Scones for the monkey-minded

I was saving this for a weekend but Hell's Bells!, people, I'm too busy eating these on the weekend to write about it. Weekends are safe times to bake these because, I tell you from bitter experience, being alone in the house with two little people who cannot reach the counter is a dangerous set-up for me eating the whole batch by myself. At least come Sunday, I can trust that Jeff will help me out. And, truth be told, he is much more honest about sharing than I can be; the kids are sure to get plenty.

Speaking of which - Paleo children eat A LOT! I have had my jaw on the floor all week about the sheer volume of food they have been putting away. The beauty of it all is that I can say Yes, go ahead all day long because all the choices are nourishing. I do load them up with protein, fat and veggies in the morning, at lunch and again in the evening, but the hours in between feel like one interminable snack. I had a pretty funny text conversation with a friend this morning who is also raising two small and voracious Paleo children and we were brainstorming snack ideas and at the same time lamenting the frustrations of setting limits with children. Why is it that they need to ask you for something they cannot have every 15 minutes, as if you have suddenly had a stroke and, along with it, a change of heart?...oh yes, I think we SHOULD eat chocolate cake and ice cream right now and watch a scary movie and get a gun to shoot people, yes, it is 7:30 in the morning but WHY NOT? Well, why not? Playing and eating are their job, no?

If there is one thing I can emphasize about successfully getting an entire family to eat Paleo, it is that you cannot serve what is not in your house. Just Don't Bring It Home (or Buy It While Your Out). Probably my other rule would be: Be Prepared, like a good scout. And maybe my last one would be, Feel the Craving, or Hear the Whining, and Serve Meat Anyway. But no, these are not meat scones.

My family is not unlike anyone else's - my five year old is especially good at, ahem, lobbying for his interests. What I realized after working through this with a few friends is that children are wired to request, and wired to desire, and it is part of my role as an authentic and loving leader in my home to help them work with that, maintain some order, and also recognize how grateful I am that my kids feel comfortable enough to tell me what they desire. If it's not ice cream or popcorn or hot chocolate (his three most requested foods, at all times of the day, anywhere) then it's video games (we don't play them), TV (we don't have it) or movies (again, rarely), guns (you must make your own weapons in this house if you want them) and an airplane trip to see Grandma (who has all these things, and bread). But even if I had all those things flowing through the house like a swollen creek, it would likely be another host of requests. I'm not saying I'm any better than he is - I spend a good deal of (wasted) time wanting what isn't really going to make my life much richer. I have my own monkey-mind list of wants that will drag me through a day if I forget to wake up! and acknowledge the inanity of my grasping, a cacophony of thingamajigs that my mind will quickly turn into needs if I don't take a minute or two to distance myself and count my blessings. My desires are just a little less sweet, maybe a little more expensive (peace and quiet, a minivan, a new bike helmet with hippy flowers on it like the one I just saw on that girl in the grocery store), and sometimes they are just as carnal (a breve cappuccino, a marathon session of Doc Martin-watching, a big glass of La Crema Pinot Noir). It wears a person down, this clamoring. Double-wears you when your own mind is doing it, and then your kids pipe in, too, and you still have to make breakfast.

All the more reason to put your feet up, pour a dark cup of coffee, and slather the grass-fed butter onto a wedge of crumbly deliciousness. On the Paleo scale of eat often or sometimes, this is a definite some-timer. Maple syrup and huge servings of nuts and dried fruit are borderline. But I tell you now: I'll take this over caving at the grocery store and buying my kids a pack of "gluten free" cookies that are full of crap I cannot pronounce nor explain from whence it came, and I'll take this when we have a Saturday morning family breakfast picnic and want to sweeten the deal, and I'll take this on those days when the Mama Bear in me wants to bake for her little cubs, and nuzzle their little necks, and just indulge in the whole primitively encoded ritual of nurturing my little bottomless-pit children with something fragrant from the oven.

A disclaimer: large volumes of raw nuts might bother that tummy. Don't believe me? Eat the whole batch and report back to me. Better yet, just share. I don't think we were intended to eat two cups of almond meal heaped with sugar in a sitting. Another alternative is to soak the nuts and then grind them yourself, or soak the meal, dry it, and then bake. Lord almighty, that sounds like a lot of work. I think I'd rather just not bake. Though I am soaking nuts more now in their whole form and am still learning from this process myself; I think the right answer might be the more spiritually mature one: restrain yourself from eating too much, and share what you have.

So here's the thing: make these on a day when someone you love is around to share, pull out the Kerrygold butter, pop in the Frog and Toad Are Friends audiobook (yes, I could recite it by heart now, I am sure) and enjoy your food. Let your monkey-mind go wild for awhile, let your mouth chew and lick and savor, then rein it all back in check and move through your day with a happy belly and a full heart.
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Cinnamon Raisin Scones

2 c almond meal
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp pure maple syrup, grade B is fine (and no, this is not Aunt Jemima. Read your labels!)
1 egg
1/2 c organic raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk the dry ingredients together, and make a well in the center. Add the syrup and egg, beat with a fork, and slowly incorporate all the dry with the wet. The texture will be sticky. Add the raisins in and turn the dough over until fully incorporated. Scrape the dough out onto a silicone mat or parchment paper lines baking dish. Form into a 1-inch thick round with a spatula (or your hands). Score into eighths with a serrated knife (this is to remind you to share) and sprinkle with a small dusting of additional cinnamon. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until golden on top. Let cool slightly before serving (I dare you to be able to wait, though). Ridiculous with a little butter but equally good plain.

