One Big Weekend - Four Small Posts...Part 2

The Amish Relatives

One joy of family hardship is the coming together of all the relatives. My husband was never Amish, his parents were never Amish, but beyond that, all bets are off.

After the funeral, the local tradition is for the church to provide a meal for the family and anyone else they wish to have as guests. It's a nice way to allow more time for visiting and a chance to maybe get cheerful again after the goodbye in the church. About 20-30 Amish relatives stayed for this (as well as the 50-75 non-Amish) and my husband made a beeline for them as soon as he did his fatherly duty by eating with this household. He thinks they are fun and sassy and "good people." I agree.

At his grandmother's funeral dinner several years ago, Michael trotted some of these ladies over to me saying I wanted to ask questions about why Amish women did the things they did. Indeed, I had been asking a lot of questions during our years of driving through the Amish countryside in the area where we live. These women seemed reluctant and a bit suspicious, not hankering to answer a bunch of ignorant questions from a worldly English girl. (I don't have ancestors from England... English is just what the Amish call the non-Amish.) But my husband had forced the issue. I furrowed my brow intelligently and leaned in to ask, "Why are your gardens in the front yard?"

They looked at one another and shouted their laughter at me. One howled, "Well I'm not about to put it in the back where the horses poop!"

[Not long ago, an Amish relative passed away who had been close enough to my immediate in-law family that we all went to the funeral. My formerly-Amish friends advised me not to take the kids - Amish funerals are long, uncomfortable and not in English. But I decided that cultural issues were not valid reasons for not paying respects which you would ordinarily offer, so I put my kids in their starched collars and drove them to the farm where the funeral was held.

The service was held in the family's pole barn/shop where an open space was cleared for rows of backless, wooden benches for the bereaved. We sat on those benches and, yes, the service was long and, yes, impossible to follow for a non-Pennsylvania Dutch speaker. But what a rich experience for me and my kids - who were PERFECTLY behaved as I recall - to have. Without being too detached and academic over the sad loss of a close family's beloved, I certainly watched the proceedings with interest as well as compassion, wanting to commit it all to memory.]

Anyway, our interaction at Aunt Bonnie's funeral dinner was lighthearted with those fun Amish relatives, to whom we refer by long, geneology-informed descriptive names (Elmer T.'s Larry Mary) and who know all our relatives, too, even the ones we didn't know we had. When Michael and I were first married and I was a substitute teacher in the school system out in the country, an Amish boy approached me in the hall to say he had read the paper and seen our wedding announcement and that we were now cousins.

This time Michael had called us over because our formerly Amish friend, Dean, had told me that his mother's best dish was was "grimmle boi," (Margo, do you know what I mean?) a phrase which has subsequently become a catch-all in our home because it is fun to say. It's now used as an all-purpose swear word, a replacement for forgotten song lyrics, whatever the situation requires. The Amish wanted to hear us say "grimmle boi" and laugh at our accents and discuss their own recipes for "bois" of all types.

Ooh, how I want to hang out in their kitchens, rummage through their pantries, remove their bonnets and inspect their hairpin configurations!

I'll post the recipe after you've have a chance to wonder and Margo a chance to answer!

Updated 12/22

Grimmle Boi (or Crumb Pie)
In a saucepan, combine:
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T flour
1/2 c. light corn syrup
1 c. hot water
1 t. vanilla

I mixed this before turning on the heat so that the lumps were removed from the flour. I brought it to an easy boil, stirring constantly, until I was sure the sugar was dissolved.

Pour mixture into an unbaked pie shell. Cover with crumbs.

Crumbs:
1 c. flour
1/2 t. soda
1/2 t. cream of tartar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter

Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes.

Festival of Carols

Brooks is thoroughly enjoying the wonderful music department which our high school offers. He is a freshman this year and has successfully infiltrated every corner of it as we add band, choir and orchestra concerts to the calendar this month. I believe the next step is clearly total world domination.

This is a busy weekend for us. Let me give you the run-down, for my organizational benefit as well as your entertainment. (Every time I talk to my devoted mother-in-law this week, she wants to do the run-down, too. "Now what's going on this weekend?" "Have I given you enough money for the tickets?" "Where is that concert located?" We did that conversation today. We did it last week. We'll do it again the next time we speak. She just doesn't want to miss an opportunity to support the kids.) Wed.: Tech rehearsal for Sophia's choir concert. Thurs.: Dress rehearsal for choir concert, middle school orchestra concert. Friday: First of three days of choir concerts. Sat.: All day chess tournament and second of the choir concerts. Sun.: Final choir concert, which conflicts with the high school orchestra concert. Immediately afterwards, we'll go to the church Christmas open house, hosted by the pastors.

