Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My kids had better appreciate the love, friends, because I took the three older ones to Lagoon (Utah’s amusement park) today, and when I got back into the car that had been sitting in the parking lot for hours on end, its temperature read 107.   Sure, it’s a dry heat, but triple digits are HOT no matter what kind of heat it is, and the altitude gives the sun a burning intensity that it just doesn’t have at sea level.  Add that to the sad truth that many rides are no longer particularly fun for me–call me stodgy–and yes, today was really all about the fact that I do love my kids.  (Also about the fact that other people love my kids, since they drifted from family group to family group as they chose; they seriously have the best aunts, uncles, and cousins in the world.  AND grandparents!)

That being the case, today’s review is going to be a short one.  After reading the Zita trilogy and several of Ben Hatke’s picture books, I checked Mighty Jack out of the library to see if it was something the kids would enjoy.  After finishing it, I imagine it will be; it’s a creative, modern retelling of “Jack and the Beanstalk” with a few crossover characters from Zita, although the main characters are a few years older.  Hatke’s style is patently recognizable–text is sparse in his graphic novels, although the stories don’t suffer because of it–and the ending certainly left me wanting to read the next one.  Mighty Jack ought to appeal to a wide range of readers, including those who struggle a bit.  I’ll let you know how my kiddos feel about it; in the meantime, I am covered in sweat and traces of sunscreen, and the shower calls!

My most recent audiobook experience–32 Yolks:  From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line–was actually on my list already when I found it available to borrow immediately from the library (I’m a sucker for any nonfiction involving food).  I knew there was a possibility of language, but Eric Ripert’s account of his growing up years reassured me; he covered a great deal of pain and upheaval with only two instances of profanity, and neither one felt extraneous.  (The pain and upheaval possibly dragged on a bit for me, but I would have felt differently if I’d approached the book knowing anything about Ripert.  A memoir has every right to tell the stories that have shaped the person; it’s not the author’s fault that I was only there for the food!)

I’ve been sitting at my kitchen computer contemplating a recipe review that I’m just plain too tired to write tonight and listening to two noises.  It’s July and only my screen door is shut, so one of them is fireworks, but there’s also a fly buzzing around my kitchen garbage bowl.  Once my conscious mind registered that noise, guess what popped into my head?

I heard a fly buzz–when I died…

I don’t even particularly LIKE Emily Dickinson!  I mean, yes, I can absolutely think of a few of her poems that I find brilliant, but she’s really not my cup of tea.

And yet.   I can’t remember what we had for dinner last night, but when I hear a fly buzz–bingo!  Here’s the entire poem, which of course I had to Google.  (I only really  know the first line.)

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –  
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –  
Between the Heaves of Storm – 

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –  
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –  

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –  

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –  
Between the light – and me –  
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –

Two of my four children are anti-lemon, one is anti-tortellini, and (currently) the fourth appears to be anti-dinner in general.  Would you care to guess who enjoyed having this Lemon Broccoli Tortellini for dinner Monday night?

Yup.  Me.  But hey, I really liked it.  It was lemony and light and flavorful and delightful, and so I regret nothing.  (Says aMachiavelli Mom.)  I left out the spinach entirely because I didn’t have any (it went into the muffins, remember?) and wasn’t going to miss it in this recipe anyway; I was also very generous with the lemon juice, because that’s how we Mather girls roll.  I do wish that I’d left the broccoli in longer, because the level of crowded on the one roll pan I used meant it took longer to roast, but I had to feed the hangry; next time I’ll just stick it in earlier.  In the meantime, if light, lemony tortellini with roasted lemon-garlic broccoli sounds appealing, make this–and invite me over to eat some.

Mmmm.

I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick lately, mostly because it’s a way to try a new quick bread for breakfast (or brinner) that doesn’t take an hour in the oven (quick bread), kneading and rising (yeast dough), constant production (pancakes and waffles), or rolling and cutting out (biscuits and scones).  I was feeling completely out of dinner ideas last night (not to mention extra tired from an I’m-too-old-to-stay-up-reading-this-late night), and so I was scrolling through my ‘Breads to Try’ board when these Sweet Spinach Muffins caught my eye.  Hey, I thought.  I actually have part of a bag of spinach in the fridge that’s threatening to go bad before we can use it.  I had my oldest check how many ounces it originally contained, blithely decreed that what was left was probably about the amount I needed for the muffins, and went to town.

I did sub in maybe 1/3 of a cup of white flour–I must have been worried about how heavy they were going to be–but other than that (and my usual generosity with vanilla), I made them as is.  There was much speculation about what exactly made the muffins green as we sat down to dinner, but everyone except my 11-year-old gave them a thumbs up.  (She said there was something she didn’t like about the texture.  Hmm.)  They were moist and flavorful and slightly decadent–a stick of melted butter does make almost anything better!–but possibly my favorite part of the meal was sticking all of the wet ingredients in the blender.  It sounds silly, because it’s really not that much harder to add things more carefully and mix by hand, but I was tired and skipping any step (however small!) was a boon.  I may experiment with different sweeteners in the future–honey is SO much more expensive than sugar!–but I will definitely be making these again, because who doesn’t love a good muffin?

