Dinner. (A.K.A. Delighting in Disaster)

While it is certainly improving, rare impossible is the moment in my house when everyone is simultaneously seated, still, focused, and pleasant. Evan and I wish we could have such moments, especially at meals, more often. While the blogging world seems to magnify mostly perfection and that one perfectly panached cupcake, I often wonder how often they are just displaying their one percent.  In my life, at least, that is the way it seems to be. (In case you were wondering, frosting is, in fact, my complete nemesis). Meal times certainly have their share of stress. Even when we try and calm minds with a prayer, two kids are bickering before it even begins, then admonishing at high decibels because the other feels that they did it wrong. Someone is sneaking food. Someone is sneaking boogers. We are snarking. One son is walking around the table in circles incessantly, drinks are spilled, food is spit, someone doesn't like sauce or food touching or anything green or how the chicken is cut--Oy!

Oddly, this ritual is desirable. Even when it is a mess, it is mine. After an especially intense and lengthy season of our lives with grad school and too much work, and too many late hours, I admire that we try hard to have dinner together as often as possible. (Did you know that only 28% of Americans had dinner together seven days a week in 2003?). This table, where I can look simultaneously at the three faces, who in only moments are outgrowing my lap, is my treat. These tinies are my terroir; my land and my soil.

Unsurprisingly, there may be much to be learned from how the french create and even sanctify family dinner. In French Kids Eat Everything, I love the Food Rules. In a conversation with her friend she is reminded that north americans only see food as a commodity or fuel and consume it constantly and unmindfully. They live to eat rather than eat to live. Living in it's broader and best sense, of course, means hearing, enjoying, tasting, experiencing, fellowshipping.  But, really, how probable is all that with three small children?

In the book Karen Le Billon makes the assertion that the French never eat without putting a tablecloth on the table. She describes the joy of getting the table "dressed" and says that doing so and lighting candles has a "hypnotic effect on (the children) who spoke in hushed tones throughout the entire meal." In my own house it is also true. The kids are much more eager and attentive when they get assigned to "make the table more beautiful"  If they must put the silverware on, they also love adding adornments of candles or flowers. They love making celebrations, having feasts, preparing picnics.

We have also been playing little games at the table that nurture quietness and attentiveness to the words of others. Sometimes it is "bat ears" where one person has to whisper and everyone else cups their hands over their ears facing outwards to catch the whisper. Sometimes we also play telephone, passing silly phrases from one to the next. In small ways these games help us capture little bits of silence.

I'm working harder at savoring, not scorning, all of the moments and even the mess because, as I'm also reminded while it is too easy to just see food as fuel, it is also a love story.

Lately our seeds are started and we are waiting about six more weeks for our garden to start producing. Meanwhile here's one night's worth of dinner.

Salad

• shaved carrots
• fried shallots  $1.00
• mixed greens 3 cups $3.00

Roasted peppers with polenta

• 1 red pepper $1
• two corn cobs $2.00
• 2 summer squash $1.50
• 4 large carrots $1.00
• sun dried tomato polenta make your own $0.75

Pesto

• 0.75 lbs of pecans $4.50 (Checking pine nuts in the store this week, they were up to $20/lb. The pinion trees are facing some harsh realities).
• 6 large handfuls of basil (free from garden or indoor pots) or $4.00
• 0.5 cups olive oil $0.50
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast $0.50
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Total cost: $19.75
Price per person: $3.29

Mix pesto first by combing all ingredients in a food processor.

Shave one carrot for the light salad. Cube the remaining carrots, squash, pepper, and corn into chunks. Set broiler to low and cook pepper and corn for 7 min and squash and carrots for 15 or until they come out slightly blackened.

Dice the scallions. Next pan fry the scallions until crispy and the polenta in 1/4 inch slices for 4-5 mn each slide with pesto in pan halfway through.

Serve the pesto cold on top of the hot polenta and vegetables with the salad greens and scallions on the side.

Enjoy!

PS: What ways have you found to make peace at your table?

Stone Soup Rocks!

New development. Starting in August, we have been homeschooling around here. My newest hat is first grade teacher. There are many reasons why this made sense for us right now. I'm sure I will bore you with all of them soon enough. It is more demanding, but also more rewarding then I ever thought possible. So, a ladle of some of what I am enjoying the most? Those impromptu lessons that you can savor right out of books. Those connections from fresh food to fork. Using dangerous appliances and sharp objects. And watching some little boys cooking and taking ownership over that domain.

A few days ago the boys were begging me to read our antique copy of Stone Soup. Many versions of this story exist, but the one we have with the most comical illustrations is by William Furstenberg and Hans Wilhelm.

If you have never heard of this story it is a morality tale all about how all the people in the town are too greedy to share their surplus of food with some unexpected traveling guests because they fear those which they do not know. (Where else do we begin making peace then around our own tables?) The guests outsmart and guilt the greedy and piggish (pun intended) townspeople into bringing out all their stores of food from the ridiculous places they have hidden them, inside the cupboards, in the well, under the bed. . So one by one the concealed items are brought forward and plopped into the water and the cooperative effort ends up making, of course, soup.

