Pimping the electric ride

Our outing yesterday, in spite of dire weather predictions, was to a little corner shop on the fringe of downtown Seattle, MC Electric Vehicles. My big brother, mild-mannered school bus driver by day, has at latest count four cars in his garage and driveway, three of which are collectible project vehicles. With a short two-mile commute, he’s concerned about the wear and tear on his non-collectible but aging Honda CRV. He had visited the sister MC showroom in Oregon, but discovered that the little electric car he likes, the Canadian Zenn, is limited to 25 mph on neighborhood streets—hence the moniker NEV, or Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. A little research on my part revealed that the cap is 35 mph for the same car purchased in Washington, and he was wondering what mechanism was used to make this enhancement. He wandered off with the jeans-clad salesman to take a test drive.

As for me, I’m still in the research phase for a car change. I like the idea of a plug-in hybrid, since my driving patterns tend to be mostly neighborhood jaunts for kids and household stuff (school, 5 miles; co-op, 6 miles; doctor, 6 miles; and so on), all typical “neighborhood” usage. But twice a week, I make longer drives, one to Renton for my violin lesson, and one to Magnolia and Shoreline on Number One Son’s cello run (lesson + orchestra). An all-electric car would be great for the short runs, but insufficient for the 35-mile freeway- based round trips that can include side runs that bring the daily total up to over 50 miles. A standard hybrid only runs full electric to about 10 mph before it fires up the internal combustion engine, while a plug-in has more juice—enough to run up to 35 mph for 30 or so miles. On my way to school last week, I noted only one moment when I got to 40 mph, while merging into traffic. The rest was under the 35 mph that would allow me to run full electric. I am not interested in paying the premium for the new car smell, so I’m looking at the used market, which means I need to learn more about things like battery lifespan and plug-in conversions before I take the plunge. A book on the subject is on hold at the library.

Big brother, however came back all smiles from his spin in the little blue Zenn. Seems the car can be purchased in his sales tax-free state, and then a separate invoice is written to upgrade the software to allow the higher speed. It looks like he will be buying an electric blue car on his return home.

Visions of cheese

I dreamt of cheese last night. I’m not sure why, but there you have it: slabs of cheddar in toasted cheese sandwiches. It comes at a good time: The tree is finally up, and there are even some presents under it, along with the cat, who thinks it a splendid place to sleep. Gramma arrived yesterday, and the boys are thrilled. Their uncle, my brother, arrives today, since he needed to do his shopping yesterday. That means X-Day is even closer.

With a solid English tradition behind us, there is a large roast beast (from Oregon Country Beef) waiting for the oven tomorrow. We’ll fill out with red potatoes chiogga beets, a Yorky pud, and some green beans. Our soggy autumn means some of the produce has come from farther south than I care to admit, but local pears will top a warm frangipane tart (we’ll melt some ice cream on top). But what about the Christmas Eve? If we were good Catholics (we’re not, but I promised the bishop I wouldn’t stand in my husband’s way when raising our children as such), we would fast until after evening mass. That’s already a lost ideal, since Gramma joined the boys in a bowl of manly oatmeal for breakfast.

So what to make? As if he can read my dreams of cheese like an open book, Darling Husband looks at me and says, “let’s make Käsespätzle!” It’s a meal the whole family makes together: Beat together 500 grams of flour and 6 eggs until bubbles form. Sounds easy enough, but we have to take turns beating the thick mixture, since our arms tire. Then one person takes up a position at the pot of boiling water and spoons the bubbly dough into the Spätzle press. Another gets the job of lifting the cooked noodles out of the pot with the strainer spoon when they rise to the surface, and layering them with grated Gruyère in a big warm bowl. Whoever isn’t cooking is setting the table and helping make salad. When the whole thing is done, a generous handful of crunchy onions goes on top and we all dig in.

We’ll fête the evening with eggnog and oodles of homemade cookies and a reading of The Night Before Christmas, and take a plate to the neighbors. The boys will artfully arrange a selection for the old guy in the red suit, along with the finest local carrots for the reindeer, of course (We figure the cat will be really surprised by his appearance in the fireplace). The Spätzle will warm our bellies and stick to our ribs, and the cookies will fill the corners, insuring that when we settle down for our long winter’s nap, we’ll be surrounded by visions of sugarplums—or Brie, as the case may be.

Empties

When I was in high school, the hot civics theme was the trade imbalance. It was clear in the late 70s that it was an untenable practice to continue to import more than we exported. This was pure economic theory, based on common sense: if you kept buying more stuff, and selling less, then you would eventually run out of money, since buying is less profitable than selling. But then the Reagan years ensued, and we were treated to talking heads who told us that it was OK to buy into excess, since the poor would benefit via “trickle down.” Since we were young and still pretty stupid, and it was what many of us wanted to hear anyway, we bought into it—literally. Of course, the results were as dire as predicted, even before we figured in the environmental costs, which we hadn’t at the time.

***

It’s Christmas season, and while I literally don’t buy into copious consumerism, I do purchase presents, and thus more stuff altogether in this season. The week I spent in bed laid up with the flu let me get my shopping done online and early. For two weeks, it seemed like the mail carrier and UPS guy were taking turns stopping at our house. No surprise then, that there is a growing stack of boxes in the garage.

There are a couple of padded envelopes from Powell’s and FSP (purveyors of fire buff paraphernalia), and a cardboard envelope from the Postal Service (I bought stamps before I decided to send our Christmas card electronically). They went into an office cupboard with like friends (they’ll be reused to send books to other book moochers). But then there are boxes from Hanna Andersson’s (striped organic cotton jammies for the whole family), the LED light store (we replaced some halogen bulbs), and B&H photo (an indulgence—a tripod). Add to that list some oversized cartons from finishing up the long-term bath remodel this week (a high cabinet, the cabinet door, a faucet assembly, shower doors, a hand-held shower), and another large box from the replacement office chair I’m sitting on now, and it’s easy to see why the recycling bin will be full. And that doesn’t count the plastic pouch from Victoria’s Secret (shh! Don’t tell Darling Husband!) that has to go in the garbage.

In the interest of rebalancing our export deficit, I worked on getting some stuff out of here: Two bags of toys went to charity, Freecycle yielded three people interested in a 15-year old office chair, and a visit to Craigslist transformed a bulky, dusty telescope into a Christmas present for a starry-eyed girl in Lynnwood, and an empty shelf for us.

***

As we drove from my violin lesson to Number One’s cello lesson this week, we decided to take the more scenic route, going up the back way via Highway 99 instead of I-5. It’s fun, because it takes you through the industrial area: big warehouses, waterfront cranes and railroad yards. One of the more striking features are the mountains of containers. Literal mountains, hundreds of containers stacked ten or twelve high. They’re mostly orange, some blue, with names like Cosco, Matson and the like. But one mountain caught my eye as we stopped for a red light: A huge banner hung from the side of a cliff screaming, “CONTAINERS FOR SALE.” I thought of the relatively small mound of empty boxes in my garage, and realized what they were. The stuff that we buy comes from overseas, leaving us with not only a trade deficit, but a container surplus. No one is going to pay to ship empty containers back across the Pacific. But since people have a need to store their excess stuff somewhere (their houses are full), a container in the backyard may be just the thing.

***

Of course, there will be presents under our tree this year, but many will be edible, handmade or re-purposed (yes, I shopped for presents at Value Village). Our presents will be swaddled in holiday fabric, re-used every year in increasingly creative ways, so there will be no wrapping paper waste. And there will be no need for a container or storage locker to store anything, since we just happen to have some empty shelf space.

A low-wattage Christmas

Number One Son had a fit today. The British neighbors were out, unfurling their strings of Christmas lights, and we needed to get to the store so we could do ours too. Right now! The fact that I had just mixed up some mortar to finish the downstairs bathroom shower didn’t seem to faze him.

I calmly informed him that Darling Husband and I had talked about it and decided to put the brakes on buying more of the ubiquitous strings of lights from China. I noted that if they wrote ‘disposable’ on the package, it might make people stop and think (then again, it might not). His eyes grew wide with disbelief, “Aren’t you embarrassed to not have lights up?”

This from the child who wept at the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth, who gently moves ladybugs to where the aphids are, and who merrily spent the afternoon replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED and CF bulbs last week.

I know he is at an awkward stage, the inner child wanting everything magical and simple, but the emerging adult understands that everything has a cost. I will search to see if I can find some simple, durable star lanterns—with replaceable bulbs) or instructions to make them). For this is a season of traditions, and I choose a tradition that does not involve standing in front of a mountain of imported strings, wondering if I spend a dollar more if they will last one more year.

