Life on the Home Front: April Fools

In which I discuss the many pranks of April Fool's Day.....

As one child observed, "I don't remember doing this much on April Fool's Day before." That child is correct! This year Aprils Fool's provided a nice distraction from another day at home.

It began with finding the entire downstairs turned topsy turvy -- from couches, to lamps, to the spice cabinet, to the teapot under the tea cozy, to the microwave and coatrack. Trolls had obviously been up late putting it all together and it was very, very impressive. It took some time to figure out how to retaliate (other than making them put it all back) but I snuck out and drew flowers and funny faces in soap on said troll's car windows. He had a little surprise coming to him when he went to work!

It was grocery delivery day from Instacart. I had gotten in line a week ago and have been adjusting my list every few days. Our shopper was terrific and texted me the whole time she was shopping: "Do you really want 7 bags of bagels?" "Yes please, we have a large family." "Okay! Just wanted to make sure." So imagine my surprise when I unloaded the groceries and found NINE pints of heavy whipping cream. Really? How did that happen? Except I know how it happened. The software is funny sometimes and one doesn't realize how many have been added to an order. Too bad I told the shopper we had a large family because maybe when she got to the 9 PINTS OF WHIPPING CREAM she might have texted to ask if I really wanted that! ha ha ha! I see many batches of scones in our future. (I think this should count as an April Fool's joke!) In case you are wondering, we are holding steady at about 8 pounds of butter in the freezer.

The day was similar to all the others: yoga, quiet time, blog, breakfast, painting, working on projects, sewing, throwing in a load of laundry, working on chores. I finished the little pantry! It hasn't looked this wonderful in years. Am making great progress on my closet too!

The middle child was scheduled to bake so I gave him a recipe for sticky toffee pudding, knowing we had just enough dates for one batch. I came down later to find it all made but the most horrifying looking toffee sauce in the saucepan: "What happened?" That's when the child sheepishly admitted he'd added some food coloring. And he'd tried to dye the pudding itself green (???? I heard one child mention monster boogers). Fortunately the green mostly baked out of the pudding. I get April Fool's jokes...but not with sticky toffee pudding! It felt like some sort of sacred desecration. Good thing it still tasted delicious if you closed your eyes!

Why not add insult to injury and cook something fun for dinner too? I found a "cake" to bake which was bisquick mix dough with Italian sausage, spaghetti sauce, and pepperoni in the middle and mozzarella cheese melted on top (special thanks to my Instacart shopper who agreed to add the cheese on in the middle of the shop!). The gluten free version worked and the family did enjoy the funny joke. Not to mention the recipe was tasty!!!! Here it is.

Food Eaten: oatmeal and tea, leftover Indian, last of the cherry pie, April Fools "cake" and salad, small piece of sticky toffee pudding.

Life on the Home Front: The Rest of the Birthday

In which I discuss FIFA, wild ramps, and cherry pie.....

The days run into each other now. We are not constant news watchers so even the news seems relatively the same. Next week will be different when the kids get back to online schooling. Our second week of spring break is going along just fine though.

The weather was cold, but I did convince Drew to tag along down into the woods to see if we could find some ramps (wild garlic) to make a wild garlic butter for Michael's birthday dinner. I wanted him along so he could film me as I demonstrated sustainable ways of harvesting the ramps for my nature videos. Unfortunately the ramps in our woods were too tiny to film, but that didn't stop me from dragging him all the way to the very end of two paths to see if we could find more mature ramps.

In return for going on the walk with me, I let Drew introduce me to the world of FIFA (a soccer x-box game). Since I don't play xbox, nor soccer, the whole process is new to me. I have to watch the ball, watch which player to switch to, switch the player, tackle the ball, shoot the ball, punt the ball, honestly, it's quite overwhelming. And then the part that got me was the constant commentary that is created to match your shots. Things like: "that was uncalculated, what a surprise, his teammates are staring at him now, we expected better......". And then, if you do a really great shot, you can choose if you want a typical or a-typical celebration and then you watch your player do some sort of hilarious crawl across the ground in celebration. I kept getting so distracted by the commentary I couldn't play well. I found the whole thing overwhelming. But I will have to try again.

