This morning marked the first Christmas event (that I've have participated in) of the season! I work with the junior and senior high kids at church, and this morning we got together for a bit of Christmas baking. At church we have an Alternative Christmas Market, wherein you can purchase "alternative" gifts, such as the donation of a goat for an impoverished family across the globe. The students are charged with the task of selling goats (and chickens and mosquito nets and wells...), and we baked the cookies to give away along with someones purchase.
We had three girls show up today to bake and it was quite a time. We made sugar cookies, brownies and rice krispy treats. The one thing that struck me was how "grossed out" all of these girls were with the amount of fat that went into each of these recipes. The girl making the cookies commented "2/3 cup of butter AND 2/3 cup of shortening?! Why do they need so much fat?" (we used all butter, btw). The girl on krispy treats--the youngest of the bunch--continually made faces and sounds of disgust at the melting pot of butter and marshmallow. Finally, the girl on brownies could not get over how much oil went into the recipe. I simply told them "See, that's the trouble with baking: you find out what actually goes into your food."
This was a bit of an enlightening experience for me. I grew up in the kitchen with my mom, making at least 20 dozen cookies for the holidays each year (we always started with those that require the coolest oven and ended with the russian teacakes at 400F). Thus, the idea of putting an exuberant amount of fat into baked goods has never surprised me... they are desserts and to be eaten in moderation, after all.
I have thought a lot about how psychologically impacting the act of preparing your own food is, but this is the first time I have really seen it so strongly expressed by someone else. Perhaps if we all made our own cookies--instead of reaching for chips ahoy--we might eat considerably less. Sometimes a the act of adding a stick or two of butter to a recipe can be a lot more impacting than the abstract knowledge that "too many cookies are bad for me".
I suppose this experience also says something about the relationship that our youth have with food and body image... but that is perhaps a bit too heavy for today. So, until next time... happy holiday baking!!
05 December 2009
22 November 2009
366 days
Had this been a leap year, today would be exactly one year since my last post.
Unfortunately it is not a leap year, so we get no happy round numbers.
I have been trapped at home for the past four days with a nasty bout of influenza. I have noticed during this time that being a sick adult is quite different from being a sick child. This is most apparent to me as I stare around my room at the soiled dishes I will have to clean once I feel well. Wait? Isn't someone supposed to do stuff like that for me when I'm sick? You mean I have to get my own orange juice? What? Of course, Nathan has been wonderful in heating my soup, bringing me movies, and listening to me whine... but PhD students don't have a lot of time and this thing is pushing a week. So, with this reflection what I really mean to say: thanks Mom! Thanks to all the moms (and dads) who stay home to take care of their children when they're ill. From personal experience, it's a very wonderful thing!
I have been thinking from my sick bed about coming back to this blog... picking it up again. But one thing that I have been stuck by, in all my musings about serendipitous wanderings 2.0, is the title. I came up with the blog title in 2007, before flying to the other side of the globe and setting up camp. At that time I was wandering with a dim sense of what was to come and hoping for serendipity. But now... now things are laid out clearly enough. Of course there will always be questions, but it seems that I am no longer a nomad (or, at least, it does not feel that way).
So, serendipitous wanderings: it will remain my title, but I will need to find a new meaning for it along the way. Perhaps it will be a serendipitous search.
Unfortunately it is not a leap year, so we get no happy round numbers.
I have been trapped at home for the past four days with a nasty bout of influenza. I have noticed during this time that being a sick adult is quite different from being a sick child. This is most apparent to me as I stare around my room at the soiled dishes I will have to clean once I feel well. Wait? Isn't someone supposed to do stuff like that for me when I'm sick? You mean I have to get my own orange juice? What? Of course, Nathan has been wonderful in heating my soup, bringing me movies, and listening to me whine... but PhD students don't have a lot of time and this thing is pushing a week. So, with this reflection what I really mean to say: thanks Mom! Thanks to all the moms (and dads) who stay home to take care of their children when they're ill. From personal experience, it's a very wonderful thing!
I have been thinking from my sick bed about coming back to this blog... picking it up again. But one thing that I have been stuck by, in all my musings about serendipitous wanderings 2.0, is the title. I came up with the blog title in 2007, before flying to the other side of the globe and setting up camp. At that time I was wandering with a dim sense of what was to come and hoping for serendipity. But now... now things are laid out clearly enough. Of course there will always be questions, but it seems that I am no longer a nomad (or, at least, it does not feel that way).
So, serendipitous wanderings: it will remain my title, but I will need to find a new meaning for it along the way. Perhaps it will be a serendipitous search.