These three days of choir concerts have become a meaningful part of my Decembers. Our local college puts on a Festival of Carols which involves all the music groups on campus and the children's choir which my children have been involved in. We first went when Brooks was a part of the choir and now, he's moved on and Sophia has joined the ensemble.

It takes place in the college's state-of-the-art performance facility, which offers gorgeous ambience and acoustics. The choirs and orchestras offer special pieces interspersed with traditional carols in which the audience is invited to participate. A large percentage of the audience is culturally Mennonite, and rich in choral ability, so the carols sound straight from the Herald Angels. I am in my element.

Here's what the Mennonites are not rich in: Sentimental Weepiness. From the third verse of the opening hymn, I am pressing my hankie to my mouth, trying to stifle the sobs and the Mennonites to my right and left look at me out of the corners of their eyes. Sobbing - It's just not a very German thing to do.

This wrecks me every, EVERY time, sung by the children's choir:

"And through all His wondrous childhood, He would honour and obey.
Love and watch the lowly maiden, in whose gentle arms He lay.
Christian children, all must be:
Mild obedient, good as He."

And then, children's and college choirs together (to me symbolizing the in-the-blink-of-an-eye "day by day" growth - whether or not the symbolism was intended):

"For He is our childhood's pattern
Day by day, like us He grew.
He was little, weak and helpless
Tears and smiles, like us He knew.
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness."

I mean, shut up.

I have tried to explain how obviously touching those words are to others, but my sobs always interrupt. And when I manage to convey the message of the text, the listener always just blinks at me. I don't know if they are touching to anyone else.

Anyone?

My City Half Marathon

Two Saturdays ago, my SIL Sarah and I participated in my town's half marathon walk. We are lucky enough to have some extensive trails around town, some of them in picturesque locations. This year was the 3rd annual half marathon walk.

Sarah and I were so proud of ourselves! Sarah is the type of person who, once she commits to something like an athletic event, googles training programs for such a thing. The programs all said that you would be able to complete a half marathon walk without training, but regular walks as exercise would be a smart thing to do.

She and I spent the late summer and early fall walking as often as we could get away together, but couldn't seem to put aside large enough blocks of time for really long walks. Finally, the week before the event, we managed an eight mile walk, which just about killed us.

To say we fretted over the additional 5.1 miles we would be walking the next Saturday was an understatement.



But the Saturday of the walk rolled around and in the cool October morning air we found the distance more manageable. We were proud of our pace and even did the second half a half-hour quicker than the first half. We felt better after ten miles than we had after eight the previous week. In fact, we felt so good around ten miles that we jogged for a little bit. (After three hours of a brisk walk, we were feeling the effects of the repetition in our hips and in the whispers of the start of blisters on our feet. Jogging had us move the strain to other parts for a short amount of time.)

The last two and a half miles or so were tough, though. We finished in 3.5 hours, well under our expected finish time.

Yay, us!

(These photos were taken by the photographer on the staff of the city's downtown organization.)

Maple Syrup

I think it's finally safe to put away the snow pants. The weather can be so strange in late winter/early spring. Just a couple of weeks ago we had our last big snow. We hadn't managed to make a snowman at that point and the girls and I determined that we wouldn't close out winter without sticking a carrot in some kind of face. Sadly, we found the snow to be too fluffy and couldn't make it pack well enough to form any kind of ball. We tried mounding it up and had more success than rolling. But still we succeeded only in making it look like a mound.

Not to be deterred, we thought maybe it would still be a creature made of snow - maybe a giant snowman with just the top of his head sticking out of the ground. We needed a big hat in order to pull it off, so Ava went inside and got a sombrero from one of the Mexican restaurants in town. We set to work with our "carrot" and "coal" and this was the end result.


We named him "Pepe the Snow Head."

And last week already we were out in our shirt sleeves. Ava is finally up on two wheels. Funny story: My 11-year-old, Sophie, never learned to ride. She tried to learn a few times at a younger age and had enough bad spills that she was willing to hang up her self-respect along with her bike and never try again. One nice day this spring I saw her privately and secretly trying to teach herself. This told me two things: That she really wanted to learn, and that she didn't feel good about herself.

