Live slower in a speed obsessed world

More Kale… and Friday Links

May 18, 2012

Alissa shared a fantastic-looking recipe for kale pesto on Tuesday, and while we’re on the topic, I thought I’d tell you how much I’ve been digging another kale recipe — this one by Heidi Swanson in her newest cookbook, Super Natural Every Day. (Heidi, by the way, just won a prestigious James Beard Award for that beautifully shot book.) Here’s the recipe:

Kale Salad

by Heidi Swanson, Super Natural Every Day

1/3 c olive oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp shoyu, tamari, or soy sauce
3 1/2 c lightly packed kale leaves, large ribs removed, torn into small pieces
1 1/2 c unsweetened large flakes coconut (I used finely shredded)
2 c cooked farro, or another grain

Preheat the oven to 375. Place the olive oil, sesame oil, and shoyu sauce in a small jar with a lid and shake together. Add shredded coconut to the torn kale leaves and toss with the oil mixture. Spread it out on a cookie sheet and roast it in the oven for approximately 12 minutes. Then mix it with the cooked farro (have you ever had farro? It’s one of my favorite grains)with a bit more olive oil and you’re good to go. Super healthy and yummy! The kale by itself was delicious; it can be eaten like chips. I bet kids would dig it.

Got anything good cooking in the kitchen this weekend? Or any exciting plans? I don’t know about you but my weeks feel like they’re flying by too quickly these days. Sometimes I wish I could grab the hands of the clock and stop them from moving, just for a while.

Here are some items that caught my eye this week:

Anne Lamott hates Mother’s Day.
Interesting take on why local wines are not more popular.
Congrats to the Blairs on their sweet new web TV series, Olive Us.
Good reflection in Mothering Magazine about the American public’s problem with breasts and the media’s exploitation of it.
Moonshine is hot stuff these days!
Cooks Illustrated‘s new iPad app.

Have a slow weekend and see you back here on Monday!

Image: Zoe Saint-Paul

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Bookish Baby Shower Invitations

May 17, 2012

by Margaret Cabaniss

If it seems like it was just about this time last year that I was talking about throwing a bridal shower for my sister Jen, it was — and now I’m throwing her a baby shower. (I know, it’s a lot for me to take in, too.) We’re all thrilled to bits to be adding Grandbaby No. 8 to the mix, and my two other sisters and I immediately set out to plan a shower to celebrate.

I don’t usually go in big for themed parties — for her bridal shower, we mostly just focused on great food — but a shower centered around books just seemed tailor-made for Jen. Growing up, our house was always filled with books; they loom large in so many of my favorite childhood memories. Jen in particular has assembled a pretty impressive library over the years, including a great whack of childrens’ books for when she had her own kids someday — and now all those books are going to be getting pretty regular use.

With all that history, we really couldn’t not have a book-themed baby shower. I immediately thought that an invitation modeled after a library check-out card would be ideal, so I turned to Pinterest for inspiration. Naturally, I discovered that my great idea had been done plenty of times before, but I couldn’t believe my luck when I stumbled across Heather’s fantastic invitations at Did Someone Say Party, which she made available for free download to anyone who wanted to use them. Perfect!

I downloaded her template, plus a couple of old typewriter fonts to fill in the details, and then I set about making a sleeve for the invitation to sit in, using two pieces of cream-colored card stock: one for the back, cut slightly bigger than the invitation (but small enough to fit inside a standard A2 envelope), plus a shorter piece for the front pocket that I could attach to the larger card.

I decided how deep I wanted the pocket to be and then added a half-inch to the sides and bottom (so I could later create tabs that would fold behind the back piece and be glued in place). I created the “Property of” stamp in Photoshop and printed out my pockets:

Then I cut them out and scored them along the back where I wanted to fold my tabs:

Once they were scored, I snipped the two corners where the folds met, wrapped the tabs around the back of the larger card, and glued them in place:

Lastly I turned to the envelopes. The craft stores near me didn’t carry what I needed, and I didn’t have the time to hit up a stationery store, so I ended up making them myself. My sister Amy had a handy envelope template that lets you create and fold an envelope out of whatever paper you like, so I printed my addresses on one side of a sheet of brown kraft paper (using those same fonts again) and then traced my template directly on the other side.

