food – Page 4 – My Truant Pen

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want. As soon as I figure it out.

I was sad when the schedule came out so that Adam and I could not spend Camp Gramp week in wild hedonism together, doing things like “sleeping in” and “playing board games”. BOTH weeks this year where my parents would take the kids, there were gaming conventions. I could hardly ask Adam not to go to Gencon, so that was just the way of it.

Is this what relaxing looks like for me?

The brilliant upside was this: I would be alone. All alone. No one else in the house. No cat, no dog, no kids, no husband. I even decided to take a day or two off from work, to do whatever it was I wanted to do. Just me and my desires to attend to. I wondered, in the cold days of spring, what amazing thing I would do with my free time. I imagined driving up the Atlantic coast, stopping to stare out at the wild waves of Maine. Or maybe I’d manage to find a friend and go backpacking! (That is actually what I really wanted to do. The problem is with the find a friend part. I’m reckless, but not that reckless.) Maybe I’d finally hike Mt. Chocorua. Maybe I’d slip my passport and a change of clothes into a bag and just go wherever the road took me. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I had a tumultuous lead time up to my great liberty. It went something like this:

Friday – work full day, pick up farmshare, drive 6+ hours to New York
Saturday – fail to find Appalachian trail
Sunday – hike Appalachian trail and drive back to Boston
Monday – work full day then fly out to Los Angeles on the redeye
Tuesday – have meetings in LA, watch Elysium with the sales team, fly back on redeye to Boston
Wednesday – all day company outing at Crane Beach. Buy plums.

Thursday I had originally planned for a day off, but I was so behind on stuff that I ended up working. Thursday evening arrived, and I relaxed by cleaning the kitchen, buying a new weedwhacker, getting my nails done and making 2 batches of plum jam.

Pie, red plum jam and golden plum jam – two night’s of labor laid deliciously out.

Friday was supposed to be the prime day of my great relaxing. But. Well. I started with an earlyish morning appointment at the chiropractor. (See also: twelve hours of long haul driving and two six hour redeyes in a five day period). And then I came home to a house that was a DISASTER. The kitchen was a mess. The living room was a mess. The dining room was a mess. The kids’ bedrooms made the rest of the house look downright clean. My bedroom was appalling. The carpets needed cleaning. And so that’s what I did.

I mowed the lawn. (I still need to edge it. Sigh.) I cleaned out Thane’s room. I cleaned his carpet. I cleaned out the upstairs hall. I cleaned the carpet. I cleaned my room. I cleaned the stairs carpet. I organized the living room and removed stuff we didn’t need any more. I cleared off surfaces in the dining room. I did the dishes. I cleaned the kitchen. I picked up the farm share. I cleaned the ‘fridge. I prepped all the farmshare food. I made blueberry pie. I invited friends over for a glass of wine and blueberry pie. Then I was GOING to SIT AND WATCH THE BASEBALL GAME, but it was a bad game and I practiced my trumpet and guitar instead, while flipping between the Sox and the Patriots. By 11 at night, the house was cleaner, but hardly done, and I was completely exhausted.

Saturday morning, I cleaned Grey’s room properly. (That was the hardest of them.) I dropped off dry cleaning. I went to the bank. I did the bills. Finally, I left to New York to go pick up the boys.

So what did I do with my precious, precious time of liberty? I caught up on chores. In fact, I pushed myself HARD to attempt to get as many chores done as possible.

“What” says the extremely ardent reader who has made it so far through my litany of “ohmygosh am I busy!” – “What makes you think we’re interested?” It’s this, oh Ardent Reader. It was something of a revelation of my sense of self. I think it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that being busy and engaged in satisfying labors is part of who I am. It’s not a small part either, and I think it’s growing. That’s no bad thing, because I am satisfied with being satisfied by labor.

