A Love Song for Community

While I was pregnant, Mark and I shied away from reading the parenting books, attending parenting classes or making use of any community resources. We lived in an ignorant little bubble of self-assurance, absolutely certain that we could handle whatever was to come with the birth of our child. We scoffed at those who studied, researched and readied teams of helpers in preparation for their babies.

Prior to Henry, it is likely that I had one of the most massive egos that ever existed without automatically turning into a black hole - I'm pretty sure that's how black holes work.

Once Henry was born, we managed for about 8 days and then things started to fall apart. We, with spent adrenaline tanks, shot nerves and depleted sleep reserves, began to stumble. After several figurative round-house kicks to the face, we crawled battered and bloody to our families, upstairs neighbour-angels, community agencies, public health nurses, doctors and friendly passers-by on the street begging for help. They, with absolutely no air of smugness, rallied around us and carried us through those first weeks and months.

At that point we made the decision to move from Vancouver to Victoria, where we could be closer to a much larger volume of family and friends. Our dear friends and upstairs neighbours at the time would say repeatedly, that "it takes a village", and Mark and I are now firm believers of the village concept.

Since moving to Victoria we have reaped the benefits of community. Henry and I have started swimming lessons; we have friends and family over to the house all the time and I have recently started a social cooking group for new parents. I have had an overwhelming response to the group and have managed to garner three sponsorships to date - a local market, a composting/recycling company and an organic home food delivery company. These businesses have been amazingly enthusiastic and eager to be involved with a bunch of moms that are working together to feed their families local, healthy, preservative-free food.

I had the distinct pleasure this summer of meeting my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and watching them, with a very new baby, continue to participate in their regular activities and maintain community relationships that had provided them so much support during their pregnancy and birth. I have watched my brother-in-law and sister-in-law here in Victoria do amazing things in the community and raise awareness about current issues through their tremendous artistic talents.


Just being in proximity to these hubs of activity has inspired me to connect with the community and involve people in things I am passionate about. There are few things more rewarding that finding others who are excited about the same causes and I can't think of a better way to build a sense of citizenship and commmunity in Henry.

Involve your kids in the community - teach them to build relationships that will give them places to fall back on when hey face challenges. Know your neighbours. Maintain relationships with local businesses. Take your kids along to community events that interest you and bring them along to volunteer for causes that excite you. Teach your kids to be kind to people and in kind to rely on other people. Teach them passion for their community.

I will not always be able to help Henry, but if he knows how to be part of his community, I hope that he will always feel connected and supported.

That's enough for today.....if anyone wants to hold hands and sing "We are the World"......you know where to find me.

The Virtuous Rice Cooker and that Evil Toaster

I love my rice cooker unabashedly.  I don't quite understand the voodoo that it uses to always know when the rice is done, but I don't care.  It cost about $20, it's from Canadian Tire, and it gets the job done.  I decided that I should probably understand how it works, so here's what I found out:
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/question35.htm

For the reasons described above, the rice cooker is able to do white rice, brown rice, basmati rice, wild rice, rice blends, cous cous, quinoa, and any other grain I've thrown at it. I've also started to put other things in the rice cooker.  Dangerous, I know.

My first foray into challenging the rice cooker was adding raisins and cinnamon, before asking it nicely to cook my cous cous.  (I secretly think that it is my nice way of talking to the rice cooker that causes it to cook everything correctly, and not the answer that fancy know-it-all website gave, but who knows.)  Once it had turned off, Mark and I had this lovely fragrant cous cous, with plump, juicy raisins.


So, a few tips for making your rice-cooking experience more exciting.

1.  Use different grains.  Try different kinds of rice, grains or even blends.  You can find these anywhere.  Check your rice cooker guidelines, but I always add two parts water for every one part grain.  I err a little on the side of too little water, just so things don't come out soggy.

2.  Use dried fruit or vegetables.  When putting rice and water into the rice cooker, add some dried cranberries, raisins or sundried tomatoes.  Stick with the same rice to water ratios, but while it is cooking, it will plump up your additions and infuse your rice with the flavour.

3.  Use aromats.  Yeah, that's just a big fancy word for stuff that imparts flavour into the dish it's cooked in.  For a formal definition, I found this was the best:

http://ruhlman.com/2009/01/aromats/


I find herbs are easiest to do with the rice cooker, as you typically don't have enough time to really benefit from the flavour of the classical aromats (celery, onion, carrot).  You can start cooking things before putting them in the rice cooker, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

4.  Get creative and combine things.  I have a lovely little basil plant that lives on the shelf above my sink.  Combining some fresh basil and sundried tomatoes in the rice cooker with basmati rice makes a lovely side dish.  Sometimes I cheat and just combine the main flavours listed on a bottle of salad dressing - it always seems to turn out well.