I am reminded of the acquaintance who tried to sell us on attending the Christmas pageant at his mega-church. I can’t think of anything less Christmassy than microphoned choirs and baby Jesus production numbers with a cast of thousands. No, I prefer the low-key exterior and a warm inner light.

Shopping lotto

Mt family plays a game we call library lotto. It goes something like this: You run across a reference or a review of a book or movie, or someone recommends it to you, so you log on to the library website and place a hold on it. If it’s an older or obscure title, it may come up quickly; but if it’s popular, it can take months, sometimes close to a year before it arrives on the hold shelf with your name on it. It’s sort of a poor man’s Netflix, except the order is seemingly random.

Or is it? It’s clear that books relate to each other differently depending on the order I read them in, and that order is rife with coincidence. This week, after watching An Inconvenient Truth, I delved into Deep Economy, which treats some of the same issues of import from a socio-economic standpoint. I passed through the chapter on eating locally for a year (Barbara Kingsolver’s opus on that subject is still in a library holding pattern), and dove into his discussion of shopping.

Now, this is a subject near and dear to my heart, but not because I love shopping. Actually, I rather dislike it—in spite of gender stereotypes. The funny thing is, there was a time in my life, or rather a place, when I didn’t mind ‘doing the marketing’ one bit.

Mr. McKibben cites a quote that implies that this country’s entire economy is built on the suburbs: building them, moving in and out of them, and filling them with stuff. He gallantly resists naming by name the institutions built to deal with the stuff that won’t fit in them anymore, from storage lockers to virtual places like eBay.

But then he starts writing about the experience of shopping at a farmer’s market. It seems, surprisingly, that when people shop there, they have—gasp!—conversations, at least ten on average, with the people selling their wares. I immediately thought of the markets I used to shop when I lived in Germany. In our university town, my shopping trips were frequent, as our kitchen was too small to store much of anything. I would grab my wicker basket (sturdy to protect bottles and eggs, and it stood upright when I set down my heavy load) and walk a few blocks to the tram. A tram ran every six minutes, and took me straight downtown. A few blocks from there, surrounding the late gothic cathedral that dominated the city, was the daily market (every day except Sunday). To the south of the church were the dry goods, fresh food was on the north side, with the folks serving prepared foods grouped around the western door.

I wasn’t buying anything unusual, just things like bread, meat, veggies, and eggs. But for each item, I had a choice of several different providers. Trial and error, and learning tricks like joining the longest line taught me where to get the best quality. A conversation was required to explain what I wanted, and what I wanted it for, for they weren’t selling standardized commodities, but natural products with all the variety nature provides in her infinite wisdom. I learned about the different varieties of potatoes and tomatoes from the people who grew them. I learned that even though the fruits and vegetables are spread out in front of me, I should ask before I may pick any out, for they often pick it out for me. I learned that if I saved up my egg cartons and brought back a couple of dozen, it was good for a free carton of eggs from one farmer. I learned that asparagus had a season, as did strawberries and currants and different kinds of lettuce. It was a terrific way to learn and improve my German—interaction was necessary to survive, for indeed, I could not have food if I could not speak with merchants.

Compare this to a run to a supermarket in today’s American suburb. Human interaction is often limited to avoiding other customers driving their carts one-handed while they chat on their cell phones, absently tossing pre-packaged items into their carts. The cookie-cutter supermarket is the ultimate in self-serve: boxes and trays of food commodities wait on shelves for you to help yourself. The button that summons a butcher is a thing of the past (along with the butcher himself), and self checkout means that I can literally get in and out of the store without uttering a single word (and the only word uttered to me is a recording). Pity the exchange student in this country: they’ll have to go elsewhere to hone their language skills. But, oh, what they’re learning about our culture.

It’s not about money, it’s about community. If we are islands unto ourselves, we are unhappy. Like it or not, we need each other, and the whole model of suburbia and supermarkets does not feed our need to belong. Unfortunately, my German town and the rest of the world is moving toward the American way propogated by popular culture, with Wal-marts and their brethren popping up like proverbial mushrooms, along with planned communities.

With the seasonal closure of our local farmer’s market, I admit to feeling a bit cut off. The staff at the coop are good for a few conversations—and there is no self checkout there. Until spring, we shall eat dark leafy greens and gather with friends and family, make music, and build community as best we can.

Measuring our feet

We finally got around to seeing Al Gore’s opus, An Inconvenient Truth. The reason for the delay is simple: we use the library reserve system, which means we put our name on a waiting list for the next available copy. In this case, it took nearly a year to work our way to the top of the list. I wasn’t worried about the time lapse, and in truth, it made it all the more significant, since this two-year old information is even more valid today.

We figured there would be a fair amount of preaching to the choir, and we were right. We went through the exercise of visiting Al’s carbon calculator, and came up with a short list of things to do:

1. Finally swap out the remaining incandescent light bulbs with CF or LED bulbs (LED bulb arrays can replace those ubiquitous hot halogen energy hogs).
2. Re-evaluate our cars. This week, filling my car’s tank finally passed the $40 mark, and I’ve been living in a state of denial about driving so much in a big car when it’s more and more just me by myself. Hybrids have been around long enough that I can find a used one, and if I can find one that fits a cello in it’s cargo space, I’m good to go.
3. Purchase green energy. The PSE flyer has been on my desk for ages, and will only cost us about $10 a month. This seems a no-brainer, so it goes on my to-do list now.
4. Consider carbon offsets. I’ve never much liked the idea of purchasing the right to pollute, but my recent election to the ATA Board of Directors means that I am expected to attend four meetings a year, which will mean flying, often cross-country. The first meeting is booked, and an offset from Native Energy would be only $24. Since the money would go directly to funding alternative energy sources, I’m almost ready to take the plunge, but I hesitate.

As does my Darling Husband, who still scoffs at the whole offset business. Selling something that doesn’t exist really rubs him the wrong way, and I completely see his point. And then he goes on: this carbon calculator looks at big things like transportation and home energy use, but what about the small, frugal choices we make every day?

I had to search, but I did find another carbon footprint calculator, which answers some of my concerns: firstly, it’s international. Imagine thinking of global climate change as a problem not limited to the borders of the only country to not sign Kyoto. It’s very interesting to see how much your footprint shrinks just by moving your habits to Europe, for example. I also like the section that lets you see just how tiny the impact your miles have when taken in public transport, as opposed to a car.

But the part I like best is the tab labeled “Secondary.” It treats things like how you eat-vegetarians trod much more lightly on the Earth than folks who scarf a Big Mac daily. Buying local, organic produce in season—eating real food—makes a difference. But we also make a difference in our consumer habits. Do you always buy new clothing and furniture, do you always take up the latest fad or sport (and purchase all the accoutrements), do you recycle or just can’t be bothered to think about these things? The difference between the thinking and non-thoughtful choices here is the difference between 1 tonne and 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The choice of what we put on the table and around us does make an impact.

Which takes me back to Darling Husband. Whenever there’s a new hire in the office, he has to “re-educate them”(his words, not mine): if you want a drink, you should not only choose water over canned soda, but you should put it in a cup or bottle that you have carried to the kitchen for that purpose. Same for a cup of coffee: bring your mug, use a spoon to stir it. A warning to anyone in his office: If you think you can get away with plucking a Styrofoam cup from the dispenser, filling it with coffee, popping the lid off a plastic non-dairy creamer and giving it a few stirs with a plastic stir stick (and then chucking it in the garbage), you will be hearing from Mr. In-Your-Face. He will press one of the spare used mugs from his office into your hand, and show you how to rinse off a spoon so you can re-use it. And you will use it.

Which takes me back to offsetting the carbon for my fight to Washington D.C. The calculator reckons it will release about .8 tonnes of carbon dioxide. It also tells me that eating less meat and eschewing overly packaged goods will more than offset that. I’m hoping those LED bulbs will help too.

Too much to drink

The rain finally let up a bit yesterday, and the water in our neighbor’s driveway subsided. I can’t say the same for some of the freeways and arterials around town, and certainly down south. They finally have a picture in today’s paper of I-5 through Centralia, the halfway mark between here and Portland, and home to outlet stores and other diversions for drivers passing through.

The last time we were in Centralia, though, we eschewed the big boxes and strip malls and headed to the old part of town. The train station had looked interesting from the tracks when I went down in September, and sure enough, we found a lovely, restored train depot, still functioning as a stop for Amtrak twice a day. Nirvana for Little One, and we came home with a pocket of smashed pennies. Soaked from the rain, we headed to the old downtown right across the street, and found a dark, warm pub (The Olympic Club) for a bite to eat and some hard cider.

