When You Care Enough to Send Your Child to School Looking Dingy

Where all the lunchboxes are pristine, and the boys all have hip names. Like Asher & Blake.My two sons each posses a monogrammed Pottery Barn Kids lunch box, birthday gifts from their grandparents. The lunch boxes were the perfect grandparent gift--a little fancier than I would have bought, yet useful. They're insulated, light weight and properly devoid of the sort of commercial characters frowned upon by the kids' school. In short, they're perfect.

Rather, they were perfect. That was two and a half years ago. Now the adorable white shark bodies on the sides are dingy at the edges. While I scrubbed them yet again with sudsy detergent and the potato brush, I thought enough already. These are finished. 

Except it's not really true. That's only pride talking. Keeping my kids looking shiny and clean is something I care about. I'm a wear-perfect-underwear-in-case-you're-in-a-wreck kind of girl. If we show up for violin lessons and one of the boys has dirty fingernails, I die a little inside.

The green me is at war with the perfectionist me. I hate the "disposable culture" and the best part of me doesn't want to throw away a functioning pair of lunch boxes simply to uphold my fussy asthetic. But every time I look at that dinge, it pains me. Perhaps I'll get lucky, and the fabric will finally wear out.

If it does, all that scrubbing may be to blame.

This Post is About My (Long) Underwear

I never thought I'd write a post about underwear, but I love these so much that I can't help myself. When I moved from the Big Apple to the Frozen North two years ago, I had a vague idea that I'd probably have to dress warmer. But it took me a year and change to figure out that washable wool long underwear is a miracle invention.

I'm one of those people who is sensitive to wool. I can only wear wool sweaters over another shirt, and even then it often backfires. Many times I have emerged from the car to find that the place where the seatbelt meets my collarbone is bright pink--thanks to forced contact with my wool sweater.

But here on the Vermont / New Hampshire border, you can't swing a cat without hitting something made of SmartWool. First I tried one pair of socks, expecting them to itch and perhaps to shrink in the dryer. But... no problem! When I found myself doing extra loads of laundry just so I could get at those socks, I bought more.

But the long underwear... I couldn't do it. Just thinking about it made me itch. It will be sweaty, I thought. I'll break out in hives. I'm too cheap.

By the time my husband bought me a pair, I was the only holdout in my home. He and both children were already happily wearing woolies. And now I've become a sort of born-again woollies evangelist. Have you tried them? (I'm your pusher.)

Most people wear them under pants, but I think they look fine under a skirt and tall boots. They fit closely enough that the knees don't bag very easily. I wear them as a stand-in for tights.

These are the models I like, and none contains spandex or any other synthetics:

• Smartwool Midweight Women's Bottoms: Between $70 and $80 depending where you buy them. Most places carry only the black. (Note: I tried one pair of the light weight version and didn't like them. They bagged.)
• Ibex Women's Woolies Bottoms: $65. These are lighter weight than the Smartwools, with terrific stretch. They are my new favorites. Black only.
• HessNatur Organic Wool & Silk Leggings: $65. 70% Wool 30% Silk. These are ribbed, and the reason I bought them is that they came in a charcoal color and a brown. A girl likes a little variation, even if it can't be 100% wool.

 Finally, for your amusement, I give you the wool bra, ladies. My zealotry has not yet reached these heights. But check it out. I dare you.  

Veal as a "Conscious" Food

I did not eat veal for the first 37 years of my life. I've always eaten meat, but since childhood I've avoided what I'll call the "Disney Platter." In other words, I didn't eat foods that used to be really cute. Venison, lamb, rabbit or veal were just off the menu.

I'm not saying these choices stand up to logic. They're just the way I looked at life, especially prior to learning a lot about where food comes from.

In the last five years I've gone from knowing almost nothing about my food's origins to knowing an exquisite amount about it. (Note: moving to rural VT/NH makes acquiring this knowledge very easy. So does reading a lot of Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver.) Obviously my will-eat / won't-eat food logic was overdue for a reassessment.

