One of Colin's favorite things is to help me cook. His father made him a set of lightweight steps that he can drag around to different countertops and step up to help stir, dump, and smell whatever it is that I am making that day.
He is not crazy about kneading bread, he loves dumping pre-measured ingredients, adores shaking spices into a pot, is meh about naming ingredients when I show them to him but loves to smell them.
He will suggest dishes to make, although his requests usually run to the sweet side. And lights up when I tell him to get his stairs and come into the kitchen to help me.
My parents cooked with us in the kitchen, so did my grandparents. When I talk about my love of all things culinary I refer to myself as a "family taught" chef. I don't have any fancy knife skills and my idea of measuring is shaking out some spices into my palm and tasting a lot. Many of my childhood memories center around the kitchen, my father leaning against the sink with a glass of wine in his hand, my aunt slapping a thinly rolled circle of dough onto the comal to make a tortilla, my mother slicing up fresh fruit for us every single morning, Tamale Day every December when the house was filled with the sharp, heady, sour spicy scent of red chile.
Food is not just fuel to me, it is a process, a blessing, a story told in cinnamon and garlic, in roast chicken and bread and butter. The movement of making dinner, breakfast, lunch, is, to me, an intricate part of what makes me who I am.
When I bring my son into the kitchen with me I am passing on this cultural memory, this kitchen dance. I don't always make the same foods I grew up with (I don't think I have ever left pinto beans on the stove all day to simmer in a rich bacon-y, bay leaf studded broth) and I am not always particularly graceful in the kitchen. But I hope to pass onto my son the love of the process of making a meal. The love of bringing people together to enjoy food that you have made with your own hands, to find a sense of self in the food that you create.
It gets a little deep up in here sometimes.
;)
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
June 18th, 2010
Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
to-night they are throwing you kisses.
An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
cherry tree in his back yard.
The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.
Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.
Back Yard by Carl Sandburg
photo taken July 2009, Colin Jacob
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
to-night they are throwing you kisses.
An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
cherry tree in his back yard.
The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.
Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.
Back Yard by Carl Sandburg
photo taken July 2009, Colin Jacob
Labels:
life and everything else,
Pictures,
poem,
small things
Summertime and the livin' is easy...
So first click this link and play the song that you will find there...it will give you a little summertime feeling.
Back?
100 degrees has descended upon us. I don't mind the heat, I quite enjoy a little baking actually, being a native and all, and I am trying to pass on this love of the sun to my son (not without first slathering him in sunscreen of course!).
We spend lazy afternoons eating popsicles while running through the sprinkler.
We lay on the bed, with it's white expanse of comforter, in the dark bedroom and tell stories to each other.
We don't venture out of the house unless we are absolutely losing our minds with boredom.
We have found the coolest spots on the floor and gently shove Kira out of the way to enjoy the smooth cool tile.
We have all figured out how to float on our backs in the pool at the YMCA, thick with chlorine and heated to our body temperature. We gleefully anticipate getting out, dripping and exhausted, so we can shiver a little bit in the hot breeze.
We spend very little time in the kitchen, fresh baked bread is a distant memory.
We are forever concocting new experiments with ice cream and milk and ice and strawberries and cinnamon and honey and mangos and anything else sweet and cool we can get our hands on.
We will park a few more yards away if it means getting a spot in the shade.
We relish the thought of slowly melting into little puddles of family and dog, popsicle and chlorine and ice water. We look forward to fall...in a few months.
Back?
100 degrees has descended upon us. I don't mind the heat, I quite enjoy a little baking actually, being a native and all, and I am trying to pass on this love of the sun to my son (not without first slathering him in sunscreen of course!).
We spend lazy afternoons eating popsicles while running through the sprinkler.
We lay on the bed, with it's white expanse of comforter, in the dark bedroom and tell stories to each other.
We don't venture out of the house unless we are absolutely losing our minds with boredom.
We have found the coolest spots on the floor and gently shove Kira out of the way to enjoy the smooth cool tile.
We have all figured out how to float on our backs in the pool at the YMCA, thick with chlorine and heated to our body temperature. We gleefully anticipate getting out, dripping and exhausted, so we can shiver a little bit in the hot breeze.
We spend very little time in the kitchen, fresh baked bread is a distant memory.
We are forever concocting new experiments with ice cream and milk and ice and strawberries and cinnamon and honey and mangos and anything else sweet and cool we can get our hands on.
We will park a few more yards away if it means getting a spot in the shade.
We relish the thought of slowly melting into little puddles of family and dog, popsicle and chlorine and ice water. We look forward to fall...in a few months.