I vowed that she would learn, and that we wouldn't put off Ava's learning any longer either. I worked with Ava for awhile and though she gamely tried, it didn't come together for her until I told her to constantly wiggle her handlebars back and forth from right to left and that would keep her from falling over. Well, that's what did it for her and she took off down the road.


We had the family come out to see and to praise her efforts. And then Sophie burst into tears. "Now I'm the only one who can't!" she wailed.

So next I worked with her. She was reluctant, nay, resistant. She can be quite bullheaded at times and she was determined that NOT being able to ride her bike was equal to winning the argument, which was most important at the moment. I didn't care. I yelled, I threatened, I took away privileges, I told her to wiggle the handlebars back and forth and she RODE that stupid bike down the drive, yelling, crying and trailing snot in the breeze behind her. It was exhausting and soul-crushing for me, not at all a shining moment in parenting history. But did you catch it?! She RODE the bike. There was success! A tiny little giggle broke through her snot-encrusted face and a seed of pride took root in her soul. Thank the Lord above. Motherhood is not for the limp.

Weather that alternates between snow head building and bike riding is tough on the sinuses, in my opinion, but it's great for maple syrup production. I heard a discussion on the making of maple syrup on NPR recently. It was said that the sap flows best through the trees when the weather starts to warm. It's best when the days are a bit above freezing and the nights are just below. But as soon as the tree begins to bud, the sap will no longer be sweet.

I thought to myself that this cold, consistent spring was probably really great for collecting maple sap. Later in the week, I came home to find this bottle sitting on my kitchen counter.

That's my daddy's angular handwriting on that scrap of paper. I called him up and found that he had been helping a buddy with the boiling of his maple syrup during this record-breaking season of production. He got a couple of gallons of the stuff as payment.

It is nothing out of the ordinary in this area to drive through the country and see something like this on either one tree in someone's yard, or a whole orchard of trees in a heavily wooded area.


As it warms and the sap begins to move, it is collected in buckets like these, set under a hole drilled low on the trunk. Skinny trees can only have one tap, but older, fatter trees can have two or even three taps bleeding the sap into the collection buckets.

Once you have enough sap acquired, it's time to boil it down into syrup. It has to boil for a long time in order to remove the water from the sap, which thickens to the consistency we recognize, and to concentrate that wonderful flavor. It can be done at home on the stove top, but you should have a fan and a dehumidifier running. Professionals like to use outdoor ranges to avoid the build-up of moisture in their homes.


As the sap boils, the foam must be skimmed off from time to time, removing impurities from the final product. The temperature should be brought to seven degrees above boiling, and remain at that temperature throughout the process.

Once it's boiled to the consistency you like, you can filter your syrup if you choose. Or you can let it cool and let the crud sink to the bottom. You'd fill your bottles with the clean syrup at the top and avoid the impurities in that way.

As with anything homemade, I think a product always seems more wholesome and delicious when one makes it one's self. But be forewarned: It can take 25-75 gallons of raw sap to make one gallon of prepared syrup!

Happy Halloween

I had such a fun Halloween. In our little town, when Halloween lands on a Sunday, the festivities happen on Saturday. Ava and I mostly had the day to ourselves, as Michael took The Big Ones to participate in a local chess tournament. We had a nice day of some productivity at home and some fun away. Horseback riding lesson. A trip to Hobby Lobby. Pumpkin carving.

Ever the Bunny Hugger, she wanted a cuddly sort of Jack-O-Lantern. But the way she kept dictating the face seemed much more human and much less furry.


We put shaggy, long ears on the side so that you would know it was a dog. A St. Bernard, to be exact. Can you see it?

When The Big Ones came home we were ready to leave for Tricks and Treats. I suppose traditionally, one just goes to the neighborhood doors, asking for candy. But we always get in the car. For one thing, we have family members across town who expect to see the kids in their Halloween finery. For another, we happened upon such a dear little neighborhood in which to trick-or-treat.


This is the street on which the girls go to school. It is what some call a Cathedral Steet because of the way the tree branches rise up on either side and meet vaultingly overhead. In October, I can think of few prettier places.


Aside from its beauty, it's a "neighbor" - hood in the truest sense. Most of the houses are about 100 years old, all with a front porch. People come out on their front porches with their giant bags of candy, turn their porch lights on and wait for the onslaught.


Some even join in with their own dress-up craziness.


