Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

That’s exactly what I thought of Amy Timberlake’s One Came Home.  It was the last of this year’s Newberys for me, which is exciting in and of itself, and I enjoyed it even more than I’d hoped.  I hadn’t anticipated the narrator to be quite so amusing, and I definitely hadn’t anticipated the sorts of twists and turns her journey to look for her sister involved.  I was expecting something, well–I don’t know how to describe it.  I’d say more dramatic, but there was drama; I’d say more serious, but many serious things happened.  I suppose the coming of age process just happened a bit differently for Georgie than I expected.

Georgie, of course, is the narrator who goes off in search of the sister that she can’t believe is dead.  She’s got more than a little Tillerman in her, for all you Cynthia Voigt fans, but it’s mixed with something softer.  Her view of life is direct and often humorous–I about laughed out loud at her soliloquy on thumbs–and the things she learns about herself during the course of her journey kept me guessing.  I’d like to share more about the plot, but it’s the sort of story where you can either tell a little or a WHOLE lot; there’s not a good way to go in-between.  Not wanting to spoil the surprises for you, I’ll just say I was expecting True Grit, and instead got something a bit closer to The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg. I was certainly not disappointed, so  I recommend it wholeheartedly.  Don’t miss this one.

I love waffles.

I really love waffles.  They’re crisp on the outside, and moist and tender on the inside, and they have lovely pockets to hold butter and maple syrup (or strawberries and whipped cream, or other loveliness of your choice).  And while both varieties of waffles are delicious in their own right, I make regular ones frequently and Belgian waffles rarely.  (It’s the whipping and folding in of the egg whites that trips me up.  It’s just more work when I’m HUNGRY.)

At any rate, these are the waffles we always made growing up, and I have still never had their equal.  They need to be eaten hot and fresh–they get soggy if they sit, and only taste half as good in the toaster the next morning–but if you manage that, they are heavenly.  The whole wheat flour gives them a lovely texture and so much more flavor, while the white keeps them from being too heavy.  We are huge fans at our house, and while we generally go the butter-and-syrup route (homemade syrup for me and mine, always), we’ve been known to throw some homemade applesauce on top as well.  Bottom line?  Don’t pass these up.

Waffles

2 eggs

2 1/4 cups sour milk (add a generous two tablespoons of vinegar and fill the measuring cup to the appropriate line with milk)

1/3 cup of vegetable or canola oil (be generous)

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour

Combine wet and dry ingredients separately, then mix together with a whisk.  Pour 1 cup (plus) into a hot waffle iron.

I sure didn’t cook tonight, because we lost power at 5-ish and just got it back half an hour ago, but as my hubby was blessing the food tonight (food that was graciously prepared by, well, McDonald’s), he was vocally grateful that we usually have power, and it occurred to me–oughtn’t that to be how we look at it?  I do pretty well at being grateful for running water during power outages–I grew up with a well with an electric well pump, and being able to flush toilets without electricity is a beautiful, beautiful thing–but I get cranky in the heat.  I’m grateful for a hubby seeing how wonderful our reality really is.

And speaking of being grateful, my cousin’s daughter just had open-heart surgery and ended up with a pacemaker, and that’s made me grateful for several reasons.

1)Modern medicine.  What a miracle that she is doing as well as she is!

2)My own children’s health.  How can I not be grateful for that?

3)The chance for my children to practice compassion.  This mom just about bawled to hear her four-year-old’s little voice praying ‘please bless Grace with her open heart surgery’ and her seven-year-old’s more specific petition of ‘please bless Grace that the electrical part of her heart will get better.’

4)An awesome family.  The prayers and good wishes poured in, and if you want to get technical, Grace’s mother is my step-first-cousin-once-removed.  Who cares?  Family is family, and I’m incredibly grateful for the love and support they offer.

I’m also, I confess, really, really grateful that the power is back on.  And the air conditioning.

I say this because last night our power went out just before 8 and stayed out until around 4:30 this morning.  Given that yesterday was in the high 90s in Utah, and my hubby’s sleep machine needs electricity, well…let’s just say it was a restless night.  And then the boy was up before 6, which elicited a “let’s get you back to bed” response from Mommy.  (At least it worked.  For an hour.)

