A Little Thora Milestone

A little thing happened today that I want to share.

*(Before I start, I want to remind you of a sound that Thora makes. It's the sound she makes for "tweet." Her tongue goes to the roof of her mouth, as if she's about to say "king" but she doesn't take the tongue off of the roof of her mouth, so it comes out "kng" way in the back of her throat.)

So...

On the way out of the grocery store this morning, one of the cashiers gave Thora two bright orange stickers. Thora wanted me to have one and so on the walk out to the car, we each had one on our coat sleeves. Then, upon loading Thora into the car, I offered it back to her, so she had two again. While I was concentrating on getting out of store's parking lot (insanely crowded even for a Wednesday mid-morning) I hear Thora talking, saying what sounds like "Mon kng... mon kng." I'm focusing on getting out of the spot and maneuvering around some other cars, when it dawns on me: She also uses the "kng" sound to say "two." She was counting!!! She was saying "one two... one two..." counting the two stickers that were on each coat sleeve.

Like I said, this is a little thing, but in the lifespan and development of Thora, this is a big step. I've been trying to teach her to count to 5 by playing this *exhausting* game where she says the
number and I throw her up in the air that many times. (1=1 throw, 2=2 throws, etc.) She's pushing 35 lbs., so you can imagine why I'm only trying to teach her to count to five this way! Anyway, she really loves this game and is always asking/commanding me, "Up Down! Fee [three]!" or "Up Down! Figh [five]!" She knows that she only gets this game once a day but she doesn't let a day go by without playing it. However, despite her love for this game and her connection that this is a game of counting, it's still kind of a chore to get her to say the numbers. She gets that "one" comes first. But then after that, it's kind of random. Often "three" comes after "one". Occasionally, she'll refuse to say a number and merely command, "Up!" Sometimes, she'll even throw a "nine" in there.

So with that as our baseline, to see her count to two today, totally unprompted, was pretty awesome to behold. Through misty eyes, I asked her, "Are you counting? One Two?" and she said "Yeah," and then a few minutes later did it again, and again it was unprompted. I applauded and congratulated her, as much as I could while keeping us on the road. Of course I called Sean and told him right away. And he was ever the proud father. It's moments like these that make me feel truly blessed that I am such an constant spectator to Thora growing up. There are many moments when I would trade places with my working (over-worked) spouse in a heartbeat. Many moments when the struggles and frustrations of interacting with such an impatient and demanding person seem to be the price I must pay for not having a career. I know it's fucked-up logic, but at times it does feel like I'm being punished for not being an "earner." But those are the thoughts generated in those moments of breaking spirits and battling wills, when surely my view of the big picture are not in focus. But today, watching her count for the first time, was a "big picture" moment. She's napping, things are calm, and my soul feels like a massive inflated balloon: big and high and boundless.

Kicking the Single-Use Petroleum-Based Plastic Bags Habit

I've become aware that available to the average consumer are totally biodegradable corn-based plastic bags. This plastic was originally created for farmers and used as crop cover, that would decompose into the land. So someone, who will surely going to eco-heaven, has started marketing products using this innovation to regular consumers needing plastics for their homes. Surely an executive somewhere realized that there is money to be made in this area of the market, so it's not a totally altruistic deed, meriting eco-sainthood. Still, reducing the petroleum-based bags that are produced (harmful part 1) and then litter our planet, both on top, like clogging shorelines and waterways, as well as sitting for hundreds of years underground in landfills (harmful part 2 and 3), I applaud and support the effort! These bags from Biobag can decompose between 10 and 45 days, leaving behind no residue. While a bit pricey, I think there is an easy, and long-term cost-effective way to incorporate these into our home.

We re-use plastic grocery and produce bags in a variety of ways before ultimately taking the bags to the recycling bin at the Whole Foods. However, some plastic bags in our house are used only once or at most a few times and those are used to:
* line the 13-gallon kitchen garbage can
* line an identical 13-gallon bin for recycling
* line the wet cloth diaper pail
* carry with us on our dog walks

These are my next steps in order to try to eliminate our household reliance on the single-use petroleum-based plastic bag, by replacing those old bags with either these corn-based, compostable plastic bags or with washable liners:

Step 1) Purchase kitchen bags ($4.75 for a box of 12) and doggie waste bags ($4.29 for a bundle of 50) from BuyGreen.com. Use these kitchen bags for the kitchen waste only, to which we accumuluate 1 bag per week. So a box of 12 would last us 3 months. (Not too bad for less than $5.) We will stop using the plastic grocery bags and produce bags for dog waste and instead use these Biobags exclusively. The plastic grocery bags can still be re-used for produce at the store and for other purposes, but will ultimately end up in the plastic bag recycling bin.