This neighborhood is also within blocks of the local college campus. A few of the old homes serve as rentals that house some of the students. And some of THEM even wanted to be a part of it all.


Really, there was no end to the adorability. (Is that a word? It totally should be.)

We saw big boys playing football in the street. We saw friends and classmates. We saw great costumes.


Three blind mice.


Nancy Drew.


A scarecrow.

We even heard someone playing Dixieland on the clarinet. One year someone had a three-piece bluegrass band on his porch.

A good time was had by all.

Anyway, a recipe, if you can call it that... Certainly, it's a tradition.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds


Have your husband and willing children sift through the pumpkin muck to seperate seeds from membrane. Retrieve about 1 1/2 c. This will take more than one pumpkin. I always boil them briefly to begin the cooking process and to clean them up. Drain them and slam a tablespoon or two of butter into the pot, along with 1/2 t. of salt. The butter will melt and coat the seeds, bringing along the salt for seasoning. Put them on a cookie sheet and into a preheated 300 degree oven. Leave them there for 30-40 minutes, until lightly browned, tossing them every 10 or 15 minutes.

In Which We Eat at the County Fair

The ferris wheel is torn down, the fairgrounds are empty. I saw a lone "carny" in a truck pulling a canival game trailer heading out of town this morning. Most people around here look forward to the fair each summer. It's such a social event. The parents are thrilled to see people they haven't seen in years. The kids are thrilled to ride the rides. We all have food we only eat at the fairgrounds and can't find any other time of the year. Here is a record of how my family indulged over the last ten days.


At mealtime, our family usually takes a "divide and conquer" approach. On this evening, several members of the family ate pork burgers or pork chop sandwiches from the pork tent. Mike and the girls purchased them and saved a table for us while Brooks got our beverages and I looked for something more exotic.


I decided to try something new. I originally was headed for the Chinese food cart, because I'd heard so many people say that the eggrolls were what they looked forward to. Well, too many people had the same idea and I wasn't willing to stand in a line that stretched to the.... hey, look at that! There's a Cajun food cart. From the Cajun food cart I ordered red beans and rice, and "shrimp on a stick." I washed it all down with my favorite find from this year's fair, a frozen Pepsi from the Goat Shack.


At the Cajun cart, I was tempted by someething else on the menu: Bourbon Chicken on a Stick. Before I ordered, I saw a gentleman recieve his kabob and before he walked away, I asked if that was the Chicken on a Stick. "No, ma'am," he said. "It's Gator on a Stick." I simply had to record that menu item, even though I certainly wasn't going to order it myself. He was kind enough to let me take his picture.


When I was a kid, my parents rarely sprang for a meal at the fair. Too expensive. But we always stopped at the Dairy Bar and got soft serve ice cream on our way out of the fair to the parking lot. Our family has the same tradition.


The day we rode rides was a hot one. Ava chose to beat the heat with a Sno-Cone.


Others recommend the taco salad and I got one for the first time. It was good, but nothing I couldn't recreate at home.


Ok, we love these things. Sometimes called Saratoga Chips, sometimes called Spiral Spuds, they affix a potato to some kind of drill-looking thing and run it through a slicer. It turns a potato into a long, curly spiral, which they plop into hot fat and fry. Here they are topped with cheese, bacon and chives. While Brooks and his buddy were riding rides, there was a brief thunderstorm. They each grabbed an order of Saratoga Chips and ducked into a pavillion for their snack. After another couple of rides, they agreed that those things should be shared with several people, never as a snack for one person. They had a bit of Spiral Spud remorse.


Finally, Sirloin Tips. These things are delicious. They're seasoned beatifully. They're juicy and served with potatoes and chives and mushrooms, peppers and onions, if you wish. And they've been the hot item for the last several years. Whenever we'd walk past the cart, there was always a massive line. And whenever we ate them, there was much planning.... Who was willing to stand in the line? How would the kids be entertained while they waited? But the catch is: They are Very Expensive. During the first few years of their popularity, the price was mentioned when people raved about them, but everyone agreed that they were worth it for a once-a-year treat. In the next few years, more people were grumbling, fewer people were saying that they were worth it. We got the Sirloin Tips for our first meal, two little cardboard trays of the stuff, which we divided between the five of us. Mike said, "Enjoy it, because we'll never eat it again." It cost $26 for two orders. We don't often pay that kind of money to eat by candlelight, let alone with plastic forks. Michael finally declared it too high and it seemed that a lot of the community agreed. I never saw a line at the cart this year.