Prep time: 5 minutes, Bake time: 20 minutes. Keeps two days in sealed container.
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How do you feed the monkey mind?

Crack kale

I'm not the first woman to write an ode to kale.

But I'll tell you what: after not even being able to identify it amongst a sea of green four years ago, I am truly a convert. A leafy-green lifer, if you will.

When I first dated kale, it was a little too assertive for me. I gave it a little heat, blanching it, to calm it down. I'd blanch it, chop it, smother it in cashew sauce and choke it down. I ate, no lie, one bunch a day. That's a lot of blanching and chopping. (And a lot of refrigerator space). It was definitely a food with a certain power. I didn't absolutely love it, but I could not stop eating it. It fed me in a realm that was hard to articulate. The hit of minerals and vitamins it rushed to my system spoke to my primal brain. Kind of like eating liver or sardines. Not delicious, if not prepared well, but so nourishing that I kept coming back for more, and was hell-bent on finding a way to make it delicious.

I met other women who shared my little fetish. I had a long conversation with my family doctor one day about the crack addiction of kale. We swapped recipes, favorite varieties, and Farmer's Market location where we could score our favorite little vegetable. I think I fell in love with her a little that day. I bemoaned not having any in the house and this composed, confident woman, about a vegetable, she said: I know. I get a little desperate. It's powerful, isn't it? About kale.

I've let kale wiggle into my heart. I like to saute it with thinly sliced garlic and a really bold olive oil, I like it roasted into nori-like crispness, I like it in my eggs, in my soup, in my bowl, in my bowl, in my bowl.

And it grows. In my garden. In my slug-opium-den, hornworm-central, I-forgot-to-water garden, it grows. Russian Curly and Lacinato (Dinosaur), this year, despite me, it grows.

The kale epiphany came when I met Cynthia Lair's cook book, Feeding the Whole Family (the second most abused and hence most-loved cookbook on my shelf. Second only to my 1960's-era Joy of Cooking, which instructs me, amongst other things, on how to pickle tongue and skin a squirrel). Feeding the Whole Family accompanied me on the last leg of my vegetarian/bread-baking/"natural sugar" journey and it was one of the only cookbooks to make it over the ocean to the land of Paleo. Because even though I just ignore the soy, grain, and legume preparations these days, her veggies, nuts, meat and fish dishes are all winners with us. Not a week goes by when I don't crack that baby open for some flavor guidance or a piece of inspiration (or even just some common sense. She has a great section on calm and loving approaches to feeding young children, an endeavor that I have found anything but calm at times). She's a voice of reason that urges us to cook with our children, challenge their palates, sit down around a table as a family, feed everyone real food, and trust our own intuition in a world where none of those tenets hold much prowess.

But back to kale. One of her salad recipes is a simple raw preparation of kale massaged with sea salt to soften and sweeten it up. Yes, an honest massage, with my hands. And it does wonders, and it requires no cooking, and it is such a hippy-dippy way for me to commune with my food that I have to say: rub them down! Massaged greens are absolutely divine.

I since have taken to giving most of my hearty greens (kale, but also: mustard greens, collards, beet greens, cabbage) a tender little massage, maybe a light dressing and a few accessories, and serving their blissed-out little rubbed bodies to all sorts of yums and thanks. At it's most simple, a rub-down with some sea salt, a few glugs of olive oil, and a hit of pepper. This is usually how we eat it at home. Five minutes, I am a dinner-making genius.

But you can take it further. Get a little saucy and add some lemon or lime juice, or maybe a hit of vinegar. Take it a step further and introduce a toasted seed or nut. Get all wild and crazy and dairy-eating and throw in some feta or shave a little pecorino in there, maybe toss in some fruit (dried or fresh) or avocado.



A note about the dressing - I used coconut aminos here. I'm not sold on them one way or the other, but I like them well enough. I ended up with some coconut aminos in my refrigerator after being dissatisfied with the flavor of gluten-free tamari. Coconut aminos have been touted by some as "just like soy sauce!". I don't know. For one, I don't love soy sauce, and honestly, coconut aminos taste like...coconut aminos. They're their own food. But they have a body and sweetness that I wanted to work with, and I have been craving iron-rich, sweet and sour combinations, and so I put them to work in this dressing with a salad of kale, dulse (an iron-rich sea vegetable), raisins and avocado. It's a season-changing thing with me, this visceral telegram I obey to prepare foods that are a little heavier, rich in minerals that my tired body needs, and (oh, as usual) require little work. Which is why I was frying liver in beef tallow today at 5 p.m. in 90 degree heat, but that's a story for a different day.
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Irongirl Salad of Kale, Dulse, Raisins and Avocados

Dressing:
1/3 c olive oil
2 tbsp raw apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp lime juice
3 tsp coconut aminos
1 tsp raw honey

Salad:
1 bunch of kale (roughly 15-20 large leaves)
dash of sea salt
1 small red onion
2 avocados
1/4 c raisins (organic, always people!)
1/8 c dulse (dried)
2 tbsp raw sesame seeds

Make your dressing:
Add all ingredients into small mixing bowl and whisk until blended. Alternately, do this in a blender; the dressing will be creamier and your ears will be ringing. Up to you.