For an extra “someone please stop me” touch to the invitation, I lined the envelopes with pages cut from an old grammar usage dictionary. I used the envelope template to get the angles I needed for the top, but cut something about a half-inch smaller on all sides, and long enough to be hidden behind the front flap of the envelope when closed, then glued it to the inside of the envelopes before I folded them up.

I glued the envelopes, stuffed them with the card and sleeve, then finished them up with a little cream-colored seal on the back and a stamp of 20th-century poets on the front, and they were finished!

I know. I got a little obsessed with the small details here, but it’s always those little touches make me ridiculously happy. I really did have a lot of fun putting these together, and so far the response has been great.

Next week I hope to show you how the rest of the shower came together; fingers crossed that I can pull it off!

Images: Margaret Cabaniss

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Why Mommy Wars Exist

May 16, 2012

The latest TIME magazine cover, featuring my friend Jamie Grumet breastfeeding her three-year-old son, has reignited the mommy wars in many a combox over the past week.

I have to say, I never knew there was such a thing as “mommy wars” until my friends began having children and complained of criticisms they experienced from other moms about the way they were parenting. On one hand, this didn’t make sense to me: Why would moms — who know first-hand that raising kids is the hardest job in the world — spend their precious time and energy criticizing other moms? But then I remembered I had a masters degree in counseling and a great deal of experience working with women, which has given me some insight into why women criticize each other.

Insecurity.

This isn’t just a problem among moms; it begins long before children come along, when we learn to compare ourselves to other women and judge ourselves (and them) as less then, better than, prettier than, skinnier than, smarter than, more talented than.

Every mother spends many waking hours wondering how she’s doing: Has she made the right choice about which diapers to use? Would it be better to let Junior cry it out or pick him up at every squawk? What should she do about the fact that breastfeeding is not going as planned? Is she making the right school choice? What if she’s screwing up this kid? What if he turns into her worst nightmare and then blames her for it? What if she could find some guidebook written by God to tell her exactly what to do for every parenting challenge?

Every mom wants to get it right. She wants validation. She wants to know that her choices are the right ones. And while she might say there’s more than one right choice in parenting styles and decisions, deep down, she’s still afraid that hers are not the right ones unless everyone else agrees. And the best way to feel sure of yourself — or so it can seem — is to judge someone else who’s doing things differently.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still rights and wrongs in my book. But there are so many parenting issues that don’t belong in the right/wrong paradigm. How long you breastfeed your child is one of them. Whether you use attachment parenting techniques or whether you don’t is another.

There’s no quick fix to ending the mommy wars. Peace begins at home, as they say. Each mom, each woman, has to make a conscious decision to give the benefit of the doubt, to encourage rather than tear down, to be okay with differences. And each of us needs to dig deep and admit to our own insecurities — not necessarily to tell the whole world about them, but so that we can find support and grow in confidence.

We can also just smarten up and put things in perspective. Kristen Howerton at Rage Against the Minivan wondered in a recent post why we’re so petty — why we care about things like breastfeeding toddlers in public when there are children out there who don’t even have mothers. I have to agree. When you think about the things women and children and families face across this world, including right here in our own country, you have to wonder why anyone bothers with the stuff of mommy wars. I guess because it’s easier to gossip with girlfriends or pass judgment on a website than to do something to reform the U.S. foster care system, or address the orphan crisis in places like Haiti, or solve the problem of human trafficking. The media frenzy around Jamie and the TIME cover reminds me of just how backwards things can be.

Do you agree?

