photo by Whitney Loibner

Hopefully, in less than 24 hours my family and I will be joining the party that is already in full swing at my sister’s house.  I will get to spend a few days all piled in among people for whom I am deeply grateful.  My grandmother will not be there, mainly because I can’t talk her into getting into our van with us.  You know, it kinda has a bad reputation.

Anna has already planned and probably prepared most of the food, so I get the year off from cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  However, if I were bringing a dish to a potluck this Thursday, it would most definitely be the Sweet Potato and Swiss Chard Gratin from Smitten Kitchen.  I made it last week just for fun and I might have shed a tear when it was all gone.  Super delish!

Hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

So a few Sundays ago, I had the amazing privilege of cooking with a delightful group of gals as part of our church’s Faith in Action project.  It was a huge blessing to get to serve by doing something that I enjoy so much.  We put together two dinners for single moms to have in their freezers. Chicken Pot Pie and Chili, plus some cookie dough to have chocolate chip cookies hot from the oven in a flash.

We chopped most of the vegetables for the chicken pot pies, including many bags of onions, which brought everyone to tears.  The process of taking raw, fresh ingredients to something wonderfully yummy and beautiful was a new experience for some involved, which is so fun for me.  As I have processed the day with friends, I have come to realize that this is definitely something I would like to do again.

Some of the gals took and delivered their meals themselves and I have loved hearing the stories of how all the meals were received and put to good use.  The whole day is already a treasured memory in my heart.  Sometime soon I hope to find and type out Ben’s precious memories that he wrote for school about his day of putting his faith into action.

Since we needed something to munch on while we were cooking all day, I had an apple walnut cake ready for snacking.  I am so in love with eating apples right now.  The honey crisps make me swoon!  Granny Smiths in the skillet with a little butter and brown sugar make my oatmeal taste like pie.  Speaking of which, I’ve made apple pie already and it’s not even the holidays yet.

I’ve had several requests for the apple walnut cake recipe so here it is.  It is from an old standby cookbook that my sister and I discovered together when we were first married.  Some women on the North Shore of Chicago put it together as a companion to the Ravinia Festival, which is an outdoor concert series that is meant to be attended with a picnic in tow.  Lots of the recipes from the Noteworthy cookbook are meant to be a part of your summer picnic, but this cake would be great for your autumn outings!

Apple Walnut Cake

1  2/3 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1  1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

4 cups chopped apples

1 cups chopped walnuts

In large bowl beat sugar and eggs. Add oil and vanilla.  Mix well. In medium bowl sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.  Add to sugar mixture.  Blend well. Stir in apples and nuts.  Pour into greased 9 X 13 baking dish.  Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 55 minutes.

Optional:  Top with cream cheese frosting.  (I skip this when I am serving this as a breakfast dish.)

Cream Cheese Frosting

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Cream cream cheese, butter and vanilla.  Gradually add powdered sugar until mixture reaches spreading consistency.

So I have had a little extra time this morning for cooking since I am home with a sick child.  I’ve been making apple pies all morning and I am realizing that cooking makes me generous.  As soon as I start chopping, my heart begins to just pour out of me into whatever I’m making.  This feeling that I get where I wish the whole world could have a bite of a perfect apple pie on this cloudy October day is much of the reason I love to cook.

For the last six months or so, a group of teenage boys have been showing up at our house on Sunday evenings to meet with Taido.  And while my darling husband and his theology speak is enough of a draw all his own, I suspect that the real reason they keep showing up is that we feed them.  Come on.  They’re high school boys.

A few weeks ago in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, I was putting a chicken pot pie together for dinner, so that I could enjoy my lazy Sunday afternoon at my parents’ house.  Sprawling on my parents’ couches while my kids play legos with their cousins is not a tradition I’m willing to give up even for cooking.  While I was rolling out crust and chopping up vegetables, I was praying for each of these boys by name and I got a little teary…as much from the onions as the ache in my heart from watching boys grow into men.  Boys that my own boys now love dearly.  Boys that are goofy and loud and heartbreakingly precious all at the same time.

I realized once again while I was working with my hands and heart together that my love language is food.

Sometimes food connects me to people I don’t even know yet.

Cole is only still speaking to me because he likes to eat.  He’s been asking for extra dessert in his lunch for his friends.  Sending whole loaves of banana nut bread in his lunch is helping him engage in a battle for control I like to call Just Try and Make Me Ride the Bus.  He’s buying rides home with homemade cookies.  I’m hoping that when he looks back on the seventh grade, maybe he’ll remember the food in his lunch instead of the heated discussions over grades.

