Mastering the Art of Midnight Cooking

It was a long day of soccer practice, piano lessons, cleaning to prepare for the upcoming graduation party of Houdin, and, as if we weren't busy enough, a service planning meeting at church. Sometime during the day, I decided that it would all end with loveliness, so on the way to our meeting, I implored of my husband to not begin any lengthy discussions, to not bring up new topics, to cut to the chase, and I would do the same. I didn't want to sound short or bossy, but I knew I had to tell the other meeting attendees up front that we really needed to leave by 8:30. And I was pretty serious about it. I'm afraid I may have pushed the meeting on a bit--so I guess I was bossy in spite of my best mediocre attempts not to be.

And when we finished our meeting at 8:26, I think I actually hooted with glee.

My husband and I were going to go home, rush our two eldest and our young friend Lemony into the car (the two younglings were at a friend's house for the night), stop long enough to transfer Monet from another soccer parent's minivan to ours, and head north to the Medium Sized City for a 9:55 p.m. showing of Julie and Julia. My dear husband, who had awoken at 5:30 a.m. and would have to be to work at 7:00 a.m. the following morning, was completely game. We even scraped up enough money in this economically depressed month to pay for all of our tickets, the elder children chipping in all that they had. And when we got there? It was bargain Tuesday. $4.25 for tickets. Bonus!

No popcorn. No milk duds. Straight to the theater we strode, because I knew that, waiting at home for us, was a fresh batch of pesto and some crusty bread.

Bad idea.

See, the film was just packed full, as might be expected, of incredibly mouthwatering foods. They walked by amazing foods. They talked about amazing foods. They ate amazing foods. And we, hungry and amazed, watched helplessly, drooling, oohing and ahhing. Loudly. We were, by some miracle (maybe that it was the 9:55 p.m. showing) the only people in the theater, giving us the freedom to laugh loudly, discuss the food, and make slyly disparaging comments about the film's antagonists.

Meryl Streep was, as you've heard, amazingly incredible. Stanley Tucci was adorable. My only regret was that I had not been Julie Powell, had not stood in a moment of quiet desperation and committed an act of psychotic cooking bloggery. I could have done it (as everyone says). It could have been me. And, just like Powell's character in the film, I would have loved Julia, and I would have believed that Julia loved me, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

I had decided that the day would end in loveliness, and I got my way. Julie and Julia was delightful, even with its flaws (my middle child got half-way through the film before he realized that the parallel stories were taking place during different decades..and he's a pretty bright kid). I found myself with the perfect opportunity to practice my very limited, very sad excuse for French. I nudged my daughter in the row ahead of me when Julie visited Julia's Cambridge, Massachusetts kitchen at the Smithsonian, because I, too, had been there just a short month and a half before. And after the film was over, as we were driving the long trip back home to my Little Village just after midnight, I was taking a mental inventory of what ingredients were scattered around my kitchen at home. My hope was to crack open my thrifted copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and duplicate, albeit more successfully, the poached egg scene in the film. I'd never poached an egg. I've never liked eggs.

Alas, it was not to be. My copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking is Volume 2, which doesn't contain the egg-poaching pages.

But my eyes landed on a recipe that featured eggplant, and, as luck would have it, I'd just plucked a few nice eggplants from my garden and a few more from the farmer's market just that morning, so I gathered all of the ingredients (can you believe I actually had scallions in my kitchen? I rarely have scallions in my kitchen! But there they were, as was everything else, and so, at 1:00 a.m., my husband, kids and Lemony were eating pesto and peeling eggplant as I made the sauce and chopped the tomatoes.

This dish is supposed to be eaten cold, but I just couldn't wait. I'd already lost my husband, who had finally staggered off to bed, and Monet, who couldn't stay up any longer due to an impending early-morning soccer practice (they're doing two-a-days this week), so as soon as I folded the tomato/basil/garlic sauce into the simmered/sauteed eggplant, I was ready to eat. Houdin heaped it onto a piece of crusty bread, but I just scooped it into a dish and grabbed a fork. Delicious.