Labels:
big things,
domesticity,
life and everything else,
our family,
words
Thursday, May 6, 2010
wordless...and yet
It seems as though all I see of late are ripening women, round bellies, proud smiles, tiny baby hands...while I remain thin and melancholy. Thinner now than i have been in quite some time, it turns out that heartbreak is QUITE the dietary aid.
I cannot put it to words, this silly jealousy. This petty comparing that I do. I feel ridiculous lamenting the loss of our wee Bean because as my very blunt ob/gyn put it: "Most women wouldn't have even known they were pregnant", I feel like I don't get to feel sad...still. As though I should pick myself up and let it go. I get quite defensive when asked about it, heaven forfend anyone think of me as ridiculous. I purse my lips and grit my teeth and say all the sweet things and try not to blanch when I find out that an acquaintance has decided to name their bundle the name I had in my heart for mine...that was a hell of a night. I cried some more, I wrote a whole mess of Facebook messages.
In my head, I am shouting: "REALLY? Seriously? Why does SHE get two? or three or four...Why not me too?" I eye my body with suspicion, she has not proven herself again yet, who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve...random blindness? Perhaps a digit will just aimlessly wander off my hand. I weep at odd intervals, find myself irritable and exhausted. I would say it looks like the first trimester but I know it's just my old friend depression. What a bitch she is.
As it turns out the only pregnant woman I truly take unbridled joy in is my friend Heather. She is due a week after I was supposed to be and is so generous with her blooming body. Perhaps this is because her son is only 6 months old and my fierce love and protection of her belly offers a little respite from the chaos that could be. I hold her first baby and talk to her second. I get emotional now just thinking of it, what a selfless woman to let her crazy friend rub her belly (just starting to show!) and weep over what was, what won't be.
All this to say, I face this month, once again back where I started: not pregnant, sad and irritable that I am not pregnant, and my baby boy getting bigger, talking more, getting further and further away in age from his hoped for sibling.
I hope that, at some juncture, I can look at this- The period of this blog that I will forever refer to as "The Intermission" -and not feel that sharp strange ache of heartbreak. That at some point the sight of a rounded belly will make me think only of blessings and not of losing. I refuse to think of this day, this coming day, as bittersweet because I will not mourn the loss of my sorrow, I will rejoice in the return of my joy. Because SHE, my joy, is an awesome ally.
I cannot put it to words, this silly jealousy. This petty comparing that I do. I feel ridiculous lamenting the loss of our wee Bean because as my very blunt ob/gyn put it: "Most women wouldn't have even known they were pregnant", I feel like I don't get to feel sad...still. As though I should pick myself up and let it go. I get quite defensive when asked about it, heaven forfend anyone think of me as ridiculous. I purse my lips and grit my teeth and say all the sweet things and try not to blanch when I find out that an acquaintance has decided to name their bundle the name I had in my heart for mine...that was a hell of a night. I cried some more, I wrote a whole mess of Facebook messages.
In my head, I am shouting: "REALLY? Seriously? Why does SHE get two? or three or four...Why not me too?" I eye my body with suspicion, she has not proven herself again yet, who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve...random blindness? Perhaps a digit will just aimlessly wander off my hand. I weep at odd intervals, find myself irritable and exhausted. I would say it looks like the first trimester but I know it's just my old friend depression. What a bitch she is.
As it turns out the only pregnant woman I truly take unbridled joy in is my friend Heather. She is due a week after I was supposed to be and is so generous with her blooming body. Perhaps this is because her son is only 6 months old and my fierce love and protection of her belly offers a little respite from the chaos that could be. I hold her first baby and talk to her second. I get emotional now just thinking of it, what a selfless woman to let her crazy friend rub her belly (just starting to show!) and weep over what was, what won't be.
All this to say, I face this month, once again back where I started: not pregnant, sad and irritable that I am not pregnant, and my baby boy getting bigger, talking more, getting further and further away in age from his hoped for sibling.
I hope that, at some juncture, I can look at this- The period of this blog that I will forever refer to as "The Intermission" -and not feel that sharp strange ache of heartbreak. That at some point the sight of a rounded belly will make me think only of blessings and not of losing. I refuse to think of this day, this coming day, as bittersweet because I will not mourn the loss of my sorrow, I will rejoice in the return of my joy. Because SHE, my joy, is an awesome ally.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
lost
it is with a breaking heart I put this little project on hold.
The Bean is gone.
Such a tiny little soul, but ours.
We weep and we mourn for now, but through this we are joyful, we give thanks and we pray hard that our Bean comes home to us soon.
Last night I called losing a baby "being on the civilian end of a thrown grenade. Everything is exploding all around me and I had nothing to do with it."
My husband laughed, wiped his damp cheeks and smiled at me. He loves a perfect analogy.