But I think it also sounds the warning gong of a person too busy. I may fully utilize my time to be productive, but in exchange for what? Would I have been better off reading a book on the (overgrown) back lawn? Would my life be richer if I had gone North and left my farmshare to fend for itself? Or would I be less happy, heading into my busiest time of year in a chaotic and unrestful environment? How many days would I have to have off in order to feel like I was done with what needed doing? Or is that a goal that can even be accomplished? How do I draw the line between true work that needs to be done, work that I think needs to be done, things that I do that are like work but are also hobbyish (like canning), and true leisure and rest?

I’m curious how you, oh Ardent Reader, navigate these decisions. How do you draw the lines?

Purslane

One of the things I love most about a CSA is the obscure produce. Of course, there’s obligatory Kohlrabi in New England. I mean, it grows so well. Of course, the best you can hope for with kohlrabi is not to taste it, which does not inspire desire. But then there are the other non-commercial produce items, like garlic scapes and purslane.

Garlic scape time of year is over, sadly. I usually keep a bouquet of hydra-like tops for a few weeks, but even those have past. But this last week a flux of culinary ambition took me over at the same time my green box included a bunch of purslane.

“So Brenda” you ask. “What the heck is purslane?”

It’s an edible weed. I see it all the time in the cracks of sidewalks, in neglected window boxes, creeping along unwalked paths and next to un-week-wacked walls. You’ve seen it a thousand times and never noticed it, since you saw it and thought “weed”. But it’s actually a super nutritious, rather tasty green. And despite being tasty, bountiful and nutritious, it is rarely if ever commercially available.

Isn’t it funny, how rich but stilted we are? We pass by an awesome nutritional opportunity because it’s not sold to us, and buy expensive greens from California instead.

I digress.

Last time I made something from purslane, several years ago, it was a super-vegan-froo-froo soup recipe that was distinctly eh. This time, some googling showed a great Turkish recipe that looked super tasty. Having made it, I can affirm that it is, in fact, super tasty. (Although it would be even better with bacon. But everything is even better with bacon. One of my friends had dinner at my house this week and said, “I like it, but I’ve noticed every meal you’ve ever served me has had bacon in it.” This is true.)

So here is my version of the recipe, with some modifications. I was able to use farm share onions and tomatoes, in addition to the farmshare purslane. I served this dish warm – I think it would be pretty good cold, too.

Purslane with Tomato (Domatesli Semizotu)

1 bunch or 1 lb purslane (verdolaga in Spanish), washed and chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 small onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced or minced
2 tomatoes, grated or petite diced (or 1 can petite diced tomato)
1/4 cup precooked rice
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sugar
salt
1 cup hot water

-Heat olive oil on medium heat and saute onions.
-Add purslane, tomato, rice, salt, sugar, pepper. Stir for a couple of minutes.
-Pour in water.
-Cook on low covered for 15-20 minutes until rice is cooked.
-Serve warm or cold

I’m feeling both dismayed and accomplished by my farm share production this week. So far I’ve made:

*Blueberry pie – with lard crust. DELICIOUS.
*Peach cobbler. OM NOM. Also, peeling peaches for baking is one of my least favorite things, and eating baked peaches is one of my most favorite things.
*Purslane salad (purslane, onions and tomatoes)
*Spaghetti & kale (onions and kale)

I have saved for winter:
* Grated zucchini
* Green beans
* Blueberry pie filling (I had a lot of blueberries)

I also sent a cantaloupe to daycare for snack because I do not like cantaloupe.

The dismaying thing is how much remains in my crisper drawers, uneaten and unplanned. Wish me luck!

Imperative basil

If I ever form a rock band – which is less preposterous now than it once was – I think I will name it Imperative Basil.

My farm share pick up is on Fridays. In theory, this is a great idea. I’ll have all weekend – luxurious laid-out hours – to process mother nature’s bounty. A few weeks ago a note came through from our CSA saying that extra bundles of basil were for sale! $14 for 10 bundles. I thought about my great success canning pepperonata last year, and my favorite pesto/mozzarella/pepperonata sandwiches, and thought… pesto! I’ll make pesto! And I signed up for ten bunches.

A week passed.

