Be Delicious

My friends Cathy and Dave included the following quote in their Christmas letter. It's from Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. "Bread is as spiritual as life gets. [The poet] Rumi wrote, 'Be a well-baked loaf.' Loaves are made to be eaten, to be buttered, and shared. Rumi is saying to be delicious and give life." I shared the quote in a Sunday school class recently and then got a copy of the book from the library. I have always liked Anne Lamott. The first I ever heard of her was on This American Life ("Music Lessons," 1998). I didn't catch her name, and never learned who she was until the segment was repeated. (You know she's a woman after my own heart when she writes, "On the day I die I want to have had dessert.")

Back to the bread. "Be delicious and give life." We don't think of ourselves being delicious, do we? It sounds too . . . sexual, too available. But I think of it as an innocent generosity, a willingness to fling good will outward, not knowing where it will land or if it will be returned. Lamott several times has mentioned that she "flirts" with old people at the grocery store or on the street. I know what she means, taking a risk to connect, even though you have nothing to gain. It's a way to be delicious.

In Sunday school class that day, someone mentioned that a person in a rice-based culture would have trouble with Jesus' statement, "I am the bread of life," and suggested that it be translated especially for whichever starch the particular culture is based on. "I am the tortilla of life," or "I am the rice cracker of life."

On another level, so many people don't even know what good bread tastes like, or think that baking it yourself must be very difficult, and not the simple but patient task it really is. The impoverished idea of "bread" as either something unattainable and labor-intensive OR something bland and factory-made, surely has deep spiritual consequences. At myYMCA the other day I overheard a lady in her 70's telling a woman in her 30's about her sourdough bread that she has made for thirty years. The older lady offered to give the younger one some starter and the recipe, but she said"I don't have time to wait for things like that." The exchange made me feel sad, as it was but one small refusal of a life-bestowing gift that could have multiplied itself for years to come, giving joy to countless other hungry humans and begging dogs under the table. She refused the call.

Here is my recipe for oat bread. I don't remember where I first got this recipe, but I've changed it so many times that it's really and truly mine now. I make it in the bread machine I've had for ten years. The boys eat this for lunch every day.

Lauren's Humble Everyday Oat Bread

Combine in bread machine:

3/4 cup oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached regular flour
1/4 cup powdered buttermilk
1 tablespoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
slightly less than 1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 cups water

Start machine. When it beeps to add extras, you can add 1/2 cup of flax seed meal, walnut meal, oat bran, millet, or some other grain. You can use molasses or maple syrup instead of honey. Or use all unbleached regular flour. Don't forget the yeast, for Pete's sake. I've done that twice. Share this bread and remember to be delicious!

Two Hotties Share a Birthday

James Denton, who plays Mike Delfino from Desparate Housewives, turns 43 today, as does my lovely husband John. John is willing to illegally download that very show so that I can TiVo Bleak House. Desparate Houswives or Bleak House? Desparate Houswives or Bleak House? Thanks to John, my brain doesn't have to explode after all.

Feel free to wish John a happy birthday in the comments section, dear readers.

The job and school situation continues to percolate, thanks to you all for your comments.

Schools and Jobs and Jobs at Schools

An actual blog entry.

My sense of humor is on vacation, happens every year in midwinter, sorry, dear readers. That's why no blog for a while. Feeling blah and fuzzy. Dear husband is illegally downloading The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for me, the lovable rascal, but it hasn't helped yet. I've told him that a long trip to a warm sunny place would work better, but does he listen? No, so just my sense of humor gets to go. Sheesh.

Anyway, I've been losing quite a bit of sleep this past week over a buncha stuff:

A teaching position has opened at a small college I worked at recently, which I would have a shot at. However, several years ago I got pretty badly mauled by the politics of academia, in what I feel was an abusive situation. And this isn't any better, just different patterns of abuse. In this situation I would be the person perpetually soothing injured egos, not the scapegoat. This college has no English majors. Very few students are even interested in liberal arts. Every year, it seems, the faculty endures a bruising labor dispute or some kind of battle that pits Division X against Division Y. The money is scant. No tenure. Whee!

