enjoy…

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking post. Click to her link to find many other eclectic food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Recipes Galore

My new trick is searching for recipes on my Kindle while standing in my kitchen. Who knew this would be my new favorite thing? My only wish is that I could figure out how to put a pin-button on my kindle-there must be a way so if any of you smarties out there know how it’s done I would be pin-happy! It’s been a busy week and yet I’ve accomplished some good meals throughout-even some that everybody liked.

Last Sunday I cooked the last of our farm chickens from Shamrock Farms. We had a very traditional meal of roasted chicken, baked potatoes, and a salad. I love grabbing potatoes from our pantry in the basement. They arrived a few weeks ago as my mother dug the last of her potato piles up, tossed them in a box, dirt and all, and brought them to me. I have a hard time ever purchasing store bought potatoes after our supply runs out.

From the leftover chicken scraps I made this Chicken Alfredo which made the family absolutely swoon. They were mesmerized by the carbs and chicken combination as I don’t usually make this dish. It was far from the overly-drenched saucy thing I picture in my mind, the recipe was easy to follow, and it took me less than 30 minutes to make since the chicken was already cooked. I didn’t have fettucine noodles but I didn’t let that stop me and just substitution another pasta shape and I’m pretty sure my peeps didn’t even notice. Obviously not my photo then above either for those quick thinkers. On the side we had these delicious zucchini oven chips-which took longer to make than the pasta but were pretty worth it. It was our last zucchini from our very own garden also so we celebrated that.

My mom brought me venison steaks from well, a deer, my step-father shot with his manly bow and arrow last season. For a girl who’s been vegetarian her whole life this was a reach but you can’t get more local than his farm so I gave it a try. Other than some jerky he shared with us last year none of us had ever had venison before and yet it was a winner. I found this great marinade recipe and soaked the four steaks overnight. My mom gave me very specific instructions that I should cook them only 3 minutes on each side or they get too dried out and I didn’t listen. Or more accurately I didn’t believe her. I did 5 minutes but I think the marinade counter-balanced that a little bit because except for the smallest piece they were all moist and readily eaten up even by the ever-picky Groovy Girl. I only ate half of mine, choosing to focus on the leftover salad from Monday. If my mom chooses to share again I will take them because the family ate them up, especially Teenage Boy. I thought they were gamy tasting but then I’m happy with salad and potatoes.

Yesterday I used the chicken bones and made a delicious chicken noodle soup for dinner. I had my own recipe in my head and yet I have to admit I googled a recipe just to check if I was missing anything major and found this great post and Hyacinth’s recipe @ PW. I might go back to that recipe next time I want to make broth-I loved that she left the onion skins on! Bold move.

I also whipped these cookies up last Sunday night to serve at our Teacher Preview book fair event. I made these into stars with yellow frosting for the theme of Every Reader’s a Star! I wanted a super easy recipe that would not require two hours of refrigeration and this recipe rocked. Making Christmas cut-outs will be so much easier this season.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click to her site to find many other food-related posts.