Step 2) Purchase 4 stuff sacks (2 small ones--$6.95 each--for the diaper pail and 2 large ones--$17.95 each--for the kitchen recycling bin), like these found at TinyTush.com, the diapering website where I purchased Thora's cloth diapers. Line the wet cloth diaper pail and wash it along with the diapers when needed. Since I will have two, I'll always have a clean diaper pail liner to use. The same method will apply for the recycling bin, which I was lining before to keep from cleaning up the inevitable leaks of rinsed-out-but-not-totally-dry bottles of beer, wine, juice, milk, random gunk, etc. This way, we'll dump the recycling and wash the liner when needed, replacing it with the spare, clean liner.

While there is the unavoidable upfront cost of the washable stuff sacks, I think they will pay for themselves relatively quickly, since we'll have reduced our home's need of a plastic bin liner by over 50%. And even if they don't quite pay for themselves that quickly in terms that are apparent in our monthly budget (what would be quick enough?), I'm not sure that I care all that much. If the financial burden for me is slightly more so that the environmental burden on the planet and my fellow human beings can be slightly less, well, it's a no-brainer.

Highlights from our trip to Chicago

I can't believe I didn't post once during the month of October. Granted, Thora and I were away for a week, and then we hosted the in-laws for a week, and then there was Halloween, and a slew of other moments from our daily life that dragged me up or down. Anyway, I'm glad to be back. To catch up, first I want to post some of the highlights from Thora's and my trip back home to visit friends and family in Chicago last month.

Thora loved this ramp at the Elawa Farm Forest Preserve.

Thora enjoying the fruits of the Apple Holler apple orchard and pumpkin patch

Thora doing her impression of an elephant at Chicago's Field Museum

Thora on her first carousel ride

In the sheep and goat pen at Lamb's Farm












Thora and NuNu at Apple Holler












Thora and Grandpa Bob







Thora and Aunt Natalie at the Rainforest Cafe
















Thora getting her first haircut from Grandma Jane











Thora and Great-Grandma Trish










and with Great-Grandpa Jim Pat

Farmer's Market Bounty: Roasted Red Peppers

This past week has been all about preserving (for days/weeks but not months) the fresh produce from the weekly Farmer's Market. In addition to making oven-dried tomatoes, I wanted to preserve the large, red peppers that I picked up this week. I've been thinking about red peppers, marinated in herbs, oil, and vinegar, and what a wonderful accompaniment they would make to salads and on pita bread with goat cheese. (Now that I've got the cheesemaking bug, I think goat cheese is my next accomplishment.) Anyway, I found this great resource for roasting peppers and keeping them. (While there are a ka-gillion recipes that call for roasted red peppers, if they don't require you to open a jar, then you are expected to use them all up as part of a larger recipe.) I wanted information on how to dress up roasted red peppers that would keep in the fridge to be added to snacks and meals over the course of a few weeks. And I found here, in a New York Times Health piece.

I started by grilling the peppers directly on the burner. I actually woudn't recommend doing two front to back like this, since I would occasionally "warm" my forearm while reaching over the front pepper to check and turn the back pepper. I moved the back pepper to the left front burner and that was a much safer way to roast two at a time. It took about 5 minutes or so to roast each pepper.

Here is a pepper almost completely roasted. Its skin is almost completely blackened.

Then, once I'd charred each pepper as well as I could, I put them each in a bowl and covered tightly with cling wrap. They stay in there, steaming a bit, until they cool. Once they're cooled down, after about ten minutes, I peeled off the blackened skin, which comes off very easily. It breaks apart and sticks to your hands, so I found it helpful to rinse my hands repeatedly. (I remember vaguely reading somewhere that you want to resist just putting the peppers under running water--although that is a super easy way to get the skin off--since it washes away a lot of the roasted flavor. I don't remember where I read or heard this--or maybe I've invented this. Anyway, because of this half-memory of something that might not even be true, I resisted putting them under the faucet, and instead, put my hands under the faucet.

