You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2007.
soooo…the soup weather is finally here. and with a vengeance. i planned out all my meals for the next week or so this morning (wearing my fleece…INSIDE my house…) and there are no less than four soups coming to chino house in the next 10 days or so. some are repeats…autumn harvest is definitely coming back…i bought celery root at whole foods in chicago, since no one in little rock carries it. and some are new…lentil sausage from barefoot in paris. i’ll post recipes if they are yummy.
speaking of soup, today i had this divine soup for lunch from boulevard. if you have not had lunch yet today OR if you need a dinner plan, get thee down to boulevard immediately and get their soup with sauteed spinach…get a whole quart and a loaf of bread to sop it up, you will NOT be sorry. it looks and sounds strange but it is delectable, i tell you. olive oil. parmesan. lemony. garlicky. yummy. oh my goodness. only boulevard can make soup this good. i will be licking my lips for the rest of the day.
sorry…i tried to write this in my comment section, but i couldn’t create the link…so this is for those of you who need/want to read this book on parenting adolescents.
this story summed the book up for me…
i think you can actually read it at this link.
start with “it was a beautiful, cloudless morning…” on page 96 and end at “…into chaos.” on page 97
ooh, and i also like this paragraph at the top of page 118.
ok…i could do this all day (find my favorite passages by searching for them on amazon)…but i have some unpacking to do…so let’s just buy the book.
here are all the reasons i can think of that i am currently making a vichyssoise. it’s simmering on anna’s stove as i write.
1. it’s cold here
2. i’ve been reading barefoot in paris, which is the book in which this recipe is found, and it’s cheaper than actually going to paris.
3. leeks at whole foods. fresh, organic, beautifully stacked leeks, which of course you already know i love. sigh for the lack of whole foods in little rock.
4. i am almost done with the teenager book, and while i am somewhat emboldened to be different from (apparently) every other parent in the good ol’ u.s. of a., i am also overwhelmed. and just generally saddened about the life we have handed to our teens for them to navigate. mostly alone.
5. my van, which overheated as i exited on north avenue off of I-355 in illinois (just a few miles from my sister’s house), is still in the shop. and it won’t be ready for me to drive home tomorrow. which means i will be stealing my sister’s car to get home to the rest of my family. which makes me feel powerless. and stupid. and we’re not even going to go into how much it is going to cost when it is done.
and sooooo…soup. it’s something i can do. it doesn’t bring me any closer to my baby, to a running vehicle, to a well-adjusted preteen or even to paris. but it is warm. and it smells fabulous.
Zucchini Vichyssoise
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon good olive oil
5 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (4 to 8 leeks)
4 cups chopped unpeeled white boiling potatoes (8 small)
3 cups chopped zucchini (2 zucchini)
6 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Fresh chives or julienned zucchini, for garnish
Heat the butter and oil in a large stockpot, add the leeks, and saute over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, zucchini, chicken stock, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Cool for a few minutes and then process through a food mill fitted with the medium disc. Add the cream and season to taste. Serve either cold or hot, garnished with chopped chives and/or zucchini.
i always notice and pick up new books that are laying around my sister and brother-in-law’s house when i am here. i started this yesterday. two years ago i read chap clark’s eye-opening book on teenagers while i was here for thanksgiving, and i remember being very moved by it. so i delved into this immediately and already know that i will want one of my own. just for this precious gem…
“your child is not a problem to be solved, but a creative, talented, and unique gift to be understood, embraced, and ultimately set free.”
now that’s a parenting journey i can embrace.
yesterday i drove to chicago. again. i love to visit my sister, but this is getting a little ridiculous. she should definitely move closer. how about st. louis? they have a trader joe’s. which is, of course, the other big draw. anna and joe. oh, and a house full of girls. that’s mary polly’s motivation. she would just as soon move in. really. i think she would leave us for the davidsons. well, maybe not simon. but the rest of us for sure.