I baked a cherry pie in the afternoon for Michael's birthday dinner. There were just enough cherries left between the freezer and a random jar of cherries that I always wondered why I had. I also had some thin chuck steaks in the freezer that were intended for Valentine's Day but never used. I labeled them for Michael when this whole thing started. This is where all my reading is coming in handy. "The Long Winter" taught me that mother's secretly stash special things in times of emergencies so that when holidays come around they can pull something out of hiding to make the day special.

As usual, I spent some time painting and working on a few other projects. I also spoke briefly with a friend via FaceTime.

I opened up the grill and got if fired up for dinner and realized it is on the very last legs of its already secondhand life. But I managed to get the little steaks cooked, and I had picked a few leaves of wild garlic and a handful of wild onion so we had the garlic butter and some fresh veggies with baked potatoes. Very delicious!

Drew chose "The Truman Show" as our family movie and we stopped half way to enjoy that amazing cherry pie! yum yum! Then it was off to bed with the expectation of a new month in the morning!

Food Eaten: oatmeal and tea, leftover Indian dishes, crackers and olive tapenade, steak with sweet potato, asparagus, broccoli, and garlic butter; cherry pie.

Life on the Home Front: The Weekend

In which I discuss cooking, organization, and fake poop......

Another weekend in the books. What a gift these slower days are in many ways.

Our most joyful piece of news was receiving word of the baby girl born to friends in our congregation. All went well and they were home in time to show us the baby on our weekly Sunday evening online church gathering. What stories her family will tell as she grows up -- being born during coronavirus!

I spent some time cooking on Saturday so I wouldn't have to do much on Sunday. I'm stretching out the meat in our freezer so decided on Indian dishes with spinach and chickpeas. Once in awhile I long for something with a lot of flavor. Indian works!! People often comment that I must like to cook -- I really don't think I do. I like to eat good food and I especially like to sit around a table with others. Cooking is simply the means to that end. I'd much rather be reading or painting.

The most memorable conversation from the weekend began with my overhearing, "Remember the fake poop we used to make and leave in so-and-so's yard to annoy them?" WHAT??!!! I'm still laughing about this. Yes, apparently my kids made fake poop out of mud and placed it in an annoying neighbor's yard just for the fun of it. I always knew I would later find out things my kids did when they were young. Fortunately, said neighbor repented in sackcloth and ashes (and a large bag of candy and a free snowblower) before moving and no longer troubles the children.

One son needed a haircut so we took care of that. Fortunately we can do without a barber for as many months as we want. I typically have my hair cut twice a year, and I can actually go without for many years if need be.

I worked more on tidying up my back closet which also serves as my art storage area, sewing room and fabric storage, and book storage area (it's very large). Having tidy spaces makes a huge difference to my inner peace. I've got plans for the little pantry and more plans for my closet this week.

On our church video chat last night we heard from some of those out on the front lines. A nurse let us know that our county expects the peak to hit our hospitals in 4-6 weeks. A friend in an industry "in the know" right now warned us to expect 50-60 more days of this. From all I read online, they are correct. One day at a time I guess.

Food Eaten: Saturday: Tea and toast; leftover pizza, apple crumble for tea, leftovers with eggs for dinner. Sunday: blueberry pancakes and tea, Chana Masala and Saag Paneer without the Paneer with homemade GF chapatis (from a mix), basmati rice, and coriander chutney; apple pie for tea, leftover pancakes for dinner.

Life on the Home Front: The First Day of Spring

In which I discuss the first day of Spring, monitoring the butter situation, and the nearly exploding refrigerator...

I was reminded by Ann Kroeker earlier this week that this is a very important time to be recording what daily life looks like as life as we knew it rapidly changes into a new era. It didn't take much encouragement for me to return here.

We are a week into life at home, one week into the three weeks of groceries I bought last Thursday, one week into at least seven weeks of the kids being home from school (I'm guessing this will change to be longer.)

Everything is surreal. We are all hiding at home, waiting for the tidal wave to hit, wondering who will  get sick, who will be the first one, not wanting to even ask "who won't make it." Is this how it felt on the home front during Word War II?