Once they were peeled, I followed the suggestions in the recipe. I a) sliced in half over a bowl (you want to keep all the juice that is caught inside the pepper); b)seeded and cored the pepper; c) sliced the halves into strips and put those in a separate bowl with the strained juices; d) added dried basil (would've used fresh, of course, but had none on hand), sea salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, about 3 garlic cloves minced, and 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar; e) I mixed it all up to evenly distribute all the flavors and then put them into jars for the fridge--well, one pickle jar and one plastic take-out container.

After tasting a few this morning, I might add a bit more vinegar and perhaps more dried seasonings. But they're fresh and bright-tasting. The first thing I thought of when biting into one was how good they would taste on a pizza.

Farmer's Market Bounty: Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes

Last night was full of culinary victory in my house. In addition to successfully making homemade mozzarella cheese, I successfully, and tastily, preserved some beautiful cherry tomatoes by oven-drying--a variation on sun-dried tomatoes.

It has become more and more important to me to gather up as much of the fresh, in-season produce from local farms. But to have it sustain us beyond it's limited window of edibility is always a challenge. Either the produce sits in the fridge too long, or on the counter. Life happens. My intention for veggie-heavy meals get lost in shuffle, when nights get late before we've even started cooking, and we often forego the second side of veggies for some other leftover. (Or we fill up on tomatoes on herbed and olive-oiled baguette slices, which is becoming more and more a pre-dinner treat that we love.) Or instead of finding their way into fresh smoothies, peaches grow soft on the counter as I spend what seems like every waking minute prying non-food items from Thora's jaws, or keeping her this side of melt-down, from a log-rolling tantrum. Needless to say, all my Monday-Morning-Farmer's-Market hopes for healthy, responsible, globally-sustainable eating sometimes goes by the wayside, or specifically into the the compost bin. But because I hate that sense of failure as I drop the wilted greens or squishy fruit in with the compost that not every bite got eaten, I've been eye-ing the produce at the Farmer's Market with specific thoughts of semi-preserving. (I'm not canning, so the preserving I'm doing here extends the lifespans of the produce by several weeks in the fridge, rather than months on the shelf.)

So last night's success was oven-dried tomatoes. I cut in half about 1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes, scooped out their seeds with a grapefruit spoon, and laid them cut-side up on a foil-lined baking sheet.

(Could these look more like candy?!?)


I put them in a 200 degree oven (the lowest setting on ours) at roughly 10:30pm for what I was thinking might be over night. But at around 12:30am, when I was still up (!), I took a look at them, and they were already shriveled and some quite leathery. So I took them out and put them in a heat-safe bowl. (I will soon be pouring boiling liquid on them, so the bowl needs to be tough.)

Then I referred to the recipe in Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, called "Antipasto Tomatoes," which can be found at their website here. I brought about a cup of plain white vinegar to a boil (just what we had on hand and a quantity that I eyeballed and assumed to be enough to cover my small amount of tomatoes). After it came to a boil, I poured it into the bowl over the dried tomatoes, tossed in a few whole cloves of garlic, and let the tomatoes and garlic steep for 10 minutes. Then, I scooped out the tomatoes and garlic from the vinegar and, by pressing them, drained as much of the vinegar off as I could. (I reserved the vinegar that is all carmel-colored and tomato- and garlic-infused now and sure to be good in some new incarnation.) Once drained, I tossed the tomatoes and garlic with dried basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme. (I used dried since I didn't have fresh herbs on hand, but would surely use fresh if given the option.) I put them into a jar and poured olive oil over them to cover (see top photo).

I tried some this morning, and they're quite yummy. There's still a subtle vinegar hit to the taste, which I'm not sure I want there or not. The vinegar bath helps raise the acidity so as to help prevent the bacteria that causes botulism, so it's necessary. But perhaps I could've pressed harder when draining and gotten more of the vinegar out before they went into the jar. But I think they will be nice on salads, on crusty bread, or tossed with pasta. I plan to get some plum tomatoes on Monday and do this again, for one reason, that I'd like to try again and see what happens with a meatier tomato--one that has more substance to it after it's been seeded--but ultimately, I have a feeling these won't last long.