Rip the kale of the central stems, ripping the leaves into bite-sized pieces. Wash and spin dry the leaves, discard the stems. Place leaves in large salad bowl and sprinkle with sea salt (be conservative). Start to massage the kale with your hands, rubbing gently - within a minute or so the leaves will start to darken and soften. The longer you rub, the softer and sweeter your salad. (I prefer mine on the crisper, more tart side). Add raisins as you complete your massage - they benefit from a little touching, too. Slice the red onion into thin half-moons and place in cold water. Quarter the avocado, remove pit, peel skin and chop quarter into chunks, set aside. Snip the dulse into thin ribbons and sprinkle on top of the kale. Drain onions and add to bowl. Toss salad and add dressing, tossing gently. Add avocado with last few tosses.

Heat a small skillet over high heat. When hot (I test with a drop of water - it dances, it's ready) pour the sesame seeds onto the dry pan, and stir gently as they toast. When they start to pop and brown, remove and transfer to small bowl. Sprinkle a a little of the coconut aminos (like, 1/4 tsp) over them and allow to cool. Serve as a garnish sprinkled over salad.

Prep time: 15 minutes. Keeps well for up to 2 days in refrigerator, though I would remove the avocado (really, who has left overs?).
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Lusting after a vegetable is normal, right? Please tell.

A map in a wilderness

My daughter lives in the world, just like all other girls, and she will be sold a load of shit about her sexuality, her appearance, her worth and her abilities, constantly. We have taken out an insurance policy of sorts in an attempt to counter-balance the barrage of confusing ideas she'll encounter as she navigates the road to being a woman. The policy is simple: family, the rhythm of our days.

I'm not cocky about it. I know I will get my mind blown, regularly, by the things my kids bring to my lap. It happens daily already. The humility of parenting is the most enlightening, and reliable, aspect of the job. But I do like to believe that our lives will provide her and her brother with a little bit of information about how to live well. Surely they will test their own freedom and need to find their own ways. Surely I believe that we, as a family, can provide a map in a wilderness should ever they need to look over their shoulders.



My daughter, as a young woman, will be unlikely to shirk at the idea of heaving 140 pounds over her head, or squat more than her body weight, or deadlift several hundred pounds, repeatedly. She doesn't bat an eyelash when someone throws a barbell on the floor and gives a primal scream. She's already trying to put collars on weights and propel herself up the pull up bar.

She watches women of all ages and all sizes do it in the gym several times a week.

She'll never think pull ups are only for very strong men, or that women can't flip truck tires, or that she can't, at almost 40, learn to do a handstand, because she sees it happen, every week.

She won't believe that an exclusive gym membership or lots of fancy equipment is necessary to be fit, because she cruises the backyard while her mother, father and brother heave dumb bells, broken concrete and heavy stones, do push ups and pull ups, and run sprints up and down the sidewalk of the house she was born in (our neighbors just wave and smile. They are used to us).

She'll know that she can work out, with intensity and agility, through a pregnancy, through nursing, through emotionally turbulent times and injuries, and towards personal triumphs. One month, that might just mean squeezing in two eight-minute workouts in a week between sick children and everything else that life as a mother brings. Another week it might mean a fast hike in the early morning dew with a friend. Another day it might mean setting personal records for lifts practiced over and over and over in the gym, maybe just a victory of two pounds. Either way it will be precious to her, time for her to nurture herself, and one of the very best gifts I can think to give her. It's hers if she wants it.

She'll know that a nice body is not the thing. A healthy one is the thing, the body that pushes and rests and breaks down and heals and carries her through her days. A big butt means a strong one, in our tribe of women, and legs are for working and pushing pulling, and shoulders and arms and hips and hands are capable of incredible shows of agility and strength. She will know that she is strong, strong, strong, and that her body can lead her when her mind is less sure, and that her mind can lead her when her body doubts, that she can trust this process to kick in for her, and that it can be very, very fun. (Come to think of it, her brother is learning all of this too, and can take this with a full heart into all his living and relationships).

She'll know that friendships blossom with activity. Be you crafty, or culinary, or meaty and strong, she sees women with common bonds of passion come together and laugh and support each other.

She'll know how to nourish her body, how (and what) to feed it, how to rest it and push it and honor it. She'll know how to listen to it.

She'll know that body shape and size have little to do with skill and strength, and that everybody has gifts, and that anyone who works at something consistently can get better.

She lives in a place where "best" is personal and is celebrated, on the merit of that day's work alone. She is growing up in a culture where all of us overcome untruths we once believed about ourselves through the very act of practice and attempt, and where we each learn the secret: that very good things are possible for each of us, as long as we work and dream.
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What kind of map are you drawing for your family?