I spent years reading books about World War II, interviewing friend after friend about their actual war-time experiences when we lived in Scotland, and watching my mom and other missionary wives live life in post-war Uganda in the early 90's. All that knowledge is rushing to the front of my mind as if it was there for a reason.

So it's not the toilet paper I'm worried about: it's the butter. It's hard to be excited about food when there's no butter! I have a limited diet: no gluten, no dairy (except butter), no nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers), no fermented foods or foods with vinegar, and the list goes on. Butter is important to me! And my family eats it at an enormous rate. It might be the first thing we have to break out for. I have 9 pounds left. At our current rate, that equals a little over two weeks. Why so much butter?

We've instituted afternoon tea times with a mandatory sign-up sheet for baking. Even Michael has been assigned a day this week (he doesn't bake -- I think he baked four loaves of bread before he left home as a teenager just so his mom could be assured he wouldn't starve). The tea time is to provide an activity for the afternoon that will improve our spirits and foster social interaction in the family. It's also requiring a lot of butter.....

We had our traditional First Day of Spring Tea yesterday, something I started the very first year we were married. I started so many traditions early on in our family's life because I was often stuck at home with little children or chronic illness, lived in situations with few opportunities to see people, and wanted to bring up the mood of the family. As life has gotten busier, these little traditions have become harder to keep, and probably not as necessary many years. Suddenly, there's time and the need for the traditions. So we pulled out and ironed the linen tablecloth I found in Scotland 18 years ago with the first spring flowers on it (the snowdrops, bluebells, daffodils) and we even pulled out the spring teacups. We found an old, half-used bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer (fresh strawberries are the tradition for this day), and Laura helped to whip up a batch of gluten free scones to make strawberry shortcake.

I am encouraging each one of us in our family to find some small way to encourage others during this time. Laura has made an extensive list of people she can create cards and letters for. Drew and I are working on creating nature videos so no one has to miss the first glimpses of spring. James agreed to play his bagpipes out back for a few minutes on St. Patrick's Day. It turns out a few people heard him, including someone who was missing her father who had passed away a few years earlier and who loved St. Patrick's Day. All this was learned from a friend who found it chronicled on the NextDoor App. James is planning to play again. Anything, no matter how small, is important right now -- important for building camaraderie, keeping everyone's spirits up, keeping an outward focus and keeping love alive in our own hearts.

I've also made a list of household chores we've been putting off far too long. Things like reorganizing closets, cleaning out cupboards, and cleaning up dried ice-cream underneath the fridge. All was going well until we heard scary sounds last night and a son yelling, "The refrigerator is exploding! Dad! Help!" along with the accompanying sounds of water spraying at a great rate from the kitchen. Moving the refrigerator had caused the water hose to pop off the wall and pressurized water to begin flooding the kitchen. "The water shut-off in the pantry!" yelled Michael. Drew and I ran in and turned the water handle 1/4 inch each way. Nothing happened. "It's in there, keep trying!" yelled Michael with his fingers pressed hard against the opening of the hose. I handed Drew a dainty china teapot blocking one side of the water pipe, threw a bunch of extra kitchen towels on the floor, and vowed to clean the small pantry as soon as possible. Finally, underneath, there was an actual valve handle, and with a great tug, the water was off. That led to shop vaccing up all the water and a trip for Michael out "into the apocalypse" to get a brand new hose from Lowes. By bedtime all was well, the floor shiny clean, the fridge replaced, and the drama of the day done.

Food eaten: tomato soup and old bread turned into garlic toast for most of the family for lunch; turkey soup for dinner along with bread I'd picked up at Wildwood Market while making flower bouquets on Wednesday. I think breakfast was toast. And we did have strawberry shortcake for afternoon tea.

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Back from Asia

Michael and I are just back from two and a half weeks in Asia! It was my first time to this part of the world and I thoroughly enjoyed every chance to meet people, experience their culture, and taste the food! I have lots to share.

Here's a rainy photo of Singapore from the cable car ride we took the first Saturday. Singapore is a tiny island-city just south of Thailand and Malaysia. It was originally colonized by the British but gained its independence after World War II. The city is a mix of east and west cultures owing to it being settled mainly by Chinese but colonized by Britain.