Image found here

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Reborn in the CSA

May 15, 2012

by Alissa Lively

Last Tuesday was a very exciting day in our household. It wasn’t Christmas (obviously) or anyone’s birthday — but it might as well have been, for all of the giddy anticipation that we felt on Monday night: Tuesday was the first day of vegetable drops from our CSA.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term CSA (as I was last spring), it stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it’s a little different from the buyers’ club that Zoe talked about here. At the beginning of spring, we purchased a “share” of this season’s harvest from Sandy Spring CSA, which means that we’ll pick up a box of vegetables from a drop-off location each week all spring and summer. This way we’re supporting local farmers and getting super-fresh produce in exchange. Win win!

There are many many many things to love about CSAs, such as the sheer volume of produce and its shocking diversity. Dan and I figured out that, on average, we would pay at least twice as much at the grocery store for the food that we were receiving each week. In addition, we’ve been compelled to try all kinds of new plants that we would never have looked at twice before. (We actually found a vegetable that Dan liked that I couldn’t stand — chiogga beets, blegh — and I thought for a moment that the world was about to start tumbling down around me.)

But the greatest change brought about by the CSA is my approach to cooking. Anyone who knows me (or has read any of my previous posts) may have an inkling that I am a Type A, letter-of-the-law kind of girl. Cooking has never been an exception to this rule: Whenever people tell me that they love cooking because it allows for so much creativity, I start to look at them a little slantways. Don’t they know that’s why God made recipes — to be followed precisely, down to the very last pinch, dash, or smidgen?

So imagine the shock to my little rigid soul when I realized that cooking from what you have is a leetle bit different from planning a menu, buying your food, and slavishly adhering to aforementioned recipes. All of a sudden, I needed to adapt. And I will admit, it was pretty painful at first and definitely not always successful. I’m still learning which flavors complement each other and which definitely do not, and I’m still a fervent lover of recipes. And this brings me to my next level of neuroticism: I make new dishes, write down the recipes, and then follow them slavishly. It’s scary, I know.

But in honor of the return of the CSA and being creative in the kitchen, I thought I would share one of my favorite reincarnations of a classic. I’ll give you my exact proportions and, if you’re like me, you can follow it to a T, or you can use them as a loose guideline. So, without further ado, I present:

Alissa’s Kale and Garlic Scape Pesto

1 bunch of kale
3 garlic scapes, coarsely chopped*
½ cup walnuts, toasted
½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano
Kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

*I had to use 1 clove of regular garlic this time around, since my first vegetable drop didn’t include scapes, but I would definitely recommend them if you can find them. (If you’ve never heard of garlic scapes, check out this article.)

Trim the leaves from the kale stems and discard the stems. Rinse well and place the leaves in a pot of salted boiling water for about five to ten minutes, or until tender. (I tend to test the kale during cooking because I don’t like it to be too mushy.) Drain the kale and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Once the kale is cool, squeeze out as much excess water as you can.

Toss the kale, scapes, and walnuts into a food processor and pulse until fine. Add parm, salt, and pepper, and pulse again. At this point, you can add the olive oil to the food processor and blend, or you can take out the pesto and mix in the olive oil by hand. I prefer the latter because I don’t like my pesto to be emulsified.

We used this pesto on chicken (roasted and grilled), for dipping bread, and — surprise! — on pasta. I recently tossed it with more cooked kale, more toasted walnuts, and Bulgarian feta, and it was awesome.

Have you ever considered purchasing a CSA share? Do you think it would affect the way you cook, or are you already creative in the kitchen?

Images: Alissa Lively

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Five Lessons My Mother Taught Me

May 14, 2012

Yesterday was a perfect time to reflect on some of the wise advice my mother has given me over the years. The experience of motherhood seems to breed a certain amount of wisdom, of course, but my mother is the wisest on the planet — and I am completely unbiased. Here are five lessons that continue to serve me time and time again:

Accept the consequences of your actions.

Growing up, I was taught that there was right and wrong, and certain decisions were better than others. My mother would remind me that no one could make me do this or that, but I had to be prepared to accept whatever consequences came from my decisions — no matter what. This made me think hard before I chose to do something, which saved me from many potentially bad situations. I’ve learned over the years that there are plenty of consequences to taking no action, too. This wise advice has helped me take responsibility for my life.

