Obsessed? You say that like it’s a bad thing.

daphne on February 3, 2009

Allow me to formally apologize to those I may have neglected over the past couple of weeks.  Though in my defense, the children haven’t once gone to school naked and although I ate M&Ms for dinner last night I am a grown-up and that was my choice.  The girls, for the record, ate pasta.

It’s actually been nice to take a time out from being fixated on the intricate eating habits of sub-four-foot humans.  Despite the grumbles around me, I think that my new obsession has livened things up a bit around here.

I’m not saying that I’ve grown tired of beating down the green path.  I’m just saying that if one’s path becomes studded with low swinging branches dangling dreamy opportunities, well, I for one am up for a nice poke in the eye of something new.

And it just so happens that the good people down at Tourism Queensland have been hard at work creating the ideal job for me.  So when I got word that a caretaker/writer is needed to live on the Great Barrier Reef for six months and swim, surf and share her fabulous experiences and adventures, well, that’s the kind of call I like to heed.  And I’m talking stop dead in my tracks and heed.

Yes, I became a tad obsessed, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing.  People with passion are interesting, exciting, you know, passionate.

And sure, I spent every waking hour of the past few weeks working on my application, but it’s not like my kids ever boarded the school bus naked.  At least, I’m pretty sure they didn’t.  I probably would have gotten a call or something if they had and I didn’t hear the phone ring.  Of course, the calypso band in my head has been pumping to the rhythm of my island dreams, so I can be forgiven if I missed something as banal as the ringing of a phone.

Anyways, I’m back now. I finished the application, and it’s down to me; me, and about 30,000 other applicants from across the globe all vying for the position that was molded entirely with me in mind.

Take a look, here it is:  Daphne’s Application.

My children, for the record, have been extremely supportive.  They are all but packed with snorkel and swimsuit in hand.  I’d argue that even if they did go to school sans clothes (which they did not) it’s a small price to pay for the incredible life lesson they’ve gained.  The lesson of what it means really, truly to want something.  And of working your hardest to achieve that dream.

I believe that’s a lesson that will serve them well, wherever life may take them.

Like, for argument’s sake, Australia.

So long Aunt Jemima

daphne on January 26, 2009

Under threat of exposure and public humiliation I agreed that it was time to try that whole pancake thing once again.  Perhaps you’ve caught a whiff of my irritating greener-than-thou attitude? That grating pride I send out over the airwaves for each non-exploding loaf of bread baked and each precious raspberry harvested from the garden?

How dare I brag about a batch of brownies? The audacity is despicable.  Why? Because I make, I mean, I used to make pancakes from the box.

It was first brought to my attention that this was pathetic about a year ago.  And by pathetic I mean I was told in no uncertain terms by my pal Peggy that using pancake mix was akin to spreading butter on a twinkie and calling it homemade.  It worked. She successfully guilted me into trying pancakes from scratch.  The results tasted like cardboard, if that cardboard had been dragged behind a car and then slathered in syrup. Not good.

But recently I was encouraged to get back up on that horse.  I started out on Saturday morning with some hungry children and the proven recipe of my friend Kelly’s mother.  Determined, I grabbed the flour and set out to honor Eileen’s memory, and kick the Jemima habit to boot.

Eileen would have been proud.

The pancakes were beautiful. And tasty.  Light and fluffy, and when I added a swirl of strawberry puree, yeah, well, that didn’t turn out quite as well.  But didn’t they look pretty before the berries charred black and sent billows of smoke into the kitchen?

For the next batch I added some puree to the batter, and that was a delicious success.

In the interest of fair reporting, I scanned the ingredients list on the pancake mix.  A lengthy list, which is never a good sign, but it was not altogether terrible. So why shun America’s favorite Auntie?  Well, for one, homemade really does taste better.  And another thing?  The packaging.  If you don’t know the evils of yet another extra box, swing by Sustainable Dave’s site, he’ll fill you in.