I can't wait to show you all the wonderful flowers we saw at the Gardens by the Bay! Their current flower show is "blue flowers" and we spent a delightful morning admiring and photographing all the displays.

You can't go to Singapore without hearing about and tasting the infamous durian fruit. Durian's aroma is so distinctive it is banned in most hotels and buses. Trying exotic fruits became one theme of our trip.

We headed to Malaysia our first week, joining the congregation from Pilgrim Covenant Church in Singapore for their annual Family Camp. The camp was held at a lovely resort. I felt like I'd returned to Africa! I couldn't get enough of the tropical plants and lovely views.

Our trip was most certainly about getting to know the members of the PCC congregation. The young people were particularly friendly and eager to talk. It was lovely to see a group of teens enjoying one another's company.

It was Michael's job to present six talks/sermons at the Family Camp. That meant he did all the hard work and I got to reap the benefits.

After the Family Camp we returned to Singapore for the weekend where we were invited to attend a wedding. It was a memorable day and I look forward to telling you all about it!

Experiencing Asian food was something I looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed. This plate here was the first of 9 courses served at the wedding -- the plate included cuttlefish, jellyfish, lobster, seafood mango salad, and roasted pork.

 It was very exciting to go off on a trip just the two of us! It's hard to believe our kids are old enough to handle a long separation! And we are thankful for the many, many people who made this possible by their willingness to help watch our kids!

After the second weekend Michael and I headed up to Chiang Mai, Thailand to enjoy a few days of vacation. Our hotel turned out to be just the perfect place to relax!

Chiang Mai is filled with historic temple after historic temple. We spent our days wandering the streets and photographing all the beauty.

Observing another religion provided plenty of food for thought. It almost felt like stepping back in time to see the massive buddha structures inside ornate temples.

Thai food was amazing! In her new book At Home in the World, Tsh Oxenreider mentioned a restaurant they loved in Chiang Mai. Having read the book on the plane ride over it was too fun to go and find it for ourselves! (I highly recommend the book. Such good armchair travel. It also cured me of ever wanting to travel the world at length with a bunch of kids in tow!)

Chiang Mai overflowed with artistic beauty. It was everywhere we looked. I couldn't get enough pictures of the patterns, the colors, the gold, the inspiration!

The city was a photographer's dream!

One evening I took a Thai cooking class! It's a very popular thing to do among travelers there. We made five dishes and then ate our creations. Can't wait to show you more!

One afternoon we took a boat ride and along the way learned about many of the different fruit trees and vegetables Thailand grows.

And of course we went shopping in the vast markets that contained everything from tailor-made garments to dried fish, piles of fresh orchids to knock-off Cath Kidston.

Our week in Thailand eventually came to an end and we headed back for one last weekend in Singapore. Friends took us to Chinatown for a Dim Sum feast and then proper Chinese tea at a teahouse (so very exciting!!).

Who could have guessed that there would be a Downton Abbey exhibit just opening in Singapore while we were there. Somehow it seemed just the thing to go to in a fitting east-meets-west sort of way.

Yes, it was a wonderful trip in so many ways!

 And the kids survived!

Jetlag is a nice excuse to try to take life slowly for a little while and reacclimate to life in a busy household, and sip the memories of far-off Asia slowly like a perfect cup of White Peony Tea.

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New York City #4

My final day in New York City dawned bright but blustery! I took the subway down to Chelsea Market where I planned to meet my cousin, Anna, for lunch!

There was just enough time for a quick browse around Anthropology!

Then Anna arrived and we headed into the bowels of the Market!

Fortunately, since Anna works nearby, she is familiar with the delicious things we needed to try during our visit! Right away we stopped at Li-Lac Chocolates.

We decided the perfect way to begin was to try a dark chocolate covered cherry cordial. Mmmmmm.... yum! It just needed a drop of almond flavoring to make it even better!


Then Anna pulled me back around the corner to taste Seed + Mill cakes made from tahini! What??!! I'd never heard of such a thing. Best of all, most of them were gluten free and dairy free! Wow.

Check out these cakes! They were amazing too! I wanted to buy a whole selection. And, if we had already eaten lunch I would surely have bought their goat milk ice-cream which was A-MA-ZING! (Guess what?! You can order their cakes online!)