While I was researching this post, I found this website that gives some rice cooker reviews, as well as ideas for complete meals done in the rice cooker:  http://bestricecookerratings.com/complete-meals-in-rice-cookers/

Rice cookers are amazingly handy for their pure time-saving, hands-free magic.  But I love mine because it loves me back.

I am however pretty upset with the toaster.  I've realized that it doesn't use a heat sensor and relies purely on time, therefore giving me unevenly cooked bread and insensitivity to different things that I put in it.

On the other hand, I did cook two veggie burgers in it yesterday....

Stuffed Hungarian Peppers

This was something that I made for dinner one day after coming back from our amazing vegetable market.  I know that Hungarian peppers sound kind of "exotic", but this recipe could be done with any sweet bell pepper.  I just happened to find these at my local veggie market and decided to try them.

Ingredients:
4 large Hungarian peppers (sweet bell peppers)
3 cups of prepared brown rice (I do mine in the rice cooker, as always)
1 1/2 cups of grated cheese (I used a local spiced gouda, but any kind of mozzarella-like cheese will do)
2 cups of beet greens
2 cups of chopped mushrooms (any kind you'd like!)
1 medium sized onion, diced
2 eggs
1 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs
1 tbsp of butter (or olive oil, if you prefer)
Kosher salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees!

1.  Combine chopped mushroom and diced onion in a fry pan with butter and a generous amount of salt and pepper.

2.  Separate beet leaves from the stalks and then chop them into strips.
3.  After the mushrooms and onions have begun to brown in the fry pan, add the beet greens for no more than 1 minutes.  Otherwise, they lose all of there beet green-y goodness!  Once this is done, remove it from the heat and set aside.

4.  Cut the tops off of your peppers carefully as you will use these later.  Remove as much of the inside of the pepper to create a nice place for your stuffing to live.

5.  In a bowl, combine your cooked mixture with the prepared brown rice, grated cheese, 2 eggs and the breadcrumbs.  Stir just enough to evenly distribute the ingredients.  Add some more salt and pepper.

 6.  Use a spatula, or your fingers, to stuff the peppers full of the yummy stuffing.  Fill them to about 1/2" from the top, leaving a bit of room for the lids.

7.  Put the lids on and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes.  You'll be able to tell they're done when the pepper skins are soft and slightly brown.

8.  Serve and enjoy!

Mommy Panic Syndrome, or "I didn't inhale"

Mark and I went to watch the Pearl Jam 20th Anniversary Tour concert on Sunday, September 25th.  I was initially aghast to see my peers looking, well, a little older than I'd expected.  There was an awful lot of sensible shoes and receding hairlines.  There were mom jeans and pot bellies.  Those old plaid Lumberjack shirts were looking pretty long in the tooth.

At the T-shirt sales table, there were onesies along with the predictable rock concert gear.  "I guess they know their audience", Mark says.  Most of these grunge rockers from the 90s were coupled off, many wearing wedding rings and cooing over the spray-paint-can-adorned baby undershirts.   I found myself feeling a bit disappointed at the lack of anti-establishment rhetoric and the noticeable absence of teenage angst.

We made our way up to our seats.  Behind us to the right were a group of portly 30-something dudes wearing wrinkly T-shirts, faded jeans and thick glasses.  Between songs, the guy sitting next to me was scheduling meetings for the week on his Blackberry, sending e-vites to his fellow coworkers.

I should note, this was the first time that Mark and I had left Henry with non-family members.  They seemed like nice people and accepted spare change as payment, so we figured it was OK.  It was the first time I hadn't been with him when he went to sleep.  I found myself wondering how many other concert-goers were checking their watches between songs, wondering how their little ones were doing?  This was probably pretty different from what were doing when we first heard this music twenty years ago.

I enjoyed the music, but it was difficult not to reflect on what happens in the span of twenty years.  A lot of the music they played has been a constant in my existence, while everything else has changed and changed and changed.  I wondered how it was that we could all have been doing the same thing in the 90s and how that led us to sharing this moment two decades later.  I thought it was beautiful that these funny-looking 30-somethings could all jump up and down like children while Eddie belted out Alive.

Then I realized the guy three seats down was most of the way through his joint and I was likely high.

I did pretty well until the band came out for their second encore; the show dragging into the 2 1/2 hour mark. At that point, I could no longer ignore my Mommy-Panic.   I began wondering if Henry was sleeping well, if he thought I had abandoned him and was never coming back, or if dingos had carried him off into the temperate rainforest.