Then I went to pick up my ten bunches. They were not ten REGULAR sized bunches. Oh no. There were ten VAST bunches. And the temperature was over 90 in my kitchen. The delicate basil had a life-span measured in hours, not days.

I managed to clear out enough room in the ‘fridge for the yards of basil. But I didn’t have lemon juice, nor did I have enough parmesan. Saturday morning, I slept in. When I got up, I had just enough time to get to the grocery store before Adam had to leave for aikido… if I didn’t stop for coffee or breakfast.

You have never in your life seen such a grumpy grocerier than I was that morning.

The next four hours of my life were spent in pesto making. There were three double batches. Twelve cups of pressed basil needed to be washed and stemmed. Pecans roasted. Jars readied. I stewed in the 90 degree heat. Adding insult to injury, I misread the pesto recipe for the first batch and added the amount of salt that was supposed to go into the WATER for the PASTA to the pesto. Doubled. Still, I labored on.

At about 2:30, the final jar of pesto was put into the freezer. Twenty one jars comprised 84 ounces. I had saved the basil. Alleluia.

Now, to save the afternoon. My plan had been to go to the beach after aikido, which I reckoned to last until 3. But at 1, my husband limped home. And by limped, I mean, limped. With only two weeks left to his aikido career, my husband managed to do something to his hamstring that involved horrible popping sounds. So there we had the oppressive heat, the imperative basil, the injured husband and the beach plans.

I corralled my children. I packed the fun bag. My husband limped around packing the food bag. I cajoled and threatened until people were covered in sunscreen – hard to rub in through the sheen of sweat. I put my children in the car. As I closed the door, I heard the rumble of thunder.

“By JOVE!” I exclaimed in fury!

My husband, bless him, pointed out it might be fun to watch the thunderstorms roll into the Atlantic from Gloucester, so we went North anyway. We drove through a deluge, with waves parting in front of the wheels of the car and lightening strikes to the East and West – the sun dimmed to twilight under the heavy burden of the falling rain. When we pulled into Good Harbor beach, they waved us through without payment. We’d driven past the bulk of the storm – assuming it to be hard on our heels – but the beachgoers were flocking out as the first drops fell.

We sprinted to the beach and tossed the children in the water, the cold and hot air like layers on a cake, the winds picking up. And we danced in the water, jumped through the waves, dove in, sluiced off, and laughed – knowing at any moment the storm would come.

Then we made the most awesome set of sand castles across a rill trickling through the saturated sand. Grey worked on the Fortress of Europe. Adam – across the channel – constructed the Fortress of Asia. I played Venetian and provided buildings to both sides, counting my profit. Thane dug holes and chased seagulls.

Then we had some lunch. I sat on a beach chair, cool winds to my back and warm sands underfoot, eating a salami sandwich on homemade bread when I was viciously, viciously attached by a seagull with bad aim. I retained my sandwich, but incurred an injury on my pointer finger. So far, I am happy to report, I have not died of mysterious seagull diseases, but in case my life is actually a Chekhov novel, beware.

The rain? It never came. The band of storms passed to the south. We stayed until we were played out, and headed home sandy and tired. When we got home, the breezes were cool and bracing.

We made it.

And in the winter I will remember – as I taste the oh-so-salty tang of farm-share, home made pesto – the heat and the joy and the luck of my summer.

Seven weeks of constraint

Just over seven weeks ago, I wrote about how I was going to try this crazy diet, and work out for Lent. You know, to see how it went.

I tried the Four Hour Body diet, in combination with actually going to the gym multiple times. I was actually very compliant with the terms of the diet. I didn’t cheat. Visions of losing like 2, maybe 3 pounds a week floated through my head! For weeks not so much as a stick of artificially flavored gum passed my lips. (It probably would have helped if I’d actually read the book FIRST, instead of relying on blog posts and my husband’s interpretation, as I was actually more rigorous than required.) Annnnnnd. Nada. My weight stayed stubbornly right where it was, which is really frustrating after three weeks of egg & bean breakfasts.