As I look at the aerial photo of Centralia splashed across the front page this morning, I note that the old part of town is perched just high enough that it remains above the floodwaters: the soulless boxes and even the interstate freeway, however, are still underwater, two days later. Almost as if the founding fathers had decided to work with nature instead of arrogantly trying to master it.

We are thankful to be largely unaffected (there was a small mishap with a puddle, but it only resulted in a bit of extra laundry). We are grateful to be free of the huge task of mucking out from the storm, able to indulge ourselves in small seasonal tasks: filling the bird feeder, making up a batch of potato leek soup, lighting the first candles of Hanukkah. And wrapping presents for my brother, who is hoping the waters recede and the road is repaired before he plans to trek up for Christmas.

The sound of light

There is a single candle in the center of the room, and a few notes floating from a harp in the corner. Before my eyes adjust to the gloom, I think it is the usual accompanist, and can only make out which chairs are empty or taken, but not the faces. When Number One walks past with a candle, I realize that it is Teacher Jenny, his old preschool teacher, come home to roost in a new guise. I wonder what she is thinking, for it is she who introduced us to this contemplative festival of light as we head into the darkest season of the year.

The first year was in a tiny, cramped living room in the house that doubled as our nascent school assembly room. The spiral of pine boughs couldn’t have been more than a few feet across, and the children walking it were small. I recall the collective gasp when Little Annie bent too close to the flame and singed her hair, and the fleet spring of her teacher, who extinguished both fears and fire with a tight hug. I remember the year when we spilled into a Sunday school next door, with no harp, for Jenny had left the nest: her replacement was perched on a box in the corner with her flute, an angel-like Pan in her impish stature.

I recall the first time I saw this hall, and how I envisaged the spiral in front of me even on that bright spring day. It was clear to me that the space longed for this warm path. There was the year we put down sheets underneath, afraid that we would have to shampoo out sap, since we did not yet own the place.

I watch them now, these children. I have watched these preschoolers turn into young children, then older ones, and now I see a group of willowy almost-women with real curves, not-quite-men becoming more gangly with every step of their oversized puppy feet. When it is my turn, I want to linger, for the path is littered with treasures at every turn: a wooly gnome, a fern frond, a polished stone, a knitted ginger cat.

When the last candle is lit, the harp fades away, and our collective light fills the void. No one makes as to leave, no children fidget or cough. The silence radiates around us as we breathe in the warm glow. We fill ourselves with this light, and head home in the biting cold, ready to face the dark.

Turkey soup

There is a reason that I’m chopping carrots in my nightgown.

The two turkeys provided by two incredible women and the myriad of side dishes and pies were reduced to very little in the way of leftovers, but we snagged two treasures: a tiny plastic container of stuffing (enough to fight over, and a reason to see Patti again, to return the Tupperware) and a turkey carcass.

As expected when I eat things I shouldn’t eat (stuffing and pumpkin pie spring readily to mind), I woke with a headache. I swallowed some herbs and hoped for the best. Our Plan of the Day was to hitch a bus into town and take the monorail to Seattle Center, where Nose in a Book was to be performing with the Junior Symphony, but her mom called to say she was sick, so we regrouped. Black Friday and downtown isn’t particularly interesting to those of us who eschew materialism, and the sun was shining, so we made some calls. Some fellow first-grade parents were game for a day in the park and a good long walk, so we met up in St. Edward’s State Park and let the kids play for a bit, then headed down to the water. The cool air and warm sun felt wonderful, and we capped it off by helping them work their way through their yummy and allergen-free leftovers.

We had one more social stop for the evening, dropping in on our British neighbors for drinks and little noshes. By this time, my head had not improved and I was feeling crushingly tired, clear harbingers of a cold. And sure enough, the next morning I woke groggy and congested.

Darling Husband put on his shining armor and took both boys away for the bulk of the day, indulging the boys in such Daddy adventures as a blueberry pancake breakfast and cool shoe shopping. I figured I needed soup, but with nothing in the larder (I’d used it for the stuffing), and no one to do my bidding (here at least), I threw a sweater on over my nightie and headed to the kitchen. Making stock takes very little energy (no need to chop anything), and putting it on a low flame meant that I could get a good snooze in before making soup, also a low-energy effort. Celery, carrots and a couple of handfuls of rice meant that supper was simmering by the time the boys made their way home.

Well-meaning folk told me I would regret the potluck aspect of this Thanksgiving, that there would be no leftovers. They are right, but they were wrong. We haven’t had extra meat for sandwiches, but we enjoyed friends’ leftovers, and a bubbling pot of turkey soup honors the effort of the turkey growers, reminds me of the warmth of the gathering, and heals my sniffles.

Which is why I was chopping carrots in my nightgown.

Careful!

When I was a sophomore in high school, I enrolled in the first of many Shakespeare classes of my academic career. In addition to trying to teach us a bit about the literature, Mrs. Brandon, an enthusiastic and passionate teacher, tried to give us a little perspective on things, no small task for an audience of teenagers. I could almost grasp that the Elizabethans had a different world view, but scoffed when she admonished us, “If you’re careful enough, nothing good or bad will ever happen to you!”

But in the past few years, as the culture of fear has grown tentacles that reach into seemingly all corners of our lives, I find myself repeating Mrs. Brandon often. I shake my head when I pick up Mothering Magazine and read how C-sections are on the rise again, as each woman is convinced that it’s the safest thing to do. I groan at the admonition in the Hanna Andersson catalog that I must make sure my children’s organic cotton long johns are tight-fitting, since loose clothing is more likely to catch on fire, and I have (apparently unwisely) chosen untreated pajamas.

When we went to adopt Hannah, we quickly learned that no animal adoption agency will allow a cat to go home with a family that intends to let it outside. Interview forms contain a trick question about the indoor/outdoor intentions of the family; flyers posted prominently shout that the lifespan of an outdoor cat is considerably shorter than that of an indoor cat. I think back on all the cats I have had: only one died “young,” a runty kitten rescued from being drowned for her birth defect. Her palsy certainly contributed to her demise far more than her outside habits. Indeed, she was never happier than when romping outdoors.

Wednesday evening, as I cut real butter into flour for pastry and my Darling Husband put together spaghetti for supper, I reached for the bottle of red and grabbed a wine glass to share from the drain board. It was one of the oversized balloon stems that I purchased for the auction rather than our everyday stemware. My Darling sighed and said we shouldn’t use them; they might break, especially because they were hand-wash only. I assumed the hands-on-hip stance I learned from Mrs. Brandon, and reminded him that there was a reason for the shape of the glass. It was designed not to fit into a dishwasher, but rather, to allow your nose to fit into it, doubling the sensory input when sipping wine. I handed him the glass, and he tried it. And smiled. It does taste better this way, notes he.

I print out a recipe for stuffing for some guidance on proportions, and happen to glance down at the instructions for cooking it. There it is, in black and white: we do not recommend cooking stuffing in the bird. Apparently, it is safer to cook the stuffing in a casserole dish, and moisten it with stock. We shall not do this, however, because the payoff of stuffing a heritage turkey with local artisan bread is far too tempting to pass up. Yes, I shall risk it, as so many things in my life, for if I am not careful, I shall find joy.

Local magic

The setup happened a few weeks ago, but the magic began last night.

A random email from by my friend Patti inviting us to Thanksgiving piqued my interest. We never really celebrate this all-American festival, because, well, we’re not all American. Sure, Darling Husband loves stuffing like nobody’s business, but he didn’t grow up surrounded by the holiday and all the trimmings: maiden aunts pinching your cheek, Mom melting down over misbehaving pie crust dough, arguments over giblets in the gravy, and sitting at the card table until your knees were up to your ears. My tiny family is nowhere in evidence this year, so we immediately said yes.

The setup is a potluck among friends who’ve never met, but who agreed that it was to be a local feast, in celebration of the turkeys Patti was growing. If all went according to plan, they were slaughtered this Monday, along with a few chickens for her freezer. Someone else will bring the pumpkin pie, so we will provide the stuffing and alternate pie. Sourcing is easy: My family loves bread, but the rotation means that we don’t always eat the whole loaf before it turns to stone. The odd ends get pushed to the back of the bread box all year, and we haul them out at Thanksgiving. By this time each year, it’s hard to fit even a single loaf in the breadbox, but this year, there’s room for two, so I bought an extra loaf to dry out.