anyway, 13 hours in the car. (i take my time when i drive alone…i have “pushed it” on so many trips with my dad and husband that it is a relief to go at my own pace. i even let mary polly and ben play at a mcdonald’s playland for an hour while i wrote in my journal.) all that quiet time was so good. mp and ben watched movies and read books. and drew pictures. they enjoyed having the entire minivan to themselves. it’s practically as much room as they have at home to themselves, so they were happy as larks. ben did forget his DS which interrupted my quiet for about 30 minutes while he cried about it. other than that, the drive was very pleasant. even if i was wiped from driving at the end of the day, i had a lot of time alone to think. to pray. to cry. you just have time to process in the car. alone. and quiet. i gave some time to thinking through how moved i was this week by our new community service, which is the monthly wednesday evening service at our church where we take communion and worship in a different way from sunday morning. this week, we were led by two precious young couples who are heading to different parts of the world to fulfill God’s unique calling on their lives. as they each told their stories, in between singing these incredibly lilting, haunting and heart-breaking songs, i leaned way forward, on the edge of my seat, not wanting to miss one word. and yet, as i thought about these four while i drove, i realized that i was most moved by the things that they didn’t say. they didn’t talk about the things they are giving up. they didn’t say they aren’t having children of their own right now because God is calling them to other children, children in india who don’t have parents, who don’t even know what a DS is. or to another life that isn’t very child-friendly. constant travel. they didn’t say that they are leaving their families to serve God far far away. leaving america. leaving what is comfortable. it broke me to think about all they are willing to give up. and yet, they (like so many missionaries before them) are not looking at their lives in terms of what is lost, but only in terms of what is gained. which is life. everything.
the leaves started to change as i got further north. it is colder here, and really fall. reds and yellows and oranges. when i drive a long way in one day, and i see so much, i think about how God can see the whole world. day. night. fall. spring. america. india. europe. china. all in one glimpse. He can take it all in. it does not overwhelm Him. in such a great expanse, He sees me driving north on I-57. He sees my heart.
we’re doing this scripture reading program at my church. our pastor, who also happens to be my dad, said on sunday as he read psalm 19, that reading the bible is like gaining gold, much pure gold. but the words that stood out to me from that psalm were
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
verse 10
honey. we like honey at our house. we go through a lot of it. i put it in my crazy homemade yogurt. and when you pour honey, you almost always drip a little somewhere. on my finger. i love that little lick of honey. that little bit of sweet. well, i just like sweets anyway. nice ones. in fact, i must confess that were i not preoccupied with many other things, i might actually think that all of life was about the search for the one perfect sweet. ina garten’s lemon pound cake. tiramisu in florence. superb chocolate. preferably dark. the best apple pie ever…served hot, with blue bell vanilla ice cream on top. we have a couple of cakes in our family that get really close to perfect. i also have great love for cookies. peanut butter with chocolate chunks. anna and i have been on a hunt for the perfect gingersnap this fall. or my standby…good old chocolate chip, loaded with pecans, hot out of the oven, still a little doughy. and a glass of milk. i can taste it.
taste.
sweet.
honey.
taste and see that the LORD is good. psalm 34:8
how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! psalm 119:103
so that’s where i’m heading this week. i started the journey with fellow fellowship northers on monday. and i’m in for the early morning experience that is the ultimate comfort food. i won’t even get a stomachache from overindulging, like the oh too many times i’ve eaten too many cookies.
i’ve been listening to this song this week by jenny lewis called rise up with fists. i do that. listen to one song over and over until i know all the words. this song, which has a little bit of an attitude, is fitting my level of cynicism this week. sometimes it feels like everything you do is sort of going up against a big brick wall and splashing into a puddle on the ground. mud. what’s the point, you know? everyone else is doing it. no one else cares. i am the only one. you are all alone. whatever. i know i sound like a teenager. but as these stupid words/lies have filled my head this week, i have used this song to sort of smile through it. more like smirk.
so here’s the first verse that i really really like. sorry i can’t do that nifty thing where you can actually listen to the song. but i’m sure you can find it.
What are you changing?
Who do you think you’re changing?
You can’t change things, we’re all stuck in our ways
It’s like trying to clean the ocean
What do you think you can drain it?
Well it was poison and dry long before you came
But you can wake up younger under the knife
And you can wake up sounder if you get analyzed
And I better wake up
There but for the grace of God, go I
postscript
i have to give props to robert davidson for my introduction to this song. the guys in our family exchange cd mixes at christmas every year and i finally get around to robert’s cd during late summer or early fall. no offense robert. it just takes me a little while to get through them…you know since i only consume about one song a week. and this year robert’s was a two volume. i actually pilfered it from the bowels of the big mongo church van that taido drives. both cd’s have issues, skipping around numbers 10 and 11. rise up with fists is only number 8 (we spent a very long time on number 6, which i still haven’t quite given up, but i know 11 skips because it is the song cole likes on the cd so whenever i’m not looking he just moves the track up. he’s ticky like that.
simon and i spent an hour today learning not to throw our food.
of course i already know how to not throw food, except for maybe the occasional flinging from vigorous stirring. but simon. he throws food at every meal. so we sat down to lunch (whole wheat angel hair with grilled salmon, feta, tomatoes and pesto) and simon immediately wanted full access to his bowl of pasta. so he could throw it.