If there are some people in your life you want to love with some food, here’s my variation of my mama’s delicious homemade chicken pot pie.  Tonight I’m making Arroz Con Pollo from my favorite food blogger.  And apple pie, of course.  Oh, and here’s a link to the latest Castle Bluff Camp video featuring the most excellent photography of my amazing sis-in-law.  It makes me cry every time I watch it.  LOVE THESE KIDS!!

Chicken Pot Pie

This recipe is “supersized.”  I make it in a cake pan the size of a large cookie sheet, but you could divide it into two 9X13 pans, or half the recipe. Also, I use less chicken and more vegetables, which is why the measurements vary.  You can even use vegetable broth and make it vegetarian.

½ cup butter

½ cup flour

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk

2 onions, chopped

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 cup chopped carrots

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

3-6 cups cooked, cut up chicken

4-8 cups vegetables (vary the following according to your taste):

6 potatoes, boiled until tender but not falling apart, chopped

1 cup frozen corn

1 cup frozen green beans

1 zucchini, chopped

1 yellow squash, chopped

1 cup small mushrooms, halved

Salt and pepper to taste

1 recipe homemade crust, recipe follows

Melt butter in large skillet.  Cook onions in butter about five minutes.  Add celery and carrots.  Cook 5-10 more minutes.  Stir in flour.  Add salt and pepper.  Slowly add broth and milk.  Cook until thick.

Put all the vegetables and chicken in a large cake pan.  Pour broth mixture on top.  Roll out crust to the size of pan and place on top.  (Can freeze at this point)

Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour or until crust browns.

Pie Crust

2 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks butter, chopped into cubes and chilled

¾ cup ice water

Mix flour and salt.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender.  Drizzle water while stirring and form into a large disk.  Cover in plastic and refrigerate until ready to roll out.

I’m pretty sure that Taido was still asleep in his luxurious condo in Whistler BC while these cards were being delivered to me yesterday morning.  Mary Polly and Ben instructed me to wake them up at 6am and then to go back to bed.  Mary Polly asked me early in the week to write out “the recipes” for coffee and oatmeal.  Then she made cards and put Ben in charge of toast.  Efforts to involve Cole and Simon were futile and it turned out to actually be a relief to MP that Cole spent the night elsewhere on Saturday night since the only thing he had agreed to do was set his alarm so she and Ben could get up on time.  He wouldn’t even sign the card she made.

Simon and I slept in while also listening to the commotion downstairs hoping no one would get burned.  I couldn’t believe it but they really managed to fix breakfast and deliver it to me on a tray with flowers completely on their own.  NO HELP.  I wish I had taken a picture of my tray, but they sat on the bed and watched me eat it.  I was pretty much in tears reading their cards and notes.  You see, Mother’s Day came at the end of a long week of Taido’s being gone.  He left last Monday and so I was way past done by yesterday.  But then there were my little sweeties taking up the slack on Mother’s Day.  So darling.

Recently I have read about trying to take pictures of the things that might seem ugly in your life but really represent something beautiful.  I tried to take a few of these this weekend.  Usually when I see these on other blogs, the pictures actually ARE beautiful, but these aren’t necessarily.  Still to me they each represent a small victory from a long week.

I made it to storytime where Simon made this dog puppet.

We started a scarecrow project on a rainy day.

Art room remnants.

Dishes from my breakfast in bed. Note the burnt toast.

When I went to turn in for the night, my bed was still unmade and the cards still on it.  Cole had even added a note where Mary Polly had left him a spot.  He might have even used the word grateful.

On this night before Easter,

I wonder…

how did those friends long ago

those who called Jesus friend, brother, son-

how did they wait for Easter morning?

Each year I find myself anticipating Easter morning,

even though I know what is coming.

I know the story.

But how did those who did not know the story face the holy lonesome echo of the silence of God?

This song has spoken to me on many a long night.

I return to it when I face a world I don’t understand

Or when I can’t find my way.

It has become a form of prayer for me, as are many of this musician’s words.

Andrew Peterson, The Silence of God

Simon has been sick this week, so I haven’t been out much.  Except for that trip to the doctor’s office where Simon showed his most cooperative spirit to the doctor.

