Thinking about Pie

OK, I’m riffing on a recent post (see below) by a friend, but I found her thoughts with me this afternoon as I made pie dough for this week’s Thanksgiving festivities. As I happily measured and patted the stickiness that I hope to turn into two lovely pumpkin pies, I realized that my pie journey had been a long one and that, while my pastry skills are still just OK (and that I am, in turn, quite OK with OK), both my baking and my life skills have really changed since the dark days of the boxed Jiffy pie crust (baked with love and fun, but zero skill), frozen pie crusts (just yuck), and the gloppy par-baked goo that went right into the trash (looking back, no love for pie or self in that mess).

I have learned that making pie requires achieving some minimal inner peace and an acceptance of oneself. For me, I needed to accept my own imperfections, acknowledge I needed help, ask for that help, and then trust my own hands and instincts to make it happen. At the same time, I had to learn that pie dough is not perfection, a ragged mess might actually be a step in the right direction, mistakes can be fixed, and – at the end of the day – it’s just a pie crust.

Regardless of what experts will tell you about baking being a science (and it normally is), to make a pie crust, you need to surrender yourself to the Pastry Gods, take a breath, and go with what feels right, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time.

Here’s hoping that the lovely round discs in the fridge will turn into something tender and flaky for Thanksgiving.

For much more eloquent recent pie musings than mine:

Zen pie by Love and Onions -
My friend and pie teacher becomes the student.

GIVE THANKS! Caramel Mascarpone Pumpkin Pie by Confections of a (Closet) Master Baker
This will certainly be next year’s pumpkin pie filling attempt. Super-detailed photos and notes on from a professional baker on her version of pie dough take a lot of the mystery out of the process.

First Quarter Results

Sad fact: since going back to work, I sometimes think of my life in terms of fiscal years and quarters.

This year will end with my saying good-bye to my thirties and hello to whatever’s next. I have decided to take inspiration from myself – for a change – to celebrate my getting to the next birthday milestone. In the last year-and-a-half, I have more or less figured out the work-family balance and the kid-family balance and the PTA-volunteerism-balance and a few other balances that make sense for our family. Nowhere in there is a family-work-ME balance.

And so, slowly, 2012 will be a little bit about trying harder to find the time to do things for myself, be they for my health or sanity or sheer entertainment.

Approaching the end of the Q1, I have a list of what I’d like to do and some tentative results.

In no particular order:

1. Get a physical
2. Get a massage and facial
3. Get another massage. And maybe another facial...
4. Figure out how to bake a chewy chocolate cookies
5. Find a dermatologist and make appointment
6. Get a mammogram
7. Exercise more
8. Tweak my hair cut and color
9. Finally read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the Hunger Games
10. Get a second opinion on my eyesight, or lack thereof
11. Get away for a girls’ weekend

Results are in, and I have knocked off items 1 and 2, have concrete plans for 11, and am working on 7. Not too shabby, I think!

Wherein we revisit my 2010 resolutions...

Hmmm...happy March!

Sometime in January, I belatedly thought to address my little note about why I even started this little blog.

So, here I am now, adding this little update for 2012: Still cooking, cleaning much less, exploring more via internet than anywhere else, but always attempting to nurture my family and trying to figure out when and how to say "no" to some of the demands on all of us.

I think the idea, two years ago, was to take some time for myself and explore what I do, try new things (like blogging and knitting), and maybe share it with a few interested parties.

I can report the knitting as a complete bust, but I am more mindful of cooking and trying new projects in the kitchen. And that the blog isn't complete, totally dead. Yet.

Helicopters don't fly... they just beat the air into submission

For some reason, this blog has morphed into one about cooking, mostly. Yet part of my life, my job, my day-to-day is also parenting. In making a home for my family, being a Mom is probably my first and last concern every day. That said, this Slate article has been making the rounds on Facebook and elsewhere. It links back to both a 1979 checklist of first grade readiness and another blog post on Free-Range Kids. As the parent of a first-grader, these posts really made me think.

Can your child meet 10 out of the 12 criteria for 1979 readiness? We were doing great

4. Can he draw and color and stay within the lines of the design being colored?

until

8. Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend's home?

And thus the rounds on the internet...

No. My child cannot "travel alone in the neighborhood" and never has. And no one would expect it of either of us. But it did make me think that maybe, in being there all the time for our kids, we're all a little too "there."

