gorgeous berry tart

This was made by my mother-in-law, who deserves a blog dedicated entirely to the beautiful things she creates in the kitchen. She brought this berry tart to a recent family gathering. Somehow it looked this good after being wrapped in foil and jostled around in a car for two hours. When I gasp at her creations, she always says something like, “oh, it’s nothing, really. Just a few berries I picked from the garden and the woods, and a cream cheese filling, and some strawberry jam. It’s so simple.” She has a great eye for color and presentation. I feel lucky that I get to look at, and then eat, what she creates.

we went camping, and this was breakfast

Not bad for camping, huh? We were canoe camping so didn’t have to worry about weight when packing food. This is quick oats with apples, walnuts, cinnamon and a special last minute garnish: wild blueberries, picked from the bushes around our campsite. Not pictured: the maple syrup we added after the photo was taken.

Posting from my iPad

Testing, testing. Is this thing on?
Hello, loyal fans. I got an iPad and I can blog from it! Wonder of wonders.
Last month, my husband graduated from his master’s program (with high honors, I might add). He bought me this iPad as a present for surviving him being in grad school (he’s a good one). On June 1st, we moved from Maine back to upstate New York. I start a new job next week.
We are back in the land of Wegmans, and the Ithaca Bakery, and all manor of delicious/wonderful food things (The Piggery! Finger Lakes Wine! Ithaca Farmer’s Market!). Because I am not above the occasional fast food, I will also say it’s nice to be near a Panera (with a drive-thru), a Chipotle and a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. There will be good eating experiences to share with you all. In the meantime, here’s a photo of Miriam and I, taken with the iPad. Isn’t technology wonderful.

trying to solve the work lunch dilemma

I’m glad that my work involves me being out of an office, traveling to care for people in their homes. However, it makes packing a work lunch difficult. I like taking leftovers for lunch and, well, I haven’t yet found a microwave for my car. Sandwiches are an option but I’m picky about a good sandwich, and I get tired of taking the same sandwich day after day. I am not above eating a bagel and soup at Tim Horton’s and I have a few favorite, good lunch spots when I am near civilization.  If there’s nothing good to take from home, and I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I find myself desperately hungry at the lunch hour, often the only thing I’m close to is a gas station. I sigh, and buy a bag of Fritos and a packaged sandwich that is past its prime. My workdays are very full and hunting around for food takes too much time. The best option, really, is to pack a lunch that takes a few minutes to eat, is good at room temperature, is not too messy for car eating and is something I’m really looking forward to eating (sometimes I will take something gross, like a PB and J sandwich, and then refuse to eat it). Finding something that fits all those criteria is difficult.

Enter my new cooking muse, Tamar Adler. My sister gave me Tamar’s book “An Everlasting Meal” for Christmas and I have really enjoyed reading it and absorbing Tamar’s cooking philosophy. In her chapter on salads, the following passage caught my eye:
“Salads of grains and beans are light, but filling, and taste clear. They are especially good for taking to work, because they are best dressed ahead of time and allowed to marinate.  This salad is a good defense to pitch against the armies of salad stores that surround workplaces like attacking ants, all effective at supplying office workers with bad, expensive salads.”

Tamar’s recipe:

2 cups cooked rice or lentils (ugh, I do not like the texture of cold rice so I always use lentils. preferably good ones, like French green lentils or black beluga lentils. red lentils fall apart too much)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano (I never have this. I have used fresh parsley. or dried oregano. or nothing at all. the vinaigrette provides great flavor)

1/2 cup walnuts or almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons drained capers

basic vinaigrette, to taste (do you need her recipe for this? 1 chopped shallot, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 T red wine vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil. I usually use a whole batch of dressing because I like the flavor.)

I usually add chopped celery, for crunch. I am making a batch today and adding roasted beets and sweet potatoes. I am thinking this salad adapts well to lots of additions.