I never thought about veal until I met farmer Lisa Kaiman of the Jersey Girls dairy in Chester, VT. Lisa is a dairy farmer. On her farm she sells raw milk (some of it to award winning cheesemakers) and in her store she sells a variety of other farm products, including veal. This is where I received my quick education.

Every glass of milk or crumb of cheese in the world produces some veal. That's because dairy farmers, by definition, have a fresh crop of calves on the farm each spring. Obviously the female calves can grow up to be milkers like their moms. The little boys, unfortunately, cannot. And since cattle breeds are specialized--milkers like Holsteins and Jerseys are not the sort that are grown for beef--often they're sold for veal. A dairy farmer can expect to be paid only $2 to $10 for her veal calves. 

Farmer Lisa didn't like selling them off, so now she goes to the trouble of raising them herself. They enjoy fresh milk and solid food in her roomy veal barn, and then spend some time outdoors too. When local families stop by the farm to buy milk, they often seek out the little fellows for a quick little pat on the head.

I buy and cook Lisa's veal, because if I were a bull calf, I'd want to live my early days there. The animals don't live a long life, but it is a happy one.

In Which I am Bested by the Sugar Sprite

Last year my children collected an unreasonably large amount of Halloween candy. (When you move to a new town, it takes a while to learn the lay of the land.) Another mom at school told me that the sugar sprite would take care of that problem. "We give her all our Halloween candy, and she leaves us a little something. Like a crystal, or a bit of knitting wool."

Somehow, I was able to withhold my laughter. It wasn't that I thought her idea was stupid. It's just that I couldn't imagine that could ever work for us. My kids, who aren't allowed to have much corn syrup or artificial colors, except on October 31st? They'll never go for it.

And then, the deluge. Apparently the homes in our new town are very generous. I was liberal on Halloween night, looking away as they overindulged. But as they sorted it all out over the next few evenings, trading and speculating like a pair of future oil barons, I started to hear the sugar sprite calling my name.

So I mentioned it casually. "You know, fellas, Serena's mom tells me that they leave their candy out for the sugar sprite. You see, it's healthy for her and her little sugar sprite children. The sprite, out of gratitude, leaves behind a little gift."

To my surprise, they were immediately interested. "I'll do it," said my then-7 year-old. "Do I have to leave it all?" his little brother wanted to know.

Good question, kid. "All but two pieces," I said. 

"Done," was his reply.

The sugar sprite was not actually ready for this immediate adoption, however. But that night, she almost guiltily removed the candy that had been left for her outside bedroom doors, and replaced it with some trinket she'd been hoarding--some lego stocking stuffer that hadn't quite made it into the stockings last year.

The boys were intrigued, but not exactly overjoyed with their decision. And I really thought that would mark the end of our relationship with the sugar sprite.

Fast forward one year. I have learned to skip that house, the one that doubled last year's candy haul. The kids pull in a more reasonably sized batch of what passes for candy these days. There are lollipops with awful sticky gum inside. There are "Halloween Kit-Kat" bars, which are truly frightening. Those aren't even trying to be chocolate. Instead of the chocolate, they are coated with an orange waxy substance of unknown origins. Was it always this bad? I eat a couple of pieces, and find them so sweet that all other flavors are masked. (Confession: except for Milk Duds. I love those. If you've never poured them over hot buttered popcorn, you haven't lived.)

Where was I? Right. The sugar sprite--she came unbeckoned. After a two days of this bounty, my younger son announced he was leaving his box of candy for the sugar sprite. 

"Really?" I asked. I was on my way to the kindergarten parent meeting.

"Yup. Don't kiss me when you come home. You might scare away the sugar sprite."

The sugar sprite did not come that night, because we live in a rural area where there are no stores. Also, she forgot about it until a similar moment the next night. "Maybe she doesn't want to come in my room," the little man said, peering into his box. "I'll put it outside."

"Me too," said my savvy third grader, with a challenge in his eye. Since last year, he'd clobbered onto the fact that all Saints and fairies purporting to leave things for him in the night were heavily subsidized by mom and dad. "Come on," he said to his little brother, and the two of them deposited their bounty on the front porch, where I worried it would become a potential feast for a passing Raccoon or black bear.