Got that? OR I could teach English enrichment to a handful of gifted 7th and 8th graders. The principal of my sons' Montessori asked me last week if I wanted to do it. Also they are encouraging us to keep Jack there, and can offer reduced tuition. I went back to them and said that if Jack doesn't go to public school then I would need to work more, and would they let me do some grantwriting and PR work (the latter I already do for them on a freelance basis) on a salaried basis. She called the president of the board and will get back to me . . . . I have to say this job is much more appealing than the college job. Mainly because the people are actually nice. And they're professional. Plus, they know and love my children. It's close to my house. And they will pay me to read books and teach writing to kids who already love it.

We live in a town with a "blue ribbon" school district, and we're paying high tax bills for the privilege, so why would we send our kids to private school? Here's why I'm tempted: because Jack reads at a 3rd or 4th grade level now in kindergarten, and we're afraid he will be bored. At the school he goes to now, he could just keep going at the pace he is going now, which is completely his own initiative. My question for the Internet is: How horrible is it to be slightly bored in first and second grade? And my second question is: What happens if you blow college savings on private school?

And what's brown and sticky?

A stick.

Real Headline, or The Onion Headline?

Here is a headline from my very very local newspaper:

"Audience Will Sit in Lang Lobby to Watch Donizetti's Opera 'Elixir of Love,' Sung in English in a South Philly Setting"

It took up four lines. Wow. And moving the lobby of the Lang Performing Arts Center from Swarthmore College to South Philadelphia is no mean feat, either. Just shows what you can do with a huge endowment.

Dusting off the Ole Blog

Ahem. . . Testing, testing. Is this thing on?

It was a good Christmas, even though things did drift a bit off message. We try to teach our children rather earnestly about Jesus and gift-giving, about how we celebrate Jesus' birthday by giving gifts to each other. We say that Santa is a nice story but we EMPHASIZE Jesus. The result is that Jack fervently believes in Santa Claus and that Will is really into Hanukkah, happily singing songs about dreidels all throughout the house.

The interminable week between Christmas and New Year's was made less so by a trip to the Franklin Institute and roller skating. Jack and John liked the roller skating. My rented skates did not fit, and I felt creaky and insecure on them. Will slid around hopelessly and just wanted to look at the arcade games (we never actually give the boys money to play them). So Will and I sat around, very patiently I thought, while John and Jack went around and around and around and around and around and around the rink. I tried not to let Will see the game with the man getting shot in half with a machine gun and spurting gallons of blood in every direction. Did not completely work. Even if you touched the machine a murder happened on it. So I'd say "Let's watch Jack and Daddy skate to 'She's a Brick House,' which I remember from sophomore year! While that big shiny ball turns! (So it's come to this, has it?) Hey! Wanna go home?" John glides over and says gamely "I'm really getting the hang of this. I could skate for a while yet."

Will and Jack created much art over the vacation. Will has been making representational pictures for a couple of months now. Jack has just started making "comic books." He did a drawing last week that features a doctor wearing a pirate hat with a cross on it. The doctor has a thought balloon in which he remembers his past as a pirate. Also featured in this drawing are a radio, a civil war, and, according to Will, "A girl with a vagina." And all on an Office Depot 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of premium white copy paper, no less.

Experiment in Iambic Quadrameter

A Man with a Plan

By Jack, Mommy, and Will

There was a man
From Pakistan.
He had a plan
To go to Dan.

Dan had a dog
Who ate a frog
Who left his bog.
Poor Mateen was all agog. [Mateen is the name of the man from Pakistan.]

And now it's on the blog.

Nothing, A Poem (as dictated by Jack and Will)

(To be read in a most sombre tone of voice)

Make poopy puppet
Make eyeball puppet
Make nothing puppet
Make nothing ho puppet
Make boo-y puppet

I love nothing.