Anyway.  I was DRAGGING today, and so was my poor hubby; tonight will be an early to bed night, if we can manage it!  Really, we were dragging beforehand–still catching up from the family reunion–which is why this recipe for Dad’s Baked Beans was so perfect last night.  We already had leftover grilled hot dogs from the boy’s birthday lunch with my sister’s family.  The rest of the ingredients are ones I keep on hand, and the result is hearty and tasty (and EASY).  Not as good as authentic New England baked beans, made from dry beans and with bacon and other loveliness, but one doesn’t always have time to spend three-plus hours on dinner.  (Not to mention inclination.  Even with central air, the upper 90s makes long cook times undesirable.)

So there you have it.  If you grilled too many hot dogs at your last barbecue, here’s an easy way to use them up.  Come fall I’ll post the one with the longer bake time…

Whew!  Today we got back from my hubby’s family’s family reunion–his parents and their children and grandchildren–and we are TIRED.  My oldest melted down before her (EARLY) bedtime, my middle was contrary and grumpy and disobedient, and the boy–who turned two while we were there, by the way–was hyper and into EVERYTHING.  The kiddos are now slumbering peacefully, and my hubby and I are enjoying the quiet…and looking forward to NOT sharing a room with a two-year-old tonight!

I didn’t try any new recipes at Fish Lake, of course; for our assigned meal, we stuck a really, really large pork roast into two crockpots (initially and unsuccessfully) and then three crockpots, poured in some BBQ sauce, and called it pulled pork.  (I realize any Southern BBQ experts are shuddering, but we were feeding 38 people (only one family didn’t make it) and we were EXHAUSTED (the 2-year-old did not sleep well).  With thin slices of medium cheddar that pork made very decent sandwiches, although once again I was reminded that the family in which I grew up and the family into which I married eat very differently.  (My siblings and I once swept a pudding eating contest, each of us being in a different age group.  My hubby’s family, well…let’s just say that we will be eating the rest of the pulled pork until the END OF TIME.)

Hmm.  Maybe I should go easier with the caps lock from here on out?

Anyway, I did manage to finish two books there, although only because I had 15 pages left in the first one when we got there and the second was incredibly short.  The first was A Wizard of Earthsea, which I remember hearing about as a teenager; at the time it was part of a trilogy (to which the author has now added), and the middle book is a Newbery Honor book.  My hubby bought me the trilogy years ago, and I decided that now was the time and committed myself to the first one.

It did take me longer to get into than I wanted it to, but that’s because I just don’t read much high fantasy anymore.  Historical fiction and/or coming of age novels are my passions, and I find it harder and harder to let myself sink into an imaginary world.  That said, it’s a tribute to Ursula Le Guin that I finally did manage to lose myself in it, and overall all it was a good book.  Le Guin’s writing style was certainly strongly influenced by Tolkien, but her plot was not at all a lesser copy of The Lord of the Rings, for which we can all be grateful.  (I LOVE Tolkien–there go the caps again!–but I don’t want to read someone else’s watered-down attempt at a similar story.  I made it 50 pages into one of the Shannara books before throwing it down in disgust.)  There is a lot of sailing in A Wizard of Earthsea, which surprised me more than it should have (I didn’t pick up on the EarthSEA?).  Ultimately, however, you could also call it a coming of age novel, which probably (partly) explains why I enjoyed it at the last.  We’ll see how I like the next one in the series.

The incredibly short book I finished was called The Year of Goodbyes, by Debbie Levy, and it’s a kind of cross between a verse novel and a documentary novel (if you don’t know what I mean by that, take a look at Deborah Wiles’ Countdown, which is a fabulous book).  The author’s (Jewish) mother escaped Hamburg the year before WWII started, and the book combines her friends’ entries in her poesiealbum (a kind of autograph book) and her journal entries with her daughter’s blank verse descriptions of what she was feeling at the time.  It sounds like the two worked together fairly closely, and the result is a poignant little book that tells a slightly different sort of Holocaust survival story.  If the topic interests you, it’s worth your time.

And that is that.  I am SO DREADFULLY TIRED–I refuse to feel guilty about those caps–and I am desperately looking forward to bed.  I hope you all had a fabulous Fourth of July!

I’m going to be too busy with family to post for a few days, so I shall leave you with this Buttermilk Cocoa Cake.  It’s gooey and yummy and delightful, and you frost it warm, which is fabulous.  (I really hate waiting for a cake to cool, not to mention that it’s liquid-y frosting that then sets, so you pour it on without having to try and spread it to make it look pretty.  Have I mentioned that I’m stronger on taste than aesthetics?) My sister and her kids came over for an early birthday lunch for my youngest (it was the only time that worked), so we served this up complete with candles (he seemed kind of traumatized).  I left out the pecans, since I prefer my oldest to be, you know, alive, but otherwise I always follow the recipe and it tastes fabulous every single time.  Enjoy!