Paleo family, Meaty B-style

The night before Jeff's mom arrived for a two week visit, I had a teeny-tiny moment of doubt. Did I need to go buy a loaf of bread? A box of cereal? Maybe some tortilla chips? I considered it briefly, then decided that there was no compelling reason to throw my beliefs about good nutrition and delicious eating out the door. I decided I would feed her the way I feed all the other people I love, and if she needed something different, I would loan her the car and give her a map to Trader Joe's. After her arrival, I ended up buying her a small container of milk for her morning coffee, and beyond that she ate up our Paleo goodness every day she was with us (she had some breads, etc. when we were out and about, but the point to me was I didn't drop our principles to feed her, and at the same time I was able to nourish her and celebrate her visit with delicious meals - the most important principle of all!).

The longer we eat Paleo, the longer we feel the clarity of good health and the ease in eating this way, the less inclined I am to worry too much if someone staying in my house needs a bread fix.

We are a family of four, Jeff and I and our two babes, and everyday we are eating Paleo. We have our own tweaks to the general concept of Paleo eating, but what we are not doing is making one meal for the kids and another for us, or serving our meat and vegetables with a side of pasta, or stocking the pantry with crackers for the guests, or bringing along processed foods to the gym or park for snacks out of the plea of convenience, or ease. But it is important for me to say that at points in our journey we have done all of these things!

I'm not good at deprivation (is anyone, really?). Rather than focus on what my diet lacks, it's easier - and more inspiring- for me to think about this in terms of what we do eat: delicious, locally raised meats, wild-caught fish, seasonal organic produce, amazing fats (probably my favorite part of being Paleo, after three decades of fearing fat, being neurotic about my body, and loving the thing I was supposed to avoid - fat) and a couple of "special foods" - nuts and seeds, coconuts, dark chocolate, the occasional sweet indulgence. Every person I know who eats Paleo has their own motivations and experiences, so diets look a little different. We go with what feels good, and we aren't unwilling to experiment and consider well-thought out suggestions. The pleasure of eating a very "clean" diet is that we have become very awake to what works and doesn't work for our own bodies. We are rarely tempted to "cheat", primarily because, on a very real level, we feel like dirt physically when we do.

Honestly, it was a slow process for me to really let go of my fondness for certain foods: roasted baby potatoes, almond brioche, udon noodles, a very tall, cold glass of beer on a hot day. As my palate has changed, I love these foods more as ideas than I do as actual items going into my mouth. I have allowed myself these things when and if I really wanted them, and the thing I have learned about them, over the course of the last three years, is that I don't really want them, and I really don't want the way they leave me feeling, physically and otherwise.

I've mentioned before that Paleo nutrition has released me from chronic, and sometimes debilitating, anxiety and depression. When I met my husband he was taking at least four medications, including chemotherapy, (in his late twenties!) to manage incredibly painful rheumatoid arthritis. We are both drug free these days and our "chronic conditions", which conventional wisdom would treat as unfortunate but unavoidable side affects of modern living and which conventional medicine would prescribe medication to alleviate symptoms for, are more or less nonexistent. Our five year old, Benen, has severe and chronic congestion that returns with a vengeance whenever he eats grains; we also have noticed significant behavioral changes (of the very best kind) when he's eating well with us. As individuals and as a family, we aren't unique at all. The internet is crammed with the stories of people, of all ages, who have recovered their health with a thoughtful middle finger to conventional wisdom and a deep commitment to Paleo lifestyles.

Paleo makes intuitive sense to me. It honors my body on a physiologic level, but it also nurtures me in a soulful way, because I know our diet honors my personal values and our family's values. Paleo eating resonates with us not just because we feel good physically - but because the way we "do" Paleo, we're living out our beliefs about ecology, strong local economies, spending time with each other, and taking responsibility for our own wellness, rather than abdicating it to a bag of Wheat Thins and a pill. There's an impressive body of science that supports the tenets of our way of eating: grain-free, local, grass-fed, wild-caught and biodynamic have a lot of heft, physiologically, ecologically, economically. But the biggest proving ground for me has been my own wellness, and that of my family. It gets me in the kitchen, where I really like to be,and  it connects us with local farmers and producers, and it really is a family affair to eat this way.  It slows us down, grounds us in the reality of our own bodies, and opens to us traditional foodways to remind us of our collective heritage. A real and virtual community of inspired and very smart people illuminate the complexities of our chosen lifestyle, and we have found a way of living that links us to something much bigger than us.There isn't much not to like.



For us, Paleo nutrition means we cook, a lot. Every day. There is no getting around it, and I fear for the success of those who want to eat Paleo long-term and don't want to spend some time in the kitchen (unless they are ready to spend some money). We are eating nutrient dense foods and they shine with fresh preparation. We are also pretty active people (and so we are pretty hungry), and live frugally, so even when we plan for extras they get eaten quickly or used for a meal while out and about. But I can whip up a delicious and nourishing dinner in under 20 minutes, which outclasses take-out in economy, nutrition, waste and time together as a family in all regards - so usually, even when I am not inspired or planned poorly - we cook.