Next up: Roasted Red Peppers

Cheese! (after 3 tries and finding the right milk)

So tonight didn't end in despair and culinary disappointment. I successfully made my own mozzarella cheese! I can't tell you the elation I felt as the gloppy goop started to turn into stringy goop right before my eyes. The sense of pride as I stretched it between my hands twelve inches, then 18 inches! It was fun and in retrospect, quite easy. Once I landed on the right milk, that is. And for you in Massachusetts, that milk seems to be Garelick brand all-natural milk. (Of course raw milk straight from a farm, your own cow or goat, for example, would be best. But for those of us who don't have ready access to farm milk, so far the store-bought brand that works for me is Garelick.)

The first two times I tried to make cheese, I was using Trader Joe's organic milk*. And despite not being labeled "ultra-pasteurized," it wouldn't result in a curd that ultimately clung together. Perhaps they heat their milk when pasteurizing to a higher temperature than milk that doesn't need to travel as far and be stored as long. Garelick is a Massachusetts company, and so their milk is transported relatively short distances. (For home cheese-making, you must use only non-"ultra pasteurized" milk [or raw milk that you pasteurize yourself] since the curds won't set.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am making my first entree into cheese-making via the supplies and instruction from the folks at The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company at www.cheesemaking.com. Their instructional booklet and dvd are so informative and inspiring. And after having trouble the first time, I emailed them with my problem and they wrote back the very next morning with helpful tips.

Anyway, here's my success:

Here it is, a kind of clingy mass, having separated from the whey.


Then it spends about 2 minutes in the microwave. This is just before it goes in for its first minute.


Here I am pressing it into a single piece (although, it pretty much was a single piece prior to this step) and expressing more whey before going back in the microwave for another 30 seconds.



Working the cheese



Stretching the cheese

And the final product. Viola!

I look forward to working a bit more on final presentation next time. It begins to harden up and take shape before I really knew what was happening, so I was stuck with a less than perfect globe of shiny, white mozzarella. It tastes great. I look forward to it with baguette toasts and heirloom tomatoes tomorrow!


* While my experience seems to suggest that Trader Joe's milk doesn't work for home cheese-making, we are happy with both their organic and regular brands for daily drinking for both us and Thora.

Something I never thought I'd do: Home Cheesemaking?!?

So something I haven't written about, but have been meaning to, is my appreciation for Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It spoke to me, spurring me on to do things that I've done in the past (backyard gardening) but that had lapsed while we lived in apartments in NYC. It also encouraged me to do things (namely Farmer's Market shopping) that I did before for fun, but now I do with a true sense of purpose, enjoyment, and obligation (it's very important to support local farmers since they provide bio-diversity necessary for our planet's well-being, the significantly lower fuel usage in getting the produce to me and my neighbors, the sensibility and enjoyment of eating food that's "in-season,"...)

Anyway, two direct repercussions of reading this book are:

I'm serious about growing our own vegetables and fruit next season. Sean got me this great book as a birthday present this year, called Bountiful Container, that is proving to be critical in my planning for next year. (While I have yard access, due to a shady tree in our backyard, very little of the ground gets lots of sun. So I'll be doing container gardening along one side of house which gets tons of sun but which is also completely paved over with asphalt.) I'm so excited and don't know how I will get through the long months of winter. Seriously, I'm excited. You should see the plans, dog-eared library books, my highlighted copy of Bountiful Container littering the floor along my side of the bed.

The second thing I've done, that I have to admit I never ever imagined I would ever do, (even in my most hippie-fied fantasies), is to make my own cheese. And this is a direct result of Kingsolver's book. I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and as always, I was determined to use it for something out of the ordinary; something that I want, but that I can't really justify to myself to come out of our budgeted monthly money, which also has to fund things like toilet paper and food for the baby. I know, you're thinking, "Cheesemaking?!?" I said, I know. But apparently it's super easy to make soft cheeses like mozzerella, ricotta, and goat cheese. The place to go for home cheese making is cheesemaking.com, where Ricki Carroll has been teaching home cheese making for 3 decades. Just tonight, I purchased the Starter Kit, which contains their book, an instructional dvd, and the Mozzerella & Ricotta kit which contains all the equipment and ingredients I need to make mozzerella 30 times. For now, I'm kind of doing this for the novelty of always being just 30 minutes away from organic, homemade cheese made without unnecessary processing, refridgeration, storage, transportation, etc. But rest assured (or be forewarned, whichever camp you fall into), I'll write about the trials and victories, the cost and savings, the taste and elbow-grease that goes into making your own cheese at home. So stay tuned.