A small dish was set aside and refrigerated so that I can see what it's "supposed" to taste like once it's chilled.

With just a few short hours left of this morning before I have to rise and begin another day, I'm heading to bed, garlic on my breath, dreaming of my next meal.

Who told you that?

I feel like redecorating a room. I feel like painting a wall with whimsical characters. I feel like hand-sewing something. I want to open a toy store or a chocolate shop or a magical book store. I'm uplifted. Inspired. Creatively charged.

The last time, it was kind of an accident. A whim really. It was Monday, and Monday is fifty cent movie day. If you can take a boatload of kids to a theater and pay $3.50, you go if there's something worth seeing, you know?

And, while I had really, really, really wanted to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium the first time I saw the trailer in the movie theater, the whispering critics changed my fickle mind. I don't even remember how it seeped into my brain that this movie was a dud. I just, Idunno, heard it somewhere. Probably like people had heard that The Wizard of Oz was a dud. Or The Princess Bride. I can't recall reading it anywhere, or even having a conversation about it, but I know I had a negative feeling about Mr. Magorium's, so I steered clear.

Fortunately for me and my tight fist, I got a second chance when Mr. Magorium's was on at the cheap theater that day. And, what was especially intriguing to me, that it was rated G. A cheap family date and I wouldn't leave the theater regretting that I'd tainted my children for life with a host of innuendos and potty jokes.

So we gave it a shot.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, from my five-year-old up to my eighteen-year-old, adored the movie. And so did I! I was whisked away by the sparkling innocence and charming quixoticity of it all--the set, the characters, the story. It enchanted me, truly.

Tonight, for family night, we watched it again, and my feelings were the same. Here, at last, was a clean, phantasmagorical film with quirky, quick-witted, capricious dialog and light-hearted humor. Nothing embarrassing. Nothing risque. Just sweet, fun-loving innocence.

Have you seen it? Have you avoided it because you heard it was a Chocolate Factory rip-off, or that Dustin Hoffman presents an annoying Willie Wonka wannabe? Who told you that? Whoever it was, I'd venture to say that those are people who have handed over their innocence, ultimately losing their identities to too many Bourne movies or poisoning their imaginations with the harsh violence and overdone bathroom humor present in the majority of today's films. Mr. Magorium's, while somewhat trite in places, and, admittedly, a bit weak in the ending, nevertheless shares with us the beauty of relationships, the transformation that comes from loving, the unabashed compassion that one human being can have for another, and the novel idea that death is not scary or undesirable, but should be accepted as another stop on our adventure--indeed, even something to celebrate. It shares with us that, in the depths of our souls, there is someone who was born there, someone we can't kick out, someone who is keeping a volume of books recording with meticulousness every moment of our lives. It teaches us that how we love matters, that intergenerational relationships are what make us grow, and that there is no end to the importance of a good pair of shoes.

There are timeless truths here, to be sure.

On Bard's eighteenth birthday, we had lunch at Chic-Fila, and I happened to hear someone at the next table talking about Mr. Magorium's, giving it, as I have, a glowing review. I couldn't stop myself from interjecting and connecting with this kindred spirit.

"I loved it, too," I ventured tentatively. And we shared our favorite parts. She told me how she sat in the theater alone (she'd just turned 50, she said) after doing just what I had done; she'd had a spare afternoon, some loose change, and had found herself at the ticket window of the bargain movie theater.

"I even asked the ticket girl if it was a dumb movie, and she said she didn't know. I figured, 'What the heck? For a couple of quarters, what do I have to lose?' So I went it, and was mesmerized. Smitten! I pulled out my notebook and, there in the dark, tried to jot down all that stuff I wanted to remember. I had a full page by the time it was over!"

Like me, she wondered what had kept her away. "I don't know why I thought it was a flop. I just heard it somewhere. But now, it's one of my favorite movies.