Take a stand, but always be kind.

My mother was always fighting some injustice or trying to reform something that needed to be changed (in between raising 10 kids), but she always stood on principle and treated her opponents and enemies with kindness. She taught me to focus on the issue and never to make it personal. Being kind doesn’t mean licking someone shoes, it means treating them with dignity and remembering your manners in the midst of disagreement.

People are always more important than things.

This was an overarching theme of my childhood. Money is important — but only insofar as it gives you what you need and allows you to help others. A beautiful home is great, but who’s living in it and their well-being is far more important. Investing in relationships — family, friends, neighbors, etc. — will bring you greater happiness than anything else. There are times I wish I’d focused more on material success over the years, but then I realize that if I’d done so, I wouldn’t have some of the people in my life that I do — and that wouldn’t have been worth it.

Integrity is everything.

My mother never could tell people things just because they wanted to hear them. Although I’m generally more of a compromiser than she is, I’m instinctively aware of when my principles are being compromised or when I’m being tempted to dishonesty. I’m also sensitive to the lack of integrity in others; I never trust someone who is willing to toss theirs out the window for personal gain.

Home is where you’re loved and accepted, no matter what.

I always knew — and still do — that no matter what happens in my life, there’s a place I can return, no questions asked, where I’ll be accepted and loved. It’s important to me to create this sense of safety in my own home — to make sure my husband (and future children) and friends and family members know that there’s a place they can always find comfort and acceptance no matter what. Too many people lack this sense of home; having it provides security and confidence, which allows you to go out and conquer the world.

There’s a lot more my mother has taught me by word and example over the years, and if I can attain half the wisdom she has as I age, I’ll be grateful. What about you — what are some of the best lessons or words of advice your mother passed on to you?

Image: Zoe Saint-Paul

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The Cover of TIME…and Friday Links

May 11, 2012

My friend Jamie made the cover of TIME, and it’s causing quite a stir.

It’s certainly an image that provokes a response. And I must admit, I kind of appreciate the shock value of it: Maybe it’s the actress in me, but sometimes I think it has a place. In this case, the photo throws a topic like breastfeeding out there for mass discussion and challenges the viewer to consider his or her own comfort zones and cultural assumptions. It has sparked discussions in groups that would otherwise never give a subject like nursing the time of day. I’ve been reading various criticisms — one of which is that a photo like this does more harm than good for the breastfeeding cause, but I’m not sure that’s true. And expecting TIME to put her in a rocker with a blanket around her shoulders and a half-hidden child nursing away is just…unrealistic.

The photo of Jamie is provocative — designed to sell magazines. Anyone who’s worked with mainstream media knows you don’t have a say in what photos or quotes get chosen. TIME wanted to stir the pot, and that’s exactly what they did, choosing an edgy shot of a gorgeous young mom in a bold pose with a toddler hooked to her boob.

Jamie — like many moms out there — practices attachment parenting, a philosophy of child-rearing promoted in recent years by Dr. William Sears, who’s work is discussed in this issue of TIME as part of the extended feature. Attachment parenting is focused on building the bond between mother and child through things like baby-wearing, co-sleeping, and breastfeeding. Jamie’s been an advocate of extended nursing since before she became a mom: Her own mother nursed her until she was six after learning the nutritional benefits of breast milk for young children. It’s certainly common for women in developing countries to nurse their children well into toddlerhood and beyond. Interestingly, the World Health Organization recently changed its guidelines and now advocates exclusive breastfeeding for children up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding (along with appropriate complementary foods) up to two years of age or beyond. North Americans don’t find this acceptable. We’re barely comfortable with seeing a newborn breastfed in public, so the very idea of nursing a child beyond one or two years weirds a lot of people out.

What do you think of extended breastfeeding? How did you react to the photo? (Please keep the comments constructive; Jamie’s a friend, and I’m not going to tolerate meanness or personal attacks.)