oh no, simon. mama is going to feed you the pasta.
i loaded his fork and started to feed him.
gimme that fork!, he said. in not so many words. but that’s what he meant.
now i appreciate his need for some control. i can be a control freak myself, so i understand the desire to feel like i am in charge. so i let him have the fork. he fed himself the mouthful of food and then, with a twinkle in his eye, he tossed the fork on the floor. it was actually at this moment that i decided that we were having a lesson. today. i have had it with the throwing, i thought. so i pulled his high chair away from the table (and from me, behind a column where he couldn’t see me) and i said, calmly.
uh oh, we don’t throw forks.
i went back to eating while he screamed in his chair for a couple minutes. then i pulled him back to the table. loaded the fork. handed him the food. he ate the food. he threw the fork. of course he did. simon is a fighter. and he’s used to having his way. there are plenty of people in this house who are happy to hand him back the fork. or the passy. or the toy. but what simon has not yet realized is that he is not the only fighter in this house. i am tired. but i have some fight left.
uh oh, we don’t throw forks.
and so we repeated. behind the column. screaming. back to the table. one bite. and then, toss. and again and again. how many times? i actually lost count. at least six or seven times. maybe ten. at some point i finished my food. i fixed myself some cheese and crackers with jam, because if i am staying at the table all day learning not to throw food, or in this case, a fork, i am going to have some more to eat. and then just when i was starting to think that i was going to have to up the ante and stop putting any food on the fork, i smiled and said,
simon, give mama the fork.
and guess what?
he did. he handed it over.
yay simon!! i yelled and clapped. like a small child.
simon loves to clap. he’s in for a celebration.
so he plays along. we finally finish the meal without time outs between bites. he hands me the fork every time.
it is times like these that i realize i have forgotten how you often have to work a long time for some little training success with a baby. he isn’t impossible. he just takes time. lots of it.
so the best part is that i had that kind of time today. no where to be. no one else yelling for something or needed to be driven somewhere. or giving simon what he wanted. just me and simon. why, you ask? well, the other three are at middle school camp for the weekend with their daddy. they’re probably throwing their food.
that’s what she asked me. a gal i had dinner with tonight. we were talking. catching up. actually catching glimpses, because we are still getting to know one another, this gal and me. we have husbands who have been friends a while.
as we were talking, she asked me this out of the blue and i had to stop and think about it. am i happy? mostly i think that happiness is a choice we make every morning. a fight for a grateful heart that loves, instead of an entitled one that fears. but life comes around the corner and sometimes a little of this and a little of that mess with my fought for state of happiness, so i had to think about it.
fall is always funny because it starts out fun with new school things and cool weather (in some states) and then obligations start to pile up and the frenzy seems to sort of build towards the holidays. i am too busy right now. there is no doubt about that one. i would like to cut out some of what i have going on, but i can’t figure out what to let go of. i like to keep my commitments. i tell myself that i have no more going on than anyone else in my general life stage. i should be able to handle it. there is a lot of activity going on around me these days. a lot of crazy. i need way more quiet for my introverted personality than i am currently getting. i am looking for it in the crevices of my day. i stayed up until 2am last week one night just because i wanted to be alone in my house while it was quiet.
still, most of what i have going on…i chose. on purpose. and in spite of the fact that life at the chino house is currently making me very tired, it is a life i love. i love the flurry of my children. last night i walked in on simon standing on top of a chair at the art desk and grabbing markers as fast as his little fat fists could get them. mary polly and a friend flew by tonight with tape all over their mouths. cole came in and battled us about whether or not he really needed a shower after football practice. (does he really have to ask this every time? the answer never changes…) when i come to the end of the day, the little flashes of funny and quirky play over in my mind and i smile. i may need like a two week nap in january but i am happy. even in the mad rush of fall.
after our friends went home, i was finishing up my bsf lesson for tomorrow. (ummm…i might have procrastinated a little bit this week, i’m blaming my trip to dallas. which i will post about when i get my pictures uploaded…) and i read this verse.
for I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;isaiah 44:1
and this one…
if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,
streams of living water will flow from within him.
john 7:37-38
i guess i am just loving water images today, but i have to go back to this place after a few days of crazy. really after every day, but sometimes it takes a few to push me there. but God is so good. he faithfully turns me back from a parched desert into a stream. a happy little stream.
did you know that the word inundate is a derivitave of the latin word unda which means wave? so when my children (and their friends) are inundating me with questions and requests and demands to the point that i feel like i am drowning…it makes sense. linguistically. waves crashing on the beach or words knocking me over.
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