"It really made me think about my life," she said, "and made me ask myself what I'm saving things for. I had a friend who died of cancer a couple of years ago, and before she died, we went through her closet, and she had all these great, fancy clothes. Clothes she'd rarely or never worn! Why? Because she was 'saving them for a special occasion,' she'd said. I thought of that during the movie, when Mr. Magorium says, 'Your life is a an occasion. Rise to it!' That line! I decided that I'd wear my good clothes now, every day. What am I saving them for?"

If you're looking for a clean family film, a departure from the prosaic, something to sweep you away from the proletarian day-to-day, Mr. Magorium's just might be it.

No matter what "they" say.

Another M. Night Movie!

...and I have to wait until June to see what's Happening!

Seize Life!

"Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best."
~Babette from Babette's Feast

" Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don't skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! "
~Ecclesiastes 9:10, The Message

There are parts of me that cannot be supressed, no matter what company surrounds me--the love of language and the love of good food; to me, the whole of my service to others is wrapped up in these two loves. Often I find myself within a circle of people who don't understand my passions, and somehow that makes me feel small and insignificant. Sometimes I find my desire to produce substantial foods for mind and body belittled, almost ridiculed, by those who don't understand how intrisic these things are to me.

I can't help it. I want to feed you.

And it's not good enough for me to slap some macaroni and cheese or a bologna sandwich on a paper plate and hand it over.

It's not good enough to slip through the drive-through for lunch and be satisfied with a watery iceberg lettuce salad.

It doesn't do to throw together a casserole with canned beans and cream of mushroom soup and french-fried onions.

I know even in writing this that I'll be misunderstood.

I want to feed you real food. Real, substantial, simple, delicious food.

You must know how it pains me that I don't find myself with the amount of time I need to give you want I want to give you. The recipes I want to try, the dishes I want to prepare, the delicacies I want to bestow upon you are too many for the days I have left upon this earth.

I think of Babette, of the sacrifices she made to prepare a meal for those she loved, those who had saved her life, and how she must have had some sense that they were afraid of what she would serve them, that their fears grew larger than this realm. They literally believed that she was preparing the food of the devil. They had no idea that she was a well-known French chef. Her quail, you might say, were cast before swine.

If I were in Babette's place, I'd be fretting. I'd be fuming. I'd not have one good thing to say about those ungrateful gourmands.

But not Babette.

In someone else's kitchen, a long way from her home, she patiently and lovingly prepares a feast; course after course comes forth, and somehow, the food changes people. It awakens them. They find beauty and love and miracles.

When it is discovered that she has used all the money she had to prepare the feast--10,000 francs in the late 1800's--her spinster employers are aghast. Why would she spend all of her money on them?

"It was not just for you," she replies.

"Tout ce que ta main trouve à faire avec ta force, fais-le." Ecclesiastes 9:10, en francais.

I want to find that kind of purpose, like Babette's, where I do what I do--yes, for you--but not just for you. For my own good. For the Lord. Seizing each day with both hands and drinking it down.

Come eat. The feast is ready.

A Lovely Birthday Celebration

I have so many reasons to be thankful, I'm not sure you have the time to read them all, so I'll condense and spread them all out over the next few days or so.

It's been a long time since my now-seventeen-year-old daughter Bard and I went out on a girls' day out together, so I decided that I would treat her to a whole day of shopping, dining and enjoying each other's company for her birthday. Since she had choir on Saturday (her entire choir sang Happy Birthday with full harmonies. Beautiful!), we were already going to be in the Big City, so I arranged for Bo to take care of the necessities at home, including delivering soup to Houdin's 30-Hour-Famine fast and delivering pizzas in the evening, and we took the day off to go play.

What a fun day we had! Lunch at Panera; over to the ritzy pet boutique to ogle over the puppies; shopping at Target, Sam's Club and Kohl's; a movie--Music and Lyrics with the witty and loveable Hugh Grant (with no popcorn--we both exercised very strong willpower and were thankful for it. Movie popcorn ALWAYS makes me sick); dinner at The Waffle House, where I scored a free coffee mug, just for asking; and we hung out at Borders until it was just about closing time; and then we drove home. We took our time all day long, enjoyed each other's company, laughed a lot, and it was wonderful.