So I took another look. And I decided that the key was that a high protein diet helped you restrict calories. In thinking I could eat as many calories as I desired as long as they were proteinaceous, I was mistaken. Instead, in order to assist in living with a 1500 or 1600 calorie diet without perishing of hunger, I needed to eat a lot of protein. I’d gotten my cause and effect mixed up. I found that at the end of the day, a 50/50 split between carbs grams and protein grams was effective, if the total calories were roughly 1500. That doesn’t allow you to eat much bread, or dairy, and stay full. But you can eat that few calories and not feel hungry if those calories are eggs, beans, lean meats and vegetables.

When I made that change, the diet DID start working. Last time I weighed in, I had lost 8 pounds – or about a third of my desired weight loss. YAY! I’m not sure it really shows (my wardrobe is not designed to reveal small fluctuations in weight) but it was progress!

I had also burned through my available stock of willpower. I am not (NOT!) dieting on my vacation in Montreal, although I hope I’m not being so horrendous that I’ll have gained much back. Then again, I did have poutine for lunch, so… yeah. And I’m planning on caribou steaks for dinner! When in Canada, eh?

People I never thought I’d be

I spent the first part of this week in Tampa for work. I had not yet unpacked my suitcase from the LAST business trip I was on (Minnesota) before I had to pack for this one. It was my third business trip in about 8 weeks. I felt – as I went through the well practiced shoes-laptop-liquids process – like a jaded road warrior.

Tampa did have some advantages over Minnesota

I remember my first few times flying – Boston to Seattle in college – when I stared horrified a the people blowing off the whole “in case of emergency, your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device” speech. Didn’t these people care about their lives? I pitied them their calcified ways – eyes on the Harvard Business Review as this remarkable patchwork of humanity is exposed below them. Do they not know that their flight represents the wildest fantasy – never to be obtained – of generations of humanity? How can they so casually close the window and catnap?

Yeah. During the safety notification, I check to see which is my nearest exit. I wonder if there is anyone, anywhere who doesn’t know how to buckle their seatbelt. Then I open Harvard Business Review (ok, actually it’s usually a fashion magazine for a Technically Pretty fashion magazine review). I still like the window seat, and I still try to spot my house/college/guess-the-big-city as I fly, but the magic is indeed gone.

The training I took was on Pragmatic Marketing. Why I needed this training was a story for another day. It was excellent training – well delivered, thought-provoking, very educational. But there were a lot of identity-crisis moments for me in it. Here was I: liberal arts major, lover of medieval literature, classical musician, backpacker, mother, role-playing-gamer-who-wishes-she-could-talk-her-gaming-group-into-dungeons-and-dragons, baseball-lover, programmer, technical architect… in a marketing class. The word marchitecture was extensively and non-ironically used.

I learned a lot of extremely interesting things I had never previously imagined knowing, but wondered to find myself in such a place under such circumstances.

I am – at this moment – sitting at Chuck E Cheese. I know – I’m breaking form. Usually my now-weekly posts are written at the YMCA during basketball practice. But today Grey and Lincoln have a video game playdate, which would not be nearly as fun if the “little brother” was present. So I told the little brother type person to name his entertainment, and for two hours it would be his. He picked the rathole.

I’m lurking on a local wifi network (seriously, Chuck E, how can you not have wifi). I have a GREAT idea for a new type of business… imagine a big central play area for kids from 3 – 10 years of age. A big, bouncy-housed arcade. Imagine seating around the sides – maybe raised – with great visibility of the play areas. Maybe there would even be closed circuit cameras covering the blind spots. Then imagine this seating around the edge was a mix of 4 – 6 person tables and one to two person locations. There would be a light appetizers and drink service to the grownup section. There would be great wifi, tons of power, comfortable seats, lower noise (low enough that a phone call would be plausible) and someone at the door (like they have at Chuck E’s) to make sure there are no small person escapees.