More Nigella than Martha

Remember how I said that when I was a child, I thought that Turkish delight must taste like butterscotch brownies, because otherwise why would Edmund want to eat so many of them in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Well, I had to go and make some yesterday. I hadn't made any in years because they never quite seemed right, but now I've tweaked the original Joy of Cooking recipe enough to satisfy me. I doubled their recipe and used a 9 x 13 pan, but used the same amount of salt, and unsalted butter. Also a bunch of toasted pecans.

I'm not into fussy little decorative sweets, so I'll think I'll make a batch of these and a batch of Joy of Cooking's brownies (with either instant espresso powder or almond extract for a little depth) for the obligatory "Christmas cookies" after church. I'll also make gingerbread men with the boys. No one ate them last year at church, so I expect we'll just leave them out for show and then eat them at home. The boys have so much fun hand-molding them. They do look turdlike, so I can understand why they are shunned. We'll do cutouts this year too.

Oh, yeah. Here's the recipe. I brought these to the writer's group last night to accessorize my hunger essay.

Lauren's "Not Turkish Delight" Butterscotch Brownies

Adapted from the original Joy of Cooking

Preheat oven to 350, or 325 if you use convection. Grease a 9-by-13-in. pan.

Melt in a saucepan:
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

Stir into it until well mixed:
2 cups packed brown sugar

Cool these ingredients slightly, transfer to a large bowl, then beat in well:
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Sift together:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir sifted ingredients into butter mixture.

Add one to two cups chopped toasted pecans. You can toast them as soon as the oven is hot, for ten minutes on a cookie sheet.

Spoon dough into pan and bake for 25 minutes or maybe a little less. I do 23 minutes because I like them just cooked. Cut in about 20 mins, when they are still a little warm.

The Secret Habits of Presbyterians

In the car today, driving to school.

Jack (laughing, to Will): Something--something--Presbyterians--something! Ha, ha, ha!!

Me(disbelieving): Did you just say something about Presbyterians?

Jack (tentatively): Presbyterians dress up as devils.

Me: What? They what?

Jack: Dress up as devils.

Me: What makes you think so?

Jack: It's a joke. When we visited the Presbyterian church, people were dressed up. (We wear jeans at our church.)So I thought it would be funny to say they were dressed as devils. I can put that in my joke book. . . . Will didn't think it was funny.

Me: Well . . . it was a subtle joke.

Jack: What does that mean?

Me: It's a joke that needs a lot of explaining.

Jack: Yeah.

Death, Commas

. . . May I say something? It's about my writers group. My writers group happens to be associated with a major university in the city with Ivy League pretensions, except there seems to be no oversight or gatekeeping. Not to sound snooty or anything, but when I pay money for a babysitter, I really don't want to spend twenty minutes of my evening convincing a stubborn lady that her book on how to write a memoir should not have twenty-four chapters. Twelve would be better. And take out all the chapters on grammar. And organize the chapters. One very nice person was tactfully trying to tell this lady that her chapters were in no perceivable order. The lady kept defending herself. Finally I couldn't stand it any more, and I burst out with "You've got a chapter on death. Then a chapter on commas. Death, commas. Death, commas. Won't work!"

Should I start my own writers group? If any Philadelphia area writers are reading this, please tell me where you go for critiques of your writing. (I should probably save my pennies to attend the Creative Nonfiction Conference that is held at Towson U. every year in Baltimore. I went just before I had Jack, and it was incredible.) Or, if I started my own creative nonfiction writers group that meets in Delaware County, would you come?

Girl Seeks Food

Here's another essay I'm submitting to my writers group.

Girl Seeks Food

“You don’t feed that baby enough,” laughed the refrigerator repairman, commenting on my double-chinned pillowy body. Eight months old, bald and toothless, I was happy on formula and Gerber’s, not quite crawling the fat off yet. The common wisdom of the day, according to my mother and grandmother, was “Fat babies grow up to be fat adults.” For that reason I was denied second helpings for years and given skim milk, while my brothers got whole. Sweets were strictly limited.

