Saving a Pattern

I'm beginning to feel nervous about my girls' 4H projects. 4H offers kids the chance to learn new skills and follow rules and gain self-confidence. The deadline is mid-July, but experience tells me it is not to soon to begin teaching them the skill of wringing their hands in distress.

I'm a little extra amped up because Sophia has added one project to her list and Ava is a "real 4H-er" now (not just in Exploring 4H - and limited to one project) and has multiple projects of her own. True, no one is required to do more than one project, but this is the choice we've made. I'd like Sophia and Ava to be skilled in the home arts, and those are Sophia's interests, but they aren't Ava's first choices. When it came time to choose Ava's projects, I told her she must do foods and sewing and then she may choose a project or two on top of that.

Sophia - Foods (baked and preserved), Sewing, Floriculture, Child Development, Leadership

Ava - Foods (baked and preserved), Sewing, Photography, Crafts

So we're getting started now, hoping to avoid tears and shouts later. Twelve-year-old Sophia is a big girl now, and if she and I want the same style of dress, we likely would find our sizes in the same pattern envelope. But how does one save a pattern to use for multiple sizes?

The "experts" say to trace the size of the pattern you want to use, and never cut the pattern at all. I was five when my grown-up sister got married. My mother kept the aisle runner - a semi-sheer white fabric with a floral white-on-white print - and traced pattern pieces until I was a grown up bride myself.

But I don't know any brides with aisle runners to share. Besides. I don't want to go to that much effort.

I saw the solution on Margo's smart blog. I'll document my successful experience here:

After laying out my pattern pieces, and pinning them, I make little snips from the edge of the pattern piece to the line of the appropriate size. The snips are made intermittantly - less on a straight edge, more on a curve.

The snips make little flaps, which I then fold back along the line of the correct size of the pattern piece. Now, when I cut the piece, I'm cutting alongside the fold, rather than through the fabric AND the paper pattern piece.

See how nicely the middle size has been cut, while retaining the view of the other sizes to be made later?

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.

Pickled Beets

As Dad and I planned our garden this spring he asked eagerly, "Should we do beets?"

"We can do beets if YOU want them, but I don't care for them."

So beets we planted and beets we grew. And, when we had time to set aside, beets we pickled. All my siblings remember that Dad has always put up with the beets so that he could have those pink pickled eggs from the brine after the beets are eaten. Whether we are rewriting history or he is, he now says, "Oh no, I love beets."

It was interesting to spend this day in the kitchen with my dad. I remember always have pickled beets around, but I never remember making them with Mom. Being late garden season, of course we had other things to can besides the beets. On this day, we did tomato juice, pickle relish and beets.

Here is her recipe:

Pickled Beets

1 gallon beets
2 c. water
2 c. sugar
2 c. vinegar
1 sliced lemon
1 T cinnamon
1 t. cloves
1 t. allspice



Boil the beets until you can slip the skins off. Rinse them in cold water and the skins should peel off easily as you rub them with your thumbs. Slice them as desired and place them in jars.



In a stockpot, combine the water, sugar, vinegar and lemon.



Into a cheesecloth bag measure cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Tie the bag shut and float in the brine. Bring to a boil.

Pour brine over sliced beets leaving one inch headroom.



Process jars 15 minutes to seal.

Great American Road Trip - Part 7

Saying goodbye to Yellowstone -



Yellowstone is such feast of beauty and our final day provided us fitting dessert to sustain us until we can visit again. We drove to the trailhead up to Artist Point and walked a short distance up some massive, gorgeous stone steps to this lookout point. More than once I was impressed by the foresight of the folks who designed and built this first national park. They had no way of knowing how many people would come, or IF they would come, but the buildings and structures they created seem to still be functional for the huge crowds that come today.

This final family photo is at the lookout over The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The waterfall in the background is the same one Brooks and I took in on our "Stairmaster Hike" the previous day. Really, really spectacular views.

We also got the chance to take in the interior of one of the magnificent historic hotels, the Old Faithful Inn. Check out the shade on one of the double-sided writing desks, furnishing the inn ever since 1911. The green shade has an overlay of copper featuring an owl in the woods.



I just think this is a pretty picture of Ava gazing out of a window on the second floor landing of the inn.



After the last of the sightseeing within the park, we still got to enjoy one last pretty drive along the winding road to the exit. We saw a creature that we hadn't yet spotted on our trip - a deer. And I cannot BELIEVE how close she let me get.