I was really stuck then. The only bribe I had in the house were two Lego advent calendars I'd bought on impulse. And I was starting to regret the whole thing. Giving up candy for... plastic? Erf. Where do I get these ideas? The lesson here is that parenting out of mere half conviction will always lead you astray.

The lucky result: sheer joy. Those lego advent calendars which seemed like such a scam after I bought them are a garden of delights. If you can overlook the outrageous price, it's worth noting that the entire contents of the package would likely fit into a 1 cup measurer. And parsing out the tiny projects over 24 days has created a new kind of drooling anticipation. (The sugar sprite left a note, in pink ball-point, advising them to only open one little door per day. No cheating.)

They don't even miss the candy (although I noticed that my 6yo had squirreled away a single peanut butter cup for insurance.) 

I, however, have to stay away from a certain bag in my closet, until I find some unwitting recipient. What's good for the kids is good for me too. I'm going to keep repeating that until it's out of the house.

Tomatoes Please. Hold the BPA.

It's officially chili season, people. And another year has gone by wherein there are no better BPA-free canned tomato products on the market. I've been ramping up my gardening, but I'm nowhere near canning all of our own tomatoes yet.

So what's a chili-loving girl to do?

There are some companies, notably Eden Organics, who can beans and other vegetables in BPA free cans. When I'm not using dried beans, I always turn to Eden.

But the acidity of tomatoes means that even Eden can't make a BPA free canned tomato product. Scanning high and low, I've come up with a scant three BPA free products. First there's Pomi, in a tetra-pak. The container is not recyclable or compostable, but it is BPA free. In glass jars, I've found BioNaturae and a brand called Cirio. 

BioNaturae is found in many East Coast shops, and their pasta is--hands down--my favorite organic brand. The tomatoes are the priciest choice and only come in a very well pureed texture. Pomi's "chopped" product is a more traditional chili texture. 

The Cirio brand has a texture in between the other two. Problem: these are not sold in my town. It is an Italian import which I found at Fairway in New York City, a store full of quirky European brands that aren't widely available.

Why aren't there more glass containers? A BPA discussion over at Groovy Green Livin' brought up this question, with a less than satisfying answer from a representative of Annie's products--that glass is heavy and difficult to transport.

True. But it's also oh so recyclable. I argue that it's more efficient to can tomatoes in 24 ounce jars than it ever will be to put baby food in 3 ounce jars. And I don't hear any companies suggesting that baby food should soon appear in BPA lined cans.

Dear Muir Glen (owned by giant General Mills) I'm talking to you! Your pasta sauces reach my store in glass jars. Please, please consider putting those tomato products in glass, too. 

Enough, already.

The Great Pretenders: What My Children Have Taught Me About Fiction

I have two little boys, 6 and 8.  When they’re not busy at school, they can spend the whole day playing pretend games.  My husband and I have had many a shared glance over the ridiculousness of their pretend play.  Today, for example, they were half turtle, half man.  This was inspired when one of them threw a towel over the other one, and the pretending didn’t let up for more than thirty minutes.  The low point was when they nearly came to blows over who had the better towel / shell, until one of them remarked “you know, turtles can visit other turtles inside their shells.  It’s like a play date.”

They do this for hours.  None of it makes a lick of sense, and when I have something important to tell them—something like “your lunch is on the table”—I can’t get in a word edgewise.

Meanwhile, on those rare occasions when the house is quiet, I sit fuming at my laptop trying to put out a few hundred words of fiction.  When perfectly formed dialog and drama don’t flow readily through the keyboard, I get twitchy. 

I’ve never transcribed my children before, but I’m guessing they produce several thousand words of fiction an hour.  And I’ve got a couple of birthed-by-fire paragraphs.  So which of us is wiser?