I have been trying to mark Holy Week in our lives, but we haven’t finished anything we’ve started.  I began this project that by golly we WILL finish this weekend to make an Easter Tree that I saw and loved.  But I started trying to blow some eggs hollow and my ears were popping.  I got like two eggs done.  I really want to be that Mama that makes things.  That crafty gal.  But the truth is that I am the Mama that buys it at the store and lets her kids rip it out of the package and hang it on the tree.

I have aspirations.  I can envision myself as creative.  But if I invite you over for a craft making session, perhaps you could suggest dinner instead. 

So with recovering from an ear infection, lots of half-started (half-hearted) projects and a cloudy day before me, I decided the best thing to do today would be to get outside before the storm.  I met a friend at the lake and we walked.  And we laughed at our silly toddlers.  Such good medicine.

At some point, Kyah decided she didn’t want to be in her stroller anymore.  She tried to talk Simon into a trade, but when he wouldn’t go for it, she came up with her own solution.  Could he look any more annoyed by this scenario?

Getting outside in almost any capacity does something good in my heart.  A little less frantic.  Deeper breaths.

Maybe I’ll be ready for Easter after all.

If you’ve been with me for a while you know that once upon a time, I had a very bad day and I bought a pot for my front doorstep.  And if you know my house, if you grace us with your presence, you also know that apart from this pot and a flower bed or two, the rest of our front yard looks like people have been playing football in it.  Because they have.  When we first moved here there was some grass with weeds mixed in.  Then the weeds took over, and now there is just dirt.

I am developing a tradition of filling this pot in the spring with a few pretty plants that will make me smile when I walk past them into my front door.  A focal point.  Perhaps the neighbors will also point their eyes towards my little pot, instead of the eyesore that is the front lawn.  But even if they don’t, I still will.

Early last week I got a vision for my treasured pot.  A blogger I read made this beautiful Easter garden in a basket with her children.  Her basket has a darling little stone path leading to a chiseled out rock that represents Jesus’ empty tomb.  I thought about letting my children participate, but since I bought this pot for the lifting of my own soul, I opted to put it together Friday while they were at school.  Simon helped a little.  However, I did not chisel a tomb.  When you go out in to our garage to find a tool such as a chisel, you find computer cords, old hard drives, motherboards and other technical pieces of equipment that I can’t name.  This is the kind of handy my husband is.  Computer handy.  So I found some rocks from Mary Polly’s field trip to the Crystal Mines last spring and I made do.  In my heart, I see the tomb.

When Mary Polly and Ben got home from school they ooohed and awwed over our spring garden.  They even guessed about the tomb.  Then they went and got all these little tiny toy animals and put them all over my spring pot.  And I was feeling so generous and warm that I did NOT say, Um, could you please get all that plastic junk out of my beloved pot? I said, oh, it looks sweet. I did not say this because I love miniature plastic animals.  Of course I do not.  I just didn’t want to put any negative energy into such a perfectly sunshiny day.

Happy Holy Week to you and yours.

This post is written by guestblogger:  Anna Davidson (my sister).

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.  ~Marion C. Garretty

My oldest daughter asked me today, “Mom, will I ever have to babysit Emily?”  (She’s 8 and asking about her 6 year old sister).  “No,” I said.  “Good,” was her answer.  I’m witnessing a sisterhood in process with these two.  There are many bumps in the road.  At this stage, they:  step on each other, spit toothpaste into each other’s hair, leave clothes and toys littered all over shared space (I think this bothers me more than either of them), and can annoy each other more than any other person on earth.  But, they also share some sweet moments.  They look out for each other at school, they miss the other when they’re gone, they offer each other a different perspective on life, a different lens to see things through.  They are night and day, and can be so similar at the same time.  Reminds me of someone I know…

My sister and I also had many bumps in the road.  She blazed the trail for me when she started school.  I would wait outside for her to come home every day during those 2 long years she went without me.  She taught me how to make friends–but she was always better at keeping them.  Probably because she didn’t hit them or call them names.  Hmmm…  She was my built in playmate during long breaks and family vacations.

She’s the one I can always call and say “Remember when…”  She knows me in a way that no one else does.  She’s seen me through it all–but as a peer, a fellow sojourner.  So, what used to be our ability to cut straight to the heart and push those buttons in a heated fight or argument, has now become a tie that binds.  An ability to help each other through hard things.  Or help me gain a new angle when I’m stuck.

And, I’m a sister to someone else too… We’ve had two years with our youngest son and it’s given me some perspective on my brother’s life.  He is caught somewhere between being tortured and doted on.  Phineas brings a lightheartedness to our family.  He makes us laugh and smile–which is why I like this picture of me and Alison and Peter.  Peter did that too.  I love being with my brother.  He adds an element of fun and playfulness when he’s around.  We always seem to be on the same page.  And even though our shared language can be humorous belittling and therefore I so rarely say it, I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for my brother.