This salad is delicious, easy to pack in the morning (mornings are always hectic!) and easy to eat in a 5 to 10 minute lunch break in my car. I usually bring yogurt, an apple and a clementine to round out the meal. So far I haven’t gotten bored of it. There you have it–a delicious, nutritious lunch for someone who is on the road most of the day.

Snack cake

I’ve been pondering the phrase “snack cake” recently, having seen it most often over at David Lebovitz’s blog. This is a not-too-sweet cake usually eaten in the afternoon, perfect with tea or coffee. (Note–when you google “snack cake,” the wikipedia entry has a picture of a Twinkie! ugh.) I think I am more of a snack cake person than a regular cake person. Snack cakes usually feature fruit, and have a little more substance to them than just flour, sugar, butter and eggs. I usually don’t go for towering cakes, layered and frosted. Those kind of cakes should be saved for birthdays.

So, here are some of my favorite snack cakes. Miriam and I enjoy having tea parties with a small slice of any of these. Also, I’ve found I like making cakes in a simple 9-inch round pan, more so than a square pan. The round pan makes cake prettier, for some reason.

French apple cake (I always have the ingredients around for this. I like that this is an apple cake without cinnamon and the rum gives it a delicious, different flavor.)

Raspberry buttermilk cake (can use almost any kind of fruit in this. Buttermilk is one of my favorite ingredients–it makes cakes, pancakes, muffins, etc much more delicious)

Moist chocolate beet cake (a little fancier than the usual snack cake–this requires separating yolks and whites)

Making a snack cake has become a weekend ritual around here (maybe more so in the winter than in the summer). I just pulled two loaves of banana bread out of the oven. Last weekend, we polished off an entire French apple cake in two days (with the help of some friends who came over). The weekend before, I made the chocolate beet cake. What are your favorite snack cakes? This one is going on the list for this spring, when I can get some rhubarb.

Miriam, at 3 years and 8 months

 

She is finally, finally getting the hang of potty training. It has been a long journey. This week had two significant breakthroughs. She successfully pooped on the potty at preschool. Then, at home, while eating dinner, she said, “I have to pee!” She got up and went to the bathroom by herself. Usually she refuses to use the potty if she’s in the middle of playing or eating. I was so glad to see her take care of things on her own.

She has an imaginary friend named Marty. I don’t know too much about Marty, but Miriam has been asking to use my phone so she can text her. Miriam also tells me, “Instead of ponytail holders, Marty wears planets in her hair!” (Miriam has a set of little plastic planets that she loves right now.)

When I start to use a firm tone of voice with her, she will say, “Mommy, you’re being rude to me.” She starts to lecture me right back and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing.

She still sucks her thumb (it’s terribly chapped right now, with this cold dry weather) and loves her little stuffed lamb Yames. She still likes to snuggle in the morning and right before bed.

She loves her new black Mary Jane shoes and calls them her dance shoes. She puts them on and does dance performances for us. Yesterday her friend came over to play. Before she got here, Miriam put on her little purple fairy costume (with wings) and asked me, “do you think Maya will think I’m cute?”

She has finally grown out of her 18-24 month clothes and most of her 2T clothes.

She can write her own name and loves to point out letters that she sees everywhere. She has some books memorized. I don’t think she is reading yet but I won’t be surprised if she is an early reader.

She loves to play cards. We play Go Fish and War and sometimes Rummy (though that one’s a bit complicated for her).

She’s really into potty humor. She substitutes “poop” and “pee” for words in her favorite songs, then cracks up laughing. While playing Go Fish she will say, “Mommy, do you have a….poop?” and think it’s the funniest thing.

I have succeeded in getting her to love the movie White Christmas. She asks me to sing her the songs at bedtime. She loves the song and dance numbers.

And…she has interrupted me twice while I’m typing this, first to ask for my help with a puzzle, and now to request that I help her find one of her missing planets. Earlier today she said to me, “Mercury is sad because he can’t find Pluto and Venus!” So, I better go help her.