Work-from-home parents and folks like me would come with our laptops, offer our kids some great exercise/fun (maybe with their friends). We could either catch up on our work/personal digital lives, or come with our friends (who are increasingly the parents of our children’s friends) and catch up on the latest together. It would be awesome. Maybe there could be a per hour (or per day) fee, or you could sign up for a monthly membership. Maybe they’d even mix in some enrichment activities, like sports/activities.

They’d rake it in, I tell you.

I find the process of being no longer young continues to surprise me on a regular basis. My latest “get off my lawn!” moment happened last weekend. I was making some pies. Now, you must understand that I know how to make pie. I was running some quick calculations in my head, and I figure I’ve made between 100 – 120 pies in my lifetime. Every single one of those pies was made with the same recipe, inherited from my grandmother, which is hard to make but deliciously flaky.

Then, a few years ago, Crisco changed its recipe in response to the backlash against transfats. As far as I can tell, Crisco was all trans fats. This pie crust recipe that my grandmother passed down to me is entirely made of Crisco. It took me a while to eat through the old pie starter and Crisco I had. But then I started having trouble. I blamed it on all sorts of things: not enough flour on the pastry crust, too much shortening in the pie starter, not cold enough, too much water, not enough water. Finally though, very tired on a Friday night and working on pie 2 of 6, I finally realized that it just. Wasn’t. Working. For the first time ever, I actually got a pie crust so bad I couldn’t make it work and I had to throw it out. (That was a pie crust that ACTUALLY didn’t have enough water.) Dawning realization hit: it wasn’t me. I wasn’t making a mistake. It was the pie crust. It was unworkable. Crisco ruined my recipe.

Depressed, I turned to America’s Test Kitchen and made a shortening-and-butter crust that came out much, much better. But I had that “Why do they go “improving” perfectly good things and ruining the way I’ve always done them?” I mean, in this case I understood. Transfats = bad for health. But a tie that went back to the early 20th century, and my bright-eyed great-grandmother, was just severed. I mourn its loss. As I move from youth to middle age, I better see the costs – not just the benefits – of the inexorable march of progress. I know how things once were (through the rosy tinted spectacles of youth, of course) and lament their loss. My sons will never learn to roll a pie crust using Grandma Finley’s recipe (unless some enterprising entrepreneur brings back the classic formulation – you never know.)

My grandma’s caramel corn recipe requires corn syrup and brown sugar. Perhaps I’d better make it while I can!

Pie-d Piper

Yesterday was Piemas. For those of you not familiar with the phenomenon, Piemas, it is a complicated holiday with a long and extended history. It is a holiday we made up about 7 years ago to celebrate the eating of pie, and other pie shaped festivities. Mmmm pie.

This year, I made:
2 chicken pot pies
1 blueberry pie from farmshare blueberries this summer
1 lemon merangue pie (which I just finished – it’s my favorite)
1 pecan pie
1 Nutella crack pie (because I had an empty crust and needed a filling and I had Nutella lying around – this was a digestive bombshell)

Many other people brought many other pies. We had a 1:1 pie to person ratio, with the advantage slightly in favor of the pies. There were, as always, many delicious and exceptional pies. There was much talking, and much game playing. There were 8.5 kids, but their chaos generation fields were overwhelmed by the tumult of Adults Eating Pie. There were savory pies, sweet pies, ice cream pies & boozy pies. In an innovation this year, I also served fancy teas in my fancy silver tea pot in fancy cups, which was really fun. There were new people, and folks who’d been around since the thought first occurred that Pies were important enough to merit their own darn holiday.

The whole thing was really fun, and I didn’t make it to bed until 2:30 this morning and I regret not a whit of it, and I’m so grateful to everyone who came and brought pie and ate it with me – except for Josh was was CLEARLY cheating at 7 Wonders in order to beat me that badly. And for those of you who couldn’t be here – I missed you. Next year.

The rabbit crawfish pie was amazing, and definitely made off with the award for most interesting presentation.

You can see full pictures of the festivities here: Piemas!!!

Mocksgiving 2011

So. I’ll admit I find it flattering that one or two of you have commented that I am remiss in my updating. It’s true. One day this month is not up to even my appalling standards. So let me give you the quick answer to your many questions.