When I hit the biggest roadblocks to producing fiction, it’s always when I’ve misplaced the only writing advice I’ve ever claimed to embrace—Anne Lamotte’s concept of shitty first drafts.  Chapter Three of her classic Bird by Bird is the only text on writing that I’ve ever shoved into anyone’s path.  Not only does Lamotte give you permission to write shitty first drafts, she actually manages to prove that it’s an essential part of the writing process.  Read it and feel better.

This is how it’s supposed to work: sit back down in front of that blank page, and go ahead and write a scene that feels as lively and realistic as a couple of Barbie dolls talking at one another in plastic dolly voices. 

Take several deep breaths and remind yourself that it’s okay. 

Once you shove your characters around like a couple of action figures, you’ll be able to see the scene for what it is.  Slowly and at great personal cost, those bits of dialog and suggestion will be combed and fluffed into a living, breathing moment that will not sound ridiculous. It will be free of half-terrapin-half-kindergartener moments.

But this magic can only happen if you free yourself to sound ridiculous, to spit clichés onto the page like so many cheerios under my younger son’s chair, and clean it up later.

As I type this, I can hear that the game in the other room has changed.  My younger son has just declared “I’m half squid, half dolphin, half jaguar and half horse.”  The fiction is still going strong, but someone should really teach that child about fractions.

104 Year Old Cookie Sold at Auction

My enduring fascination with food in culture meant that this LA Weekly blog post caught my eye. A single biscuit produced for the Earnest Shackleton adventure to Antarctica was sold at Christies, for 1250 British pounds, or nearly $2000.

And people say organic food is expensive!

Never Make Just One Lasagna

A Lasagna's Eye View of My Kitchen

Almost 20 years ago, my smart friend (and Ski House Cookbook co-author) Tina taught me this valuable life lesson: never make just one lasagna.

See, lasagna is no small effort. I'm sure we could point our browsers to several dozen fabulous food blogs right now where even more artful foods are prepared, styled and photographed twice a day. (The 8-layer faux asparagus cake springs to mind.) But at 1.5 hours in the kitchen, lasagna is about as labor intensive as I can fathom on a weeknight. That's why I always make two: one for tonight, and one for the freezer.

Now, isn't that good advice? One night, this month or next, I'll use my get-out-of-jail free card, which will be waiting in the freezer. And that will feel great.

The following recipe is large enough to make two lasagnas, each one will serve 4-6. 

(I don't have two identical pans, so one of them goes in a 9x13 glass pyrex dish and the other in a square pan with higher sides. Feel free to improvise.)

Here's my straight up meat-and-red-sauce recipe:

Ingredients

cooking oil
1 large onion, diced
2 lbs (humanely raised grass fed organic Vermont) ground beef
2 large or 4 small garlic cloves
1 32oz tub of ricotta cheese
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup parmesan cheese
12 oz. no-boil lasagna noodles (or regular noodles, cooked)
1 and a half 32 ounce jars of marinara sauce
8 ounces shredded mozzerella

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350. Heat the oil in a skillet and saute the onion until beginning to brown. Add the beef and garlic. Crumble and cook until no longer pink.

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, eggs and 1/2 cup of the parmesan. Set aside.

Spoon just enough sauce into both baking dishes to barely cover the bottom. Cover with noodles. Then spread 1/4 of the ricotta mixture over the noodles first in one dish and then the other. Set aside the other half of the cheese mixture. Cover cheese mixture with another layer of noodles.

Spread the cooked meat evenly over the noodles in both pans, serving all of it out. Next apply about 1/3 of the total amount of sauce. Cover with another layer of noodles. Spread the remaining ricotta next. Add another layer of noodles. Cover with a generous layer of sauce, and then sprinkle with shredded mozzerella.

Cover one lasagna with foil and bake 30 minutes covered and 30 minutes uncovered. Serve hot, with the remaining parmesan cheese.

The other lasagna: cover with foil and freeze. When frozen, wrap tightly in plastic wrap or a plastic bag and replace in the freezer. Cook as above, but for 50 minutes covered and perhaps 30-45 uncovered. Lasagna is cooked when a knife inserted into the middle comes out hot.