That said, the simple fact that I like to cook, and that we both have cooking skills, has helped us enormously. At the time we went Paleo we rarely ate meat in this house; we were primarily vegetarian - I'm not a fan of CAFO meat, didn't know how to cook meat, and had spent almost 10 years learning how to cook grains, legumes, and other plant-based foods. We cultivated yeast starters and brewed kombucha and had four ways to cook rice. On the "whole foods" spectrum, we were on one end of the rainbow. Simply, we moved to the other end.

We had a steep learning curve (and I have fodder for future posts). We needed to relearn how to plan meals, write a grocery list, pack a lunch, source our food, and eat out. We had to learn a lot of new cooking skills - I rarely cooked meat before but now I can braise, stew, grill, brine, roast, sear and marinate with the best of them. Planning ahead, being willing to work a little to make sure that we have lots of good options available for ourselves and our kids, creating lots of "yes" opportunities for us and the kids so we can enjoy our food, enjoy socializing and being with extended family, and still not sell ourselves up the river has been a great lesson in itself. Sometimes just looking a little bit like a fanatical food purist, maybe a bit of an asshole, is in order. There are moments, like when my five year old is coming unglued because I'm not o.k. with the 10 a.m. chocolate graham cracker that his friend offered him, that I just put on my blinkers and keep my eyes on the prize (which in this case is loving this little boy with great energy and the truth of my convictions, and getting him home and feeding him a big, Paleo lunch). There are other times, like when our Nana, who we see only every two years or so, is in town, that we relax a little and go to the local ice cream joint and all enjoy a sundae. This is a lifestyle, and it has a rhythm to it, and it needs to be fun and delicious (at least it does for me) to really benefit from it on a soul level.
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How does your food philosophy fit with your hopes and dreams and beliefs?

Redemption salsa

I'm keeping a stiff upper lip about the summer garden (read: things did not go as planned). But isn't gardening at least as insistent a teacher as parenting? One woman with a small spade, a seed catalog, and an enormous pile of horse manure (and small children, and clay soil, and a verifiable lazy bone) is bound to get a few lessons. And, truth be told, all is not lost. If I didn't pick a single vegetable all summer I would still have learned more about the space we live in, more about my habits and beliefs, and more about shifting my expectations to maintain some peace of mind through the very act of faith I carry out in sowing seeds.

To count some small graces, this was the first year Benen really took a strong interest in working with me in the garden. I've recruited him to sow seeds and water and trample seedlings in past years, but this was the year the light went on; he gets that we are growing food out there, and he is willing to work and willing to eat it (and play with the hose).
Time in the garden has become an ongoing dialogue about the work of bees, the work of worms, the work we do together. He's learned to pop the heads off caterpillars, feed them to the chickens, and keep the worms intact. I didn't get a single cucumber from the ten I planted this year, but I have an engaged child who knows the difference between a paper wasp and a honey bee. One priceless gem.

This was the first year I had mild success with winter squashes, and tomatillos, and late in the game, learned to protect my transplants from slugs. It was the first year I was able to harvest enough basil to make pesto and eat collards daily for three months. And after many years of heartbreak, it was a year for tomatoes.

And yet. With my tail between my legs I admit that I had tomato lust on the mind when I planted fourteen heirloom varieties. So my thinking was obscured. And when I chose my varieties, so wounded was I after so many years of blight and crop failure and just utter crap tomato experiences, and so seduced was I by the memory of a late October night canning quart after quart of tomatoes in a friend's kitchen last year, that I thought nothing of taste. If the package said hardy, I bought it, I planted it, I coddled it, I bribed it with art projects and fish emulsion, I skipped trips to the gym to stay home and water it. And hardy I got: plants dense and aromatic, my tomato jungle. I was hopeful, but only in my heart, and I refused to let anyone tell me that they were doing well. Perhaps I empowered failure by refusing to speak my wish. You know I wouldn't be going on and on here if everything ended well and I had my late night canning date with my buddies and a bottle of Zinfandel.


The Brandywine bushes grew giant, the leaves the size of my palm, and the blossoms made my heart sing, and now, among three plants, there are maybe 6 tomatoes between them, each unconvinced that they want to ripen. The yellow pears, as promised, spit up a caboodle of tiny little green fruits, vigorous and productive - then got blight and died. And, for those that were harvested, tasted, well, bad. It was all up to the San Marzanos. The horn worms had a field day the week I went away, and I have still managed a decent harvest, and Gemma enjoys picking those that haven't ripened and cramming them into the cabs of all the Tonka trucks in the wasteland called our yard. They are, for lack of a better word, quite hardy, almost weed-like. And, like a basic paste tomato, about as delicious as paste. These were the ones I had counted on canning, dreaming of Brandywines for salsas and salads, and Yellow Pears for my babies to eat by the bucketful.

If there is anything parenting has taught me, if there is anything gardening has taught me, it is to adjust my expectations so that I can fill the moment, rather than let it march over me and steal my soul. So I adjusted, and turned on the oven, because the key to making a crap tomato taste at least a little bit more like the tomato of my lusty visions is to submit it a very hot roasting, and marry it with strong flavors, and make do with what I am given, and make mental notes about paying attention to seed packet fruit descriptions come 2012, and not taking long absences in the middle of tomato season, and getting back on that tomato pony for one more ride next year.