We had two cell phones (in case one of the fully charged batteries died) that I checked at regular intervals to see if the babysitters had started their trip to the hospital because of some awful diaper-changing-related accident.  I powered through the final song, and after begging Mark to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a cab, he talked me down and we took the bus home.

Upon our return, Henry was sleeping soundly, and had been since prior to the band even taking the stage.  He didn't even notice we were gone and Mark and I enjoyed a really lovely evening together.  All was well and the dingos retreated back into the night.

My favorite part so far (well, at least one of them)...

There are a lot of things that I've enjoyed about becoming a mommy.  For someone who has balked at any kind of imposed routine throughout my life, I love the simplicity of my existence with Henry.  I love our days together, swimming, running, going to the mall to talk to all of the old people (thank you Victoria).  But, my favorite part so far is what I call Cave Mom.

When I was pregnant, I had two previews of Cave Mom.  The first occurred when Mark and I were in Seattle on our last trip together before baby.  This was intended to be a fun romantic get away, and although we had a blast, a lot of time was dedicated to finding me places to pee.  At 7 1/2 months pregnant, this trumps even places to eat.  

We decided to take the Monorail out to the Experience Music Project, a large museum named after Jimi Hendrix's band.  We decided not to take the tour, but rather to sit (something I was great at at that time) and have a snack (another winner).  I had to pee.  So I waddled into the museum in search of a washroom, only to find that they were located, in visual range, about 5 feet behind the ticketed area line.  So I asked the gentleman guarding said line if I could use the washroom.  He told me I had to buy a ticket.  I cried at him and escalated to yelling about my plight and what an insensitive jerk he was.  He didn't give.  So I hauled my big self around him and went into the washroom, on the assumption that he likely wouldn't tackle a pregnant women - if for no other reason than I would certainly pee on him.  On the way out, he told me to have a nice day.  Without a thought, I told him to go f*%! himself.

I have never said those words to anyone before in my life, and it came as such a surprise to me that by the time I reached Mark I was crying and laughing so hard I had to pee again.

The second preview came about 3 weeks later.  A this point I'm more than 8 months pregnant and moving really slowly.  I was walking through a small parking lot on Granville Island with a girlfriend, and an elderly gentleman in a large, cream-colored car was pulling into the lot.  I was waddling across the handicap parking stall as he was attempting to pull in.  I didn't move quickly enough for him, so he felt it appropriate to wait until I was dead center on the grille of his car and then blast his horn.  The first REAL Cave Mom moment.

I became murderously angry.  I barely resisted the urge to rip the door off of his car and pound him to a pulp, and managed to wait until he had parked.  I stood right outside of his door, and once it had opened, I hollered at him in no unspecific terms how inappropriate it was to honk at a very pregnant lady.   Mark stood about 15 feet away, averted his eyes and did not approach.

Since Henry was born, this Cave Mom thing has fascinated me.  At first, it was completely overwhelming as I was trying to protect him from everything and everyone.  Burners on the stove seemed scary, and I was certain that I needed to shield him from all of the vehicles that were certainly about to drive directly on to the sidewalk and over the stroller.  I had a moment with a close relative when he was about 4 days old, when it literally crossed my mind to kill her for not giving my baby back when I asked.  

I have always been uber-concerned with not offending people and ensuring that their feelings are not hurt.  That's kind of gone out the window when it comes to things involving the boy, and there is a real freedom in that.  Now, if someone even mildly imperils me while I have him, I become a raging she-bear.  Threaten my child?   There will be no negotiating, no prisoners taken.  I'll hack your head off with the pen in my purse and then serve my family a spinach and rice pilaf out of it for dinner (insane laughing).  A bit extreme, maybe.....but you get the point.

I've found this new mothering thing really empowering.  I am his first line of defense against the whole world and I'm relishing the baseness and pure primal awesomeness that comes with that.  I really like Cave Mom - I'm going to try to be more like her.

Stay tuned for my recipe for Hungarian Peppers stuffed with a bunch of yummy stuff.

Fig Jam and Beet & Cous Cous Salad

Well, as I had said earlier it was the fig jam that really did it for me.  We have just moved into this beautiful house in Victoria that just happens to have a fig tree in the back yard.   Our neighbours to the north also have a fig tree as well as two giant apple trees, a pear tree and grape vines.  I am planning a raid on their property soon, as this fruit appears to be going unpicked.

I  have picked the fig tree twice now, yielding about 7 - 10 lbs of figs each time.  The tree looks like it will still give another haul of about double this amount.

