Happy St. Joe Day

To celebrate the name day and saint day of my favorite Joe, I made some naan for dinner and some honey-glazed pumpkin scones for dessert. The food took me some time, especially the naan: making dough, rolling it out, putting it in the pan, flipping it over... I am apparently no longer afraid of recipes requiring a spatula.

Lately I've been more conscious of the way I can use food to show my love. I think Joe did feel loved, and we are both glad to have lots of naan left over. But because I was busy making flatbread, I didn't get to the playground with Marija, though she got out briefly in the morning and enjoyed a stroller ride in the afternoon. And there are a hundred other things I could have done but didn't, because I was busy cooking.

I realized it when Marija was born... I never reach the evening and think I have loved her enough. I may have loved her well, but I never stop loving because she could always use some more. So could my grandmother. So could Joe. So could the lonelier ladies at the nursing home.

I am thinking this is one of the problems of this world, the days that end before our loving is finished.

But all we can do this side of heaven is keep pressing on, praying for help along the way, yes?

If I were a real blogger, I'd have a picture of the naan here. Instead I'm off to bed. You will have to imagine them -- soft wheaty ovals with toasted brown spots, mmm.

More than food

This is just a bit of my mundane little life, but now I've become the coordinator for my moms' club event called Cooking Club. I think it should really be called Eating Club... once a month or less often, we gather at someone's house with food to eat and talk and maybe share recipes. Some bring their children, so we have playing... lessons on sharing... tense moments in which we dig dirt from the flowerpot out of a baby's mouth.

There is usually a themes, to inspire people. Here are a few we've had:

Appetizers and salads

Brunch

Fresh from the Oven -- anything baked

Think Spring (having it this month) -- anything colorful, fresh or appropriate for Lent or Easter

I have some ideas for themes for the future, including a picnic. I am telling you all this because Joe thought some of my ideas were cheesy or something, so he started suggesting themes of his own:

Farm animals (this ham used to be a piggy!)

Food you wouldn't eat unless you were starving

For the last one, he suggested I just tell everyone to come hungry.

A good weekend

I had thought I might want to rent a movie this weekend, but when I really thought about it, I realized I'd rather read and go on a nice walk with Marija and Joe.

So after we spent Saturday trying to fix up bikes and water heaters and the like (does anyone know why a water heater would mysteriously stop leaking?), we went to church Sunday and I read a couple articles and we ate Joe's strawberry sorbet and then we headed out to Laurel Springs Park near here.

Laurel Springs is perhaps most famous for its playground, which is so neat that even Joe went over to play with a digging machine in the sand area, but we spent most of our time investigating a walking trail that goes all around. Parts went along sunny edges of baseball fields, where grasshoppers flew out near our stepping feet, and other parts went through the shade, where we breathed deep because of the warm piney fragrance.

Marija talked to herself a long time, and clapped cautiously when a nearby ballfield erupted with cheers, but she quieted down about halfway. I found a thicket of blackberries and couldn't leave them uneaten, even though we'd already had desert.

Movies can wait until winter.

Maybe tomorrow I will get to post the pictures I've taken of Marija lately.

TGIF

When I arrived at my parent's house with the baby yesterday afternoon, I was greeted by a smiling dad who said he was just getting ready for TGIF. Soon, the coffee table was draped in a white table cloth, set with wine glasses stuffed with pretty napkins.

I've never been home for a TGIF before, a tradition that started sometime after I got married. My dad, now retired, spends part of the week researching recipes to test on my family, and sometimes I hear how lovely the tapas were or get to enjoy some really delicious leftovers if I visit on a Saturday.

My dad placed a fancy candlestick on the coffee table and positioned two poinsettias left over from Christmas. The he left for an hour while I spent time with Vecmamma and my baby. He came back with a bunch of daffodils he set in a vase.

Then he got my mother from the bus stop, and there were hellos and kisses and time to change into comfy clothes. Then my dad went into the kitchen, and though I stepped in to get some banana to feed the baby, I didn't stay long because it was clear he was concentrating. He was still there as my mother and I sat around the coffee table later, by candlelight -- he was preparing our mulled wine.

The tapas looked delicious, but I wondered if they would be enough -- cheese in special sauce, marinaded olives, tomatoes with mozzarella and pears. But this was just the first course, my parents explained. We shared, and then my dad disappeared into the kitchen to bring paninis with soft cheese and mushrooms. There was one left over if I wanted it, but one with hot potato salad was enough before dessert. I left to get the baby for bed and then came back to more extra-sweet wine and a fluffy custard torte.

