Airing our laundry

Our little rented house in Ireland has all the modern conveniences save one: a dryer. Make no mistake, the winters (and autumns and springs) are wet, whence the green hills that justify the famous moniker. It has been a challenge to work with time, planning ahead, making sure clothes are washed in time to line dry before trips and scheduling in sheets and towels to not leave us without underwear and socks.

We have cheated a couple of times, borrowing a friend’s dryer for a down jacket and availing of my mother-in-laws capacious laundry room over Christmas, luxuriating in the easy life. But by and large, we are simply living with laundry constantly hanging in the living room, and crunchy towels. We even rearranged the sofa so we could get the rack closer to the radiator, which cuts drying time to only a day.

Our first power bill made me gasp: €780, and it wasn’t even winter yet. We understood why everyone else hung out laundry, even on cool, moist days. A dryer would simply be an unaffordable luxury, one that could easily double a power bill. And so, we see peach-colored sheets and long nightdresses along the N81 just past Silverhill on all but the soggiest days, and compare the virtues of various folding racks with our neighbors.

Our three-week visit to the US has coincided with an amazing stretch of fine weather, which I hope to not jinx by mentioning. As our folding line gets a workout, our Swedish dryer sits unused as of yet, and we depart for the old country again in a few days. A fellow mom at the school has just convinced her husband to put up a clothesline in their side yard, and has been asking advice about hanging laundry: How many clothespins do I need? (More than a single pack of 50 for a family of four!) What is the protocol for hanging underwear? (On the inside of the rack, where nosy neighbors won’t see your shy tween’s smalls or your unmentionables) When do you need to bring it in? (Only if it is pouring, since wind will evaporate light moisture quickly.) Another mom overhears us chatting, and says, “Oh, I miss how line-dried sheets smell. Maybe we should put up a line too!”

How funny that something as simple as hanging up laundry, a task that our grandmothers saw as a chore (this woman’s thoroughly modern suburban mom had a dryer), has become something we must learn. And how odd that these college-educated women—and men—have bought into laundry additives, and scented dryer sheets and asthmatic children to make their laundry smell good, when the sun is there for free. How ironic that we are having to relearn something as simple as how putting the clothespin on only one side of the sock makes it dry more quickly. But how delicious to rediscover the quiet meditative quality of hanging laundry on a cool morning, listening to exuberant birdsong while we plan our day in our minds. And how lovely it is to snuggle into sheets that smell like sunshine and takes us to pleasant dreamscapes. Like crafts of old, the wisdom of the generation was nearly lost. Nearly.

Nothing and everyone

At the beginning of my voyage as a parent of a school-aged child, the dainty preschool teacher pulled me aside at pickup one afternoon, and said, “we’d like to celebrate your son’s birthday next week. Could you bake a cake for him to share with the class?” Of course I can, thought I. And then the restrictions started: Please don’t use sugar or chocolate (there went my first choice); we have one child who cannot eat wheat (ok, so no cake, maybe an apple tart), another two who are vegan, one who can’t eat apples (maybe not the tart).

This posed a challenged, since our family had not yet dealt with our own food sensitivities. But I had an inkling it could be done, and hit the books: the cookbooks, to be precise. Working from a Cynthia Lair recipe (and learning in the process that she was a fellow Waldorf parent), I concocted what came to be known as “The Nothing Tart,” because it had nothing in it that excluded anyone and can be easily modified to conform to the ever-shifting matrix of a class' dietary restrictions. It became a birthday staple, and is still requested on a regular basis.

The Nothing Tart

Crust:

1¼ cups rolled oats or quinoa flakes (Bob’s Red Mill brand oats are gluten free)
½ cup ground nuts (any combination of walnuts, pecans or almonds)
¼ cup flour (wheat, spelt, barley, amaranth or oat)
pinch of salt
2 Tbl maple syrup
2 Tbl cold-pressed vegetable oil
2 Tbl water

Filling:

2 cups frozen berries, thawed (any combination of berries you like)
1 cup apple or berry juice
2 Tbl kuzu or 4 T cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine oats, ground nuts, flour and salt in a bowl. Add syrup, oil and water, mix well. With wet hands, press the mixture into a 10-12" tart pan. Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. (Can be done ahead.)

Mix juice and kuzu or cornstarch together in a saucepan until dissolved. Add thawed berries. Heat mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick and clear, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into prebaked crust. Cool at room temperature or in refrigerator before serving.

Over the years, I have been joined by one or two moms as we filled out school potlucks and dealt with class outings of increasing duration and complexity. And before we knew it, our babies were departing on their final voyage as a class last week, a six-day trek to the middle of nowhere. We had three hectic days to pull together 30 alternate meals that could survive horseback riding and river rafting while feeding five kids with sensitivities ranging the easy (gluten, eggs, dairy) to the more challenging (corn, pineapple, almonds and rice). One mom kicked into full quinoa mode; one shopped and froze; we all planned. I pulled baking duty, which covered breakfast and dessert. In the end, we filled one cooler and one roughneck with packets painstakingly labeled with ingredients and days. And we were successful: our kids were fed well, and only a little food came back (one quinoa salad was a clear bomb, and will not be repeated).

Yesterday, we “graduated”our nine children from eighth grade. Others made cards and presented token gfts and flowers. But I cook. And so, in recognition of this milestone, I offer food for all: from the Nothing Tart, through Maria crackers (amaranth-based) and Lucia buns, to the Class of 2009 Everyone Granola.

Class of ‘09 Everyone Granola

8 c rolled oats (Bob’s Red Mill brand)
1 c raw honey
1 c pure maple syrup
1 c vegetable oil (canola or safflower)
1 T vanilla extract (any brand without maltodextrin)
1 T sea salt

1 T cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
1 c dried apples
OR
2 t cinnamon
2 c dried berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Place the oats in a very large mixing bowl.
3. In a very large saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the honey, maple syrup, oil, vanilla extract and salt. As the mixture begins to boil, it will increase in volume considerably. Stir and watch closely!
4. Pour the boiling mixture over the oats in the mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
5. Distribute the granola on two large baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes.
6. With a metal spatula, turn the granola without too much stirring, and bake 10 minutes more.
7. Add any nuts and turn the granola again, making sure to not break apart the clusters that are forming.
8. Return the granola to the oven for 5-6 more minutes; remove and gently stir in the dried fruit. Do not overbake.
9. Cool the granola completely and then transfer to an airtight container.