It’s clear that my traditional water chestnuts stuffing isn’t sourced locally, so I asked around: truly Northwest stuffing, it seems, contains oysters, of both the shellfish and mushroom variety. I hunted on the Epicurious, that wonderful site that saves me digging through piles of magazines, and if gave me quite a few ideas (and a chuckle from the one cook who said “this stuffing was too much work; next year, we’ll go back to Stovetop.”).

Our first Thanksgiving as a couple, I made a pumpkin pie (that’s a story in its own right), and my Darling then-Boyfriend gobbled most of it up. And was sick, no surprise. Now I make sure there’s a second pie just for him, usually pecan, usually (gasp!) purchased. The rest of us enjoy my homemade pumpkin pie, sweetened with molasses and spiced with ginger. But pecans are not local, and filberts don’t cut it. So I thunk and I thunk until I got it. Those peaches from last August will be the alternate pie. A sprinkle of cardamom and cinnamon (we agreed spices were a worthwhile exception to the local rule). With flour from Stone Buhr, butter from Wilcox, we’re bringing peach pie and ice cream (vanilla bean, from Alden’s).

Before I went to bed last night, I dug in the freezer: out came the bag of peaches (weren’t we smart to slice them up!), a pound of sausage for tonight’s sgabhetti, and a small package of smoked chum salmon from Fishing Sensei, which will pair with a local goat cheese as a small appetizer offering both tomorrow and Friday evening, when we’re invited to British Neighbor’s for drinks. I also tucked a few bottles of Columbia Valley Semillon (Fidélitas, 2006) in the fridge to honor the birds.

This morning, when I got up, I climbed in with Little One, who rolled over, and said in a voice unfuzzed by morning sleepiness, “When we die, we go up and become part of God. And then we fly around and we’re fairies.” Indeed, the Tooth Fairy also paid a visit last night, to an increasingly skeptical but nonetheless affectionate Number One. The air is positively thick with magic, which bodes well for making pie crust.

Bus karma

I’d love to write about our chock-filled Saturday, but a wave of exhaustion overwhelms me when I even look at the calendar. Suffice it to say we were all so tired that the single event we had planned for Sunday would have been easy to blow off.

Number One Son and I had tickets to the Youth Symphony concert downtown. I love Benaroya Hall; its open spaces, cushy seats and soaring glass art help heal my weary soul. But spending time idling in a line of cars to get in and out of the parking garage undoes much of the good, so we’ve taken to riding the bus. In the past, it has been less than soothing, trying to comprehend the Byzantine routes and fare schedules, but yesterday we hit pay dirt.

The bus was, amazingly, on time, but waited for the fellow who had to dash from the transit center across the freeway. Our driver was far from the public transit stereotype: positively cordial, welcoming each person, helpful and knowledgeable. The bus moved smoothly, not lurching and throwing standing passengers. I found myself relaxing.

Unsure of which cross street we needed, Number One took it upon himself to ask: Superdriver informed us to get off a block later, so the two blocks to Benaroya would be downhill—that’s what he did, he said. We arrived in good spirits and early, so we treated ourselves to a couple of toasty peppermint hot chocolates before the downbeat.

The concert itself was wonderful: I continue to be impressed and inspired by the kids and the organization. The new Musical Director, Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, first caught my attention not for his pro-wrestler shoulders, but his musing to parents. Here was a seemingly mainstream voice telling people to buy their kids a violin instead of a computer—it’s better for their brains and social development. Clearly, he takes his own advice: I noted that there was no podium between him and the musicians, as he conducted Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique from memory. I also noted that he assigned the program notes to various musicians. Bravo.

As the finale “ends with a moan” (Schoenberg), he let the sound go, never actually cutting off his musicians. We all breathe a collective sigh and head out into the chill evening, our souls cleansed by Tchaikovsky’s catharsis. As we arrive at the bus stop to catch the 5:01, a clock chimes the hour. After twenty minutes of watching each others’ breath, a bus finally arrives. We merge onto a clogged freeway, and the driver comes on over the loudspeaker: sorry for being so late, and that the bus is so full and traffic is so bad. When we arrive at your stop, please feel free to disembark using both the back and front doors. And don’t worry about the fare this evening, folks.

Hannah

I don’t know if it was the impossibly blue eyes or her quiet demeanor as she laid her head on his arm, but it is clear my Darling Husband is smitten. No fears, she stole my heart as well when she wove in between and around my legs, and the boys are busy making creations of yarn and string and paper to entice her to spring.

She is small, clearly of Persian lineage, complete with a kink in the very end of her tail. She is also thin, having been lost and found, then “surrendered” to the Humane Society. By the end of our wait with her, she wanted nothing more to do with the shelter volunteer, who was subjected to a nasty scratch when she tried to put Hannah into the carrier. She allowed me to do it, producing a token objection, but inflicting no real damage.

She calmly sat between to the two boys in the back seat as we stopped at Mud Bay on the way home. No, no industrialized mainstream pet food for this kitty, not after my mother’s heartbreaking experience. No, here I was greeted by shelves sagging under bags of food and litter, all screaming “all-natural” at me. The store does not reek of fragrance, and I find it oddly pleasant to smell real smells. I read labels, and determining there is no material difference, choose the kitty food produced closest to home. Ironically, salmon flavored kibble comes from Nebraska. She will have to eat chicken, at least for now.

She is settling in nicely, diligently helping me work by snoozing in the armchair in the corner of my office. Kibble has been dutifully munched on and deposits made in our unscented litter box. And I can’t help but note that she was quite appreciative of the smudge of whipped cream left on my plate from the pumpkin pie last night. Organic, of course.

The Momosaurus

Number One is having his first teenage birthday party. We decided to deviate from the one-year, one-guest rule, and limit the number to a select few, but expand the party’s cool factor by making it an overnight with movies and soda and such.

As I walked the aisles of Trader Joe’s (hey, it may be junk food, but it’s good junk), I loaded in two six-packs of soda. I wonder if it is enough, and load in another. Ditto the tortilla chips and guacamole, hot dogs and buns. Cheese doodles, gummi worms, and popcorn round out the offerings.

But if I’m having trouble estimating how much these budding teen boys will eat, it’s not only because of my relative inexperience with teen eating machines: there’s the issue of the guest list. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my Grandmother, a Socialitaurus, handed me a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette. It contained all sorts of dated information, such as how much household staff I would need, and how long a woman was expected to wear her widow’s weeds. I gleaned that in times of war, one could dispense with the inner envelope for formal invitations. And I read all about writing an rsvp. There were only two possibilities: one, you could write a thanks for the invitation, but regretted you would be unable to attend. No excuse may be offered, just thanks and regrets. The other choice was an effusive thank you, expressing delight at being able to make it.

My Mothersaurus explained that while the information appeared dated to the point of laughability, I should keep in mind that etiquette is at its heart about treating people with kindness and respect. An rsvp served to let the hostess know how many plates to set out and how much food to prepare—and wouldn’t it be unkind as well as the epitome of rudeness to leave her guessing?

Number One invited six friends, with the understanding that one would not be able to stay the night. Two mothers responded, promptly, with a thank you and we’re delighted to be able to come. Then the others chimed in the week before the party: One Child would be able to attend only a couple of hours, until which time he had a another birthday party to attend, he explained; Another Child wanted to attend the other birthday party as well, and was planning to come here, go there, then return here afterwards. And the Third Child called on the day of the party (after the wheat-free birthday cake had been baked to accommodate his dietary restrictions) to explain that he would be, “one or two hours late.”

I so want to make Number One’s party special, for him to show his friends how cool he and his folks are (we’re even shipping Little One off for an overnight elsewhere to remove the uncool pesky little brother syndrome). Call me a Momosaurus, but am wondering what dear old Emily would think. Instead of choosing one invitation and honoring the host, I’m not sure that our guests realize that opting to run back and forth between parties may leave both hosts feeling slighted.

On cocoa and airports

It is mid-morning, time for my cocoa break, and my thoughts logically turn to cocoa experiences on the road.

A cup of cocoa at an airport Starbucks was predictably disappointing. While not more overpriced than normal, the pale drink was bland enough that even Number One took one sip and asked, “Is there any chocolate in here?” I was relieved to know it wasn’t just me, but the long line at the counter (the fog had delayed many flights other than ours) dissuaded me from returning and demanding more chocolate.