First, I was treated for pneumonia last Friday and sent home with an actual written doctor’s note saying not to go to work until Wednesday. I took the weekend “off” (no church, not much childcare), but had training that could not be repeated Monday and Tuesday. Also no sick leave left. I love antibiotics and am feeling mostly better, but still am tired and lack stamina.

This weekend was Mocksgiving 2011. My tally was two pies, two other desserts, one 22 pound turkey that took an hour and a half longer than it should have but was perfect, five pounds mashed potatoes, 4 large butternut squash halves, five loaves of bread, one canned batch of cranberry sauce (particularly good) and stuffing. 28 adults, 4 children and 2 babies partook of the feast. The furthest visitors came from California this year.

I was explaining Mocksgiving to someone this week, and they said, “Oh, it’s like a feast!” And I had an epiphany. It is a feast! That is why I do it, because to serve a feast to the ones you love is a great gift. It is an abundance and overabundance of good things, a cornucopia of friendship, an overflowing of plenty and dishes that include butter. It’s funny that I never thought of it quite that way, but it is an apt description of what I was doing, and of why I do it every year.

Also, the friends I always borrow plates and silverware from actually brought us eight brand new settings all our own this year. Heh. Yeah, I guess that does make sense. But it was TRADITIONAL, darn it!

I probably say this every year, but this was one of the loveliest Mocksgivings yet. Other than the stress of a tardy turkey, it seemed much mellower than than some have been. There were more board games than usual. The night ended in a fantastic series of Werewolf games. There were more new faces than usual, but also a delightful balanced of the familiar Mocksgiving faces. The weather cooperated. It was great.

So now I’m through the five parties in two months section of my year. Phew! Better yet, I’ve posted my photos of this weekend! The random black dog was an assignment for Grey’s classroom – Dudley visits the around the class and we journal his adventures with our Kindergartners.*

Anyway, happy Mocksgiving!

*No one warned me how much homework *I* would have once school started! Also, I would like to protest that it is unfair to go after my neighbor the graphic designer and her “Dudley at the MFA” spread.

Makes preserves, and redeems us

I’m sitting in the kitchen, waiting for my apple butter to cook. It’s mid-October, so unless I get 70 apples on Monday (it’s happened before…) I’m probably done with my seasonal canning for the year. I have a farm share – a double fruit share and a theoretically small but is actually vast vegetable share. I try, as much as possible, to do my preserving from this local, fresh, organic produce. So with my source of prepaid goodies ending soon, I’ll hang up my magnetic lid grabber, at least for now.

I feel like this was an off year for jam. I blame it entirely on plums. Previous years, I’ve gotten loads of plums — significant amounts of 3 or 4 varietals. There were Shiro Plums and black plums and Italian prune plums and “I don’t know, they’re just plums” plums. (There have never been Damson plums, to my tremendous disappointment. This might be the lamest bucket list item ever, but I really want to make damson plum jam.) This year, we got Italian prune plums once! Not nearly enough to turn into jam, either! So I made at least three fewer batches of plum jam than in previous years. I even repeatedly went to farmer’s markets looking for plums and found NADDA. Apparently plums aren’t hip. But man, they make delicious jam. I may yet break down and buy (shudder) supermarket plums and turn them into jam. We’ll see how big the rebellion in the troops is before we take such a drastic step.

Also on my weirdo bucket list: crabapple jelly. I can’t find a source of crabapples, and of course nobody but nobody sells crabapples. So if you have a crabapple tree (or know of an unloved one) and live in the greater Boston area, let me know. I pay in jam.

Also also: one of these days I’m going to make rosehip jelly. Slightly easier to find than crabapples, but require the chutzpah to go to some random shrub and start harvesting.