Thanks to those who insisted I keep my nose to the pancake griddle, I am ready to say farewell to this old Aunt Jemima–

I don’t need her anymore.  I’ve got some pancake confidence, a good recipe, and a mini-Jemima of my own.

Eileen’s Homemade Pancakes

daphne on January 25, 2009

–dedicated to the memory of Eileen Doyle–

These homemade pancakes are truly quick and easy. Plus, they are the fluffiest things I’ve ever made. Check out how they poof up when they hit the griddle–

Sift together:

  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 3teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 Tbls sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together, and then add to the flour mix.  Do not over-mix the batter; some lumps are ok.

  • 1 beaten egg
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 2 Tbls canola oil (or other mild vegetable oil)

Ladle on to a hot griddle, flip when bubbles are popping less slowly.  We topped them with a combination of strawberry puree (jam would probably work if you don’t have puree) and maple syrup.  They were delicious.

I’ve got it all under control

daphne on January 21, 2009

Step right up.   Watch the incredible multi-tasking mommy juggle alligators using only the illusion of control…That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the ILLUSION OF CONTROL.

Ha! What a joke.

I may be the ringleader here, but there is nary a lion, nor a clown, not even a box of crackerjacks willing to bow down before my power.  In this suburban circus of life, illusion is all I’ve got.  Sure, I have the power to sign permissions slips, but I’m no fool.  I have no real control.  Once upon a time I imagined that I would be the master when I became the mommy, but now that the kids have arrived I’m pretty much skipping down delusion street with a tattered tinfoil badge that says MOM.

Don’t get me wrong, I am the boss.  I get to say when it’s time to brush teeth and what we’re having for dinner.   But you know, in the face of fevers that attack unannounced and children determined to wear bikinis in the snow, that seems a tad limited.

Which brings me to this whole food, au-natural, organic drum I’ve been beating lately.  I need to come clean:  Sure, it’s the healthy way to go, and yes, I do want what’s best for my kids.  But here’s the clincher — hovering over the morsels that enter those precious tummies does even more for me than it does for them:  it gives me a nice comfy sense (read: illusion) of control.

Because they will eat candy; and they do order mickey mouse pancakes for lunch; and there are birthday parties and Halloween bags and trips to the ice cream store and well, come on, what fun would life be if we all didn’t indulge every now and then?

But here’s my secret:  I can make some of this stuff at home. Voila! Look at me!  I am the great and powerful wizard (of snacks.)

And, giddy with this power, did I sneak a handful of flax seed into the muffins?  I don’t know, maybe.  Are those beloved candy-striped french fries really beets in disguise? Perhaps.  Those funky green stripes in the chocolate chip cookies? I neither confirm nor deny the rumor that zucchini is hiding behind the chips.

I know, I know.  It’s controversial, this whole idea of sneaking in the good stuff.  But hey, I’m in charge here, remember?

I don’t know.  Maybe I can fool enough of these little people some of the time in my own private queen-dom.  Or maybe I’m fooling no one.  But I will tell you this; I get to decide what goes into the cookies they eat after school.  Which makes me the queen of what they consume.

And it’s good to be the queen.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get . . .

daphne on January 15, 2009

Now that we all know where baby frogs come from, it’s time to move on.  I know that once upon a time I got my head all wrapped up in the business of making baby squash, but that too is old news.  Next up on the madcap quest to uncover all the secrets of reproduction?  Could you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

Wait, no! Not the guys from Sesame Street. I certainly don’t want Ernie doling out the ABCs of S.E.X.  And really, I’m just looking for the low-down on sesame seeds.  Anyone out there heard of a sesame tree?  Do those little guys grow right on the bagels? I need help!  Could you tell me how they get, how they get those sesame seeds?

Once again my children have managed to elucidate the gaping holes in my education.  Simply by asking a question.  For argument’s sake let’s even say it’s an innocent question, one designed to extract information and not, oh I don’t know, intent on proving once again that mommy knows absolutely nothing and who on earth thought she was qualified to raise future citizens of this world?

The coffee was still percolating, but the bagels, encrusted with toasty sesame seeds, sat on the table,  causing Acadia’s thoughts to turn to mining the remaining mysteries of her world.