I firmly believe that raising a child means helping him or her grow into a responsible adult who can go out into world with the self-knowledge, confidence, and basic skills to make good choices and function well. "Socialization" has been my watch-word since our first trip to the playground. And this list showed me that the standards used to be a lot lower. (Come on - first graders are reading chapter books and drawing with perspective now!) Yet some of those important, basic, SOCIAL skills were mastered much earlier.

So I am reminded that, sometimes, being there means taking a big step back and letting go. Not that I'm going to be the only mom the in neighborhood who doesn't walk her child to and from the bus stop (a school no-no)...but I'll think about it.

Suburban Commando

Every now and again, I go a little crazy and get into what I've termed "suburban commando mode."

Being a Suburban Commando requires one to complete series of tactical maneuvers and some serious supply chain management in order to meet all the items/errands on a checklist within a limited kid-free window while simultaneously planning and cooking meals, doing laundry, and handling other household matters, maintaining the role of primary caregiver for said child, and sustaining minimal contact with work.

It can make you tired.

While this has been going on every since I gave birth oh-so-long-ago, it's gotten more frenetic since I returned to work. The Suburban Commando is doing all the housewifery in half the time!

Today was pretty easy: water garden before family woke and needed shower, start working, start laundry, get kid to camp (with sunscreen applied, lunch, snack & water bottle in tow), tank up car and go to ATM, drive home, move laundry to dryer, "finish" work, shower, start more laundry, drive to post office, craft and grocery stores, come home to continue laundry, plan dinner menu for week, and eat lunch. Still on tap: pick up kid, go to dentist, finish laundry, maybe go swimming, dinner, bath time, and then get everyone to sleep.

Yeah, today is my "day off" when I don't go into the office.

A lazy summer dinner party

Entertaining is not my thing. Cooking and cleaning, yes, but providing a warm and welcoming home to people not actually living in said home? Not so much. Slightly obsessive people with control issues (however self-aware) really have no business trying to play host.

Once every blue moon, my husband and I either choose to invite friends over for a meal or are sort of talked into throwing a party. Last week, we did the former and it was wonderful. Here's what I learned about throwing a successful summer dinner party:

1) Invite people you like and who don't need to be impressed.
2) Make most of the meal ahead of time.
3) Have the kids eat outside while the adults are inside.
4) Go barefoot.
5) Have another glass of wine, sit down to enjoy your meal, and talk to your friends.
6) Check on the kids now and again, but let them figure out what to do. Ours invented elaborate outdoor games and then chased fire flies.

Phoning it in...

School's out, summer's begun and - for the first time - childcare is a necessity, not a luxury. Momma's got to work. Happily, with some juggling, Momma's also been able to swing some time working at home to accommodate this first week of half-day camp that someone HAD to attend. (Momma might also be a sucker, that that's another post.)

So I'm finding myself phoning into conference calls, looking at the Crackberry more than usual, and bending over backwards to be present in my professional life. The thing is, the housewifery doesn't take the summer off either. Oh no! Simultaneous to working from home, there are swim lessons and housework and the demands of a whiny joy of spending time with a child free from school. And we're somehow on the hook for hosting summertime parties too.

My original thought with this blog was to mull how home-work and paid-work (private versus public sphere if you will) overlap in my own life, and to make sense of it for myself. Of course, what I've concluded so far is that they collide more than overlap. If anything, there's a constant (mental) battle between the two and all I can do is find some joy in whichever "work" occupies my present. Living in the moment, if you will, but living in the moment with about 5 brain cells devoted to the next moment.

It's all very tiring and, despite having some pride in my home and my family, and a genuine like (if not love) of cooking, June has been mostly about phoning it in as a housewife too. I confess, I just about gave up for a few weeks. Little-to-no cooking, minimal cleaning, and working just enough to ensure that each family member had enough clean clothes to make it to school or work. Thus passed most of June.

And, we also threw a small party where our guests did not seem to notice that it was a truly lazy summer gathering. More later on how to host a lazy summer dinner party...

Blueberries and Butter

Blueberry season! With our local grocer selling blueberries as a buy one pint/ get 2 pints free, and a husband with a yearning for pie, I sense another weekend baking project. It IS Father's Day tomorrow and a girl's gotta practice her pie crust.

Meanwhile, I started Saturday by baking 2 sourdough loaves and making some butter. Will have to write a bit more on the latter, as it evoked some food memories and prompted quite the inspirational riff about what to do with almost a pound of the stuff.

