yard birds

Sometimes I think about keeping chickens. And sometimes, I find out beautiful things like that other mamas at your child's school do keep chickens and here, you can buy your own dozen farm fresh for your own dinner omelettes. They're almost too pretty to eat.

sweet red pepper

We've finally learned the trick of the sweet pepper:  to cut off the top and run the knife along the inside, pulling out the thin white architecture, popping out the seeds  The flower of this one surprised us.

We're drawing Maya into the kitchen with us more and more, hoping her participation in dinner (and in growing dinner) might help her open herself up to trying new foods.  Her palate is very... oh, I don't want to label her as a "picky" eater, but there it is.  Don't say this out loud to her though:  I don't want it to stick.  

So we continue to rotate things in, show that Mommy digs vegetables, see where it takes us.  Finn is still young enough to pop whatever into his mouth; he's also young enough to cast it to the dogs and puh-puh it right onto his shirt. 

Here's a beautiful recipe for creamy red pepper soup.  Soup season is coming, and I adore any kind of creamy vegetable soup:  butternut squash, asparagus, carrot, you name it. 

homemade butter

My sister sent a little care package our way:   some sun print paper, some Little House picture books, and this delightful jar in which you can shake yourself some butter out of heavy cream.  I suppose one could use any old jar, but this one has a nice filter to help rinsing the excess and let the finished butter drop into a ramekin. 

Maya thought my dancing to the shaking was a bit silly, so we turned the jar over to Finn, who did his thing too.  I baked some bread and we had homemade bread and handshaken butter with our dinner.  It's amazing how much these small things, things made by hand--and the bread, made with Maya, as she poured each ingredient in but wasn't interested in getting her hands doughy--things made for people I love.

breakfast: in the beginning

In the beginning, there was:  the yellow yolk of the sun.  That was first light, wasn't it?  Each of the stars, telling their stories, gathering their bits of stone to tell stories to.

I am always beginning, it seems.  The day I declared myself dedicated enough to be called a poet.  The day I birthed my first child.  The day I fell in love with the man who became my husband.

I'm trying this, too:  letting myself be recorded in ways I never felt comfortable with before.  Letting my body tell me the wiser thing to do.  Let my plate have color again.  Let my daughter's, my son's too.  Let there be singing in the kitchen and messes.  Messes that aren't about neglect but about what we do with our hands, what we make with our bodies.  It isn't a mistake our children's easel is in there too.  We can paint with juices, or watercolor using maple leaves.  We can tell stories about snakes in the grass looking for their mommies.  We can make this a place not to stand back and watch, but to do.

new mexico: communal platter

This is what really caused such a good shift for me.  I was primed for it, but at home, the transition hadn't really begun.  I knew it was coming, because I've always eaten so well with these women.

Between them, they have a list of dietary restrictions that lead to a hefty quantity of vegetables:  vegan, organic, gluten-free, low-soy, no added sugar, no pasta or rice, and some I'm sure I'm forgetting.  What it means is that I had to climb so far out of those boxes we had lining our cabinets to figure out what I might make for my dinner.

 

For a while, I enjoyed the kitchen, trying new recipes and combinations and seeing what worked out.  I had some favorite recipes:  a chicken fricasse, hot wings.  Recipes borrowed or adapted from others:  cowboy cookies, zucchini bread, eclair, machine bread, and this concoction with angel food bread, whipped cream, vanilla pudding, bananas, strawberries, and kiwi.  Nothing spectacular, but certain go-tos and the desire to try new recipes on a regular basis.

I'm not sure what changed.

Or rather, I'm pretty sure it was this:  pregnancy.  I was not so very good at the pregnancy thing:  not barefoot and happy, like some of my friends expected me to be, but flirting with all kinds of foibles--acid reflux, RLS, carpal tunnel, daily morning sickness, the like.  I wrote a book about it, and infertility, and birth and post-birth.  But I got so tired.  And it's one of those cycles:  if you don't eat well because you're too tired to make something better, you're going to get less healthy, less energy, and on.  And parenting two adorable kiddos with high energy! 

So I have to make decisions.  Ways to shift our family table.  Start with myself.

  

So we'll see how it goes.  For now, I have some beautiful models.