I don't know how that food looks to you. In mid-July, it would look and sound great to me. At the end of the fair... it looks a little gross. But I know I'll eat it all again next year. For now though, nothing but raw vegetables and lentils.

Church Picnic/Fair Parade

One popular event which our county fair offers each year is the Sunday afternoon parade, a 2.6 mile route that runs from a downtown shopping center to the fairgrounds in the country. Our church is a block off of the parade route, so we traditionally have a church picnic after services on that Sunday so people don't have to go home to eat before viewing the parade, which starts at 1:20.

Even on my way to church at 8:00 AM, the sidewalks in the area were dotted with lawn chairs, blankets and canopies where people had staked out their preferred parade-viewing real estate. I didn't have time to nab my own spot. I had to get to the church kitchen to begin work since I was in charge of the picnic.

Fortunately, the church had done a hog roast last month for a kick-off meal for Vacation Bible School, and had frozen enough leftovers to feed the church today. This meant I didn't need to arrange for one of the men of the church to grill during the service, as is often the case for our summertime carry-ins.

After church my committee and I got to work, loading up the table of savories. Along with the pulled pork sandwiches, the people of the church brought green bean casserole, cheesy potatoes, macaroni and cheese, relish trays, deviled eggs, (I had sent out a reminder email about the church meal and gave a winking mention that there never seem to be enough deviled eggs. Today we had five trays of them. But STILL there were only about six eggs halves left.) and all manner of salads: macaroni, taco, fruit, cucumber, jello, lettuce.

We had a nice variety of desserts, too. Fruit cobblers, pies, cakes, cookies and more jello.
People wasted no time in filling their plates. Some of our parishoners were participating in the parade in some way, so a few ate and dashed and a few others skipped the meal altogether.

I love church potlucks.

The kind of tableware we choose to use is sort of controversial. Some people like to use the paper and plastic (which would have been sensible for a picnic) but there are others who scold that we are a church in financial crisis (like many small churches in pre-war, expensive-to-maintain church buildings) and need to not use disposable plates and silverware when we have cabinets full of china, stainless steel and glass. To stay out of the controversy, I'm always willing to wash dishes alongside the other worker bees. It's more environmentally responsible, too.

After the dishes were washed and put away, we walked the block to join church friends for viewing the parade. Ten minutes before the parade steps off, somewhere around 400 runners, joggers and plodders begin racing the route which ends at the fairground grandstand, with a final lap around the track which makes it an even 5K. We waved and screamed at our buddy, Dean, who waved and screamed right back.

We waved and screamed at our buddy Ron, who is leading this pack and means business about the race and isn't going to trifle with a bunch of lunatics on the sidewalk.

The girls and I stayed for about an hour of the parade, which included, reasonably:

Horses,

Marching Bands,

and Chubby Shriners.

It was a good day, even though I got sunburned on my decolletage.

4-H Projects

Put on a kettle of tea and prepare for the War and Peace of blog posts. Sorry about that. I hope you'll think it's worth the effort.

4-H is very big in my neck of the woods. I did some research on 4-H in order to sum the program up to you. I found the story pretty interesting, and, as everybody around here knows "what 4-H is," I bet very few know what it was, what it was intended to be, or take advantage of all it offers. The youth organization started about 100 years ago as a "hands-on learning" way to introduce new farming methods to rural youth, who might take their findings and attitudes to their skeptical parents. "So, brainwashing?" Michael asks.

Later on, it became more about the personal growth of the young person. The most traditional projects are still agricultural or in the home arts, but I'm always learning still more diverse categories that 4-H offers: recycling, scrapbooking, geneology.... (eh-hem) clowning?

Sophia is my only 4-Her at this point. (The four H's are Head, Heart, Hands and Health - the four parts of us which we can offer to learning and service) My girl LOVES the home arts. This year she entered three projects. They nearly killed us. I would like to think that we are not solidifying a habit of waiting until the last minute and not paying attention to details until we are surprised and frantic that the deadline is approaching, but that was our experience this year. She did a sewing project and two kinds of foods - baked and preserved.

Let's start with the sewing. My child has not so much as sewed a seam in her life, but her grade level required that she do a skirt with a fitted waist, which involved interfacing and a zipper, and a hook and eye. Parents are allowed to offer guidance, but the work is to belong to the kids only. I consider myself a somewhat knowlegeable seamstress, but not a terribly confident one. I haven't sewed a respectable garment in many years and my most successful zippers were installed while a more experienced seamstress stood over me.