As I reach into the cupboard for cocoa, I hesitate between Ghirardelli and Green & Black. Against my better judgment, I took the boys to Ghirardelli Square, which one tour guide now rates as “nothing more than a shopping mall.” The child in me recalls the factory that produced chocolate stars, and if you were lucky, Mom would spring for the little cardboard box shaped like the chocolate factory. The chocolate tastes different, and the place has truly become a tourist trap. I caved and bought the kids overpriced ice cream (at least it was Dreyer’s, from Berkeley); while we were waiting, Number One noted that a waitress was assembling a massive clutch of balloons in the back corner. Hoping to avoid a balloon Grinch incident I hailed our wait staff, and let her know of my allergy, but to no avail. Ten bites into my eight-dollar sundae, the latex-bearing waitress headed straight to our alcove. I picked up my bag and dashed to the nearest exit, but the clueless cookie followed, wanting to ask how far away she needed to be to keep from causing a reaction. If she’d had an ounce of sense, she would have been able to deduce the correct distance by how far from her I kept backing away—on the sidewalk. And Little One was clearly torn: here was his well-earned ice cream, and leaving it wasn’t something he wanted to do. Balloon Lady was standing between us, waving kryptonite at this Mama Bear. Not a good situation.

Then Number One, now officially a teenager, did something to make my heart soar: he barked at the waitress, forcing her to back off, then proceeded to find a paper cup and transfer Little One’s ice cream sundae to it. Unable to locate a spoon, he grabbed a straw. I am immensely proud of his composure in this situation, especially given that I would think having your mother freaking out on the sidewalk would be socially mortifying. I do have to add that I was extremely disappointed at the restaurant: no wait staff offered to help him, or even acknowledged that there was a problem that might require a manager (or a refund). Even the surly cable car brakemen could teach them something about customer service.

On the last day of the conference, my favorite waiter added a few cocoa packets to the breakfast buffet. Nestlé’s in a pouch is not my idea of real cocoa (nor is anything declaring “just add water” truly food), but I discovered it could be made relatively palatable with the addition of cream from the coffee station.

I decide on the Ghirardelli this morning, but make a note to myself to try the Dagoba drinking chocolate that I’ve seen appearing on market shelves recently. They’re in Ashland, and they may have the space on the shelf that was once reserved for my childhood.

The Ferry Building

It was enveloped in fog, only coming into focus around 11 in the morning on the second day of the conference. Just about the same time as we got our bearings.

Our hotel was a small one with what is usually termed “historic charm.” It could easily have been a dive, but cheerful paint and IKEA furnishings made it just the thing. With cable cars dinging outside our window and Market Street trolleys a block away, transit options were clear. We grabbed a bus pass, and made it pay for itself within 24 hours.

I was born in the Bay Area, Berkeley to be exact, so this is not an unfamiliar place to me. The City and clime felt immediately comfortable, even if I was stressed and preoccupied with association goings-on. But with elections (and a shaky-handed speech) behind me, we headed down to the Bay and walked along the Embarcadero.

In my childhood, this spot was the site of a freeway. Not just any freeway, but the ugliest, dirtiest-grey double-decker monstrosity you can think of. In the wake of the Loma Prieta earthquake, it was condemned, and the wise people of the City clamored for its removal. Politicians predicted traffic disaster, but they were wrong. It is no loss.

I remember many things about the City from my childhood: the steaming crab boilers in Fisherman’s Grotto, Ghirardelli Square (when they still made chocolate there), the empty-warehouse feel of the Exploratorium, The City of Paris Christmas tree (now gone), the waves crashing against the rocks at Fort Point. But I don’t recall the Ferry Building even being there. It didn’t make sense when my father talked about all the trolleys and cable cars meeting ferry passengers in the Ferry Plaza. But now I understand. The plaza bustles day and night: tourists, business folks, skateboarders, musicians, artisans and farmers all converge where once traffic noise presided. Trolleys and pedestrians have reclaimed it as their own.

Inside the Ferry Building is the Mecca of sustainable foodieness: restaurants, bakeries, organic provender, flowers and chocolate can all be found. We had been subsisting on conference hotel buffets, picking out the least offensive foodstuffs to nourish ourselves. But we didn’t feel we were really eating. Here, though, were sandwiches, roast chickens, chili, fruit smoothies and jicama and grapefruit salads (and amazing tortilla chips and guacamole).

I had come to the City uncertain of myself, unsure if I had what it took to merit the trust of my colleagues. The fog lifted, reassuring me with their vote of confidence, and placing me in incredibly good company.

And as the fog burned off, it became amply clear: in times of stress, comfort is necessary. Here was ours. Food that was safe and good for us all. We found ourselves returning to the pale grey arcades over and over, to enjoy the sights and sounds and smells, and to replenish ourselves.

Golden sunshine

The sun is shining today, but it is a weak light, barely able to warm the floor where it casts its rays. We have turned the corner into deep autumn, and Old Man Winter is waiting in the wings. So it is no surprise that the part needed to make our boiler produce hot water did not arrive in a timely fashion. Friends have provided us with space heaters, though we have learned that we can’t have heat and run the microwave at the same time.

The effects of living in a cold house, though, are showing: Little One woke pulling and rubbing at his ear this morning and we suspect his cold may be becoming an ear infection. The windows in our bedroom have condensation on them, and the room needs airing, something we dare not do, lest we lose any precious warmth. We have not sat in the living room as a family for a week, and our stringed instruments refuse to stay in tune.

Upstairs, suitcases are out, piles of clothing are mounded on our bed, and my desk has been cleared. We shall pack our bags and decamp to California, to the city of my father’s birth for the rest of the week. A professional conference is our official reason, but the forecast of 68 degrees and sunny, typical fall weather from my childhood beckons us.

Before we leave, we’ll finish up the leftover lentil soup and the last cucumbers and tomatoes from the Redmond farmer’s market. The doctor will swing by this evening and look in Little One’s ears, and British Neighbor has promised to turn on the space heaters if Jack Frost threatens to freeze our pipes.

Our local South 47 Farm shutters for the season tomorrow, but we know there’s a bountiful farmer’s market across the street from the hotel in the Ferry building this Saturday. We’re ready for a little warmth.

Celebrate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, an auspicious occasion by any measure. I really want to take the opportunity to celebrate by getting up to my elbows in obscene amounts of the stuff, but am stuck at the keyboard, trying to overcome writer’s block on a campaign speech for election to the board of directors of ATA. Make no mistake, I have no aversion to intellectual effort, and I’d really like to be elected, but it really seems a pity to spend such an important holiday slaving away on mere words.

And then I recall the words of fellow chocolate-lover Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, that fabulous French gastronome whose day job was that of magistrate. He notes that chocolate is, “above all, helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work.” (« Le chocolat est très convenable aux personnes qui se livrent à une grande contention de l'esprit »)

So there you have it. It’s not a matter of either/or. I must do the chocolate work to be able to write that speech. Which is why I’ll move the space heater upstairs to the kitchen and work on flavoring the latest incarnation of the auction truffles. In case you’re still searching for a suitable way to celebrate, I append the result of my mentally taxing research below.

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon extra virgin coconut oil

Coarsely chop the chocolate and place into a clean bowl. Heat the coconut milk and oil to nearly boiling. Add the milk mixture to the chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate evenly, working quickly. Refrigerate the chocolate until firm, about 2 hours. Using a measuring spoon, scoop up 1 teaspoon of chocolate, and quickly roll into a ball about 3/4-inch across. Chill until firm and coat as desired. Makes about 30 truffles.

Nipping at our toes

The frost is on the pumpkin this morning. This is usually one of my favorite days, a decisive turning of the season. The leaves have been changing color and dropping for so many weeks now that it hardly seems special anymore, just as we take the green leaves for granted by July. But today it is clear that there is no turning back: the tomatoes that we thought could take a few more days to ripen must come out, the flower containers should be tucked in unless we want leggy impatiens.

But Jack Frost beat us to the punch this year. I have been informed by the Boiler Guy that our boiler is in need of a new gas valve, and that I should be ecstatic that they even make parts for it anymore. I’m used to discussions like this with my Volvo mechanic, but the boiler is only half the age of my car. It was installed when I was pregnant with Little One, and he’s not old. And like the Volvo, the part has to come from New Jersey, and won’t be here before Monday.

No heat, and and Frost rapping at the window. We broke out the long underwear, filled the hot water bottles and bought a couple of space heaters, but Jack is laughing at us. Little One’s cough has turned all chesty, so I’ve kept him home, even though it’s warmer at school. We’ll add another layer and go hunt pumpkins this afternoon, but will plan to spend the evening eating out where it’s warm.

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The good, the bad, and the tasty

Sweet cream butter. Nope, sorry, butter is bad: you should use margarine or canola oil. No, wait, those trans fats can clog your heart up worse than a cork. Butter isn’t so bad after all, but only in moderation. Top of the pyramid.