2012 review

It was the year of the rotisserie chicken. We actually ate this for dinner last night, New Year’s Eve, and I thought–how fitting. Often we all get home at 5:30 or 6 pm,  and it’s nice to have a fall back plan for those kind of nights. Rotisserie chicken is a part of our weekly dinner rotation. It’s so moist and delicious and barely more expensive than buying and roasting our own chicken. It’s better than take-out, right? Or a frozen pizza. We justify this by stretching one chicken over three meals (we use the carcass to make stock).

It was also the year I learned to make Montreal Style baked beans, slow cooked in the oven.

As a family, we developed a Tim Horton’s problem. Miriam asks for their old-fashioned donuts. I rely on their bagels, soup, and ham and swiss sandwiches for my work lunches a few times per week. I really like their hot black tea with cream and sugar.

We made many trips to the ocean this past summer. We found a great little beach about an hour away and went to it every chance we got. When I remember this past summer, I will think of that beach, and swimming in the cool refreshing Atlantic.

I discovered this great little chocolate shop in Blue Hill. I do think right now Blue Hill holds the title for my favorite town in Maine. It’s on the ocean with a gorgeous coastline. The town itself is small and artsy and it has good food. I often eat lunch at the little community co-op there and just soak in the atmosphere.

We moved to our current location, the wonderful lakehouse. The house is just the right size for us and the location is so beautiful. I know I will have many good memories of our time here. I particularly love the mornings, when the light streams in the wall of windows and the birds are out in full force. I saw a bald eagle just a few weeks ago, and every day I see flocks of ducks or geese winging their way across the lake.

My husband and I started a nightly tradition of gin and tonics after the kid is in bed.  Super delicious, when made with lots of lime and this gin.

As I look ahead to 2013, I’m excited for what it holds. My husband will graduate with his master’s degree. We will move, again. I’m not excited for the moving process but for the next step in our lives. I’m hopeful for a job in public health nursing and a location closer to family, and maybe, just maybe, living in one place for long enough to buy a house, have a garden and put down some roots. I want to spend less time in my car. And I’m hoping to make more bread.

 

working mother support group

I recently had a new co-worker spend part of a day shadowing me on the job. As we were in the car together headed to do a home visit, we began talking about our lives, and found we had so much in common. We are both working full time, supporting husbands who are in school with a major career change and we are both parents of young children.

In short, we are both exhausted, and relieved to find someone else who is in the same situation. It was pretty nice to be able to talk about it with someone who understands. As we talked about the juggling we do on a daily basis, my co-worker said, “sometimes I think about my mother, who was a stay-at-home mom. So much has changed, and my life is so much different than hers was.” I had to agree. My mother worked part time as we were growing up so I’m sure she felt some of the stress that I do. Still, my dad always carried the insurance, brought home the paycheck and spent most of his day at work. I fill that role in my family now. I talked with my co-worker about mommy guilt, about trying to get children up and out the door early in the morning so they can get to daycare and you can get to work on time, about financial stress and trying to balance job responsibilities and family responsibilities. This is hard work, and I feel like I don’t have many other women in my life that I can observe to see how they do it. My upbringing had me surrounded by traditional stay at home moms with husbands who work. When that has been the model you have grown up with, and you find yourself living a life very different from that, it’s hard. It takes major flexibility. It takes reinvention of gender roles. It takes a lot of love, and patience, and time to settle into a routine that works. It takes even more of all of this when you are living far away from your family, with no natural support built in to help when things get really stressful.

For a long time I struggled with this, and I have to admit I still do, at times. I don’t like how frantically busy I feel all the time, but I’m getting used to it. When I start to feel overwhelmed by my life, I hold my head up and say, I am supporting my family. I am providing health insurance, and money to pay the bills. I have a job that provides me with good, meaningful work. I have a wonderful husband who is studying hard to get a degree he really wants. He cooks me delicious meals and takes on the lion’s share of the parenting. I have a happy, healthy daughter who is shuttled between home and preschool and somehow she will survive, even though she is in full time daycare. I may not be able to do all the canning, homesteading, crafting and homemaking I thought I would do, but that’s okay. 