Thank you, Bard, for such a fine time. I'm so glad we got to do that!

::: bard's sponsorship :::

Bard began writing her sponsorship request letters for her trip to China. She has really, really talked herself into believing that she won't be able to go. I'm very hesitant to send out the letters or to prod her into sending them. I've made it clear that the whole thing is in her hands. Hopefully, she'll finish the letter today and get it sent out so that I won't have to worry about it.

Edison went to Penny's to do some work and then rode to the bakery. In the evening, he went to the neighbor's house, too.

I finished my notification letter (did I already write that?) and will send it today. I also hope to order the Little House and Anne of Green Gables curricula today.

We watched The Secret Window last night. I hated it. After 15 years of trying to detox myself from Stephen King-like thoughts, they all came flooding right back. I had to sleep with my back against Bohemian because I was frightened like a child. :-/

::: saturday and sunday :::

On Saturday, Bohemian and I picked up a free refrigerator that was listed on our local Freecycle list. Today, my dad cleaned it and we plugged it in. It will serve as a second fridge.

Bard and I had a great discussion about what she wants to be when she grows up. We discussed M. Night Shyamalan and how his entire family is comprised of doctors, but at around the age of 11, he decided he wanted to be a filmmaker. Bard says she'd like to be either a filmmaker, a writer, a singer or an actor. She feels those things are too banal for a teen, though, so she's not sure she wants to pursue any of them seriously.

Edison rode to Penny's house and did a bit of work for them. He rode to the bakery, too, and bought himself a donut. He's been thrilled to have this measure of freedom. The freedom does come with a bit of a price, though. When Bohemian and I came home from our trip to pick up the fridge and our fruitless yard-sale outing, it was after noon. Edison was just taking care of the chickens and goats. This has been an ongoing problem, and I actually had to call him home from a friend's house last week because he said he'd done the chores and hadn't. So, when it was time for him to ask if he could ride to Penny's, I told him that he would first have to write up and sign a contract stating that he would complete his animal chores each morning before 9:00 AM. Every word had to be spelled correctly and the punctuation had to be correct. Sure enough, he produced the signed document, and I told him he could go on his outing. This morning, his chores were done by 9:30. I let him know that this wasn't in accordance with the contract. The solution was that he would purchase an alarm clock.

We watched The King and I. We've been on a bit of a Rodgers and Hammerstein kick. When Monet asked if they could watch it, I said that it was a bit complicated and I wasn't sure if he would understand it. He then continued to tell me the entire story, punctuated by agreements from Sweetheart. When I asked him how he knew this, he said it was from The Sound of Movies, which is a documentary about Rodgers and Hammerstein that we watched a couple of months ago. Good retention!

This is how we spent today, Sunday:

Breakfast as a family. Edison set the table. Yogurt pancakes (flipped by Bohemian), hash browns and sausage.
Bard and I discussed the upcoming school year and discussed the possibility of using some of Cadron Creek's curricula. Bard tended toward Where the Brook and River Meet.
I finished True to Form by Elizabeth Berg. Bard and I discussed it a bit and thought it might be a good book about which to do a reading discussion.
Monet read Midnight on the Moon by Mary Pope Osbourne.
Bard and Monet played with (and then fought over) Robotics.
I made potato chips while we played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. The kids took turns reading the cards aloud. Bard won. Bohemian and I came in second, and Monet and Edison came in third.
I finished my notification letter, which I hope to mail out tomorrow by certified mail.
I joined an e-mail list for Where the Brook and River Meet.

Tomorrow, we will go visit with The Chasers (friends of ours who homeschool. Mrs. Chaser is really one of my best friends. It's so good to have a kindred spirit!) for grilling and a baseball game.

::: what a trip, plus the nickel puzzle :::

Tonight we began discussing what we will do with the balance of our summer. I feel funny saying that, because with all of the rain we've had, it doesn't seem like summer has been here very long at all.