Acadia, “Mom? Where do sesame seeds come from?”

My answer, “You know, they fall off the bagels,” didn’t make the cut.

Nor did Kira’s answer. “Sunflowers, duh.”

Nor did Dave’s answer, “Sesame Street, duh.”

You know, that cute little shop down on the lower East side. Hoopers, I think it’s called? The one with the incredible smells that unfurl and wrap even Oscar’s trash can in its fresh-baked aromas.

Acadia was not amused.

And as PBS was the electronic parenting tool of the 1970s, so google is the trusty crutch of parenting these days.

Just a few seconds on the laptop turned up this, the elusive sesame plant,

growing not on Sesame St. as previously thought, but in tropical regions around the world. It was first domesticated in India, and is found throughout Asia and Africa.  Hey, this is fun!  Come on! Let’s learn more about this secretive seed…

You’re sure to be hit at your next cocktail party, just casually drop one of these nuggets into conversation and watch your friends be wowed:

  • The sesame seed is the first recorded seasoning in history, dating back as far as 3,000 B.C.
  • It didn’t actually say this anywhere, but I’ll bet there are some killer recipes etched beneath the dead mammoths and the stick figure guys with arrows on some cave walls over there.
  • The sesame plant is official known as Sesamum Indicum, and can reach 6 feet high. I know. It’s amazing.
  • Ever wonder where that super cool saying “open sesame” came from? Unconfirmed rumors (hello fact-checking?) say that the mature sesame seed pod splits open with such an impressive pop, that people everywhere spontaneously took up with the catchy phrase. Just something to ponder as you try to get baby to open his mouth for another tasty spoon of pureed peas.

I want candy

daphne on January 7, 2009

Quote of the day:

When I grow up I want to be a candy shop worker.  I mean, after I win the Olympics.  When I  have to get a real job, I’ll work in a candy factory.  Like those guys…

That’s Kira, watching her new heroes at work.  After seriously considering a future in aeronautics or marine biology she has at long last settled on a lifelong career in the teeth-rotting arts.

Yes, I suppose I am to blame.  En route to the aquarium I surprised the girls with an unscheduled stop at Hammond’s Candies. Yup, a spontaneous, never-saw-it-coming, end-of-winter-break, tour of a candy factory.  That’s just the wild and crazy kind of mama that I am.

It was pretty old school around there.  Reruns of the classic clip from I Love Lucy would have been playing in your head too as you watched these guys kneading the cane sugar and folding it into candy.  I never caught a glimpse of Lucy desperately stuffing chocolates into her mouth, but she would have fit right in with all the retro candy boxes and machines from the 1920s.

It wasn’t in black and white, but they still make candy the old fashioned way: sugar, water, and corn syrup.  Oh man, really?  How old fashioned is corn syrup?  Can I at least call ye olde corn syrup ok and continue to condemn the high fructose corn syrup that lurks in our bread and ketchups?

Seriously, can sweets that look this quaint threaten our well-being as much as the well-documented evils of a bag of skittles?

I spent some precious, sugar-crash-induced nap-time trying to find out.  Here’s what I learned. There are many sites that discuss the chemical composition of high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) in scientific terms.  They all sounded serious, complex, and well, science-y.  None of them mentioned plain old corn syrup, but they discussed hfcs in terms that were sufficient to keep it black-listed from my grocery list.  Still, I wanted to know the difference.  I persevered.  I called Hammond’s.

According to the lady who answered the phone and went to ask someone, Hammond’s uses corn syrup, (but never the high fructose stuff;) specifically they use 42 DE corn syrup, which is all natural and has a lower dextrose equivalent.  In contrast, hfcs is highly refined through chemical processing and has an increased level of (fake) sweetener added.

Complicated stuff, but here’s the gist, based on what I learned from the call and from what Michael Pollan, the food guru and author of In Defense of Food and Omnivores Dilemma (both are on my must-read list,) has said:

We should eat food that is closest to being food.  The more refined it is, the more processed it is, the worse it becomes for our bodies. As Pollan put it, if our grandmothers would not recognize something as food, then we should give serious pause before putting it in our mouths.