21 November 2008
at the weekend
Aunt Connie--thanks for asking to see photos of the garden! I've been a bit too lazy to take any lately (plus it is always dark by the time I get home!!) But I am adding two other photos to make up for it in the mean time. Garden photos shall be posted soon...
This is me, Laura, Buster, and a giant carrot from the garden. We are quite the happy family. *The headlamp was used to find the carrot in the garden cause it was too dark to see without it!
This is a drawing for my class that is in process. It is a distorted self portrait (thank you Mac Photo Booth!) The original is in the upper right corner. I think it is getting there...
In other news: it is the weekend! Work has been so busy that the weeks just fly by... but I am so exhausted come the weekend. A regular and habitual break from work was a brilliant idea, whoever came up with it. I am so for it.
I feel there are other things I have been wanting to share here, but am too tired for it this evening. I shall post again soon!
This is me, Laura, Buster, and a giant carrot from the garden. We are quite the happy family. *The headlamp was used to find the carrot in the garden cause it was too dark to see without it!
This is a drawing for my class that is in process. It is a distorted self portrait (thank you Mac Photo Booth!) The original is in the upper right corner. I think it is getting there...In other news: it is the weekend! Work has been so busy that the weeks just fly by... but I am so exhausted come the weekend. A regular and habitual break from work was a brilliant idea, whoever came up with it. I am so for it.
I feel there are other things I have been wanting to share here, but am too tired for it this evening. I shall post again soon!
12 November 2008
An occasioned meeting
Yesterday I learned an important thing about eating from your own garden: unexpected friends sometimes show up on your dinner plate.
I had made for myself a meal in which the main component was a salad. I picked the greens from the garden, washed them, and in the process of drying them and tearing them up I happened upon a miniature tobacco horned worm. Her color mimicked the lettuce quite well, so I nearly missed her! I plucked her off the leaf and put her in the compost (I would have placed her back in the garden but they are rather destructive creatures!) After I removed her from my dinner, I had a think about how I would never find a living (non-microscopic) organism in something I purchased from a grocery... and if I did how repulsed I would find myself. Yet, when food is coming from the garden (or farmers market for that matter), it is normal. It is interesting how the foods that we buy in the grocery are somehow--in our conceptual understandings--transcendent from any ideas of ecosystem or natural processes... how we have become so disconnected from the mystery underlying the way our food grows. It's just a little interesting, that's all. :)
I had made for myself a meal in which the main component was a salad. I picked the greens from the garden, washed them, and in the process of drying them and tearing them up I happened upon a miniature tobacco horned worm. Her color mimicked the lettuce quite well, so I nearly missed her! I plucked her off the leaf and put her in the compost (I would have placed her back in the garden but they are rather destructive creatures!) After I removed her from my dinner, I had a think about how I would never find a living (non-microscopic) organism in something I purchased from a grocery... and if I did how repulsed I would find myself. Yet, when food is coming from the garden (or farmers market for that matter), it is normal. It is interesting how the foods that we buy in the grocery are somehow--in our conceptual understandings--transcendent from any ideas of ecosystem or natural processes... how we have become so disconnected from the mystery underlying the way our food grows. It's just a little interesting, that's all. :)
25 October 2008
an excerpt
This is an except from a reflection dated: 23/11/2007. I reread it today and thought it would be nice to post here. Here is the first bit, it continues, but I will keep it short for now:
A reflection:
My time here, so far.
An adjustment. That's what I'll call it: an adjustment. A transition to something new and alien. A transition away from my familiar and loved. It was a bit of a jolt this time. Pushed off a bus into the rainy street--my life on wheels fumbling behind: luggage too heavy and no one to help. No one to laugh about it later because no one knew. Hailed a cab and read from a paper where I needed to be: Emmanuel College, porter's lodge, please. Lost and fumbling I was. Tired, lost and fumbling. I found the porter--he was kind and offered me a cup of tea. He called me a cab to get me round the corner to my new home.
Matt--number three--was the first person I met at my new home. He helped me get my bags up the stairs. My room was bare and small and the 'garden view' was not quite what I expected. But I decided to make it work. I hung and decorated and titled my head to get a better angle. I made it my little home and got used to the overgrown garden. I count the seasons on the tree outside my window now. By my estimation, winter will be here soon. My window has no screen, I like that. I can put my hand outside and feel the rain and the cold and catch the sun. Before my window tree was bare it would toss leaves into my room. A nice, playful welcome from a long-time resident of this place.
A reflection:
My time here, so far.