I took this reasoning at face value for many years, but the prohibitions goaded me into committing what my mother called “sneaky” acts. When I was about six I developed a ritual of stealing four cookies at a time from the cookie jar. Even if I had just eaten a legitimate cookie, I would accomplish this mission when my mother left the room, almost always successfully. Here was my M.O.:
1. Take lid off cookie jar without clanking.
2. Swiftly and confidently remove four cookies. It always had to be four, I don’t know why.
3. Return lid to jar without clanking.
4. Take cookies to bedroom. Eat immediately.

Step 3 was by far the most challenging, because a cookie jar lid, in the days before anyone lined lids with sealing rings, was loudly condemning, unless I focused completely on the task at hand, and without haste. If it clanked anyway, even the least little bit, my mother could always hear it no matter where she was. “What are you doing?” she would holler. And I would always holler back, “Nothing.” Sometimes if I was just alone in the kitchen she’d ask me what I was doing, because she knew those cookies had a way of decreasing when I was around.

Cakes presented a different kind of challenge. I learned early on to not cut myself a piece, because my mother learned to remember the dessert’s roughly L-shaped configuration. The only thing to do was to cut all around the previously cut edges, hence leaving the same basic shape. I’d pursue this gradually, using a knife and eating slivers off it. That way, if I heard my mother’s footsteps I could nonchalantly shift to a default activity, like looking out the window or reading the comics.

Going out to eat with my grandmother was always a special treat, but not without its chastening moments. More than once she would embarrass me by proclaiming in a stage whisper at Stouffer’s, “This is a good restaurant. You know how I know? Because Jews eat here.” Of course I always wanted dessert, and she would let me get it but then shame me with a huge gasp when it was presented. “Are you going to eat all that?” Only in my teens did I gather the nerve to say “yes” and look her in the eye. On the other hand, whenever my grandmother was offered dessert she would say, “Just a teeny tiny sliver,” gasp when it was delivered, and say “I can’t possibly eat all that.”

Back at home, I carried the sneaky game too far one midsummer morning when I was seven. It was the day when we were to move out of state, and spend the night at my grandparents’s house. I was on the open-air side porch and I was just about to take a bite out of a Hershey bar I had unwrapped in the kitchen, whose wrappings I had no doubt hidden under less recent trash. Suddenly I heard my mother’s heels clicking along the walk. (Women of her age and class wore loud dressy shoes even on moving day.) My sundress had no pockets, so I stuffed the candy bar, improbably, in the side of my underpants.

Even more improbably, I promptly forgot about the candy bar, what with all the excitement of the day. Hours later I discovered it at my grandparents’ house, a gooey sludge in my underwear. I scrunched the underpants and their load in my suitcase, hoping they would go away. My mother found them almost immediately and asked me “Lauren, are you all right? What is this in your underpants?” Mortified, I said, “I’m fine . . . . but I really don’t want to say what it is. Is that okay?” Miraculously, my mother said “okay” and never brought it up again.

I like to remember that moment of grace, because in my memory there weren’t many of them. Even as a grown woman visiting my parents, I knew my mother was listening to the cupboard and refrigerator doors, to ascertain what I was getting. She would proclaim she was going to bed, only to pop up unexpectedly in the kitchen a half hour later because she “forgot something.” But I wasn’t the only person left hungry. My mother’s cooking was delicious, and I owe a large part of my cooking know-how from her, but she cooked scanty amounts. Every time I brought a boyfriend for dinner he had to eat another meal afterwards. My father would fix himself a sandwich right after he got home from work. My husband John and I would go out for a beer and appetizers two hours after a dinner at my parents’ house.

Now my mother and grandmother are dead, but I have six file boxes, three looseleaf notebooks, and one composition book full of their hand-copied recipes. One recipe card at a time, I decipher my grandmother’s loopy handwriting on the yellow-stained papers, and transcribe it. I sift through my mother’s recipes for Indian Pudding, Country Captain, Rhubarb Crisp, and, of course, cookies of one kind and another. Sometimes I encounter my own childish handwriting, in whatever color of ink I liked at the time. The project to record these recipes is daunting, but I will finish. Because I am still hungry.

Sting

This morning in the car, after the boys wailed bitterly about someone who didn't let someone have a turn, having to wear mittens, having to wear coats, having to go to school, and being reminded that it's a school day.