Our New Garden

Yesterday, my upstairs neighbor Carl, and I broke ground on our garden. There are plants growing or trying to grow in our back yard. However, with a couple big trees that block a lot of sunlight and rainfall, the yard looks sub par. So we've taken it up. The research phase came to an end when on Saturday we headed to the nursery and purchased some flowers to fill the one area in the yard that gets a good amount of sun. This is part 1 of our back yard makeover. More to come in the spring, including my own container vegetable garden. But for now, here's what we've done.

Sunny Garden Plot Before:


Sunny Garden Plot After:


In the front of the fence we have a small bed of black eyed susans. Then in the small, 7'x4' plot we have echinacea, phlox, along with two other types of blooming plants as well as a tall, ornamental grass in the back corner. (We bought these on a whim and I need to look again at the names on the containers they came in.) I also have some campanula on the stairs in containers that I'd like to get in the ground. More pictures to come as our garden grows.

Middlesex County 4H Fair

Last weekend we drove out to Westford, MA for the Middlesex County 4H Fair. We had a great morning there. Thora is so taken with real-live animals that when we learned about this, we couldn't pass it up. And it was worth the trip. The fair was held at a fair grounds, and as we first entered, through a tall, forested camping area, Thora's face was agog at the sound of the neighing horses. It's about 90% curious, 10% terrified (as you can see in the photo to the left). The neighing of actual horses are significantly more dramatic than the neighs she hears from Mom and Dad. As are "mmmmoooos" of cows and the snorts of pigs. The roosters really alarm her. Same goes for the the strained and sudden "baaa" of a sheep. (Apparently while I was off running to get a map of the fair, Thora burst into tears in the large poultry barn when, one by one, the roosters contributed to a chorus of cock-a-doodle-do's which were more than she could deal with.)

But don't get me wrong. After the initial shock at how loud real animals are, she is her old self, if only slightly more tentative. (She re-learns this lesson each time we take her to a farm or petting zoo.) Here she is taking in all the horses as we first entered the fair (the video is only 14 seconds long):




In the video, you hear a version of her "neigh," which is normally "hee-hee-hee" while shaking her head. This version is more like a question mark as if she's verifying that this enormous and LOUD animal is what we've seen in books for months. This video also happens to highlight her willingness to greet all things that come into her frame of vision with a "hi" and a wave. This goes for people (of course), animals, moving objects (cars, trucks, trains), animals, and inanimate objects of all kinds. Seriously... all kinds of inanimate objects. Sometimes I wonder how we get anywhere.

Anyway, the trip to the 4H fair was fun. Some other highlights captured on film were:

Here, the kid in the green shirt announced the competitors in the Bunny Race. He used a great voice straight from the monster truck circuit, complete with hilarious bios of the bunnies, like, "'Little Britches' has been known to topple farm equipment if they stood between her and a carrot. Watch her in this race. She's a real contender!"

The race course was to the top of that carpeted ramp, which is about a fraction of an inch on the outside of the photo. So it lasted for about 10 seconds. Still, Thora, on Sean's shoulders, sat in rapt attention. She loves bunnies. Later we were lucky to pet one. I have to admit: the thought of getting her a bunny as a pet not only crossed my mind, but lingered there for a totally inappropriate time. (How do I forget the never-ending episode of Wild Kingdom that is our life at home, with the dog and the cat that, after 8+ years of living under the same roof, still don't leave each other alone.)

I got to milk a goat! This was an exhibit meant for kids, and yet I couldn't restrain myself. I did a pretty good job, too. Much better than the 6 year-old boy who went before me. He totally didn't get the idea that you're supposed to pinch the top off with your index finger and then squeeze with your other fingers.

Thora and a piglet.

New Phone to Reflect my Politics?

I got an email today from the League of Conservation Voters promoting their connection with CredoMobile, a cell phone provider that puts 1% of customers' charges towards progressive causes like environment protection, organic farming, and reproductive and civil rights. CredoMobile uses the Sprint PCS network and so apparently the service is reliable. (Although, Sprint provides the network, CredoMobile solely provides the service.) Also, my email from LCV told me that for new, online customers, they will credit you up to $200 to cancel your current service (however I couldn't find this on CredoMobile's website in my skimming of it). Needless to say, I will discuss this with the spouse tonight. What an easy way to put your money where your mouth is. (Pun kind of intended.)