Since my brother-in-law and his family got into town from California yesterday, we went up to Sunday dinner at my in-laws; since my phone has issues with receiving certain kinds of texts, I called to ask for a food assignment kind of last minute and ended up with dessert.  (We love dessert. I may eat differently than my in-laws in a lot of ways, but we all love dessert.  There were four different kinds of bars available.)  I was going to make the Reese’s Pieces bars that I posted here, but the Reese’s Pieces were mysteriously and seriously depleted, so I went with these Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars–and let me tell you, no one regretted that choice.  They were TASTY.  I only made one change–I don’t particularly care for milk chocolate chips, so I used semi-sweet–and I was happy with it; semi-sweet might have been overpowering if there had been a ton in there, but as it was, I thought they were perfect.  I am a little on the fence about the cooking time; I had to bake them longer because they were SO gooey in the middle still, and I think upping the temperature slightly might fix that.  (I suspect an altitude problem.)

Altitude aside, however, I loved them.  They were the perfect mix of buttery goodness and chocolate/Oreo bliss, and I would have had more than I did if my sisters-in-law hadn’t also brought carmelitas, smores bars, and strawberry cheesecake bars.  (It was a good dessert day.)  I was quite sad not to have leftovers…

If Number the Stars had a little sister, this would be it.  This poignant picture book also takes place in Denmark, and it also portrays Jews being smuggled by boat to Sweden and safety; both books are even based on true events.  In The Whispering Town, Anett’s family is caring for a small Jewish family in their cellar until a boat can take them to Sweden.  We see Anett whisper of their new “friends” to the baker, and the librarian, and the farmer, and carry home extra bread, and library books, and eggs as a result.  Each time she leaves her home she sees Nazi soldiers knocking on someone else’s door, looking for Jews–until they finally knock on hers.  How they manage to get their “friends” to safety anyhow makes for a lovely story of a community coming together to help those in need.  I cried, of course; motherhood has made me weepy in that way.  Then again, how could you not cry?  Stories like Number the Stars and The Whispering Town explain why over 99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust.  At a time in history when America turned away Jews by the boatload and some small-town Christians were only too happy to pick up their pitchforks and join in with Hitler’s mission, one country managed to evacuate 7,220 of its 7,800 Jews safely; Denmark also interceded on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt.  Such a story deserves to be told–and retold.

I read this to both my girlies.  My oldest, who is 7 1/2, was fascinated and ready to help those in trouble herself.  My shy and sensitive (and timid) middle was scared by the idea and very snuggly by the end of the book.  She’s almost 5, and I actually think it was as much a personality reaction as it was age; all the same, the inside cover suggests ages 7-11.  You’ll have to make the decision for your children, of course, but please, give this one a try when you think they are old enough.  You’ll be glad you did.

That’s exactly what Mel’s Honey Mustard Chicken is.  And if all of your family happens to like mashed potatoes, it should be a crowd-pleaser.  (I believe we’ve discussed how this is not so much the case at my house; at least my oldest was happy.)  The chicken is moist and tender–even if you are, ahem, too lazy to actually baste–and the sauce is buttery and honey-y and has that lovely bit of tang from the mustard.  Just a bit, though–my kids aren’t mustard fans, and none of them have problems with the chicken.  (They also scarfed the broccoli on the side.)  You can serve this with rice as well, but I like the potatoes, even if the younger ones don’t.  The sauce isn’t the healthiest in the world, what with the third of a cup of butter and all, but it’s SO tasty.  Go give this one a try–you’ll be glad you did!

That pretty much sums up The Night the Bells Rang, by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock.  It’s a lovely little story about a Vermont family during America’s involvement in World War I, and while its simplicity doesn’t allow for boundless detail, it nevertheless managed to draw tears from me at the end.  I struggled slightly with Mason’s treatment of his brother for much of the book, but it was probably realistic, and I was ok with the way it was ultimately handled.  The entire book, of course, made me homesick for New England, but what can I say?  When I read about old time New England farm life, I have an incredible yearning to experience the beauty and simplicity of it…until I remember how much I like being clean, how much I hate the smell of manure, and how much I prefer to have time for myself after the necessary chores are done.  (All the same, I never tire of reading about it.)

Again, this one’s really short–76 pages, including many full-page illustrations–but I found it worth my while.  Give it a try!