It’s appropriate that we’re talking about breastfeeding right now, since it’s Mother’s Day weekend! I refuse to be depressed. If you’re a mom, I hope somebody spoils you on Sunday, the way you deserve. Here are some interesting items I found to take you into the weekend:

Prediction: The next dietary trend will be focused on bacteria-laden foods.
Watch out for those gas station receipts!
A shortcut to better health?
How to make your own bubble tea.
Awesome gluten-free shortbread.
Excellent interview with the always entertaining and renegade farmer Joel Salatin.
How pharmaceutical companies influence doctors.

Have a slow weekend, and see you back here on Monday!

Image: TIME magazine

UPDATE: Jamie appeared on The Today Show and on ABC last week. I think it’s easier to put the cover photo in context when you hear her speak. And here’s the Q&A with her in TIME.

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A Trip to the Dairy

May 10, 2012

by Margaret Cabaniss

In addition to living in the bucolic Maryland countryside with plenty of room for killer gardens, my sister also happens to live just down the street from South Mountain Creamery, a great dairy that makes home deliveries in Baltimore, among other places. The dairy is open to the public, and every day they let visitors help feed the calves, so my nephews and I recently stopped in to check it out.

Until they’re about six weeks old, the calves are kept in a barn separate from the rest of the herd where they can be monitored and fed regularly — which also lets the kids meet the calves up close, when they are still a not-too-terrifying size. John and this little lady sized each other up warily at first:

But once the calves realize you’re there to bring them their twice-a-day bottle of milk (fresh from the girls one pasture over), they are suddenly over their shyness and the tug-of-war begins:

Thomas kept losing his grip on the bottle, which he found hilarious. His calf was really getting after it (love that tongue!):

The boys each fed (or “milked,” if you ask them) three calves, and then we headed over to the main shop for a treat after all that hard work:

I picked up a few things for myself, too — some fresh milk and a starter cup of yogurt to feed my latest homemade yogurt habit. I’ve been making it pretty much nonstop since reading Jennifer Reese’s Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (and I will stop talking about this book soon, I promise!), and I am still not over how dang easy it is — not to mention cheap and delicious. I started out using this recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but I found Reese’s recipe was a little less fussy and made more yogurt (it’s the exact same steps, you just double the milk, halve the yogurt, and skip the powdered milk). Sourcing all my ingredients from the cows down the road was just the icing on the cake.

I definitely recommend checking out the creamery, if you’re in the area, or looking for their products at farmers’ markets in Baltimore and DC. The boys give it their seal of approval.

Images: Margaret Cabaniss

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Domestic Chores

May 9, 2012

Confession: I’m not the biggest fan of domestic chores. I just don’t like doing them. I love living in a clean house, but I don’t much enjoy cleaning. I love to cook when I feel inspired, but cooking three meals a day every day for a bunch of people would pretty much be torture. A good friend said I was meant to be a chatelaine, which amounts to a rich woman who controls a large household — one with staff.

But the one chore I could never give up, even if I were the Queen of England, is grocery shopping. I love it. I enjoy sauntering up the aisles, checking out the latest products, reading labels, cursing many of those labels, ogling the latest produce, taking home something new to try, gathering what we need, watching what others have in their carts. It’s like a mini-adventure, with spoils to take home at the end. For some reason, grocery shopping is not only fun, it relaxes me. I guess I’m a hunter-gatherer at heart (minus the killing-something-with-a-gun part).

Do you have a favorite household chore? Something you’d choose to do even if someone offered to do it for you?

Image found on Another

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A Baby Sprinkle

May 8, 2012

by Ann Waterman

When my sister-in-law was expecting her third child, my mother-in-law asked if I would be interested in helping to throw a little party for her to celebrate the new life that would soon be joining our family. I thought it was a great idea but was stumped about how to word the invitation, since we didn’t want it to be a full-on shower with the expectation of gifts (though really, aren’t we all looking for an excuse to buy cute baby clothes?). So I turned to the interwebs for help, and as it turned out, there is a name for just this kind of celebration: a baby sprinkle. (Get it? “Sprinkle,” not “shower,” since it’s a celebration on a smaller scale.)