Vecmamma was on the couch near us, eating too and feeding the dog as always. She even gave Zemmy some of her coffee in a bowl, but no one called for her to stop, as we sometimes do when we are willing to raise our voices. This time we rolled our eyes and laughed a bit and called the dog closer, and she came wagging and sniffing the baby's pajamas, and the baby smiled and played with a couch cushion, and everyone was smiling.

Created summer

There was mist on the way to church and geese in the field along the way. The windows at the monastery chapel are open when it's hot, to let some air in, so you can hear the nuns and the cicadas singing at the same time.

I'm back before 8:15 a.m., already feeling hot and craving lemonade.

Firstfruits

One more happy thing...

We've had some violet leaves to eat, a bit of spinach, and some dill, but today we have something new from the garden:

A squash!

I'm so happy!

It will be dinner!

(If I'd done a better job at all this gardening, we'd have had lots of squash by now. Oh well... we should still have a harvest, if a late one, and I know a lot more for next year!)

Learning to cook

We don't have many convenience foods at our house anymore, I've noticed.

We buy a few for sure, like the pink lemonade mix we drink down so often in the summer. We have a bunch of canned soups hidden away in a cupboard in the "sick stash," which was handy last week when we got colds and could just pop open a can of chicken soup for Joe's dinner. I had ramen with an egg in it.

But I eat a lot less ramen than I used to. I figured out that it's almost as quick to boil a bit of whole wheat spaghetti with some frozen peas, and then to pour off the water and sprinkle the noodles with olive oil and salt and pepper and herbs and maybe some parmesan cheese (mmm). I might have taken a picture had I not eaten it all just now.

Usually this approach to cooking is cheaper, too, though I am not sure any meal can beat the price of a ramen packet. I'm sure the spaghetti isn't too expensive, though, especially since our cupboards are stocked with sale-price pasta.

I still prefer ramen when I'm sick, though. Mmm.

Springtime asparagus

This may be my favorite article on cooking ever, because it is about life as much as it is about cooking.

Today I am smiling because not only do I suspect my capon will be defrosted in time to roast it for dinner, but because there was asparagus to go with it at the farmer's market. Mmm mmm mm.

What pretty carrots

Today is Joe's birthday. I gave him a present a few weeks ago, so we are not doing much tonight. Still, I am making a better-than-usual dinner.

I didn't realize at first that I had such a special carrot, though!

Hello, Mr. Chicken

Today I cooked a whole chicken. I have cooked a lot of meat in the last few months, but nothing that so much resembled the animal it once was, and nothing so big all at once.

It was easier than I imagined. Washed it, added salt and butter, and stuck it in the stove... The hardest part was waiting for the juices to run clear. I pulled it out and pricked the thigh a few times, but had to stick it back in because the meat was still a bit bloody.

Joe just chopped it into fourths and ate a quarter for dinner -- all but the bones. I'd been reading about all the complicated ways to carve it and things to do with the leftovers, but it looks like I won't have anything but the neck and giblets for stock.

I consider this a warm-up for the 12-pound turkey I bought during a sale before Thanksgiving. It awaits me in the freezer, and I am not so frightened of it now.

Also, I unpacked the last boxes that were hanging around the kitchen! The kitchen seems so much bigger now!

Inspired

My copy of The Hidden Art of Homemaking was a wedding present from my beautiful friend Rose.

In the note accompanying the book, she urged us to at least “nibble” on the chapter about food, and as soon as the book came in the mail I did. I read it again to Joe that evening, sharing the author’s thoughts on what a lovingly prepared meal can do to bring together a family, to cheer a roommate, to move the world of a stranger. Joe asked if my specially arranged vegetables that evening were inspired by the book, and the answer was yes. Tsk, it’s so hard to keep any secrets now!

I had stopped halfway through the chapter on flower arranging, an art close to my heart, so I finished reading it today. Then I fixed dinner and flipped to the chapter on music, which starts like this:

"You are not a great musician, but you do play an instrument - or you did. It is dusty at present, because you could not go to a Conservatoire, you could not continue lessons, you have not found an organized group oto play with, you are busy as a businessman, a gardener, a lawyer, a teacher, a housewife or a graduate student. All the music you make is in your daydreams..."

Ohhhh! I put the book down and went running through the house to find my kokle. When I found it, I played three songs I knew and one I didn’t.

Kokle

The kokle is what Joe heard as he came in the door today.

(I am not very good at the kokle, but it is the kind of instrument that sounds beautiful anyway.)