What did I make this year? I made:
2x Strawberry jam (a perennial favorite)
1x Strawberry rhubarb (which tastes identical to the strawberry)
1x Concord Grape jelly (check that one off my bucket list!)
1x Blueberry jelly (no on in my family likes it, but the farmshare gives me blueberries by the bucket and it makes a nice gift)
1x Peach butter (a labor of love!)
1x Apple butter (makes a huge amount)

I’d been thinking about making hot pepper jelly, but my neighbor made some and I figured that was enough hot pepper jelly for one street for this year.

I was thinking about making some of the more unusual recipes from my beloved “Ball Book of Home Preserving”. There’s a curried apple chutney that would help if I only get 45 apples next week, which sounds fascinating and exotic. Oh, and I think I’ll preserve some Pomegranate molasses, because I need it for my favorite cranberry sauce, and it’s a pain to make during Mocksgiving, and I only need a bit of it… so it would be a good candidate for canning.

Then again, if I never peel and core another apple it might be too soon.

Oh, also, for those following the drama… I did get to remove my brace yesterday. Yay!

So tell me… which one of my jams sounds best? Why are there no plums to be had this year? What should I find a way to make happen

Mocksgiving Recipes

Mocksgiving has come and gone, leaving in its wake only memories, dirty dishes and two inexplicable pounds. Mmmm… I love Mocksgiving.

A post-party call was made for some of the recipes served. It occurs to me this might be particularly useful pre-Thanksgiving information. So, without further ado:

Cranberry Sauce with Pomegranate Molasses
Originally from Bon Apetit
1 1/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup red wine
1 12oz package fresh cranberries
3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (recipe below)
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Stir sugar and wine in heavy saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Boil for about 8 minutes, until syrupy. Add cranberries, and boil until they pop (a minute or two). Off heat, stir in pomegranate molasses and basil. Cover and chill. Add cilantro directly before serving.

Notes: this is a very tasty relish, but a little goes a long way. Most people served themselves 2 – 3 tablespoons of this. I would say this could serve 15 or so people. I doubled it this year — I won’t do that again.

Pomegranate Molasses
2 cups pomegranate juice (1 bottle POM wonderful)
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup lemon juice

Heat mixture until dissolved. Simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until syrupy. Store refrigerated. (NOTE: I store this in a canning jar. It might be an interesting preserve long term.)

Chocolate Chip/Peanut Butter Bread Pudding
Originally from Better Homes & Gardens Prizewinning Recipes
3 cups white bread cubes (stale is good)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dash salt
2 cups milk

1) Place bread cubes in a greased 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with chocolate pieces. In with electric mix, beat sugar and peanut butter until well mixed. Beat in eggs, vanilla & salt. Gradually add in milk. Pour over bread, pressing bread down to make sure it’s all moistened.

2) Bake in 350 oven for 40 to 45 minutes.

Serve hot with vanilla ice cream. Feeds about as many as a pie.

I was also asked for my peach pie recipe and my bread recipe. The peach pie filling is Betty Crocker. (What? Betty Crocker is awesome!) The pie crust & bread recipes are light on ingredients and heavy on technique. I’ll share them if you really want, but the best way to learn how to make those things is to come and make them with me.

Some other notes… this was quite possibly my best turkey ever. It was a Butterball, so no secret in procurement. I think the trick was that we let it rest significantly longer than usual — probably twice as long. And I think that it would be even better yet if I had given it another 15 or so minutes. Don’t be afraid of the turkey getting cold. It won’t. Put tinfoil over it and let it sit for half an hour or 45 minutes before carving and it will reward you.

I also have a secret for making one turkey provide more gravy than turkily possible. I didn’t do it this year, and I now deeply regret it, as I have everything required for hot turkey sandwiches except (SOB!) gravy. When you put the turkey in the oven, add two cups of chicken broth. (Note: this is for a like 22 pound turkey. If you are making a more reasonably sized bird don’t add as much.) It will totally taste like turkey after you’re done basting, and the result will just be 1.5 cups more gravy at the end of the day.

Finally, a question. Hey mom? My lemon merangue pie crust ALWAYS schlumps. I blamed it on the pie pan I liked to use, but I didn’t use it this time and it still schlumped. How do you make an unfilled pie crust stay up on the sides? Oh well, only one thing to do with an imperfectly schlumpy lemon merangue pie. Someone hand me a fork?