Redemption Salsa

You don't have to use your failed paste tomatoes. You can use any tomato you choose, but this method is ideal for tomatoes that lack full flavor on a stand-alone basis. This is salsa for the Lowly Tomato (maybe the grocery store tomato, but I am not sure if those can be saved, even by a dip in a hot oven); let those showy, tasty heirlooms just fan their fancy tails and enjoy their simple sea salt preparation elsewhere.

We ate it last night with Salmon fried in Mojo de Ajo (yes, I need to talk to you about that). Try it on egg dishes, instead of dressing on a salad, spooned into avocado boats, off the spoon as you stand at the refrigerator...

Ingredients:

One pound of tomatoes, various stages of ripeness fine

1 small onion (I used red, since this is what Jeff grew this year)

6 large cloves garlic, in skins

2 small chilies (any variety, depending on your taste for spice. I used Serrano, because I like my mouth to go numb rather than burn).

1/2 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Heat a heavy skillet over medium high heat on the stove. Place the garlic, still in its skin, into the dry skillet and toast on each side; the skin will blister and brown. This takes about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and cover with a kitchen towel while cooling. When the oven reaches temperature, place tomatoes and chili pepper on ungreased, rimmed cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan and put on highest rack in oven. They don't need to be turned; roast until the skin blister and browns and they are leaking juice, about 10 minutes for the chili, 20 minutes for the tomatoes. As the garlic, chilies and tomatoes roast, chop the onion fine and store in a bowl of cool water, and chop the herbs very fine.

Once the tomatoes are roasted remove and set to cool. Once cool enough to handle, pull the stem core out, it will come pretty easily and can always be persuaded with a small paring knife. Chop the tomatoes into small chunks and put them, seeds and skins included, into your serving bowl. Stem and seed the chili (easily done with a small sharp knife or a teaspoon), mince fine. Pop the garlic out of its skins, it should yield easily, and mince. Add chili, garlic and herbs to the tomatoes, stir gently. and salt. The flavors develop over time; I like to let mine sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving. Keeps 2-3 days in the refrigerator, but ours usually doesn't last that long.

Prep time: 30 minutes. Chill time: at least one hour.

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What did the garden teach you this summer?

Hippy antibiotics, or a dipping sauce

Think of all the precious catastrophes that come along with children, the things that never even crossed my mind before they were living large in my house and ruling my days: Laundry. Illness. Minor injury. Mess. Sleeplessness. More laundry. Dishes. Graffiti. Bodily fluids. Noise. The list goes on and on.

Each one of these is a glass half empty, and a glass half full. I will never look back at my life and wish it any less full of these moments, of the piles and piles of laundry and the sand in the grooves of the hardwood floor and the cryptic pencil drawings on the hall wall. They are all totems of a life lived fully, and opportunities for me to reach into the life going on around me and really touch what matters. Illness is part of that. It's a chance to slow down, stay home, reconnect, and rebalance our bodies and energies. Everyone but the baby is some version of sick at the moment. That baby puts everything in her mouth, never washes her hands, and gets sick less than any of us. But she rarely worries, she sleeps more than any of us, and she eats pretty darn well.

I had my third case of the Morbid Sore Throat in as many months this last week. I'm pretty sure this is a big telegram from the Universe telling me to take it easy, but in the meantime, I was in no mood to sit in the doctor's office again and spend a week on antibiotics and probiotics. I went to bed early a few nights in a row, drank bone broths and tisanes, sucked down nettle tea and slippery elm and Vitamin C, increased my intake of Vitamin D, added some supplemental Omega 3s, and thought inhospitable thoughts directed at potential bacterial and viral visitors. But by Friday (and day 18 of being sick, in some form or another) my throat was red, raw and blistered, my lymph nodes swollen, and I was feverish and exhausted. In May I had strep, a gift from preschool, and this looked and felt exactly the same. At 4:45 p.m. I decided I needed to see the doctor - and you can see where this is headed on a Friday evening.
Urgent care was an option, but I decided to take the herbal highway, at least for the night, and see someone come morning if I still felt like dirt. Enter the miracle sore throat remedy otherwise known as Thai dipping sauce.

I hit up my trusted herbal advisor, the internet, and went for what I had at home. I ended up making a concoction of coconut oil, raw honey, cayenne and garlic. I stirred it up in a little jam jar and walked around with a teaspoon and took little nibbles of it every half hour until I went to bed. I did pour some in my affected ear canal and block it with cotton overnight(I usually use garlic and mullein oil when my ears get scratchy but this seemed to do the trick). I felt vaguely Truman Capote-ish with my little swishy jar, trilling about the house in my yoga pants and pigtails, and Jeff told me I smelled like delicious food as we went to bed. The truth is, the stuff tasted exactly like that pungent, hot, sweet sauce that I lick out of the bowl when we eat Thai food. I'm dead serious, I would make this in a second to dip grilled chicken or pork into. And meanwhile, my Morbid Sore Throat was gone when I woke up. Not a trace, not a lymph node raised, no enormous blisters in the back of my throat. The site I referenced recommended using the remedy for 24 hours, every 1/2 to 1 hour as needed and 2-3 hours through the night. I hit it hard this morning though my symptoms were gone and then tapered it off until I got hungry this evening. Strange snacking but there you go. This is more sugar than I usually eat in a week, which might explain my enthusiasm for it as well. I smell hearty and spicy, which is a nice way of saying I reek of garlic, but I prefer this to feeling like death.