Here are some interesting facts about figs:

• The fig tree is a deciduous tree. 
• The fruit of the fig tree are the seeds within inverted flowers. 
• The fig most likely originated in Asia Minor. 
• The fig tree was first recorded on the tablets of Lagash in 2738-2371 BC and it appears in ancient Greek and Egyptian records.
• Figs are higher in fiber than any other common fruit or vegetable, and they also contain iron, calcium and potassium. 
• Figs are a natural mild laxative and have been used as such since the Ancient Egyptians. 
• The fruit has also been used as a mouth cleaner and to relieve chest congestion.
• Figs have been used as a coffee substitute, and, due to its high alkalinity, it is eaten as an aid to those who wish to quit smoking.

If you haven't had enough figgy fun yet, here's a quiz:

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz302273229af80.html

Fig Jam

Ingredients:

About 7 cups of figs cut into quarters - I removed the stem and the bottom, but left the skins on as they soften up nicely and give structure to the jam
2 cups of brown sugar
1/4 cup of brown sugar set aside
1 1/2 boxes of Sugar-Free Pectin
1/3 cup of lemon juice
1/2 cup of water
2 Tbsp cinnamon

1.  Sterilize 7 - 250 ml jars by running them through the dishwasher with the lids and rings
2.  Most jam recipes imply that you need a canning pot (about $30 - 40 at a department store), however, I just use my soup pot
3.  Keep the jar lids warm in a bowl of hot water
4.  In a large pot, combine cut figs, brown sugar, lemon juice, water and cinnamon
5.  Bring to a low boil and cook for about 10 minutes
6.  Combine the sugar-free pectin and 1/4 cup of brown sugar in a separate bowl to allow it to spread nicely thoughout your jam without clumping
7.  Add the pectin mixture to the jam and bring to a rolling boil
8.  Boil for 1 minute - if you boil too long, the pectin won't set - and then take the mixture off of the heat
9.  Take a small spoonful of the jam and let it cool on the counter to check the gelling of the jam - it should set up nicely, but if it is runny, you can quickly reboil and add more pectin and brown sugar
10.  Once you are satisfied with the gelling, pour the jam into the jars, leaving about 1/4" at the top
11.  Wipe any jam off of the tops of the jars to ensure a good seal
12.  Apply the warm jar tops and hand-tighten the rings
13.  In a large soup pot or canning pot, bring water to a boil
14.  Add jars and boil with at least 2" of water covering the tops - if you are using a regular pot, you may have to do a couple of batches
15.  Boil for 5 - 7 minutes and then remove - do not overboil, as this will cause your jam to be runny
16.  Remove from water and set your beautiful jars on a towel
17.  Leave for 12 - 24 hours, ensuring that the center of the lid has sucked down
18.  Give away or eat it all yourself!

Beet and Cous Cous Salad

I owe this recipe to my brother-in-law, who is an absolutely incredible chef and teacher.  I have made a couple of adaptations, but the flavour combinations are well beyond my skill level.  I share it as it has become a staple in our house.

Ingredients:
6 medium sized beets (I'm really looking forward to growing these myself next year)
2 cups of dry, whole-grained cous cous
1 cup of crumbled goat cheese
3/4 cup of dry, unsalted cashews
1/2 cup of dry, chopped figs (these did come from my tree!)

1.  Boil the beets with the skins on and about 1/2" of the tops left on to prevent bleeding.  This will likely take about 30 minutes, however, it's good to check them around 25 minutes to see if a fork can go through cleanly - you want them to be al dente and not overdone
2.  Prepare the cous cous as per the directions on your bag/container.  I do mine in a rice cooker
3.  Take skin off beets (it should just slide off) and them cut into about 1 - 1 1/2" pieces

4.  Combine cous cous, cut beets, chopped figs, cashews and goat cheese in a large bowl
5.  Add salt and pepper to taste (I don't add any) and enjoy!

I'd like to note Henry's amazingly intelligent, creative aunts and uncles by including some links below:

Chris is involved in an event that asks people to live off the food in a food hamper from a food bank for a week.  You can follow him here:  http://gwdothemath.ca/

Michael is presently in Italy, but you can always find amazing things on his site:http://www.novembirdproject.com/

Marlene is also in Italy and has just published her first book, Bucolic Battery.  Check our her stuff here:  http://marlenejess.ca/

This is just one of their amazing joint ventures in Victoria:  http://mondaymag.com/articles/entry/whats-in-your-bottle-of-water/

Melissa is a gardening goddess and mama extraordinaire and I've pulled the following from her work with FarmStart:  http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=161ababe722ef78f40ab203a0&id=ae03330ee2

Jillian is a doctoral student at UWO, volunteer coordinator for the London Fringe and a triathelete.  Learn more about her here:  http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/lme/May30/Program/22/ and here:  http://www.londonfringe.ca/

Bryn is an Assistant Professor in the Music Department at Ithaca College.  Here is his bio:  https://www.ithaca.edu/music/mthc/facstaff/bhughes/

I really couldn't be more proud of Henry's family; they are talented, intelligent, conscientious, amazing people.  And that's only the aunts and uncles!  I'm saving Mark's ventures for a separate post, as his remarkable development deserves its own attention.  Stay tuned!