That’s food for thought.  For me, it means that I will continue to eat my sweets in this form–

And heed the warnings that advise me when it is hiding this form–

Happy Birthday to you

daphne on January 4, 2009

Happy Birthday baby girl.

No, wait, that’s not right.  This is not you anymore, lounging around under the table with the balloon, waiting to blow out the candles on your 3rd birthday cake.

This is you now.  Independent.  Determined.  Generous.  Empathetic.  And unbelievably eight years old. When did you make the leap from being my little baby to winning jump-rope medals?

And swim team ribbons?

I blinked, and the wrinkly newborn days are long gone.  Despite the bumbles and struggles and my blatant lack of experience going in, we made it this far.  I could have asked for no better initiation into motherhood than your patient, wise self.  Thank you for your willful insistence, for it is you who remembers the canvas bags, you who composts the carrot peels, and you who asks to take the bikes instead.

Happy Birthday dear Kira.  My funny, caring, loving, smart, incredible baby.  You are, perhaps, the Greenest Biener.

Some like it hot, and I’m starting to see why

daphne on December 29, 2008

Some do like it hot. Like my friend Kelcey over at Mama Bird Diaries, who shivers her way through the snow by dreaming of sweltering Augusts and painting her toenails, hailstorms be damned.

Not me.  Maybe it’s my Minnesota roots, but I like it when a blast of brisk air demands I throw on an extra sweater.  I even get kind of whiny when the summer heat hits sweltering.  But lately frigid temperatures are making it hard to remember just what was so bad about those toasty warm days after all. With temps plummeting below zero parenting gems come pouring out of me.  I’m saying things like “human-beings cannot function this far below freezing,” and “Danger! Your skin will crack away from your skull if you dare take that hat off again.”  I do think the children are enjoying my take on this big chill.

Though I have been transformed into the abominable grinch, there remain two types able to smile despite the precipitous drops in mercury.  Brave children that have been promised a hot cocoa in lieu of lunch,

…and my brother, the sherpa, whom said children conned into dragging them back up the sledding hill during the five minutes I relented and allowed exposure to the harsh elements.

Last winter I had it all going on.  The garden put out enough squash to keep me in butternut squash soup through the first 10 snows, even though those 2007 snows arrived well before December.  For cold to the bone, there is nothing better than this bright orange steaming soup, heaped high with cheese and apples so the focus is hearty, not healthy. (Ok, it does get a low-fat, healthy kiss if you just say no to the cheese.)

Without the squash around to keep me cozy, I give thanks for the gift I gave myself, the amazing cookbook Artisan Bread in Five.  Confident now with cookbook in hand, I’m not letting a little thing like a magnificent failure in the bread baking department keep me away from a hot oven.  The first few loaves were more lumpy than lovely, but tasty all the same.   We made this one…

And this one too…

But these whole wheat loaves only call for a 350° oven, and I was looking for a little more heat in the kitchen, if you know what I mean, wink-wink.  (Ok, no, I’m kidding. Not that kind of heat. This was a family-friendly baking project.)

So we cranked that puppy up to 450° and look!

Gorgeous baguettes hot from the oven.  Crusty.  And hot.  And ooo-la-la, look at me!  I’m sipping cafe au lait in gay Paris.  I’m dipping my toes in the aqua waters of the French Riviera.

Or maybe I’m shmearing a warm piece of homemade bread with peanut butter and jelly.  But my toes, oui, they are starting to defrost.

Talkin’ Trash

daphne on December 24, 2008

This guy loves trash.  And he’s not just talking trash, he’s collecting it.

Bizarre, right? Why would someone save their trash for an entire year?  Perhaps he’s looking to usurp Oscar the Grouch.  Or maybe he’s making a point.  His point?  We don’t have to be nation of garbage-addicts.