But it has, and now we are faced with making the most of it.

Because we've spent so much of our time working on the house, there hasn't been a lot of recreational time. Our down-time has consisted mostly of watching videos or actually eating dinner. Pretty sedate.

So tonight we started discussing options for making the summer a bit more active. The options ranged from going to the Indiana Dunes to heading to the local water parks. We'd particularly like to become more involved in biking on Rail Trails, something we did fairly often before the beginning of The House. Bohemian and I have both put on weight since we've moved here, which is a surprise, because I really thought a move to the country would solve our weight problems. Actually, we seem to drive more now, eat more (those doggone Amish cooks) and are less active. Plus, Bohemian has a desk job and spends about three hours a day commuting, not to mention all of the time he spends in his car for work-related errands. Very sedate.

In other news, I've been working on my notification letter for this year. I think I have it finished, but I'm nervous about sending it because I gave exactly what the Ohio regulations ask for, but I think it's less than the district wants, and since this is a new district for us, I'm not sure how homeschool-friendly they are. Also, the district instructs us to send notifications to a liason that "handles" homeschooling notifications, though regs say we only have to send them to the super. I suppose I'll send it in, and if it's inadequate to them, I'll contact the homeschool list I'm on and see what I should do.

And in still other news, we've been watching a lot of musicals lately. June 28th was the birthdate of Richard Charles Rodgers', of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame. We rented The Sound of Movies from Netflix, followed by Oklahoma!, both the 1999 stage play and the original movie. The Light Opera is performing South Pacific this month and next, so I hope to take one or several of the kids to see that. I just wish it weren't so expensive! We also watched Pirates of Penzance and Funny Girl. Oklahoma! has been the most popular so far, and everyone seems to agree that they like the stage production best. Do you have a favorite musical that's suitable for families? Post it in the comments. I'd love to hear about it.

Yesterday, we went to see a friend of ours playing music on the lawn of the Arts Center. We took a picnic and hung out for a while, followed it with a trip to the bookstore, then lunch at Subway, and, finally, a trip to Wal*Mart, where Bard helped Monet pick a few goodies with his "good job" change. I also picked up some more loot for the Quiet Time Box--a couple more Bionicles and Magnetix and a Hot Wheels car that has magnetic wheels.

Today, Monet was preparing a stage play of his own. He created puppets out of paper lunchbags, construction paper and yarn. He gave each a name and personality and wrote a script on the computer, asking Bard for spelling help. We had a bit of a meltdown because he couldn't figure out the logistics for the actual performance location, but he finally settled on using the porch.

Bard just finished the book The Westing Game and insists that it's a really great book, so I'm reading it now. So far, she's right. It's holding my interest, though by the end of the third chapter, I've figured out the first set of clues.

Edison and I went out to run errands today. We had to buy chicken feed, pay a bill and pick up some groceries. While we were at the store, he weighed the grapes that I bought, determined the total weight, divided it to determine the average weight per bunch, and determined the price per bunch based on the average weight of each bunch. He also calculated sale prices when we went to a local gift shop that's going out of business, determining the final price based on the original price and deducting the percentage off.

Bard and Edison have both been reading Math for Smarty Pants and The I Hate Mathematics Book. Bard presented me with the following riddle. I got it right...can you?

You're at a carnival game booth.  The sign says "Pay a nickel to win a quarter!  Increase your 5 cents by 500 percent!"  At the booth you see three full sacks labeled as follows:

Quarters

Nickels

Quarters and Nickels

The carnie explains that the bags are indeed full of coins and explains the game with the following rhyme.

One sack has quarters; another has nickels;
The third sack, however, is really a tickle.
It's a mixture of both, a fair share of each;
finding which sack is which is within your reach.

The carnie also gives you these two clues:  First of all, every sack is labeled wrong.  Second, he'll reach into one sack and pull out a coin for you to see.

 Which sack would you have him pull from?