We seem to be getting a little pudgy as a population: the finger points at fat. We should stick to fat-free foods, then we can have as much as we want, guilt-free. Oops, now we seem to have an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Maybe a little fish oil will help after all.

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t drink too much, it’s not good for you. But, wait, red wine keeps the French healthy. Two glasses a day should do. But hold on, drinking can increase the risk for cancer.

Chocolate. Clearly something this good must be evil. But wait, the bioflavonoids in high-cocoa content chocolate can be good for your heart. So eat your chocolate—for now. Someone will no doubt notice that chocolate bars are candy, and as vital as it is to my life, I know that I must enjoy it in moderation.

Honestly, it makes me wondered what happened to common sense. I can hear my grandmother repeating, “Moderation is the key.” (I somehow envision a woman I’ve never met cast in this role, in a flowered apron and snapping beans on her front porch.) Our fad-riddled society has us moving from the newest to the latest with lightning speed. Last year it was all blueberries and red wine. Now it’s pomegranates and 70% chocolate. Who knows what next year will bring? It really doesn’t matter: if we look to tradition to guide our choices, we will find that the wisdom of ages automatically builds in moderation.

With that in mind, I started recipe development work (a euphemism for messing about in the kitchen) for a dessert offering for the kid’s school auction. The dessert portion of the live auction can really move, as there are never enough to go around – by design. Add to that the fact that we tend to be über-responsible adults most of the time, and the desserts are usually out of this world.

I’ll fall back on my tried-and-true Chocolate Stout Cake, the richest chocolate cake I make, but I wanted a second offering to accommodate our vegan/allergic/pc-even-at-a-party compatriots without making them feel they were sacrificing anything. I had toyed with a pot of drinking chocolate and an assortment of cookies, but my tests weren’t going well. Even the boys were picking at our test subjects. Not good. Then Saturday, pure serendipity: I reached into the magazine holder and pulled out a Bon Appétit at random. It was a Christmas issue from 2003. I opened it, to see a page of truffles. The (compact fluorescent) light bulb went off. After a quick web search, I found a way to make truffles using vegan ingredients. Saturday evening’s ganache passed muster, and Sunday was spent trying different taste combinations, and learning hand-dipping (Darling Husband thinks that the clean-up for the latter should involve him—why should I get to lick my fingers all by myself?). A quick trip out for dessert wines, and British neighbor stepped up to the plate for the first round of testing last night. We have the wine chosen, and a few winner truffles. We’ll have to do at least one more round of tasting, but she’s assured us that she’s up for it. Brave woman.

Soy Truffles

1 cup high-quality dairy-free chocolate
1/4 cup full-fat soy milk
1/3 cup extra-firm silken tofu
1 tsp. vanilla or 1 Tbl. liqueur

Chop the chocolate and place in bowl. Blend soy milk and tofu together until smooth. Heat the soy mixture until very hot, but not boiling. Working quickly, pour the hot soy mixture into the grated chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth. Beat in flavoring. Cool in refrigerator 1-2 hours. Shape into balls and chill. You can cover and decorate them as for any truffle.

Of course, now that I’ve made these truffles using soy (which is still “in” for pre-menopausal women, but still a high allergen food), I’m wondering if I can find a way to use other non-dairy ingredients with similarly tasty results. Watch this space!

Popping balloons

I admit it, I’m not a telephone person. One of the reasons my job suits me well is that I don’t have to talk to people a lot: a quick note here, a short call there, but most of the time, it’s just me and the words on the page.

So I had to wipe an appalling amount of sweat off my palms this morning to call Alaska Airlines and try to calmly explain that their balloon display is a problem while my hands shook. I explained it to a patient Alice of Alaska twice, and then she asked to put me on hold. It was a long wait, as I anticipated. She returned, and let me know that my best option was to print out the boarding passes online, and then go around the middle part of the airport to avoid the balloons, and proceed straight to security. Unless I needed to check bags. Did I need to check bags? Um, yes.

Oh. Undaunted, Alice put me on hold again. When she returned, she announced that she had called the gate itself, and was assured that all the balloons were already gone, it must have only been for a few days. I thanked her, and asked her to pass my concerns on. She sounded relieved that I hadn’t said the word “lawyer” or “sue,” but I somehow doubt she’s going to take up my crusade.

So I cuddled up with my computer and drafted a follow-up letter, the old-fashioned kind with a stamp that am popping in today’s mail to the Alaska folks. While I was at it, I sent off an electronic note to Trader Joe’s, which they assure me will be read by a real person.

My brother, livid at the thought of losing his mechanic to latex allergy (An aside: I’m still having trouble with why mechanics need latex gloves—do engines carry HIV? Can they catch it from infected mechanics? Or is soap too expensive?), hollers that I should hire a lawyer, but the nervous toll of one phone call is enough for me. For now. We’ll see if I’ve popped any balloons today.

The Grinch strikes back

No, I’m not angry because of all the other drivers out there, clogging the roads so that it takes me an hour and a half to go 15 miles. No, I’m not ticked that someone dropped the ball in organizing an event and now I have to reconstruct an entire month’s work. Even the solicitor who abjectly ignored the “NO SOLICITING” sign hasn’t ruffled my feathers that much. And I’m only mildly fuming because my mother has decided not to move after all, despite all the effort that so many people have put into the move.

Nope, I’m angry because I picked up the paper to see this:

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Yes, that is the checkin counter that I will be using in ten days, and yes, those are hundreds of latex balloons arching gracefully over it. They might as well herald the arrival of this new era of flight by building a shrine to it, with no ramps for wheelchairs.

I’m angry because I’m so very tired of having to explain my latex sensitivity over and over to people who ineveitably respond, “Oh, gee, I didn’t know it was that bad!” or “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you had that allergy” or “The Health Department says we have to wear these gloves.” I’m tired of walking into Trader Joe’s and having to turn tail and leave. I’m weary of having to leave kids’ birthday parties. And if that’s not enough, now I need to take on the airlines just so I can check my bags in a public space. This action will open myself to the derisive attitudes of the uneducated, the same ones who make snide remarks about peanut-free school busses.

I take some solace that I am not alone in all this. There is ample precendent set by those brave women who champion for their kids to be able to attend school safely, and a handful of them, met online, are cheering me on. So watch out: I’m drafting letters, gathering phone numbers and then I’m going to go tilt at balloons.

Tending our garden

With supper simmering on the stove, I went outside to chat with the Irish neighbors, recently returned from their sojourn on the Emerald Isle. Jetlagged, they were trying to catch up on tidying the garden, having missed out on the last month of pruning and mowing. Leaning on his rake, he recalls his Dublin neighbor, an old woman telling him not to sweat the weeds, since that’s what a garden is. He sighs as he relates how his US neighbor welcomed them home by dropping a strong hint that they needed to “do something” about the weeds. He says to me, whatever happened to neighbors gardening together, planting victory gardens, helping each other out? America used to be such a great country, says this normally jovial Irishman, what happened?

My mother has decided to stay in the house she and my father built, stairs or no stairs. She reminisces about her childhood dream house, built by her family right before World War II. It was a perfect white house with a picket fence in an upscale neighborhood, and one of its proudest features (tended by a man who made his money in the oil business, no less) was its victory garden. Even this affluent family was doing their part to help the war effort.

Americans in 1943 produced more than 24 million tons of vegetables for sale, including potatoes, in market gardens and on farms, and an estimated eight million tons of vegetables for family use, in home gardens.

(From the Victory Gardens Handbook, a wartime publication by the Pennsylvania State Council of Defense)

Think of it: home gardeners produced a third of the nation’s vegetables in 1943 (some estimates place it as high as 40%). Their success actually resulted in items being removed from rationing lists at the height of the war. What’s more, families were taught to can or dehydrate anything that couldn’t be eaten fresh (housewives, Home Ec teachers and university extensions were all enlisted), and any surpluses in excess of a family’s needs were canned for the greater good—the local hospital, school lunches, and food banks. Everyone embodied the adage of ‘waste not, want not.’ This combined effort released food for the military, increased the amount of vegetables consumed, improved the nutritional quality of the food on most people’s tables, reduced the stresses on the transportation network, and improved morale by empowering people to contribute. It also built community at a time of national crisis, as people from all walks worked together in community plots “in most cases in a very healthful, enjoyable way.”

Imagine if we could do something that could help reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil; if we could do something to improve the nutritional value and safety of the food on our tables, and in schools and hospitals and food banks; if we could get people to eat more vegetables; if we could do something to get people moving and outdoors; if we could do something to bridge the ever-increasing political chasm that threatens to paralyze our democracy.