With Fall stirring in the air I imagine that this remedy will get more use at our house. I am stuffing it into my Bohemian First Aid Kit along with my wet sock remedy, vinegar neck flannels, comfrey poultices and arnica gel. You know you want some.
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Dipping Sauce Remedy
For 24 hours' worth of remedy:

4 tbsp. raw honey
16 cloves (1 head) garlic, pressed through a garlic press
1 tsp. cayenne powder
1 tsp. coconut oil

Mix all ingredients and let sit for about 15 minutes. Take 1/2 tsp. doses every 1/2-1 hours, allowing the mixture to sit in your mouth and coat your mouth and tongue, before swallowing. A full course is 24 hours, rising 2-3 times in the night to take.
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I'm totally sold. Even if my symptoms creep back in, I kept myself out of urgent care through the weekend. And I discovered the perfect accompaniment to my next chicken BBQ.

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Taking notes on favorite natural remedies, or favorite dipping sauces. It's all fair game.

Happy lives (here)

I want to tell you a small story. It has a very nice ending, I promise.



I was not once who I am. Isn't that the case for all of us? But really, the hardest part was: I could see who I wanted to be, and I did not know how to get there. I spent a long, long time looking for the right map. Where I wanted to be was at happy. Where I lived was (always) somewhat short of that.

I spent all my years growing up, and through my twenties and early thirties, looking for happy. I made some pretty poor choices in that pursuit, and some good ones, too.

It isn't to say I was always miserable. But even at my most content, there was always an undercurrent: anxiety, or depression, or just a general sense of frustration that I couldn't feel comfortable in my own skin.

There were many years on and off and on and off of anti-depressants, many hours in therapists' offices, many miles run and moments spent meditating or praying or writing or crying; books read and always, always, it cycled back to that undercurrent.

Motherhood pushed me over the edge. Over the edge into the deep deep ocean of absolutely intolerable, frozen unhappiness and into the place where one thing remained: I still believed it could be different for me. I didn't know how to get there, but I was unwilling not to try.

This was three years ago, this last and very terrible impasse. What was a daily companion for me, depression or its bedfellows, for all those years, is now a very strange memory. That woman was me, but I am no longer her.

So many people have this story, this story of a profound darkness that cracked open into a great and seemingly insatiable light.

I changed many, many things, defying conventional wisdom in many ways. On the other side lived something grand: happy.

Happy doesn't mean there isn't bad behavior, acrimony, faltering of faith or absence of fear. Happy means I walk through all of it connected, learning, and pretty comfy with who I am.

Happy is a practice, and that means I have to work at it, to hone it and keep it. When it leaves I know it will be back, but I have found some ways to invite it back a little sooner. Happy can be summoned.

This is my favorite invitation. It is a gratitude practice, in the strictest sense. For many years I wanted to cultivate a gratitude practice but, alas, it was too much flipping work. I don't keep a journal because it's too much work. I don't meditate every morning because it's too much work. I don't clean my blinds because it's too much work. Do you sense a trend? I like things easy-peasy. Easy makes me happy.

So I do this: when things are bad, I mean about as bad as they can get around here: when I am yelling, or the children have disintegrated into ten shades of sadness and anger, or there is simply no love available at that moment, and my heart is closed and storming, I pull myself away (sometimes just mentally, because sometimes I am locked in the car, or it is 3 a.m and a sweaty, sick child is throwing up on me, or I am trapped in a socially embarrassing situation where my son is (publicly, loudly) telling me what a bad bad bad mother I am and that he is going to have a police officer shoot me and a firefighter will come to the house and care for him and his sister when I am dead - you see how one might get their feathers a little ruffled, yes?) - I pull myself away and I start to say it out loud:

"I'm grateful that he has the language he needs to tell me how he feels".

(I have to warm up to this practice and I usually start with whatever is stabbing me in the heart the most).

But you know what? After doing this long enough, I am truly grateful for his venom, and I don't say it if I don't feel it. I do wish he'd say it more nicely, or a bit quieter, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm pretty darn grateful that this kid, who had zero words at age three, can tell me off today.

I list - whatever is in front of me, whatever swells from my heart: 
I'm grateful that I have this beautiful bathroom to shut myself in, I'm grateful that I can feel this angry, I'm grateful there's a good Pinot in the fridge, I'm grateful for Emily Dickinson, I'm grateful for okra, I'm grateful that I don't have to be at work right now, missing this all, I'm grateful I had a good night's sleep so I can deal with this dog and pony show, I'm grateful I have a husband who is working hard right now so we can be a dog and pony show, I'm grateful I have the presence of mind to list all of this right now, I'm grateful I had that second cup of coffee, I'm grateful for air conditioning, I'm grateful for the lock on the bathroom door".

I do this, yes, locked in the bathroom, talking out loud to myself in the bathroom mirror, I do this in the driver's seat of the car, I do this through tears, I do this through clenched teeth, I do this on my front porch before I load us all into the car for errands, I do this on the third mile of a hike when the weather forecaster was wrong and the water is gone and the baby is screaming, I do this in the bathroom while brushing the teeth of the ungrateful and disinterested.