In a fit of procrastination I came across this news story, which chronicles the year during which Dave Chameides and his family saved every last piece of trash that they accumulated.  Biodegradables were composted, but recyclables and straight-up garbage was stacked and stored.  He’s got the pictures, in which his trash is more organized and orderly than the bookshelves in my living room.  I’ve got to think that there are a number of lessons to be learned in facing down, all at once, a year’s worth of wine bottles consumed, shoe boxes purchased, and hard plastic wraps wrestled from birthday gifts or beading kits.  It would be humbling.

Or, as Dave explains, it would stepping up and taking responsibility.  Which he did in a big way when he carted his vacation-based refuge home with him.   This guy is committed, or should be committed.  Either way, there’s a lesson there.

He stored his collection in the basement. His wife had to be grateful that the family created nowhere near the American average of 1600 pounds of trash, and not just because it earns them some serious eco-bragging rights.

When it comes to eco-bragging, I won’t be doing much for a while.  Sure, we’ve done well by ridding ourselves of the paper goods. Gone are the plastic grocery bags.  But I’m lugging around some guilt regarding my silence during the recent spate of holiday parties at the elementary school.

I sat, and I kept quiet as convenience won out over consciousness. Scores of ubiquitous water bottles filled the classroom, enough for every child, sibling and parent to drink his weight in water during an hour-long party.  And so, inspired by “Sustainable Dave,” I hereby promise to stand up (or at least sit down and send off a fiery email) suggesting we use pitchers for school parties next year.

It’s a little crusade, but I’m making it mine.

Check out Dave’s site 365 solutions for some great tips on cutting down on household trash. Just promise to send me a picture if you decide to knit a sweater from shed dog hair.

The Mighty Mushroom

daphne on December 16, 2008

It was bound to happen.  Word gets out that you plant a couple of vegetables and before you know it the postman arrives bearing mushroom logs and shitake spawn.   Think that sounds scary? It looks even worse–

This organically zany gift arrived from my sister via this gourmet mushroom site.  The gourmet mushroom site offers interesting products, like mushroom plug spawn and log inoculation.  It does not offer anywhere near the number of references to poison that I happened upon while researching mushrooms this past summer.

And what had me rushing to google for mushroom facts this summer?  Grandpa Mikey.  Grandpa Mikey was playing with the children in the backyard when he discovered a plethora of wild mushrooms.  Yummy!  Never mind that until this day we referred to those vegetative gems as Toadstools of Doom.  Forget too that I had convinced the girls they’d be turned into warty newts if they dared touch the forbidden fungi.

All was well with the princesses. Harmony ruled the land with the division between poison and not poison firmly drawn in the dirt.  And then along comes Grandpa claiming that yes, perhaps they were poisonous.  But maybe, just maybe, they weren’t.  It had all the ingredients for a fun little homespun experiment: nature, science, plus the very real possibility of death.  Thunderbolts clapped and lightening shattered the peaceful little village…

Ok, the sun stayed put and the girls got down to experimenting with their beloved Professor Grandpa. First up, harvest the tasty treats. Next gill-print the ‘shrooms.  I was away from the lab when Grandpa said what came next, but I think once you’ve got the prints you just cross-reference them in the fungal offenders’ data base, then book ’em.

Assistant Mushroom-ologist Grandma snapped these shots for posterity (or maybe for poison-control? That Grandma is always prepared.)

While the science was bubbling away, I snuck off to google poisonous mushrooms.  Here are some delightful phrases that I encountered:

  • Wild mushrooms may contain one of the deadliest poisons found in nature;
  • Because (these) mushrooms have definitely caused death, we cannot recommend that you eat them.
  • If you nevertheless choose to do so, they should be thoroughly cooked in a well-ventilated room.

I wish I were so totally cool and open-minded that I could issue a stern warning of death, and then move right on to cooking tips.  Alas, I am dull. Or am I…?  Go ahead and try this recipe for KILLER pumpkin muffins…If. You. Dare.  Insert evil laugh here.)

Note:  A Greener Biener does not release any recipes that may or may not cause sudden death.