Food Porn

I have a small addiction. To cooking shows. Around here, when little pitchers are out of earshot, we call it food porn, thinking ourselves so very clever. Turns out that those guys from South Park caught on back in 2010 with their Crème Fraiche episode.


It's hilarious, and you'll never deglaze the same way again.

Now we're on to Next Food Network Star for the summer. Imagine my surprise to find someone from college on my screen. I remember Mary Beth as quiet with a wickedly funny sense of humor. It'll be interesting to see how she does.

Katherine's Pot Roast, Part One

Last month, my little Sunshine and I had the chance to fly out to Santa Fe and spend a long weekend with Katherine and her family. To thank them for having us, and to make carnivore Mr. Katherine happy, I cooked them up a pot roast. In fact, it burbled away in a Crock Pot while we went on a short hike up in the nearby mountains, seen here.

By way of a back-story, Katherine is a vegetarian and the Mr. is not. I promised to give them a recipe and then realized that writing one is harder than I had imagined. For one, pot roast is the one thing I can cook without even glancing at a recipe. Two, preparing a recipe for someone who rarely cooks – and never eats – meat might mean a little more expository writing than my tired brain could handle. Three, culling sources for a good recipe from which to start revealed an infinite variety out there.

One month later, and I’m working on it. I’ve figured out that what I do approaches an Italian pot roast or stracotto. Unlike the recipes online, I don’t use mushrooms. Also, due to my own biases, anything with too many prepackaged ingredients was right out.

For Katherine… this is the essence of what’s done and I promise I’ll break it out into an actual recipe very, very soon:

Season and brown a large hunk of cheap, tough red meat.
Cook down some vegetables in the same pot.
Combine meat and veggies in a slow cooker with enough liquid to cover.
Cook 7-10 hours.
Serve with the starch of your choosing.

Food Biases

I like to cook and have a few biases I’ve noticed while doing it. Before I write about my pot-roast-for-Katherine and our favorite split pea soup, I thought I’d share my kitchen quibbles:

• Bacon really makes anything taste better.
• Ditto for pastry dough.
• Vegetables are awesome, but ham tends to make it into my vegetarian entrée recipes.
• I cannot fathom making savory foods without garlic, onions or both as part of the dish.
• Spicy foods aren’t my thing, but I like well-seasoned food.
• I tend to reject any recipe calling for a can of condensed soup as an ingredient.
• Actually, I’m not a fan of canned anything other than beans, tomatoes, and the occasional simmer sauce.
• While not completely opposed to convenience foods in cooking, I tend to think, “how can I make this myself?”

We've Been Experiencing Technical Difficulties

We've been experiencing technical difficulties… thank you for standing by!

A little laziness and a little problem with Blogger and Google meant a big problem adding anything to this site. Happily, it seems better now. Except for the laziness...

Redefining Work

It's suddenly November, and a full week into the month at that. I'm told we "gain an hour" this weekend by switching back to Standard Time. Gain an hour? Hahahahaha....

Somehow end of summer and the beginning of fall did not quite go as planned. We drifted through August, and looked forward to a Little Person's start of Kindergarten. I anticipated a bit more free time to explore my home and devote some time to myself.

Kindergarten did start with only the most minor of adjustments for the child. And I was offered an expanded role at work, complete with a salary bump, flexible hours and benefits. Which would have been foolish to pass up. At the same time, my work-mostly-from-home husband saw a rise in his travel and a lot more time in the office. And no one warned us that elementary school would come with a constant barrage of fundraisers, evening activities, parent meetings AND -- for us -- volunteering to help coach soccer lest our child and friends lose their chance to have a team.

Thus, it's November. Today is the last day of soccer, where I will have my Blackberry with me, and I'm still trying to organize the school papers that came home in September. I haven't been to the gym since October, and my homecooking has only recently come together more like it was in the days when I had much more time in the kitchen.

Morning Musings

Up at 6 am to pour some coffee and get to work (the paid kind) in my PJs. The programmable coffee maker might just be the best thing ever.

Pondering the day's to-do list, which seems to include making a school lunch, a conference call later, laundry, a ream of school forms, some basic housecleaning, and so on. Typical day.

Also, we'll have to finish the rest of our homemade sourdough bread...

...before is gets stale. In the blogging world, plans are afoot to report back on my ongoing obsession with bread and starter.