Think of the victory garden the next time you are stuck in traffic behind a car with a yellow ribbon magnet proclaiming, “support our troops!” Think of what tending our victory garden together could mean.

Highlights

I had a retail day, one where I have to go and deal with stores and merchants. I am the odd female who gets no kick from shopping, but every now and then, things sneak up on me, and I need to go out and get a few things. In this case, I needed to dispute a bill for cancelled long-distance service, pick up some canning lids, and find something to wear for the school auction (my wardrobe shrank considerably with my size).

I try AT&T’s online avatar, but she dons a frown when I tell her she hasn’t guessed what my problem is. She is the victim of a bad parser and bad animation, and I almost feel sorry for her. I end up on the phone (the call may have been monitored for quality assurance, at least I hope it was) with a customer service representative whose goal it is to provide me excellent service. But she is locked into screens popping up, asking her to read a script to me. The call drags on for nearly 15 minutes, as she tries to sell me more services for an account I thought I closed a month ago, but which keeps generating bills. I know she’s only trying to make a living, but I shouldn’t have to ask her to stop reading from the script twice. I am upset by how assertive and rude I must be with her, since I far prefer polite and kind. I blame the large corporate attitude that has taken away her power to read a caller and respond intelligently. Perhaps she and the avatar can have a cup of coffee together someday, and commiserate.

Next stop, Fred Meyer, once a local establishment, now a Kroger puppet. This time my checkout clerk is a computer screen, and it only takes a second to punch the button to interrupt the disembodied female voice asking if I have a Fred Meyer Rewards Card. I feel a bit rude cutting her off: maybe she can join the AT&T kaffee klatch.

All around me are people shopping with cell phones attached to their ears; one woman is having an emotional discussion while she throws cake mix in her cart. A man stands in the snack aisle, paralyzed by what he is hearing. A grandmother gossips about a mutual friend while she leafs through a rack of designer blouses. They are both disengaged from the here and now; they have chosen to be alone in public, to not connect. I wonder to myself if they hang up when they go through the checkout, or if they treat the clerks with respect.

I stand alone, the only adult in Nordstrom Rack who obviously hasn’t had her – or his – hair done recently (in my case, it’s something over 30 years). My highlights, shimmering silvery grey, are natural. This time, my clerk is a real person, with a warm, personable smile. When she sees me pulling a debit card out of a thrift store wallet, she smiles, and asks the question in the negative: “You don’t have a Nordstrom card, do you?” I smile and shake my head, and she says, “I bet you don’t want one.” We both laugh. “No, thank you.” She has been allowed to treat me as a person, and I can treat her humanly as well. I appreciate her smile, and hope that I’m not the only one who gives her one today.

Far away from home

I saw him only once, as he furtively crossed the traffic circle. We both stopped what we were doing to get a clear look at each other. The neighbor’s son said he thought he saw him too, but didn’t believe his eyes. But last night, we all heard him: three clear, lonely howls, no full moon needed. We figure this natural predator has been forced into this awkward co-existence as his natural habitat falls to Planned Urban Developments. The notion that our incursion into this relatively undisturbed territory will have no effect on the animals that live there doesn’t figure into the balance sheet. The green belt behind our development, where the population of rabbits is running rampant as the bunnies breed like, well, rabbits, is obviously more attractive to him than bulldozers. He is slender and shy, our neighborhood coyote, and I fear for him if anyone in authority hears about him.

Last night, on my way home from supper out with a bunch of friends, Darling Husband towed our two sons into the library, and I ducked into the supermarket next door to pick up an ice cream fix. I settled on the marginally responsible choice of Ben & Jerry’s Dave Matthews Band Magic Brownie. On my way to the checkout, I picked up a small block of Tillamook jack cheese for quesadillas tomorrow evening, and, emboldened by finding something remotely edible in a mainstream market, stopped at the table of baked goods in the bakery department. They had a clamshell of miniature croissants – cocktail croissants, they call them – so I tucked them into the basket slung over my arm. Once home, as I unpacked, I glanced at the label: no real surprises there, other than disappointment that they had used hydrogenated margarine along with butter, but then I saw where they had come from. Arizona. Yup, that’s right, they had traveled more than a thousand miles to get here. My mind races: are they more French than we are here? Is there something about the desert that is more conducive to baking (I would have thought the opposite, handling pastry on a hot day can be miserable)? Do bakers prefer retiring to/living in arid climes? I can’t make sense of it, but I feel a bit like the child watching the naked emperor walk by, shouting, “croissants from Arizona don’t add up!”

And I admit sadness in feeling like the childlike voice in a sea of blind followers. I am profoundly disappointed that the majority of folks seem to think it completely normal when they find baked goods hundreds of miles from home, but who consider it not normal to find a wild animal living in its native habitat. I am thrilled to the core by the normalcy of nature asserting itself in our backyards. But I fear for the emperor’s subjects.

How many cows?

Seems it was only last spring there was a huge recall of ground beef. First it was 75,000 pounds; then 445,000. Then it hit 5.7 million pounds. I started wondering how many cows to took to produce (for it is production, not raising on this scale) this amount of shrink-wrapped meat. And then a much quieter headline this week: Topps meats has recalled 21.7 million pounds of ground beef.

The details are similar to all recalls: sold under different brands, packages up to one year old, save wrapper for a refund. But the scale is mind-boggling. It’s not the largest recall ever: that dubious honor goes to Pilgrim's Pride, who recalled more than 27 million pounds of poultry in 2002, and Hudson Foods, who recalled 25 million pounds of ground beef in 1997.

As a child of depression babies, I was taught that thrift was a virtue, that waste was a sin. So, it saddens me doubly to see not only the frozen patties being disposed of (where? will the toxin leach into our groundwater and wells along with the antibiotics and hormones?), as well as all the energy and effort that went into making them being wasted.

How many cows did it take? Well, the friendly folks at the Cattlemen's Beef Board and National Cattlemen's Beef Association tell me that a cow will yield 180-225 pounds of ground beef. Simple arithmetic tells me that it took between 96,444 and 120,555 head of cattle to produce the meat affected by the recall. That seems a drop in the bucket of the 100 million or so beef cattle in this country, but it’s still a small town’s population.

According to the USDA, a cow eats between 80-90 pounds of food each day. The cattlemen tell me that it’ll take me 18-22 months to reach maturity for slaughter. That means somewhere between 5,208,000,000 and 5,728,800,000 pounds of feed had to be produced and transported to feed those cattle. They also needed water, though there is a discrepancy of information out there. Predictably, information is politically colored: the cattlemen tell me that cow needs a mere 435 gallons per cow, for a total of only 9,439,500,000 gallons. Vegesource tells me that it’s more like 2,500 gallons a head, or 54,250,000,000 gallons. I imagine the truth lies somewhere in between, but neither number is terribly encouraging.

I have honestly no idea how much of the other “input” went into these factory animals: roughage to replace grass (oyster shells, sand, poultry feathers, and rough plastic pellets); vitamins to replace greens (vitamin A); growth hormones to reduce the time to market (Because estradiol, a form of human estrogen is a natural hormone, it can be fed to the cows and they can still be considered natural); estrus suppressants (Heifers grow faster if they don’t menstruate); antibiotics (for common feedlot conditions: peneumonia, pinkeye or shipping fever syndrome, bovine respiratory disease complex); and vaccines (7-way blackleg (including overeating) plus tetanus).

If you can shake that off, let’s move on to output. Jubilee Farm’s Farmer Erick tells me in one of his epistles that fifty pounds is the accepted figure for the amount of manure a cow produces in a day. Our fictional herd will produce between 6,249,600,000 and 9,548,000,000 pounds of manure over their life cycle. In addition to the sheer massive disposal problem that billions of pounds of manure creates, it also contains the excess hormones and anitbiotics shed by the animals. They will leech into the groundwater supply and recycle back to all of us, whether or not we need or want of hormone replacement therapy or antibiotic treatment.

There’s also the matter of greenhouse gases: using EPA numbers, I estimate that our herd will flatulate to the tune of 20,387,393 to 31,147,407 pounds of methane over their lifespan.

This really stinks, in more ways than one. After investing all this time, energy and water, this meat will need to be destroyed. I’ve been considering the cows that made up this recall as an immense single herd, but they only came together at processing, where one source of bacterial contamination was spread to all of them. This kind of waste makes it amply clear that large scale meat production is not as efficient—or safe—as we’re led to believe. I guess size really does matter.

Autumn wind

The autumn wind blows open the gate,
St. Michael, for you we wait.
We follow you, show us the way,
With joy we greet this autumn day!
Good morning! good morning!