They are both a precious link to my childhood–and I am joyfully getting to see it replayed, with new characters and scenes at my house daily.

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply…  ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

I love to get outside in the spring.  In fact, I always feel a little sad about leaving Arkansas for spring break because the weather is turning so lovely and the wisteria usually comes out while I am gone.  Frequently in the spring and fall, we go for family walks around our local lake.  Incidentally I wish I could pull an Anne Shirley and rename this lake because it is referred to in our town as Lake Number 3 or simply as the swimming lake, but no one ever swims in it except for once a year during the Polar Bear Plunge.  Neither of those names have any charm, but I guess it doesn’t matter since people always know what you’re talking about when you say, Do you want to go walk around the lake? I’ve been walking around it for as long as I can remember.  I even ran around it for a very short spurt of time in high school.  I didn’t make it for very long as a runner though.  It is only about a mile around the lake and Simon has almost reached the age that the other kids were when they started walking around it.  He only has a few more days in the stroller.  Or the backpack.

We went for a walk yesterday after dinner, and it was the first moment I was thankful for the daylight savings curse of last week that robbed us of five otherwise potentially happy mornings.  It was calm and quiet at the lake, and the whines of children being made to load up for a walk disappeared as the big kids remembered how actually they really like to walk around this lake.

To find a goose egg.
To race to the bend.
To smell spring.
Wet and muddy.
What’s that smell?
Someone said as we walked.
It’s the way it always smells in the spring.
Someone answers.
Damp, but clean.

We picked up a couple of cousins on a detour from the normal route.
Thanks for all that exercising!
One of them said when we dropped him off post walk.

It’s good to stretch our legs.

I think mine are finally waking up from their long winter’s sleep.

*A special thanks to bloggers from the north who encourage me to get outside in my mildest of winters by braving walks in the snow and ice.

Late last night I was kind of having that defeated feeling that you get when you have managed to have at least one altercation with every member of your family during the waking hours of a single day.

Cole had to finish a diorama and report last night that I’m sure he’s known about for weeks but OF COURSE saved for the last minute.  He basically glued some army men in a shoe box and called it done.  He’s artistic like that.  However, there didn’t even happen to be any army men (or other armed forces) in the book which said diorama was depicting.  Then he wrote less than a paragraph and called that part done too.  I said, nope, not done. And he gave his classic Napoleon Dynamite sigh and it all pretty much went downhill from there.

Mary Polly’s legs wouldn’t work when she woke up yesterday.  That’s right.  SHE COULDN’T WALK! Or so she said, as she curled up in a ball on the floor in front of her clothes for half an hour crying.  No time for breakfast.  Then later, ugly words were exchanged over another project undone.

Ben exploded when he came in the front door after school.  I don’t mean that he got angry.  I mean as soon as Ben arrives somewhere, you know he is there by the stuff.  Shoes, lunchbox, wrappers and tupperwares from inside unzipped lunchbox, backpack, papers, rocks from the playground.  All over the room.  And where did he go?  He’s off making another mess somewhere.  Only this time I went and found the messmaker, let him have it and kicked him out of doors for the rest of the day.

Simon.  Every hour or so we have a major power struggle over something related to the fact that he hasn’t lived here long enough to know who’s in charge.  Because it’s me.  ME ME ME ME!  But that doesn’t keep him from trying.  I don’t want that lunch.  I want THIS shirt!  You know this one I’ve been wearing for four days, just try and get if off me!

So when the diorama was finally by the front door and all the children tucked into bed, I was just kind of sad.  And then I was reading one of my favorite blogs, a photographer named Tara Whitney that my Whitney showed me last fall and she had posted this new collaboration she is working on where she and this other guy photograph and film your family at the same time.  The result is more beautiful than I had ever imagined when she first mentioned the new project a while back.  And the family being filmed is another blog I read, making it even more fun.  After watching this, I just felt like burning all the backpacks, schoolbooks and dioramas in the front yard and telling my family to all skip out on regular life today so we could go dance in a field and eat grapes off a wooden platter.

Of course, then it was raining this morning and Cole had to trudge off to school in the dark with shoebox in tow.

But still.  Just watch this.  It will make you so happy.  And the beautiful song playing is on Taido’s 2008 Best CD.