We sewed. We ripped out. We sewed again. We cried. We perservered. We were anxious when we learned of the early deadline just a few days away. We perservered again. Blue ribbon. We were proud.

Sophia's is the white gored skirt up top.

On to the muffins. She was NOT allowed to use muffin papers to line the tins. We experimented. We greased with butter, with Crisco, with oil. We did not discern a difference. What we DID learn was that the lighter the application of lubricant, the better the results. Lots of oil in the pan made a crust on the sides and bottom of the muffin. Little oil allowed the muffin to still be cakey on every surface. We used my mother's very old Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe for a basic sweet muffin, which Mom used for her blueberry muffins. We made a batch with blueberries and a batch with fresh strawberries, and loved the color, the flavor and the originality of the strawberry. The foods were judged in an "open judging" situation, which meant that Soph waited her turn to hand it to the judge, watched it be judged, and answered any questions the judge might throw at her. The judge was pleased that the batter had not been over mixed... she could tell because the texture inside the muffin was consistent - no unsightly holes here and there. It was rated as "Honors." Honors means they were of extra high quality and would be judged again alongside ALL the honor-winning muffins and from that group they would choose a champion and reserve champion.

The 4-Hers turned in six of their most perfect and uniform muffins. The judges chose one to put in a baggie and display for the fair. They're all hanging here and Sophia's is among them.

For kids this young, the preserved foods assignment was to prepare a bag or freezer box of frozen berries. It seemed a fairly simple project, and if we had just been freezing berries for "home" it probably would have consisted of rinsing them in a sinkful of water and giving them just the slightest once over before flinging them into any old Ziploc baggie. Since a "judge" and "judgment" was going to be involved, I advised Sophia to look closely at them for colors other than deep blue, remove any errant stems or blossoms, and, if possible, eliminate the largest and the smallest so that the berries would be fairly uniform in size. Again there was open judging and we learned a lot from the judge. She recommended that we flash freeze them first, on a cookie sheet, before pouring them into the bag. It would allow each berry to freeze seperately so that they can be removed from the freezer bag as individual berries, rather than one big blueberry-flavored icicle. She also suggested that, if using a bag rather than a box, the berries should be spread out evenly throughout the bag, so that the it's fairly flat and can be stacked with other like-prepared bags. After learning all that we could have done better, we listened as she still awarded Sophia "Honors" for the frozen berries.

We got to the fair on opening day and found that there, among all the pictures of the frozen foods projects, was a fancy ribbon next to Sophia's name. The lavender ribbon on the right, above Sophie's head, is hers. Reserve Champion.

With all the mentioning I just did about "we" did this and "we" decided that, I can see that I was invested in these projects, too. At the fair, you see projects that run that gamut from sloppily assembled items clearly put together in an afternoon, to tidy adequacy, to exquisite, attention-getting showpieces. I feel so philisophical about the competition aspect of 4-H. I wonder if the sloppy projects were done by kids whose parents didn't care about the end results? Or by kids whose parents are hardcore about it being the kids' work and who don't offer any guidance at all? Or if those kids accomplished exactly what they intended: free passes into the fair, which is a perk of turning in any project.

On the other end of the spectrum, these Show-Stopper Projects... I wouldn't say there are NO kids out there who can turn out those projects on their own, but I KNOW that many parents can't help but live and die by the successes or failures of their kids. I wonder how many of them give in and get too involved? I was talking to another mom about feeling frenzied to think of recipes for muffins at the last minute, and I mentioned that we should look through the baked goods of the older kids to see what was coming up next year so that we'd know what...

"... what wins! Yeah!" she said.

No. I was just thinking of what the project would be. If it's cakes, Sophia can try several different cakes all year instead of not thinking about it until June. The other mom's focus on winning (and her daughter won several of the MANY projects she turned in) kind of made me sad.

Sophia's proud of her fancy ribbon for her berries. And I'm always proud of my kids. Not because of achievement, but because they're good citizens, my only real goal for them. I'm extra happy for Sophia this week, though. The fancy ribbon is nice, but I'll mostly think of the experiences with the skirt when I remember this year of 4-H. It was a hard project for her and she didn't let it beat her. She put her head down and got through it. Not only got through it, but did it well enough that some woman in Indiana with the title of 4-H judge gave it a blue ribbon.