An adjustment. That's what I'll call it: an adjustment. A transition to something new and alien. A transition away from my familiar and loved. It was a bit of a jolt this time. Pushed off a bus into the rainy street--my life on wheels fumbling behind: luggage too heavy and no one to help. No one to laugh about it later because no one knew. Hailed a cab and read from a paper where I needed to be: Emmanuel College, porter's lodge, please. Lost and fumbling I was. Tired, lost and fumbling. I found the porter--he was kind and offered me a cup of tea. He called me a cab to get me round the corner to my new home.
Matt--number three--was the first person I met at my new home. He helped me get my bags up the stairs. My room was bare and small and the 'garden view' was not quite what I expected. But I decided to make it work. I hung and decorated and titled my head to get a better angle. I made it my little home and got used to the overgrown garden. I count the seasons on the tree outside my window now. By my estimation, winter will be here soon. My window has no screen, I like that. I can put my hand outside and feel the rain and the cold and catch the sun. Before my window tree was bare it would toss leaves into my room. A nice, playful welcome from a long-time resident of this place.
24 October 2008
amongst a blade of grass
Work has been busy. My first project as project manager is coming to a stage of fruition this coming week... I have to present it to our client on Monday, to be precise. In the middle of the day today I had to leave the office and walk to a small park nearby... lay in the grass and close my eyes. I had to re-calibrate, really: to place myself back into the grander vision. It is so easy to get caught in the local... in the now. Laying there with my face in the grass, hiding my eyes from the blinding sun, I concentrated on listening. A bird... a cyclist rolling by (how nice, I thought, cycling in the middle of a Friday) ... an aeroplane overhead ... a child playing across the way ... another distinct bird call. This is real, I thought, this is reality. I laid there and held to my breast the knowledge of something bigger: millennia of human activity, eons of cells dividing and molecules colliding... something so big that my mind gave in and relaxed.
all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well
all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well
05 October 2008
Some photos
Today I am posting a few photos from around the garden. I feel a bit silly posting photos of our garden, but there are some quite pretty things to share and sometimes it is nice to see these things instead of just read about them.
In an attempt to eat in season (or at least buy in season), I've begun freezing in-season fruits to use in the off seasons. Below is a collection of apples and various berries: I took a photo because I thought the array of colors was beautiful.
My mom came over and said: Oxalis? That's a weed! I guess one woman's weed is another woman's treasure. Below is one of the two Oxalis plants I bought at the Horticulture Society sale.
Lavender on the window sill. We've got quite a bit of lavender from the six plants in the garden, so I've been placing it around the house in champagne glasses and mason jars.
'Champagne Bubbles' poppy cultivar. These remind me of the Newnham College garden at Cambridge: the poppies brought such light to the landscaped spaces. The pots these guys are planted in were created on day on a whim. I decided to decoupage some old black plastic pots (the kind that you buy plants in) with The Independent, and then touch them up with a bit of paint. I think they turned out quite fun.
Some lettuce in the winter vegetable garden. Newspaper makes a great mulch AND it's a fabulous way to recycle in your own backyard!
Sugar snap peas growing on the north side of the house. I built the trellis from some sticks I found in the yard and cotton string. It's not the prettiest, but it is working quite well.
Linaria reticulata ('Flamenco'): I bought these at Sumida a few weeks ago and added them to the garden at the side of the house. They do not have a lot of foilage but simply burst into magenta and butternut yellow, so they fit nicely with the bunches of cabbage, kale and leafy herbs scattered throughout.
In an attempt to eat in season (or at least buy in season), I've begun freezing in-season fruits to use in the off seasons. Below is a collection of apples and various berries: I took a photo because I thought the array of colors was beautiful.
My mom came over and said: Oxalis? That's a weed! I guess one woman's weed is another woman's treasure. Below is one of the two Oxalis plants I bought at the Horticulture Society sale.
Lavender on the window sill. We've got quite a bit of lavender from the six plants in the garden, so I've been placing it around the house in champagne glasses and mason jars.
'Champagne Bubbles' poppy cultivar. These remind me of the Newnham College garden at Cambridge: the poppies brought such light to the landscaped spaces. The pots these guys are planted in were created on day on a whim. I decided to decoupage some old black plastic pots (the kind that you buy plants in) with The Independent, and then touch them up with a bit of paint. I think they turned out quite fun.
Some lettuce in the winter vegetable garden. Newspaper makes a great mulch AND it's a fabulous way to recycle in your own backyard!
Sugar snap peas growing on the north side of the house. I built the trellis from some sticks I found in the yard and cotton string. It's not the prettiest, but it is working quite well.
Linaria reticulata ('Flamenco'): I bought these at Sumida a few weeks ago and added them to the garden at the side of the house. They do not have a lot of foilage but simply burst into magenta and butternut yellow, so they fit nicely with the bunches of cabbage, kale and leafy herbs scattered throughout.
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