I've looked and looked for ways to let in the good and powerful in the middle of a dark moment. So many things - mantras, prayers, counting to ten, following the breath - never cut it for me.  When I need this to work, I need something quick and simple, something that can sweep me up itself, something bigger than I am. Gratitude is that thing.

Maybe coming close to losing Gemma brought it to a place for me where this became a heart practice. Maybe having two children pushed me up against a wall and got me desperate for an attitudinal silver bullet. Now, when I do it, I can feel a real and powerful shift back into the present moment, and the story of my anger, or sadness, or frustration, or whatever, it just sort of fizzles. I get all soft and gooey inside and Happy Lives Here, once again, or I can at least see that Happy is right outside the bathroom door.

A bluebird doesn't fly in the window and sit on my finger at this point (but this would be awesome, totally awesome, and the kids would probably get really, really quiet for a minute, and that might be nice). Really, I just get a lot calmer, and a lot more sympathetic or patient or whatever is really needed at that moment. I can act skillfully because I am not on a bender.

But this story would be so good, wouldn't it, if there was a bluebird? I can add that in: I am grateful that bluebirds sit on my finger when summoned. I am grateful for the seven dwarfs who are going to do all my housework today. I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful.
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Tell me, how do you summon your bluebird of happiness?

Beet poetry

We eat a lot of beets in this house - year round, thanks to the good farmers of our area, and the variety is stunning - sharp, striped Chiogga, sweet and mild Golden, plump and staining Ox Blood. But I'm on the edge of a dry run in the kitchen (translation=burn out), and, P.S. it is mother-truckin' hotter than dirt here, and I am not about to turn on the stove or oven to soften those golden and pink babies up for our salads. 

Raw is the way to go. 

Raw beets never occurred to me until I realized they just needed a little love from a good dressing to soften up and release a bit of their own sugar. Straight raw beets certainly don't taste too good to me, no matter how thin I shave them, right off the knife. An assertive dressing was just the task-master these lumpy honeys needed. The combination really is a little bit of love synergy, unsuspecting parts flowing together in a simple, simple way that leaves us happily fed and the kitchen cool: a vibrant reward for a well-meaning but slightly lazy cook. As poetry, this salad is a simple haiku - unadorned, quick, and soul-satisfying. The kids love this one, but I warn you, put them in dirty, dark clothing  - the stuff is awfully pink and juicy, and it likes to dribble. Or get 'em naked, bohemian-style, and have yourself a beetfest.

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Raw Beet Salad

If you don't have access to jicama, leave it out. Kohlrabi would be another perfect addition, as would a tart apple - extending the season of this salad well into fall. The inherent sweetness of the beets lends the dressing - on the acidic, full-bodied side - just the softening it needs. Resist the urge to sweeten up the dressing before you blend it into the salad.  If you simply can't stomach the dressing as it is, add 1 tsp of raw honey.
I think fish sauce is essential to the success of the flavors here. Ever since reading The Splendid Table it wiggles its way into a good portion of my cooking. Do not fear the fish sauce (buy a good one without preservatives or soy. I like Phu Quoc - "Flying Horse on Earth Brand". Pretty sure I bought it for the name alone. It lives forever in the refrigerator). A reasonable substitution might be a few anchovy fillets or some coconut aminos, but then I can no longer vouch for the yum factor. Yes, most fish sauces have a small amount of sugar in them. Fish sauce is a fermented food and the sugar content is tiny. I'm at peace with my Flying Horse on Earth.
This salad has made the summer party rounds (the portions double well - just go easy on the fish sauce until you are sure you have the right balance), has hung out at the dinner table, and has found itself under a can of tuna, a wedge of salmon, or some smoked oysters as part of my breakfast or lunch. It keeps well for a few days, the flavors melding and the beets softening. I do recommend letting it chill for an hour or so after you mix it together, allowing the beets to marinate. It is good heaped on your plate like a slaw, or tossed with greens (if you have beets with the greens attached and they look crisp, use 'em!). I've thrown in a handful of tiny pear tomatoes and added ribbons of collards and kale to give it some bite - but I promise you, it is good just the way it is, and dead easy. You can go technophile on it and do all the mixing and grating in a food processor, or you can cook mindfully, slow it down, and grate and mix by hand (my personal choice. For whatever reason I seem to think it is less work to grate by hand then it is to wash the Cuisinart).

Dressing:
1/3 cup lime juice (2 limes)
1/3 cup olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. fish sauce
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro or mint leaves

Salad:
2 bunches (roughly 6 medium) beets, any variety, peeled
1/2 medium jicama, peeled
2-3 carrots(don't bother peeling)

Mix the dressing in a large bowl. The taste should be slightly salty and sour. If it lacks body, add fish sauce, up to one tablespoon. Whisk the dressing well, and then grate all the vegetables into the bowl and toss with the dressing. Chill and serve alone or on a bed of greens. Serves 4-6 as a generous side.

Prep time: 10 minutes, less if you use the food processor. One hour chill time.
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Do tell me how you like this lazy bohemian beet poetry- in a haiku, if you are so inspired.