Jack: Mommy, do you like being a mother?

Me: (tensely) Yes. (suspiciously) Why?

Jack: Because sometimes it doesn't seem like you do.

Me: (determined not to take this personally like my mother used to be when I said stuff like that) I just don't like when my sons don't cooperate in the morning and act like it's a big surprise that they're going to school every day.

Jack: We don't go to school every day, just Monday to Friday! And not in the summer!

Me: (tensely again, while negotiating tricky turn) You know what I mean.

Jack: You want us to do what you want.

Me: Yes. Exactly.

Jack: (muttering) Like we're your slaves.

Me: (Nothing. I actually say nothing. Ta da. Turns on WXPN)

____________________________

Conversations with Jack

First, a note about the Inquirer's claim that Disney is sponsoring the Narnia sermon contest: I really don't think it's true, at least in a technical sense. The SermonCentral.com site has a big ole disclaimer at the bottom of the page. That pretty much takes away the peg I was hanging the "Kingdoms Collide" entry on, oh well. But there will be over 50 movie tie-in products, and then there is some kind of sweepstakes, so my claim about Aslan's response still stands.

_________________________

Here's a conversation Jack and I had the other day while the boys were changing out of their swimsuits at the Y.

Jack: Mommy, you know something really strange about the American Presidents?

Me: No, what?

Jack: They were all men.

Me: Yeah, what's with that? That is weird. And they're all white.

Jack: Hey, yeah!

Me: Maybe someday we'll have a woman president.

Jack: Or maybe a black woman president!


____________________________________

The other day, at breakfast:

Jack: Mommy, can boys marry boys?

Me: In some states they can.

Jack: Can they in Pennsylvania?

Me: No, but they can go to another state and do it.

Jack: That's what I'm going to do. Can I have more cereal?

________________________________

Following up later in the day (at the Y, changing out of swimsuits, again)


Me: Remember when you asked about boys marrying boys?

Jack: Yes.

Me: Well, when you're older, you will be attracted to either boys or girls. Probably you will want to marry a girl, but maybe not. It's like being left-handed or right-handed. You're born to like girls or boys. But you probably won't know for many years. I wouldn't worry about it yet. There's room in the world for all kinds of love.

Jack: Yeah. Like I love Alex (best friend). And I love you! And I love Daddy and Will!

Me: But that doesn't mean you want to marry us.

Jack: Yeah!

Will: Yeah! Group hug!

(Group hug, rather wet)

Kingdoms Collide

For decades I believed that I had read all the Narnia stories. After a rather disconcerting conversation with my husband last year, it turns out that I had merely read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe over and over and over. I must have been very young, because I remember trying to look in my grandparents' spare room closet for snow and a lamppost. The closet was behind the staircase, and so the back of it sloped upwards into . . . into where? It mystified me.

Another burning question raised by the book was, "What exactly is Turkish delight? And where can I find some?" When I did finally taste it at the end of a meal at a London restaurant, its rubbery texture and vaguely rosewater taste reminded me that Edmund's Turkish delight was enchanted by the White Witch, after all. Had it been me in her sled, I'd have asked the White Witch for butterscotch brownies. I knew deep inside that I could so easily have been the Edmund of the early chapters, seeking my own comfort over justice and truth.

Edmund's change of heart, though, is profound. Even as a young child I grasped some of the allegory's power. We can grow beyond our own narrow egos. The world that is we see is not necessarily all there is. Ordinary children may be granted the power to see through the lies of adults and to change the moral landscape. A friend of mine who is reading the movie tie-in version confessed that she "missed the God thing" in her childhood reading. But I said to her, "No, you didn't miss it. You just didn't label the good forces as 'God.'"

That's why it's good literature. The Narnia stories depict an epic struggle for justice and love over corruption and greed, beauty and peace over disharmony and destruction. The struggle takes generations. It is bloody. The struggle is guided and disciplined by Aslan, who isn't always there when you need him but gets cranky when you forget about him. In the end, Aslan and the forces of good triumph in a final hard-won battle.