After a few hours of driving we landed at Devil's Tower for a stretch, a potty break and some photos. This is when I began wishing that we would have taken this northern route on the way TO Yellowstone. Our energy was simply waning too quickly to be wowed by some of these last sites. Here are Ava and I in front of Devil's Tower. Can you see tiny pastel-shirted specks above us? Rock Climbers. Crazy.



Next, a few MORE hours of driving. We were heading toward the gold rush town of Deadwood and we'd heard of a restaurant I wanted to try in the neighboring town of Spearfish. We got a little turned around in the canyon and by the time we got there it was 10:00 PM. That made it midnight on Home Time. It was probably the best meal we had during the whole trip. Michael and I both had a delicious seafood bisque and he followed it up with a buffalo burger. Our server was very attentive. He seemed to think we were locals, but when I told him we were from Indiana, he said he was familiar with that long drive as he made it every summer of his childhood. His mother's parents were from a tiny town in the center of the state.

"What town?" I asked.

"Hartford City." My mother's hometown where I visited grandparents and cousins every summer of MY childhood! Our waiter was my best friend after that. I just love that feeling of community it prompted for the two of us.



Tatanka - Story of the Bison.

Sigh. I cannot really recommend this museum-type place in Deadwood. It is promoted as an educational site for learning about the American Buffalo, which centers around these beautiful cast-iron sculptures depicting a thrilling, dangerous way that the Lakota tribe used to hunt these creatures.


A few of the tribesmen would spook a herd of buffalo, chasing a few of them stampeding over the edge of a cliff, at the bottom of which other Lakota were waiting to butcher them.



It turned out to be fairly hostile presentation on the wrongs done against the Native American people. (We were told with an unfriendly smirk that Native American is too broad a term to use and is not the right choice. We were not told what might be the right choice.)



Now, I feel I must say that the historical truth in this matter is absolutely shameful and nothing can undo the violence, greed and trickery done to our brothers and sisters. However, I believe if one wants Change, and one wants to Educate People, then one needs to present their case without pushing their audience away. My less progressive husband drove our family to my chosen destination and paid his money to get us all in without complaint, but without much interest. His attitude became less charitable when the artwork was presented as an afterthought to a hostile speaker making sweeping generalities about "you people" (his white audience) while my bewildered young children blinked up at him. Sigh.



But aren't the sculptures pretty?



A worthwhile destination for Mike and me was the Mount Moriah cemetery. Mike is a history buff and thought it was cool to see the final resting places of folks like Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane and Preacher Smith. I am not a history buff, and what I know about these characters I learned from the brilliantly written but completely barbaric HBO series "Deadwood." Do you think less of me? Nevertheless, it was cool to tour. It was also exhausting. I have no idea who thought of placing the cemetery there, requiring the hauling of Dead Weight (ha ha) up such a steep slope. It is a "mount" after all.

I know this series is dragging on, especially after the huge break between this post and the previous. The end of our trip was too significant to omit, so there will be one last post, which I'll start now. I have other things I want to share with you, including more garden produce preservation and an interview with a new, and surprisingly proficient bread baker.

Stay tuned.

On Motherhood

Stuff I learned from my mother:

Selflessness - In the way she always convinced us she really wanted the smallest pork chop or the burnt piece of toast.

Work Ethic - I have a mental picture of my mom every Saturday evening, setting her hair in rollers for church the next day, her chin dropping to her chest as she nodded off with hairpins in her mouth, exhausted from the day's work.

Self-Sufficiency/Thrift - Mornings in the garden, before it got too hot. Evenings under the lamp of the sewing machine. Vacation days away from the government job, but hard at work canning in the summer kitchen.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. - "Kids, stop scuffling."
"Settle down."
"I asked you to stop."
"Kids!"
"OK, AS SOON AS ONE OF YOU CRIES, YOU'RE BOTH GETTING SPANKED!
(Actually, should this entry be called, "If you can't beat 'em, give them a beating?"

Individuality - In the days of my adolescent conformity, my mother was not one bit interested in my desire to not be noticed. I was constantly embarrassed by my simple family and my mother just shrugged and did as she saw fit. If it was raining, she pulled from her purse the little pouch with the rain bonnet in it, unfolded it from its accordion shape and slapped it on her head... while I walked twenty feet behind and pretended to study my shoes.

Ambition - I don't know how my mom thought she could go to college. It certainly wasn't a precedent in her community. Her own mother died when she was only two, and her older sister moved back to the farm with two young children, so Mom had babies on her hip from the age of ten. The family was rich in love, but not particularly lucky at farming. When Mom went an hour away to college, earned her degree and settled down two hours away from the farm, she seemed elegant and city-ish. (She was a school teacher and our town had 1200 people.)