The Chief

Every region seems to have a favorite locally-owned food shack or drive-through. In our area of Northern Indiana, it is The Chief, a homemade ice cream stand in the downtown, open for business between mid-spring and Labor Day. This year, it opened for late-afternoon/evening business on April 15th. It's run by schoolteachers, so the longer summertime hours can't begin until school is out. Once summer vacation begins, however, they open at noon and close at 9:30 PM, except for Sundays, when they open at 2:00, after they all go to church.

On opening day, my facebook news feed was filled with people bragging about how long they'd stood in line and what flavor they got. I have about fifty friends who "became a fan" of the Chief on FB also. The above picture shows what the line was like on April 15th, and while that's definitely an opening day line, you never walk right up to a window, even in mid-June, when the novelty wears off.



Last week, when the girls and I drove by and saw a line like THIS, we whipped the van into the gravel parking lot to take advantage of the short wait. My older two children were both born in late summer/early fall, so I spent many a summertime month in maternity clothes. I had a hard time resisting the Chief during those summers. I think it's safe to say that I had a dip of lemon in a waffle cone more days than I didn't. In those days, the owners' teenaged son, Josh, was one of the main employees. I'd look for his window, he'd slide it open, grin and say, "Lemon?" Today, the owner himself took a break from filling the ice machine to come over and speak to me while this year's batch of teenagers filled our order. He marveled over the size of my children, remembering the summers before they were born when I stopped in daily. I still only order lemon.

There are places I go, where I only order the same thing over and over again, because I know I'll love it. Do you do that or do you try something different every time? The rest of my family usually gets one of about three tried and true favorites. On this day, Sophia got Mint Chip...

...and Ava got Cookies and Cream.

Brooks usually gets the Peanut Butter ice cream and Michael... If he's really holding back and just getting a cone, he'll get butter pecan. But if he's getting his favorite, it's the Turtle Sundae. Also good is the Coconut Almond Crunch Sundae. They have excellent toasted coconut ice cream. In the sundae, there is some hot fudge involved and topped with an almond cookie. Oh my.

Next time you're in the "Michiana" area, pop in and find your favorite flavor. Anyone in the tri-state area will be able to give you directions.

Soul Food

Last Sunday, we were invited to an African-American church to hear a new friend speak as they celebrated Black History Month. The whole experience was so positive... from the warm reception we received to the amazing singing... the earnest message to the Soul Food Feast we enjoyed afterward... All were completely delightful standing alone and made all the more wonderful for the glimpse it offered into a culture different from (and somehow the same as)ours.

Now, I could write whole blog entries about many aspects of the service, but as this is a food blog I'll write a smidge on the soul food meal.

Allow me to be your eyes and ears (or maybe nose and tongue, in this case). It was a small church and it was quite tight in the Social Hall. We snaked in a line to the back of the room where the food serving tables were set up. We took our plastic plates and cutlery and with mouths watering pretended to patiently wait our turn. First there was a table of desserts, already dished out on their own plates. There was angel food cake, pound cake, and I sampled my first ever sweet potato pie. Next we dished out from bowls of lettuce salad and potato salad, then rolls and cornbread.

Before we move on to the hot food, I'm reminded of a time when Oprah mentioned on her show that black people put paprika on their potato salad. Paprika-wielding white ladies were indignant and bombarded the talk show host with bowls of their own potato salads garnished with the spice. All this to say, the potato salad on Sunday was, in fact, topped with paprika.

The biggest difference I saw between my friend's church meal and my church's meals was in the handling of the hot food. At our potlucks, everyone helps themselves from the dishes, but some of the women of this church donned aprons, hairnets and plastic gloves to serve us from big chafing dishes of yams, macaroni and cheese, green beans cooked with potatoes, fried chicken, turkey and dressing.

We balanced dinner plates, dessert plates and silverware, fussed over the children's food-carrying techniques and tried to make ourselves skinny enough to sqeeze through the aisles to empty seats. We sat at folding chairs at long tables, where styrofoam cups of fruit punch waited to wash down the feast. The next 45 minutes were all about delicious food, warm company and friendly conversation. While I certainly felt like a welcome guest peeking into a New and Wonderful church/food/ethnic culture, ultimately I decided that it wasn't so different from my Familiar and Wonderful church/food/ethnic culture.

I'm glad for my old friend Anne, and my new friend Lawrence, who reached out to Me and Mine and welcomed us into Theirs for the day.