Einstein, marketing and the bliss of homemade cheese.

To preface this post, I should indicate that I have begun to lust for the power that blogging brings.  A good friend said to me that it is like writing a thesis.  It is the lazy man's thesis.  I can make completely unfounded, unresearched claims based on nothing other than casual observation and assumption.  On that basis, I proceed. 

Also, if you wish to skip the anti-advertising rhetoric, skip down to the bottom for the homemade cheese recipe!  I served it with homemade fig jam (with figs from our tree!) and brown rice crackers - tasty!

I find myself feeling eternally glad that Henry will grow up in a culture that is beginning to realize the dangers of processed foods.  It is becoming on trend again to grown your own food, question what goes in it and seek out healthy options.  It so painfully obvious that our bodies get confused with processed sugars, additives, preservatives and other chemicals that go into food.  I'll lament more on that another day.  But the segue is....we've started to question what goes into our food, however, I wonder if we really question what's going into our minds.  Deep, I know.

As I now have a child, I've spent more time with people that have children and have become more aware of how people entertain and teach their children.  We now have educational toys, developmentally-appropriate playthings, Baby Einstein videos and basically any kind of multi-colored, multi-textured object that should help baby become that rocket scientist you know he's meant to be.  

I'm scared of Baby Einstein videos.  I realize this will probably raise the ire of many a responsible, well-intention parent, but after sitting and watching one Baby Einstein video, I felt completely overstimulated and unwell.  I felt as I imagined Alex felt in A Clockwork Orange.  My brain couldn't make sense of what I was watching, yet I felt somewhat altered.  May be it was just too much red wine or possibly my meds need to be adjusted.

I have watched Henry stare at trees and houseplants with great amusement.  He can watch shadows on a wall for an amazing amount of time.  I can see his little mind working in the stillness and I can't wait until he can ask me those questions that I can see in his eyes.  I watch him watch our dog Jack.

We evolved with trees and sunsets and animals and all of these other natural toys and types of sensory stimulation.  Technology in food and in sensory input have exploded at a rate that we are not adapted to, and hopefully will not have to.  So, as four and half months of parenting has made me an expert on all things related to child development, I would encourage examining what we put into our minds.  What kind of research has gone into the design of the play mat......does it have the exact shade of blue that is on a Pepsi can?  Do the football slogans on his "little boy" clothes make him more prone to buying things from Superbowl ads in his 20s?  Is the orange in that Baby Einstein video that same as in the A & W logo?

Sounds paranoid....probably.  But it's worth a second thought.

On a lighter note, Henry and I made cheese the other day.  It super easy and here's how we did it:

Ingredients:

2L Homogenized milk, the less pasteurized this is, the better
1 1/2 cups of lemon juice (you may not use all of this)
1 Tbsp of sea salt
About 1/3 cup of any type of fresh cut herb that you like, chopped.....I used dill
Cheesecloth (found in the grocery store)

1.  Pour all of of the milk, salt and desired herbs into a large saucepan and bring it to a light boil.  Stir occasionally to prevent it from scalding.

2.  Once it has boiled, remove it from the heat.
3.  Start pouring in the lemon juice, a bit at a time, while stirring the mixture.  Curds will begin to form.  The rate at which this happens will depend on the pasteurization of your milk.  Keeping adding the lemon juice until your curds are about the size of small peas.  My mixture smelled like buttered popcorn at this point!

4.  Line a collander with the cheesecloth and slowly pour mixture through the cheesecloth.  The curds will remain and the whey will go through the cheesecloth.  Apparently this can be saved for a number of uses.  I did not learn this until I'd dumped mine down the sink.

5.  Gather up the curds in the cheesecloth to form a ball.  Squeeze out most of the liquid.  don't go overboard on this, as your cheese will be dry.  Just squeeze it enough so it forms a ball. 

6.  Place in the fridge in the cheesecloth and cover with plastic wrap.
7.  Once cool, unwrap, cut and serve!