ETA: this is the note I shared with my family and friends:
Most people use the word miscarriage because it's more poetic. It softens the blow of a staggering loss. I think I prefer the official term: Spontaneous abortion. It packs the one two punch that really conveys the abrupt pain of losing a baby. Yeah we were pregnant, and now we're not. It's a sock in the gut isn't it? Tell me about it.
About 4 hours after this picture was taken, to mark the fact that I had reached week 8 of a long hoped for planned for wished for second pregnancy, I began to spot and cramp. From the moment it started I knew what would happen. I was rendered helpless to stop it, despite all of my bargaining and pleading. I wept and slept and hoped and went to the doctor.
I read my Bible, I sent text messages out to a small armada of people for prayers, I sat very still.
I bled and ached and watched my body empty out that little hoped for being.
And then with a great pressure and a sense of finality, it was over.
I told Luke that going through this is like being on the civilian end of a thrown grenade. Everything around me is exploding and I had nothing to do with it.
This morning I feel emptied out but I realized that I have not been blown to smithereens.
That there is loss but it does not define me.
That I am bloodied but not broken.
In 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18, readers are given a command: "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances". It is a tall order, joyful ALWAYS? Give thanks in ALL circumstances? It sounds like God wants us to exist in a state of denial. But amazingly enough, in the middle of a massive loss, I find myself doing just this. And I am finding it easy.
I do not know where you place your faith, but I know that I place mine in God, in His son Jesus Christ and that because of that this morning I am joyful, I am giving thanks for my life, my son, and my amazing husband. And I pray that whatever comes next it be for the greater glory of God.
And maybe I'm praying for a dog.
maybe.
The Bean is gone.
Such a tiny little soul, but ours.
We weep and we mourn for now, but through this we are joyful, we give thanks and we pray hard that our Bean comes home to us soon.
Last night I called losing a baby "being on the civilian end of a thrown grenade. Everything is exploding all around me and I had nothing to do with it."
My husband laughed, wiped his damp cheeks and smiled at me. He loves a perfect analogy.
ETA: this is the note I shared with my family and friends:
Most people use the word miscarriage because it's more poetic. It softens the blow of a staggering loss. I think I prefer the official term: Spontaneous abortion. It packs the one two punch that really conveys the abrupt pain of losing a baby. Yeah we were pregnant, and now we're not. It's a sock in the gut isn't it? Tell me about it.
About 4 hours after this picture was taken, to mark the fact that I had reached week 8 of a long hoped for planned for wished for second pregnancy, I began to spot and cramp. From the moment it started I knew what would happen. I was rendered helpless to stop it, despite all of my bargaining and pleading. I wept and slept and hoped and went to the doctor.
I read my Bible, I sent text messages out to a small armada of people for prayers, I sat very still.
I bled and ached and watched my body empty out that little hoped for being.
And then with a great pressure and a sense of finality, it was over.
I told Luke that going through this is like being on the civilian end of a thrown grenade. Everything around me is exploding and I had nothing to do with it.
This morning I feel emptied out but I realized that I have not been blown to smithereens.
That there is loss but it does not define me.
That I am bloodied but not broken.
In 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18, readers are given a command: "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances". It is a tall order, joyful ALWAYS? Give thanks in ALL circumstances? It sounds like God wants us to exist in a state of denial. But amazingly enough, in the middle of a massive loss, I find myself doing just this. And I am finding it easy.
I do not know where you place your faith, but I know that I place mine in God, in His son Jesus Christ and that because of that this morning I am joyful, I am giving thanks for my life, my son, and my amazing husband. And I pray that whatever comes next it be for the greater glory of God.
And maybe I'm praying for a dog.
maybe.
Labels:
heartbreak,
the intermission,
words
Sunday, March 14, 2010
March 14th, 2010. 4:30 PM
This weekend we are dog sitting for my cousin. At 34 months Colin has not been exposed to many animals so he is understandably wary of them. Luckily for us, Princess (our borrowed dog) is a Chihuahua with a laid back temperament (read: small and lives with another toddler). Colin warmed up to her almost immediately and calls her "duh best dog eber". It is adorable, but does not make me want a to get a dog. Because along with adoring the dog comes the non-stop parade of wanting to poke at the dogs ears, cover the dog in blankets, lay on the dog while she's napping, chase the dog around the house...all behaviors met with a growl. (Presumably because the other toddler Princess lives with is not nearly so relentlessly invasive.) And this means that my days have been filled with rules and admonishments.. "Princess, be nice!" "Colin, for the love of God leave that poor animal alone for two seconds!". I just pray that this is not an indicator of how my life will be for the next 15 years.