Family is Precious - "If I happen to be in a coma when your baby is born, please make sure I hold him." (From the hospital bed in her living room.)

My mom offered me a lot during the 25 years I had with her. As a child, I felt like nothing was quite right if she wasn't at home and even terrible things were manageable as long as she was a part of the solution. There were times when my parents went out for the evening or mom had a meeting at church and I had to go to bed in a house where my mother wasn't. I would lie in bed and stare at the wall wondering how to sleep in such a house. The country road outside my bedroom window was not well-traveled and if the headlights of a car crossed the wall of my darkened bedroom, I would wait and hope that the headlights would slow down and turn into our driveway. Often they did not and that felt so sad.

My mom is gone now and I lost her too soon. She didn't get to hold my baby, coma or not. I remember the moment, a week into my own motherhood experience, that a wave of realization crashed over me. What I felt for my baby was WHAT MY MOTHER FELT FOR ME. And I never had a chance to let her know that I GET IT. And my grief started all over again.

But really, not all people have such great mothers. Or such moments of clarity. I'm lucky to have these reasons to be so sad sometimes.

I hope I honor motherhood as much as my mom did. As much as I learned at my mother's elbow, first-hand experience is a better teacher. The best truth I've gotten is the knowledge that I'm actually tough as nails.

OK, I've been mulling over deciphering the formula that makes a mother a warrior. I just keep landing on cliches, like the fact that we're nurses, chauffeurs, housekeepers, cooks, mediators, educators, coaches, philosophers, etc. I think it's all true, but everyone has heard it already, so it's lost the meaning of what I'm trying to say. I think part of it is that we ARE all of those things, but we do all those jobs while we're exhausted, grieving, angry, lost, sick, worried, lonely, misunderstood and unsure. And we do them not because its our job, but because we are compelled - by duty, by devotion, by dedication to our families.

Unglamorous, motherhood is. I never said it was pretty. Everyone else's needs come first and, while I sometimes get tired of it, I wouldn't have it any other way. How many Sunday mornings do I focus on getting everyone else dolled up for church, only to slam on my one and only coat of mascara in the parking lot of the church? I could be sitting, midstream, on the toilet, and if any of my children called me with urgency, I'd be running out the door with my pants around my ankles. Every one of us has been soaked in urine, diarrhea, breast milk, mud or vomit and kept on tending to another, simply because it needed to be done.

Last summer, I allowed each of my three kids to take a friend for a day at the beach. Great day, for sure, but no sooner had we pulled out of the parking lot and gotten on the interstate than we had a flat tire. A flat tire! With six kids in the van! It was hard to figure out how to change the tire, but I did it. Actually, for me, it was hard to figure out how to get the spare out of its hiding place! I got filthy dirty and aloof strangers felt they were doing their part by looking at me sympathetically as they whizzed by in their functional cars. But had they stopped and helped me out, I would have missed the triumph in doing a hard thing simply by putting my head down, being an adult and getting through it. And because I'm a mother, I did it while teaching valuable lessons: Here's how to change a tire. Here's where you put the jack. If you don't know the answer, look in the owner's manual. Oh, you tightened the nuts as far as they would go? Lemme see. (Craaank. Craaaank. Crrraaaaaannnnnnnk.) Your mother is still the toughest person you know.

I'm always confused by women who call in the coast guard whenever they are sick, busy or unrested - women who need someone with them when they take the child to their immunizations - because it might be hard. They are totally robbing themselves of the chance to find out what they can do. They can be the only one in the room, heck, in the WORLD who will make things better for another human being. Your child's head fits perfectly into that comfortable spot on your shoulder. No one else's feels as good to them. The way you do Christmas, or Sunday evenings, or road trips - is going to be the way your children think they should be done when they have children of their own. Doesn't that make you feel frikkin' powerful? It does me. I don't know if I've done justice writing about all motherhood has given me. It gave me a backbone and self-esteem and resolve and identity and it made me an adult once and for all. I'm nobody's princess. I'm a gladiator. A superhero. And I can feel great about myself because such a job will have an eternal presence in my family tree.

Popsicles!

Check out my find from the church rummage sale last week! Seventy-five cents! My mom had these exact Tupperware popsicle molds when I was a kid. Won't my kids be overjoyed when they come home from school and have OJ pops waiting for them?

If only we weren't having a cold snap.