Now there's Disney, who is sponsoring a contest in which preachers are asked to submit sermons that mention the Narnia movie. Disney will hold a drawing, and the winner gets, not Turkish Delight, but $1,000 and a trip to London.*

Aslan is not pleased.

________________________

*According to this article in the Dec. 4 Philadelphia Inquirer, "Walt Disney Pictures is so eager for churches to turn out audiences for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which opens Friday, that it's offering a free trip to London - and $1,000 cash - to the winner of its big promotional sermon contest." However, this site says it's sponsored by SermonCentral.com.

Coming Up for Air

Gulp. That felt good.

Things That Have Happened, in Chronological Order, Since my Last Post

1. Joint birthday party for Jack and Will

2. Arrival of inlaws from Indiana

3. Jack's actual birthday, with family celebration

4. Broken heating element in oven, the day before Thanksgiving

5. Heroic successful attempt by father-in-law to replace heating element in time for me to bake two pies that day

6. Thanksgiving at our house for nine people, with my grandmother's linens and silver. Everything cooked from scratch. Incredible stuffing and a bottle of mead made by my multitalented brother. And thanks to John the Brining Guy, various helpful family members and sporadically helpful boys.

7. My father's admission to a local hospital, for breathing problems, heart rate irregularity, and fever.

8. Surprise 50th birthday party one month ahead of time for my sister-in-law at a restaurant in Philly.

9. Will's actual birthday and family celebration.

10. My father's discharge from the hospital.

11. My locking my keys in the car at the hospital. (These last three were on the same day)

12. The departure of my inlaws, nine days after arrival.

During this time I didn't blog or write anything other than shopping lists and to-do lists. Didn't go to the gym. Mushy brain, flabby body. Must get to work.

How put together again sentences do you?

Of Pirates and Party Manners

We're having a pirate birthday party here tomorrow for Will and Jack. Their birthdays are a week apart, and we're trying to get as many joint parties in as we can. The boys and I looked online for pirate images to use in the invitations, but I remembered, after looking at various etchings and drawings of historical pirates, that pirates were not nice. They made people walk the plank. They (obviously) stole people's ships and money. Pirates really got theirs, though, when they were caught. Gosh!

I hastily steered the boys away from these grim images of piratry, but couldn't find very many happy pictures of real pirates, unless you count this one, which doesn't strike me as quite the right tone for a children's birthday party. Plus, the guy looks miserable. I thought of using web photos of real pirate maps for the invitations, but they seemed a bit esoteric.So we sent generic invitations, and then got your conventional sanitized party pirate pictures, on napkins, plates, tablecloth.

And the cake, you ask. I just made it this morning, Richard Sax's Fudgy Chocolate Layer Cake. from Classic Home Desserts. Instead of chocolate frosting I used a cream cheese frosting, changed a little from the one he lists for the Applesauce-Carrot Cake. All vanilla extract and no lemon zest. I love Richard Sax. Love him. A couple years ago I read in John Thorne's Simple Cooking Newsletter that he was dead. Richard Sax was dead even when I got the book, about nine years ago. I felt so sad, and also very disconcerted that all that time I thought he was alive. If you just read a little from the book, which has been reissued because it is so well researched and written in such a warm voice, you'll know what I mean. He lives in the book.

Then I had to go and make a pirate hat with that gross black frosting in a can. And a skull and crossbones from the slightly less disgusting can of white frosting. Then a bunch of "Easter sprinkles" around the sides for a lighter mood, more resurrection and less death.

Voila! The skull has a drunken lopsided smile and the edges of the black hat jut out oddly in a few places. As Jack just said to me, "It looks good for not being professional." Kind words, matey.