A new addition to the family is always a wonderful thing and something to celebrate, but let’s face it: No pregnancy gets as much fanfare as the first. For a lot of women, pregnancy can be a long, tough haul. While the wonder and newness of a little life growing inside you can carry you through the travails of your first pregnancy, most women want to fast-forward through the actual “pregnancy” portion of subsequent pregnancies and just get to the babe-in-arms part.

That’s why I like the idea of a baby sprinkle. When mom is feeling huge and ready to be done, a baby sprinkle can be a nice little pick-me-up to help her get to the finish line. It’s also a nice opportunity to get together with girlfriends before your days and nights become a blur and are filled with feeding, diaper changes, and intimate bonding time with your newest love.

A baby sprinkle doesn’t have to be extravagant. It could be a girl’s night out at a restaurant, a movie night, or a mocktail party — just something to let a mom know she’s cared about and that you’re happy about her latest arrival, too. Baby games are optional depending on the mom’s preference — I have friends who love them and friends who loathe them — as are gifts. I recently went to a sprinkle where the hostess let the guests know that the expectant mom had everything she needed for the baby, but that she would be grateful for diapers and wipes. I also know moms who appreciate a few new outfits or items to replace old or worn-out ones. If you’re hosting a sprinkle, find out what the expectant mom needs in case anyone asks.

This past weekend, I hosted a sprinkle for my best friend who’s expecting her fourth child. She appreciates good food and shares my palate, so I put together a menu of heavy hors d’oeuvres for an evening soiree with close friends, followed by a rousing game of Apples to Apples and, of course, lots of girl talk. She left the shower beaming and, I hope, properly feted for one of life’s greatest events.

Is there anything special you do for your pregnant friends to let them know you care? (I also like to bring meals over after the baby arrives. You might want to check out this post I wrote last year about taking meals to new moms.)

Image via HostessBlog.com

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30 Months = 2.5 Years

May 7, 2012

Saturday may have been Cinco de Mayo, but we weren’t exactly partying it up over here, since the day also marked a new milestone in our adoption wait: two and half years since being placed on our agency’s waiting list. I remember writing a post called 18 Months… And Still Crazy like it was yesterday — and here we are another 12 months later. (On second thought, a pitcher of margaritas probably would have been the way to go this weekend…)

How am I doing? It’s definitely getting harder. The constant, never-ending state of being “on hold” in so many ways; wondering if it will really happen at all; and feeling like I may need to prepare myself for the worst. Anxiety that another birthday will roll around and this still won’t have happened.

I have moments when I fantasize about someone leaving a kid or two on our doorstep so I could put an end to all of this. When I find out someone is pregnant or has received an adoption referral, I feel confused about how such a thing can happen. I’m inhabiting a strange universe right now. On the outside, I appear normal; on the inside, the waters are a bit choppy.

People ask how things are going, and I appreciate it, though I’m glad they don’t ask too often. It’s frustrating to have nothing to say to them over and over again. The worst is when it’s someone I haven’t spoken to for a year or more, and back then it seemed like this was taking forever; so when they discover we’re still waiting, they’re flabbergasted. That’s when I wish I’d kept this whole thing a secret.

It’s not like there’s no news, exactly, it’s just that the news I could share about the ever-changing policies in Ethiopia, or updated information on our agency’s program, or other details, don’t mean much to someone who doesn’t know how this process works. Things are happening, but the bottom line is that none of it has translated into a referral yet.

So here we are. Two and half years. Really, three and half since we started all of this. That’s too long. I want to be an advocate for adoption — and I am and will be — but at the moment we’re pretty much a walking advertisement for choosing just about anything else other than this crazy ride.

And that, ladies and gents, is my uplifting post to begin the week! Just trying to keep it real. Thankfully, I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of girl, so my spirits don’t stay down for long.

Oh, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. In spite of what I’ve said above, I really don’t mind going into some of the reasons we’ve been waiting so long, or discussing the adoption process in general.

Image by Alan Hope at Streamzoo

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