My brother indoctrinated my son in Space Duck... as if I hadn't heard enough about Space Duck when my BROTHER was 5!

Thoughts on Mocksgiving morning

This is my 11th Mocksgiving morning. I’ve been thinking lately about how the age I’m entering is the height of power and responsibility, and I feel it this Mocksgiving. An endeaver that seemed unutterably grownup — a usurpation of maturity back when I first did it — now seems comfortable. It’s so much easier, this feeding of the five thousand (ok 30), now than it was 8 or 9 years ago. I know the questions — that’s the hardest part. And now I even know the answers.

As I cook, I think. I think of you. I think of what I want to tell you, so often, while I stand at the sink and gaze out at the autumn leaves falling like first snowflakes. Here are some of my thoughts this morning.

I wonder very much what this looks like to my sons. This holiday includes them, but it is not for them. How few holidays we have that do not revolve around “the children”. This is one. I wonder if Grey watches from the corners of the rooms, what he makes of the trope conversations that have been continued year to year since the year his parents were first married. I wonder if when they grow older, they’ll feel proud (or resentful?) that they don’t have a “normal” Thanksgiving, but rather this jubilant, crowded celebration of friendship and food?

This was my easiest turkey in years. Usually I end up hacking out the gizzards with tears, numb fingers and great persistence. This turkey was actually (gasp!) THAWED. I’m not sure that’s ever happened to me before, even when I managed to find a fresh 20 pound turkey two weeks before Thanksgiving.

I only made 3 pies this year. I didn’t make apple because no one ever eats it. I’m feeling anxious. What if people aren’t rolled out of here? I have a backup recipe in case I actually have time. What are the odds?

My friend Corey is up for nomination to sainthood. He’s playing with Thane in Thane’s room — dealing with the barrage of “I need help!” that defines current interactions with my scion. The hardest part of Mocksgiving for me is taking care of the kids.

I’m a comfort cook. I make the same turkey and same stuffing every year. I make my mom’s recipes for lemon merangue pie, bread, stuffing. I innovate rarely. I sometimes feel… embarrassed? that I’m not a more ambitious cook. But on the other hand, it is who I am, and perhaps I should embrace it.

Farmshare peach, pecan & lemon merangue (plus brownies)

I think a lot at Mocksgiving about Hospitality. You might not know it from the headlines about Christians, but Hospitality is a fundamental Christian virtue. I only practice pagan hospitality — the welcoming of friends. Christian Hospitality is the welcoming of strangers, of enemies even. But you must begin at the beginning of hospitality, and practice until you become good at it. Our culture does not support Christian Hospitality. It is hard to welcome the unwashed and unwanted into the fullness of your home with your beautiful babies and good china. But I think of it this day. There is also, to me, a holiness to the welcome of guests into my home. I find it profound, meaningful. When you cross my threshold, you are more welcome than you know, friends. It is one of the things I was truly called to do.

This call to welcome is perhaps why the one thing I don’t like about Mocksgiving is that I can’t invite everyone. This galls me. Trust me, if you wish you’d gotten an invite and you didn’t — I wish you had too. But every solution takes something fundamental from the venture. It must be my home. We must sit together. The 25 to 30 who come every year are the capacity of my house.

It’s a bright, sunny, warm Mocksgiving today. I love those, because the boundaries of the house bulge, and on warm days we can overspill to the yard or porch.

The first of my guests have already come (the aforementioned Sainted Corey). For years and years I always had this anxiety “What if no one came?”. I no longer suffer than one, to the same degree. But some of the stalwarts are not able to be here, and I wonder who will appear first at my door.

My mother's bread recipe. We also have a loaf of Adam's bread.

Of course, the tragedy of Mocskgiving is that I have no time to talk in depth with the rooms full of people I love. Irony!

(Note: if opportunity and thoughts strike, I’ll continue adding pictures and thoughts to this post until the party starts.)