what are you doing with your life?!
We've been pretty busy lately, alas. So many great observations and events going unrecorded! I'm back to full time at work for a while, we're scheduled with regular weekday activities three nights a week, there are birthdays to celebrate, we're attending day-long classes at church two weekends in a row... and on top of all that I'm trying to get the back of the house painted in the next week and keep the garden moving forward, while Leah is doing champion work keeping the house from descending into chaos (despite what she says, I think it's actually getting cleaner and more organized as time goes by!). I know none of this is of interest to you described in this fashion, but it may be that by the middle of next week we'll be able to take a breath and be witty and entertaining again. Or even before, who knows; we do enjoy the blogging, when we can find the time for it.
more partying
enjoying the day
Today saw day two of the weekend-long celebration of Zion. Since the party was all afternoon a delightfully long portion of it could be spent outside.
Harvey was otherwise engaged
Not that there'd be anything wrong with throwing two parties just for the fun of it, but today's festivities were officially in honor of Zion's dedication at church, which conveniently happened to fall on the weekend of his birthday. The brief ceremony went off without a hitch (if you don't count Harvey choosing not to join us on stage) witnessed by all four grandparents. Then it was home for more food, including the rest of the birthday cake.
reprise
So fine was the day, we couldn't resist breaking out the sports equipment.
missed!
Zion is a little too young for racquet games, though, so mostly he just chilled out and watched.
he likes his bottle
We started at 1:00 and didn't finish up until it was getting chilly and a little dark outside; our friends and family very nicely staggered their attendance so were were able to hang out with everybody in equal amounts. It was lovely.
And of course, you know it's been a good party when you end up without any pants on!
the end of a long day of partying
Happy Birthday Zion!
birthday fun
We celebrated Zion's birthday today with the grandparents, and a fine time was had by all. Thanks to the grandmas there was lots of food.
the groaning board
I contributed the cake, three layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting.
tall and rich
Harvey orchestrated much of the present-opening, but he made sure to let Zion play with some of the toys. Grandpa helped.
getting right down to business
More partying will follow tomorrow. I hope you feel celebrated, little 2-year-old!
my apples are played out
Two years ago I planted a couple of apple trees: a Macintosh and a Northern Spy. The other day I added one more, a Honeycrisp. Imagine my shame this evening when I read an article on the depressing lack of apple variety in today's world and noticed that all three of my trees are in the top 20 of the "most-grown apples" list. Sure, some people might suggest that those varieties are popular because they're good, but since you could make the same argument about, say, Justin Bieber or Ke$ha (who I'm told have something to do with current popular music). What kind of hipster farmer am I if I'm planting the same played-out apples as the major-label orchards?! Your favorite apple sucks.
I'm most disappointed about the Macintosh. I can remember when Macs were the go-to "good" apple at the grocery store, when everything else was Red Delicious, but now that I think about it the only thing Macs really have to recommend themselves now is their earliness: their taste is fine but not spectacular, and they tend to be a little mushy. And then I come to find out they're one of the hardest apples to grow without chemical spraying.
Even worse, the earliness itself is going to be a problem, because the other tree from the initial planting is on the late end of the fruiting period. That means that there's a good chance the two trees will never bloom at the same time and we won't even get any apples—good, bad, or indifferent—from either tree. Realizing that this spring is what prompted me to get the Honeycrisp, which blooms somewhere in the middle of the season. There were lots of other, better varieties that I would have preferred to get instead, but they were all sold out for this season—and I felt like I didn't have any time to waste!
At least Honeycrisps are pretty good apples: sweet and crisp (as their over-obvious modern name suggests), good keepers, and suitable for organic growing. Northern Spy is no slouch either: fine for cooking and eating both, and said to keep for up to three months in the root cellar. And my reasoning for wanting to plant that variety is still sound, at least: they might be the country's 16th most popular apple, but they're impossible to find in the grocery store and tricky even at the farmers market. That their relative rarity might be due to their "poor overall disease resistance" is something I don't want to think about. This farming business is hard, but at least when it's vegetables it doesn't take me three years to find out all the mistakes I've made.
Anyways, at this point my apple knowledge has been expanded and I'm already thinking about the trees I want to plant next year: Black Oxford, Golden Russet, Cox's Orange Pippin... Unless that's what everybody else is doing. Then I'll have to find something else. Blake?
cooking omnibus post
All kinds of things lately, including some good food. For example, we celebrated spring a couple days ago with the first asparagus, which I cooked in a little butter and served up with bulgur, lentils, and poached eggs (also because spring). Life can't be too terrible when you can get asparagus and eggs from the backyard and cook them within five minutes of bringing them inside. Not that it's all spring all the time around here; yesterday was cold and raw and Leah's roasted root vegetables were just what we wanted.
A couple weeks ago I wanted something to bring along on our first trip to the Stevenses new house where we were going to help paint, and I made up another muffin recipe. It came out tasty enough that I wanted to write it down here so as not to forget.
Applesauce Muffins
In a large bowl, whisk together:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
In another bowl, combine:
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (I used some very sour sauce made from Cortland apples)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten well
1/4 cup canola oil or melted butter
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake for around 20 minutes at 375°F. Makes 12 regular sized muffins (or 30 little ones, as I did it the first batch).
Also on the baking front, I've been enjoying eating oatcakes made with this recipe from Orangette, which I was pointed to by this post on Soulemama. Oatcakes are a thing that, once I'd heard of their existence, I wanted to try, but in my research last year or thereabouts I didn't find a satisfactory recipe. This one is perfectly satisfactory and very tasty with jam (or Leah's chocolate-chip cookie dough dip).
A while ago Jo linked to a tortilla recipe that uses oil instead of shortening (and cooks in a skillet instead of the oven, as in the Joy of Cooking version), which I find delightfully easy and delicious. Homemade tortillas are wonderful and make rice and beans seem like something special. We're also putting immense quantities of cilantro on many things, when we have it around, which is also special.
The cilantro may be a side effect of reading Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace a couple months ago. Other signs we've internalized some of her messages in that inspiring book are our increased consumption of home-made croutons and breadcrumbs and the fact that when I cooked the lentils the other night I saved the water they cooked in—which is now a remarkable broth, how could I have ever thrown it away?!—in a jar in the fridge. A jar that is even labeled. (The poached eggs of the first paragraph are also Adler-related.)
This evening while the boys were being wonderful playing with playdough (Leah makes that—most recently a double batch of blue and yellow) I pulled out a recipe I hadn't made in a while: banana bread made entirely in the food processor (well, except for the part when it's in a pan in the oven). It's good stuff, but I come to doubt the efficiency of using the machine. Yes there are fewer things to clean up then there would have been if I'd used the two bowl "muffin method" (as Alton Brown calls it), but cleaning the Cuisinart is so aggravating that it carries as much mental weight as three or four bowls. Also I'm not sure I trust that spinning blade to mix things up properly. Oh well, every once and a while in the name of variety—and of using up those two brown bananas.
So, we have some food here. Come by if you're feeling hungry!