This conversation with my co-worker got me thinking…I need more of these kind of women in my life. It helps so much to talk about what we deal with on a daily basis and how we survive. Any of my readers (oh, the hordes of readers I have! all, what, 10 of you?) know of any such support group? Do you have any tips/words of wisdom to offer?

sample day-in-the-life

In case you are wondering what I do all day….

Today I drove into work at 8 am and got my assignment for the day. I spent half an hour calling patients and scheduling visits. I left the office around 9 am and drove to my first patient’s home (over 30 miles, an hour drive). This lady has chronic heart and lung disease, had a stroke a few years ago, is oxygen-dependent, and is a diabetic. She still smokes and is trying to quit. Her husband smokes too, and they will try to quit together. They have both done this before, and they told me at one point they had successfully quit for 7 years and then started smoking again. I tell them that quitting smoking is very hard, and I recommend they call the tobacco quitline for tips. I try to encourage them, knowing that it’s going to be an uphill battle.

Drove 5 miles to my second patient’s home. He just got out of the hospital with a GI bleed. He also has chronic heart and lung disease. He is now on 7 liters of oxygen continuously and is very weak. He has a lump in his arm that appears to be a phlebitis from an IV infusion while hospitalized. He has lost 3 pounds while in the hospital and he is starting to look more like a hospice patient. He is constipated (of course–there’s always a constipated patient, every day).  I call his physician to report on his status and get orders for medications. I leave thinking that this man is pretty fragile, and may end up back in the hospital soon.

I get a call at the end of my second visit that my schedule has changed. I was supposed to see a patient who is coming home from the hospital on a new IV medication. The company supplying the medicine won’t be able to get it to her until late today, so she is going to an outpatient infusion center for today’s dose, and I will go to see her tomorrow instead, to teach her caregivers how to do it in the home setting. Instead, I am headed to see a patient with dementia who lives in a boarding home and who was just discharged from the hospital after an admission for abdominal pain, a bowel infection, dehydration and renal failure. I arrive at the home and find that the patient has very advanced dementia and she won’t let me touch her. She doesn’t understand why I’m there and she just sits there and shakes her head “no” at me. I call her son, who is half an hour away. He says he’s coming, and to wait. I sit and wait with her, and review the paperwork from the hospital. The boarding home staff tell me she refuses to eat fairly often, and is also refusing personal care. When the son arrives, I tell him that home health is not going to be successful with his mother due to her dementia, and that forcing her to do it will just make her more agitated. I tell him, gently, that maybe he needs to consider palliative/comfort/hospice care, if he wants to prevent his mother from going to the hospital all the time with dehydration. He is calm when I tell him this but seems uncertain what to do. I call the patient’s doctor’s office to let them know about my visit today.

In the middle of the day I get a call on my cell phone from the police department (!–not a usual part of my day). They have been called to a patient’s home due to a domestic disturbance, and the patient told the police to call me, his home health nurse. This patient has mental health issues, and is a diabetic, and is still living independently. I had to make a referral to Adult Protective Services two weeks ago because his  home environment is unsafe and he can’t manage his own care. Today the patient is asking to go to the ER (he goes to the ER multiple times per week). I call APS again, and talk to his case worker, and beg him to please prioritize this case, as this man is escalating and needs help, fast. The patient tells me he is finally ready to move to assisted living and I am glad to hear this–he really, really needs more help than he is getting right now. The APS caseworker says he will go visit the home later today and see if he can fast-track getting the patient into an assisted living home.

I get to my last patient of the day, a woman who is home from the hospital following a heart attack. When I arrive at the home, her husband tells me they have applied for low-income housing. They live in a mobile home and are both in poor health and he says he wants to move to a place where he doesn’t have to shovel snow. He tells me that low-income housing still means they have to pay $500-$600 per month, and they can’t afford that. His wife tells me they go to the food pantry weekly and she has just applied for food stamps. I offer them the assistance of our social worker, to see if she can help them with resources. I call the doctor to request an order for a social work evaluation.