My kids love this story. And it's a punchy lesson for grownups too. So on that day, THE KIDS decided to make up their own recipe for Stone Soup. (Mama helped, a wee bit). And it just so happens to be quite frugal, so we thought we'd include it here.

In a large crock pot add:
A handful of smooth well washed rocks (a crazy paranoid science mom, who checks those things, says don't include any of these... because I am sure that you keep piles of asbestos in your kitchen).

• 2 tsp of salt
• Pepper to taste, but leave out the pepper if you are seven 
• 3 Tbsp of rosemary ~ $0.50
• 4 Tbsp of oregano ~ $0.50
• half a cabbage ~ $1.00
• 4 diced carrots ~$1.50
• 1/2 a white onion ~ $0.75
• 5 diced potatoes ~ $1.75
• 1 lb of cured ham ~ $5.50
• 2 cups of whole milk or cream ~$0.74

Enough water to just cover all the ingredients. Set to cook on lowest temperature. When 30 minutes to hour is left add the milk or cream.

We just cooked our rocks in our soup. If you are sneaky or paranoid you can "magically" take the rocks out while the kids aren't looking and use a separate pot. My kids were really convinced they would, and rather disappointed when they didn't, melt. But, nevertheless, they still cooked and ate with atypical zeal!

For a yummy addition check out these honey breadsticks.

• water
• 3 Tbsp honey ~ $0.66
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil ~$0.20
• 3/4 tsp of salt
• 2 cups of whole wheat flour$2.56
• 3 tsp of yeast ~ $0.50

Fresh homemade butter for serving: $2.25
Serves 8. Total = $18.41
or  $2.30/ person

The Book of Bob

My friend Bob Waldrop is equal parts John the Baptist and John Muir-he is a voice crying out in the wilderness. A voice for wilderness spaces and a voice against the wilderness of conglomerate agrobuisness. He is a burly guy with a bushy beard that hasn't been trimmed in decades and equally likely to say things like "ya all bon appetite ya hear" or to curse under his breath.

The Bob Waldrop

John Muir. Wilderness Warrior. Photo public domain. (Don't you think they could be related?)

When I first moved back to Oklahoma nearly ten years ago he was probably the first person and the most dedicated that I met towards the goals of living a sustainable lifestyle. If you drive by his house it is probably the first one on his street that has no grass in the front lawn (Hurray for the grassless lawn!) but is filled to the brim with edible plants including native elderberries long before front yard gardening was the in vogue thing to do. And I have been quietly watching and learning from him for quite a long time.

Bob is the one who is continually fighting for anti-mowing laws which unnecessarily prevent habitat from being made, wildflowers from being planted, or more native and drought tolerant grasses from being encouraged. While one might be inclined to write him off as an eccentric hippie, he is tremendously wise.

Founder of the, then very new Oklahoma Food Coop he has been a great voice for local farmers, producers, and artists. He understands community and he understands the need for each of us to reduce our global footprint, and for him it is very greatly relevant to his faith. A question I have been plagued with since college is, Why isn't sustainability at the forefront for ALL faith communities? And to those that have choosen to make this a front page issue in their church community, my hat to you. Bob was the first person to ever introduce me to the concept of permaculture. And it is just the kind of holistic thinking we need. To learn more about Bob's wise insights into our diminishing energy and water resources check out his blog, Bobaganda!

If you have never heard of permaculture (and don't be surprised if you haven't) it is a holistic way of thinking, designing, and integrating your environmental ideals across multiple areas of your life and your communities (physical places and personal connections). It is about gardening, energy use, homesteading, simplicity, and interconnectedness. It is about examining waste in every sense of the word. It is about making our yards and our households useful and achieving maximum potential. It is all about reducing our need for fossil fuels and stepping back a little from such a global economy.  You know the one that imports peanuts from Africa to make peanut butter in Minnesota to put labels on it in Canada before it is shipped to Arkansas to be distributed to my simple sandwich...

So I was happy, delighted, ecstatic to start working my way through Bob's new ebook ipermie. For $1.99 this 399,000 (very bite-size) work of words deal that you can not beat. It is a workbook, a guidebook, a focal point,  a series of reflections about what matters in your life and how you can make your space (no matter how small) livable and productive. But more so than many, this one give tools particularly to those who are nearly space-less, the student, the elderly, the apartment dweller. And it is about developing the infrastructures around us to support sustainable communities. It is about starting to change your life, one page at a time. Begin today.

Thank you Bob for being a mentor to so many and for being a strong voice for what is right, for justice for others and for our fellow creatures. I can not wait to see how my life will change as I continue to delve deeper into the permaculture world.

Creating a "Farm City": A responsive book review

Recently, kind of by accident, I had the pleasure of discovering and meeting Novella Carpenter.  I was so impressed with her book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

and can't wait to visit and revisit her new book The Essential Urban Farmer. I was impressed at her poetry and honesty about the realities of raising and butchering animals. And the whole thing combined with my reading of Green Metropolis had me wishing for a Utopia in which city dwellers can only have yards if they will relegate and utilize them for something with ecological usefulness: habitat, water purification, food sources for local organisms, or food production by themselves or their green thumb neighbors. [Update: For a good laugh, go here to see what God might think of your yard] Everyone else must live in hip urban apartments...One can wish.