I was looking for a way to use some leftover cooked quinoa the other day when I came across these Chocolate Chip Quinoa Muffins; since I had the ingredients and it looked simple enough, I decided that they could be breakfast.  And while several of my kiddos went with thumbs middle, I don’t really care, because I’m definitely going to be making these again.  They were incredibly filling–huzzah, quinoa!–with a moist, chocolate-studded appeal (okay, I may have at least one-and-a-halved the mini chocolate chips).  I used regular yogurt, because it’s what I generally have, and regular brown sugar and whole wheat flour, because ditto!  I’m always incredibly generous with vanilla–thankfully, the price of Mexican vanilla makes that possible still–and that was that.  If you want a filling, relatively healthy muffin that tastes amazing warm with a slather of salty butter, this is the recipe for you.  If you don’t…why not?

Did you know that female telephone operators were vital to America’s success in WWI?  Did you know that female telephone operators had anything to DO with WWI, let alone served as uniformed members of the Signal Corps in France?  And did you further know that AFTER the war, they were denied any military or veteran’s benefits until the CARTER ADMINISTRATION?

Yes, that’s the Jimmy Carter who was president when I was born.  And yes, I did say WWI–as in the Great War, the War to End All Wars, the war that ended in November of 1918.  And YES, that’s a 60 year gap.

I didn’t know anything about the Signal Corps either–not until I listened to The Hello Girls, Elizabeth Cobbs’ fascinating history of these women and their even more fascinating historical context.  I’ll admit, the context is given in so much detail that I doubted its relevance at first, but by the end of the book, it enriched the story immeasurably.  The fight for women’s suffrage raged all during WWI–looking back, I find myself irritated with Mr. Bennett for not spending more (some??) time on it when we were learning about Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Points in 11th grade–and the service of the Signal Corps women weighed significantly into the argument that women couldn’t vote because they couldn’t fulfill one of the basic duties of citizenship, being unable to fight to defend their country in time of war.  (How that made taxation without representation okay for the female half of the population baffles me, but there I go, expecting anything to do with women not being able to vote to make sense.  Besides, the conditions under which a woman could legally own anything upon which to be taxed is an entirely different [although equally absurd!] issue.)  Cobbs taught me things I didn’t know about the suffrage movement, things I didn’t know about WWI (either from history classes or from reading Rilla of Ingleside over and over as a girl), and things I certainly didn’t know about the years afterward.  This is a vital piece of American history that gives an impressively balanced look at the differing viewpoints involved, and it’s compellingly told.  Read it!  Listen to it!  Heck, BUY it!  If you have any feeling in you for history at all, you’ll be glad you did.

I can’t remember how Starring Jules (As Herself) appeared on my radar, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Jules’s style reminds me of a cross between Lola Levine and Clementine, but her jingle-singing personality is uniquely her own.  The main plot here is partly less relatable than most (how many kids get to audition for a commercial?) and partly not (just about every kid in the world has had to taste something they can’t stand), but the subplot of friend struggles is universal.  The illustrations are fun, the book’s design is distinctive (blue and yellow cover with red-edged pages), and the story has plenty of heart.  This one is totally worth your time!

(By the way, I also finished the 4th ‘Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist’ book–The Fran That Time Forgot.  It was just as enjoyable as the first three!)

I’m sure my devoted readers (!) will notice the conspicuous absence of an Amazon link below this book review.  I decided to forgo it this time because Eloise Lownsbery’s Out of the Flame–a Newbery Honor book from 1932–is not just out of print, it’s OUT OF PRINT.  As in, I had to put the complete title plus author’s last name into Amazon to find it, and copies started at $249.  (No, I did not forget a decimal.)  I sort of assumed that you’d all pass on that.

This is NOT how I’d planned on spending this week of the summer, folks.  My oldest was feeling sick by last Thursday night or Friday morning–fever shivers and her-bedroom’s-in-the-basement-where-the-AC-blasts-on-her-wet-hair shivers are difficult to distinguish from each other–and after a fever of more than 103 on Friday night, I took her in on Saturday to receive a diagnosis of the Coxsackievirus, which causes hand, foot, and mouth disease.

Ugh.

So.  Her fever is gone and her throat pain has faded, but her rash is still visible.  My youngest spiked a fever on Sunday night, throwing up once Monday morning to boot, and now my 5-year-old is in the throes of the same.  (He’s thrown up twice thus far.  He didn’t tell us about the first time until several hours afterwards–and it was in his bed, on the TOP BUNK.)  My 8-year-old is still apparently well, but one has to wonder.  Double ugh!

By the way, I am sorry about missing on Sunday night, but my nephew and his wife came up for dinner, and after they left I went to check on the bunnies before I exercised only to find that their hutch was wide open and they weren’t in it.  Talk about an adrenaline rush, together with all the baggage of losing pets to tragedy when I was little; I’m attached to those bunnies myself, but my children adore them, and I was terrified on their behalf.  I went out with a flashlight and managed to locate Marshmallow, at which point I enlisted my hubby, who managed to track down Peter.

Whew.

Anyway.  The bunnies are safe, but we are (yet again!) not going anywhere today.  Life has its ups and downs, right?

Stay well, folks.  Signing off.