Better than Sex

I've hit the motherlode, dear readers. Nana's most special of all her half dozen recipe boxes, the rustiest one, the one with odd bits of paper and wrongly labelled sections. "Salads." No salads, here, sister! Only luscious desserts, such as "Better than Sex." Now I have heard of "Better than Sex" Cake, but this recipe, typed on the old black Smith-Corona on a small unevenly cut piece of paper, just says "Better than Sex" at the top. Is it the name of the dish or a description of it? This ambiguity leads me to wonder why my grandparents had separate bedrooms, and if it was really because Papa snored too loud, as was the party line. Not surprisingly, I don't remember this dessert at all, perhaps because Nana didn't want to tell us children what it was called.

It does sound sweet, silky, creamy, smooth. And . . . . greasy. Topped with Cool Whip, ooh la la. But guaranteed not to demand anything from you, give you an STD, or get you pregnant. And without further ado,

Better Than Sex

1 C flour
1 stick oleo (WW II rationing has been over a while; use butter)
1/2 C chopped pecans
1 C powdered sugar
8-oz. package cream cheese
tub of Cool Whip (I changed from Dream Whip, thanks Betty McB)
2 small packages lemon or chocolate instant pudding (depending on your orientation?)
2 1/2 C whole milk, COLD

Mix flour, oleo, and nuts. Press into bottom of 9 x 13 pan and and bake 15 minutes at 350. Cool.

Cream together powdered sugar and cream cheese to a frost-like consistency (I think she means "frosting") and spread over the cooled crust. Blend milk and pudding to an almost set consistency and pour over cream cheese mixture. Top with Cool Whip.

The Well-Intentioned Cook

I try to use fresh local ingredients whenever possible and don't eat or serve processed food, for the most part. I make my own bread, with a bread machine. Jack and Will's teachers comment on how good the bread looks! No single-serving packaged food in our house, no juice boxes. We aim for optimal health,living lightly on this earth, and good taste. Which reminds me that I need to make dinner. I haven't thought too much about it all day. But we have tomatoes, cheese, pasta, green peppers, garlic, olive oil, and so I think I'll manage come up with something.

Please check out Simply in Season, Cathy Hockman-Wert's food blog named after the cookbook she co-edited with Mary Beth Lind, published by Herald Press. The proceeds from the cookbook go to Mennonite Central Committee, an organization that helps the world. I tested one recipe in the book (Grilled Vegetable Salad) and my sister in law tested ten. Cathy has known my husband John for years. Besides being nonprofit, the book is lovely on its own. It's not a trendy foodie cookbook, no famous chefs involved. It is truly friendly to the home cook who is willing to be patient with her or his methods and foods, and who cares about healthful eating.

That said, I confess I have a bunch of greens, an eggplant, and a crowd of squashes in the downstairs fridge that are past the point of no return and sorely need to be evicted and composted. I keep vainly hoping for a resurrection.

Happy Birthday, Dream Kitchen

On Saturday my blog turned one year old. I'm thinking of a few ways to celebrate it:

-Write one of those 100 things about me memes
-Publish a couple of essays that haven't been published anywhere
-Take roll

I'll start with the last--Who reads my blog? Are you a new visitor or a regular? Figuratively raise your hand by leaving a comment. Insincere, empty, ironic, any comment will do, as long as it's from a real person. You could just say "present." Thank you kindly, dear readers.

The Existential Kindergartener

We have deep conversations on the way to school in the morning. This Pinteresque one from last Thursday:

Jack: What if there was nothing?

Lauren (stalling): I'm not sure what you're asking. No helmet AND the wrong side of the street. Idiot.

Jack: I mean no people, no air, no earth, no nothing.

Lauren (vaguely) Wow. That might be boring.(There's no way I'm letting you in, silver Mercedes.)

Will: No cars! No roads!

Jack: No, wait. It wouldn't be boring. Not if there wasn't anyone around to think it's boring.

Will: No food! No cats!

Lauren: Jack, good thinking. An excellent point. Move already, geezer in the blue Cadillac. If there were nothing, no one could call it nothing because we wouldn't be around to name anything. In a way it's already something even if it's called "nothing." How long has that gas indicator light been on?

Jack: God wouldn't even be there.

Lauren: Not if there was nothing. I'm glad there's not nothing.

Will: Can we go to the playground after school?

Lauren: If it's warm enough, we can. And stop kicking my seat.