Just as I was ready to tuck in my computer for the night, I heard it. Plink, plunk on the new shed roof. Yes, the rain is finally here. And tomorrow’s Michaelmas festival? No worry, for it is merely autumn rains, torrential, then clearing enough to let a few sunbeams sneak through before it starts again. We think rain boots are an important part of any school event, and the children will slay the dragon come rain or come shine.

A smile breaks out as I look out the kitchen window this morning: everything is washed clean, the valley on the neighbor’s roof is brimming with leaves from their big-leaf maple, and our garden has a light dusting of golden cedar needles. The cedar tree smiles back at me, waving its handfuls of needles turned color but not yet dropped. We know we will mulch the flower beds together, he and I. I am content with life, warm in my home, the beauty around me, and the love in my life.

We will eat as a community today, one of the few chances we have to break bread as one. First grade will supply the bread: baskets brimming with little rolls, big rolls, crusty and soft, homemade and store-bought, and one mom will surely bring her excellent gluten free ones. To me has fallen the task of making salad dressing, as I balked when asked to purchase some. A double batch of Number One’s first teacher’s dressing will be our contribution.

Place in a jar with a lid

1½ cups extra virgin olive oil
1 cup lemon juice

Add ½-1 tsp each of the following (to taste):

Chopped parsley
Crushed garlic
Chopped onion
Celery salt
Salt & pepper

Shake to blend and serve.

Bucking the trend

When Number One Son was a baby, I was blessed with a three-month subscription to a service that magically bought me soft, clean diapers and took away the icky ones. I was hooked. Not only wasn’t I adding more stuff to the landfill, my baby’s sensitive bottom (I can hear him rolling his eyeballs about now) was wrapped in something far better for it.

With Little One, I wanted to continue using cloth, but Darling Husband had a suggestion: let’s wash our own. Since he’s the Laundry Guy in our household, I could have the same easy life, and the person making the deliveries would be cute. I was sold.

I went online and bought $75 worth of organic cotton diapers and another $25 of covers and doodads. While I was there, I discovered legions of people devoted to cloth diapering, but in the end what appealed to me most wasn’t the nifty Velcro covers or the brownie points for being a good Earth denizen. It was the liberating realization that we would never run out of diapers again. No more calling the service before the truck left, upping the order to add ten more, no more forgetting to set out the bag on pickup day, no planning around vacations, and certainly never having to run to the store for more. Nope, diapers became like socks: need some, wash some.

The flimsy plastic bottle of water has become ubiquitous: on someone’s desk, a case in the back of the car (“for the kids”), in a catered buffet spread. One of the best selling brands of water is Aquafina. What most people don’t realize is that it is produced by PepsiCo, and is nothing more than filtered tap water. I would reckon that the vast majority of us have access to a faucet in our homes. It’s not a huge leap to remember a water bottle along with your wallet and cell phone. (If filtered water is important, filters for the fixture or a pitcher can provide the same product.) Imagine how good it feels, knowing you have a bottle of water in the car when you’re going through the deli checkout. Not only can you save yourself a dollar, you don’t have to worry about treacherous leaching plastic and bulging landfills.

For the same reasons, I adore my soymilk maker. It’s much easier to keep a stock of soybeans in a corner of the cupboard than it is to lug home case after case. I no longer have to decorticate containers to meet recycling requirements. I can use the milk I make for savory dishes or sweeten it for cocoa as I please (I sweetened it with Irish cream syrup the other evening…). The glass jug I use to store it in the fridge is washable and reusable. I never run out of soymilk. Could it be any better? In a perfect world, I would use local biodynamic soybeans, and would power the machine with solar panels on my roof instead of being beholden to PSE. I settle for organic beans from Eastern Washington, and keep waiting for the tipping point when solar technology catches up with my shady yard.

Remember the spinach scare last year? Because everyone, from mass-retail supermarkets to smaller stores like Trader Joe’s, was relying on the same large corporation to provide the bags of spinach, the whole thing fell apart. If you wanted spinach, you were simply out of luck. Unless of course, you grew your own or bought from a small, local producer—like we did. There were no limits on our enjoyment of spinach.

When you have an infant, diapers are a part of life. We all need water to survive. Food is a part of our everyday life, and how and what we eat has a huge influence on the quality of our life. When we took back the diapers from Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble, they became a piece of clothing that we owned, and ceased being a revenue stream for a large corporation. When I put a purple Nalgene water bottle in my car, I cut off Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. When we grow or make our own food or source it locally, we are rejecting the over-packaged, mass-produced commodity designed to last forever and generate profits for truly glutinous corporations. Food can be true to itself, and feed us. The irony is that all these options wind up being cheaper. It seems there is no money in marketing to independent folks. So go ahead. Own your food. Be free.

The kitchen sink

With a kid home sick from school right on the tail end of a trip, creativity in leftovers was called for. Luckily, there were still a few items in the garden, so not all was from the freezer or a can. I rounded up all the odd homegrown potatoes (I counted at least four different types), cut them up, seasoned and roasted them. The freezer had a package of Hempler’s bratwurst, which are so tasty that the boys (all three of them) fight over the fifth one. (The packages have, over the years, had six, four, and now five sausages in them.) I resorted to frozen peas for a token green item.

***

Right on the heels of our fast food binge (though Burgerville’s fast food is slower and better for you than the market leaders), I read Mark Morford on Wendy’s new Baconator burger, which is garnished with six strips of bacon and boasts 51 grams of fat. That’s 830 calories before we add the fries, and we can’t forget the fries and the Coke. Call it 1300 even. For the record, I gain weight at anything more than 1200 calories a day.

I imagine someone who orders this must be ravenously hungry. A niggling voice reminds me of a piece I read a few days back about how food is less nutritious in terms of micronutrients and phytochemicals. I can’t help but think there has to be some correlation between our “appetite” for the extreme things the fast food industry is pushing, and the logical extrapolation that we have to eat more to get the same amount of the nutrients we did twenty years ago.

I think that hungry person is also looking for something other than food, but they're not sure what. Marketing preys on our insecurities: if nature is telling you that nutrients are lacking and culture tells you that you are lacking, you will be on the lookout for something, which meshes nicely with the obvious sophistication of the marketing machine. When you’re hungry, you don’t think clearly. Which is a recipe for disaster.

***

Air fresheners have hit the fan: an environmental group is suing to have air fresheners regulated because the chemicals they contain are clearly implicated in air quality and respiratory and reproductive health issues. The response is predictable: faced with irrefutable evidence, one company has pulled and quarantined their products. The folks who open a window after using the bathroom are feeling vindicated, while others sputter that they need their plug-in scents to keep their houses and stores smelling fresh and clean. I can safely predict new product lines cashing in on natural scented oils, potpourri and baking soda. They’ll still contain noxious chemicals of course, just ones that aren’t on anybody’s bad list. And it’s unlikely that the government will defy lobbyists and require disclosing the ingredients. Plus ça change…

***

All this talk gets many people upset, worried that the government is becoming a nanny state. Part of me agrees, reasoning that we should just let people kill themselves with smoking, eating poorly, or inhaling toxins. But I also understand that harming one member of our society harms us all. I watched my father kill himself with his pipe; I now see my brother repeating the pattern, this time with food from the supermarket. Diagnosed with arterial disease, his doctor does not prescribe a diet void of hydrogenated fats and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, but gets out his pad and writes a scrip for Prilosec and blood thinners and tells him to avoid leafy greens. The corporations that manufacture foodstuffs continue to profit, as do the drug companies who have no interest in seeing people adopt healthy habits. It all boils down to money – big money – and that makes my blood boil. The money to be made in buying unprocessed local food simply can’t satisfy the greed of the huge corporations.

***

Which brings me back to my bare cupboards. I’m left with a bunch of fruit well past its prime in the bowl, a mess of leftover rice in the fridge and a lonely packet of Umpqua Valley ground lamb in the freezer. All the fruit goes into a pot with plenty of sugar, making jam that I have dubbed “kitchen sink” for its mishmash of ingredients (blackberries, plums, blueberries, one peach, half a pear and a lemon). The lamb had me scratching my head: the garden had two smallish but ripe tomatoes, but I didn’t want to sacrifice them to roast with the lamb, and besides that really wants feta, of which I have none. Tomatoes in hand, I walk past the grape arbor. Of course! I pick a few dozen leaves, mix up half the lamb with some leftover rice, and roll up some dolmas. The rest of the lamb got the garlic and dill treatment and roasted. The tomatoes got eaten, just like that. And the whole house smells of lovely, sweet garlic.