Banana Soup

We had a couple of bananas left from a bunch that I had purchased which, in our opinion, were reaching their "best if used by" date. Michael said, "Ooh, those look just right for some banana soup!"

I think this is an Amish thing.

Our friend Dean was born Amish and was the only one of his seven siblings not to join the Amish church as an adult. He and Michael are the only ones I know who talk about banana soup. That and tomato gravy. Michael himself was never Amish, but you don't have to go very far back on the family tree to get to the Dutch-speakers.

Tearing bread into chunks, Michael layered the bread and sliced bananas into bowls for himself and the kids, sprinkled each with sugar, and poured milk over all.

Is he kidding me? This is soup?

I posted on Facebook, asking if anyone had ever had this version of banana soup and I had Millers, Bontragers and (interestingly) Murdocks post that they had. Other variations seem to be peach soup and blueberry soup, which sound good. I loved the cold sweetened milk and bananas, but I thought the soggy bread was a bad idea. At any rate, we added this to the list of Things Daddy Can Cook If You Call That Cooking.

Grandma's Thick Potato Soup

A question I love to ask people is: If your mother offered to make you anything you wanted for a birthday meal, what would you ask her to make? It seems to be a question that might reveal in it's answer what your mother's best meal is, or maybe what your favorite meal from childhood might have been. My dad is #2 of 6 kids in the family. He and most of his siblings have answered that question with, "Mom's Thick Potato Soup."

Dad grew up in the 1940's enjoying Grandma's cooking, and a favorite meal was this hearty soup with potatoes, onions and bacon. It was always distinguished by the descriptive word THICK, because GRANDPA'S preferred potato soup was thin and milky, and he liked to float homemade croutons in it. Grandma often made both soups for the meal to please everyone. (This smacks a bit of Short Order Cook to me. I aim to please, but if, after all my preparations, someone wishes aloud for anything different, I sniff, "There's bread and peanut butter in the pantry if you are not satisfied.")

Last night we had a simple meal - the hearty potato soup, fruit and crackers. Some of us are under the weather and the idea of soup seemed bolstering. I also like to think that Soup Days are numbered as we get more frequent glimpses of the sun these late February days.

I guarantee that I never saw my grandmother or mother (who learned this recipe early in marriage) look at this recipe when making the soup, but a recipe DOES exist, and here it is:

Grandma Carrie's Thick Potato Soup
Boil together - 6 c. diced potatoes and 1/2 c. diced onion and cook until tender. Drain.
Combine - 1 c. fried, crumbled bacon, 1/4 c. flour, 2 t. salt, 3 c. milk.

Mix these last 5 ingredient until lump-free and add to potatoes and onion. Stir over low heat until thickened.

Some may wish to add more crumbled bacon or shredded cheese as a garnish, but I arch my brow and assure you that this soup will stand on its own. Enjoy.

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Look, does the world really need another food blog? I don't know. I guess I just need another food blog. The ones I've seen have certainly been pleasant reads: inspiring, challenging, gorgeous... and perhaps a bit too specific for my daily practices.

I live in a small Midwestern town. I am no more than ten minutes away from any family member, including my in-laws, who are literally over the river and through the woods (well, orchard), and my childhood home, where my father still lives. On the farms and in the gardens, local and organic food is varied and plentiful. On the store shelves, not so much. Gourmet and ethnic ingredients are somewhat harder to manage.

My kitchen work leans to Midwestern farm food, as taught to me by my mother, who is long gone. I have cookbooks by Paula, Julia, Rachel, Betty and Nigella and I use them all. But my favorites are the church cookbooks, or the ones celebrating the events of the local towns... the ones full of local names like Miller, Beachy, Yoder and Bontrager. More treasured still are the well-worn handwritten recipe cards. They are faded and marred with kitchen spills. Most of them are such proven favorites that I don't really need to look at them to prepare the dish. But when I see Mom's careful schoolteacher script on the recipe card for Apple Crisp, I am in her kitchen again, and it's yet another flavor of the process for me to enjoy. I take great pride in emulating her and all our foremothers. We women pass along tradition, nutrition, empowerment, training, and most of all LOVE... happy side effects all, in the process of getting our families fed.

The photo is of my first birthday. I don't know that the composition is so great, but I think it says everything that I want this blog to be. There is food, simply prepared - sometimes special because of the occasion - served at home from the hands of our mothers. These days the hand offering the food is mine and my children happily play the roles of willing recipients and students, learning the skills and recipes for their own homes one day.