 We wove around more stalls and then there was a spice shop with piles of enticing colors and flavors just reaching out with their tentacles saying "buy me and make your food more delicious"! I resisted.

But, we lost our resistance in the Italian Food Market.

We ditched the "crepes for lunch" plan and started loading our arms with goodies.

Hey! there is fresh mozzarella, just like in the novel I took to New York to read!!!! (see below)

And just look at all those meats! It turned out the ones in this case were all spicy so we had to go find the non-spicy section.

 Once we had sausage, goat cheese, a fig and almond loaf, and the every-necessary olives, Anna suggested we go find some fruit to round out our lunch. Across the hall was the produce market. If only you could comprehend the size of those white asparagus! And look, they're selling ramps -- we always read about them in magazines this time of year.

They even have baby pineapples!!!

We each settled on the kind of pear we preferred and then found table space to set out our spread, laughing because our lunch looked exactly like what we grew up loving to eat!

Oh the olives were so good we nearly ate them all! And that goat cheese -- melt in your mouth deliciousness! It was a little hard to get that sausage sliced with a plastic knife but we didn't let that stop us! The pears were perfect and the fig/almond loaf -- wow, I should have brought five of those home with me!

Here we are together celebrating the fact that in the past 13 months we'd seen each other FOUR times!!!

We couldn't visit all day as Anna needed to get to work. I hopped on the subway and then crossed Central Park via bus to meet up with Christy and Nathan!





































One of the inconvenient things about New York is that most of the big museums are closed on Monday! Christy is good at sleuthing, and she found out that we could visit the Neue Gallerie which is open on Mondays (and they would allow her to bring Nathan! -- not all museums will).

Right now the Neue Gallery has an exhibit of art by the expressionist artist Edvard Munch. Never heard of him? 

 Every used the screaming emoji face? Well, that is based on Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream. Oh yes, my teenagers thought it was the coolest thing that I got to see the real painting (this is just a copy in the museum basement because you can't photograph the original).

I think this visit helped me to realize that there is no substitute for seeing the real piece of art in person -- the copies can't mimic the texture of the paper and the way the pastel dust hovers over the background. Yes, I admit this is not my favorite genre of art, but it's good to be able to appreciate many forms of art and to make the most of every opportunity to learn! And, since it is connected to my everyday life (in the form of the emoji which my kids use frequently) I felt very glad to have seen this.

There was another reason we went to the Neue Gallery -- we wanted to visit the Cafe Sabarsky -- modeled after a Viennese cafe! The choice seemed perfect for us! 

We stood in line for a LONG time to get seats but it was worth it! I loved the interior and I thought about my grandmother the whole time! She instilled in us a love for Austria via the Sound of Music and her favorite song Edelweiss. She would have enjoyed having coffee and cake here!

We had our little traveling companion to keep us entertained! Incidentally, this child was born to be a NYC traveling companion! He was so good for us!

 We had a window seat with a banquette!

Here are all the beautiful sweet choices:

I forgot a close up of the sausages we tried -- they were delicious. But of course the main attraction was the cake and coffee. Chocolate Hazelnut cake for me and a Chocolate Rum cake for Christy.  Of course we felt like we were in Europe. An imagination is the best traveling tool of all!

After coffee we went back up to the apartment and I said goodbye to Nathan and gathered my things and then headed out the door to catch the subway and bus to the airport.

Because waiting for me on the other end of my flight were all my little munchkins who needed their mommy back again!

Before I close the final chapter of this New York City trip I must mention the wonderful novel I read on my trip:

Delicious!: A Novel  by Ruth Reichl is set in New York City in the food scene! It tells the story of a young foodie who comes to New York to work for the magazine Delicious!, discovers a secret correspondence of James Beard's, and must rush to solve the mystery before the sudden closing of Delicious! is final. I loved it! It was the perfect foodie/NYC reading.


  My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl is the non-fiction book that, in my opinion, goes with the novel Delicious! In this book Ruth documents the sudden closing of the real magazine Gourmet (of which she was editor) and the depression and soul-searching that sent her into and how she survived the year after and began writing a novel (Delicious!).

That's all for now! Have a wonderful weekend!

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