This weekend also marked week 8 of my pregnancy with The Bean. And week 6 of never ending nausea and exhaustion. I don't recall feeling this ill with Colin, but that might be due to the fact that I had no idea I was pregnant for the first 3 or 4 months of my pregnancy (I could have been on that show!) and so any morning sickness might have been dismissed as food poisoning or the stomach flu or a hangover...yikes. I have been told through the wonders of Babycenter.com that The Bean is living up to her nickname (I'll switch off pronouns till we know what The Bean will be!) and is in fact, the size of a lima bean. And so we are also assuming that she is delicious cooked with butter!
I'm kidding. She'd probably taste terrible.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Head Cook and Chief Bottle Washer
As it happens, my most favorite and my least favorite chores happen in the kitchen. I love cooking, LOVE IT. I find it soothing and relaxing and creative and all of that good stuff. I loathe doing the dishes, LOATHE IT. If I could just shove everything into the dishwasher, even if it's not dishwasher safe, I would. bah.
When I first married Luke, I attempted to put into place a rule that my family had growing up: if you cook the dinner, you don't have to do the dishes. This rule, seemingly effortless in my childhood home, never seemed to take tight hold in my house. I was way bummed. To say the least.
Not to say that my husband doesn't do the dishes, because he really does! He does them more often than I do, and after a dinner party he is the first to jump in the kitchen to do clean up. But we often, as much as it shames me to say it, leave the dinner dishes from the night before in the sink, only to be joined by their comrades: breakfast, lunch and dinner (again!) dishes. And then we face a sink filled with dishes and sigh heavily. sigh.
One of the best discoveries I made was running the dishwasher overnight and emptying it while making breakfast. Sounds ridiculously easy doesn't it? BUT if I start my day with a just emptied dishwasher I can slowly but surely add to it throughout the day and VOILA! it's full by evening time and I can start it again!
The hitch comes when we have a light dish day, or we go out for dinner and my terrible habit of waiting a day to do all my dishes starts again. sigh.
It was becoming a terribly disheartening thing, this weird cycle of feeling responsible and then lazy. I wondered if all adults were like me, with one foot still stuck in the silly college days when you would let stuff sit, and one foot trying to teach your toddler how to clean up after themselves! WAY to much deep thinking for a simple household chore. I realized that I had an image in my head of what I wanted my kitchen to look like, but I wasn't really willing to put in the small amount of work it would take to get there. All because I really REALLY hated doing the dishes. And once I figured that out I sighed heavily, not at my sink but at myself because the thing that I really took away from this whole silly dishwashing adventure is that as much as I want to sometimes I can't just go with the flow and hope for things to magically happen, especially if I have a picture in my head of how I want my life to be, I have to really work at it, and make it a habit and make it wonderful myself. All by the sweat on my brow and the suds on my hands! :)
I feel so capable. But ask me in a couple weeks how the dishwashing leaf turning is going. I'll probably sigh heavily.
When I first married Luke, I attempted to put into place a rule that my family had growing up: if you cook the dinner, you don't have to do the dishes. This rule, seemingly effortless in my childhood home, never seemed to take tight hold in my house. I was way bummed. To say the least.
Not to say that my husband doesn't do the dishes, because he really does! He does them more often than I do, and after a dinner party he is the first to jump in the kitchen to do clean up. But we often, as much as it shames me to say it, leave the dinner dishes from the night before in the sink, only to be joined by their comrades: breakfast, lunch and dinner (again!) dishes. And then we face a sink filled with dishes and sigh heavily. sigh.
One of the best discoveries I made was running the dishwasher overnight and emptying it while making breakfast. Sounds ridiculously easy doesn't it? BUT if I start my day with a just emptied dishwasher I can slowly but surely add to it throughout the day and VOILA! it's full by evening time and I can start it again!
The hitch comes when we have a light dish day, or we go out for dinner and my terrible habit of waiting a day to do all my dishes starts again. sigh.
It was becoming a terribly disheartening thing, this weird cycle of feeling responsible and then lazy. I wondered if all adults were like me, with one foot still stuck in the silly college days when you would let stuff sit, and one foot trying to teach your toddler how to clean up after themselves! WAY to much deep thinking for a simple household chore. I realized that I had an image in my head of what I wanted my kitchen to look like, but I wasn't really willing to put in the small amount of work it would take to get there. All because I really REALLY hated doing the dishes. And once I figured that out I sighed heavily, not at my sink but at myself because the thing that I really took away from this whole silly dishwashing adventure is that as much as I want to sometimes I can't just go with the flow and hope for things to magically happen, especially if I have a picture in my head of how I want my life to be, I have to really work at it, and make it a habit and make it wonderful myself. All by the sweat on my brow and the suds on my hands! :)
I feel so capable. But ask me in a couple weeks how the dishwashing leaf turning is going. I'll probably sigh heavily.
Labels:
big things,
domesticity,
words
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