End of the day, back to the office. I have traveled about 100 miles today and worked 8.5 hours. I did get a short lunch break which was nice. I realize that my day has been more social work than nursing, really, but that’s home health for you. I get a test call at 4:15 pm reminding me that I’m on call tonight. I will keep my cell phone close from 5 pm to 8 am. There is a possibility I’ll be called in the middle of the night for a death visit–we have a hospice patient very close to dying. Tomorrow is another day…

The weekend of beans

Saturday morning, go to your local farmer’s market. Buy some dry beans, and try to find an interesting variety you’ve never heard before (mine were Vermont Cranberry). Also buy some local bacon, nitrate-free. Go home, and before you go to bed that night, pour two cups of beans into a large pot, and cover with water. Look at how pretty the beans are. Take a picture, and post it to Instagram. Laugh at yourself, because you’ve become one of those annoying people that post food pictures all the time. Thankfully you have friends that love food, too, so they like it anyway.

beans, soaking

The next morning, pour off the soaking water. Add fresh water and heat the beans to boiling. Pour them into a dutch oven with 1/4 lb bacon, salt and pepper, a tablespoon of mustard, an onion and 1/3 cup maple syrup (I used this recipe, with a few alterations–wet mustard instead of dry, didn’t have Grade B maple syrup, only did 2 cups of beans rather than 2 1/4). Slide them into a 300 degree oven, and wait. Wait for many, many hours. Stir the beans, and add water as needed. Taste them. They will be ready in about 6 hours, and they will taste of smoke, and sweet, and earth.

I recently read “Maine Cooking: Old-Time Secrets,” a really wonderful book of food essays by Robert P. Tristam Coffin. If you love reading about regional/local food, I encourage you to find this book and read it. This man loves food and was raised on a saltwater farm in Maine. His mother cooked huge feasts of local food for their family, and he writes so eloquently about the food you almost feel like you are there. Here he is, writing about the traditional Saturday evening bean supper.

“So, for seven hours. You must stand guard in the kitchen and tend to your cosmic work. Pay no attention to the husband or boys of the family who suddenly acquire good manners as the sun gets low and golden toward the end of the day. Let them pinch in with hunger. Mount guard. Feed your beans. So the seven old planets are fed and the stars kept oiled and running in their orbits.

The last time you take off the lid, you leave it off for good. And with a fork you dredge up the chunk of pork, bring it to the surface where it can crust over and brown. Close the oven. Let the fire sink low, and let the unlidded beans brown.  You will have to be a strong character and resist the fragrance now, flowing out like a fragrance from heaven. For the uncovered beans will permeate the kitchen, the house, the neighborhood, the town. People will stop on the street, under the crescent moon or the early evening stars and water will come to their mouths, and tears, even to their eyes. Hardened criminals will become as little children, stop by your house, and well up with forgotten goodness in their beings. People–perfect strangers–will think suddenly they ought to come in and call on you. Resist them all. Lock the kitchen door, if need be. Though hunger grips you and shakes you like a leaf, sit still, ward the closed door of the stove, even to the end of the eighth hour.

When you fling wide the door at last, the beans will be brown as a heap of October acorns, and the pork singed the hue of ripe old mahogany. Dish up the beans now. Bring in the steaming cylinder of brown bread. Call in the family. Untie the small boys. Call the neighbors. Call in strangers and criminals crowding there at your gate. Invite the world! For it is the hour of humanity. It is the Saturday evening hour, the hour that puts the pinnacle on the whole week. The hour of old New England prayer. Threshold to Sunday, the day of peace. The gateway to heaven. The best meal of all New England’s best.”

baked beans are not very pretty

We live on a private dirt road, so there are no neighbors to invite, but I assure you the fragrance here is mouth-watering. And it’s Sunday night, not Saturday, but still, you are all invited, of course, any time.