Easy Bake

I've recently taken an interest in baking. Mind you, it's not elaborate, mostly muffins and quick breads, some pizza dough or scones. But I've come to realize that the art of baking is incredibly handy when you're raising a family.

For one thing, it's a way to get healthy snacks into these gross (in more ways than one) consumers I call my kids.  Boy Wonder can shove a whole mini-muffin in his mouth and not end up spitting it back out at me, as he would with a "whole" of anything else--and there's no halfway for the little man.  Bites?  Forget it, so passe.  I can throw a container of them in the passenger's seat and hand them out in the car, then savor the blissful silence of full mouths.

It's also a great way to tackle projects with kids.  My kids know the drill: they get their step stools (this has backfired on me a bit, since Boy Wonder likes to get his whenever he feels like it and use it to help himself to my electronics, which I've oh-so-cleverly kept out of reach); we all don our aprons (Sis: pink cat ala Hello Kitty, Lil Bro: trucks, me: Rosie the Riveter); we put on some great music (whatever is the favorite of the moment--right now it's Into the Woods, the perfect blend of Sondheim, Peters, and Gleason to get our spirits, vocabularies, and imagination pumping); I've generally already spent about a day trying to clear off counter space in the kitchen for us to mess up again; and they prepare themselves to take turns dumping cups and teaspoons of ingredients while we watch the magic of sifting, cutting, mixing, stirring, pouring, baking goodness amass itself into something hopefully divine, or at least palatable.

And the kids?  They're learning!  I've started talking to Spitfire about measurements and fractions.  She's excited to learn to read over the next year or two so she can be in charge of reading the recipe.  Besides these obvious lessons, they are also learning how to take care of themselves in later life, how to feed themselves something healthy and be independent from the "food machine."  They know where real food comes from and what it's made of.  They experience the chemistry that takes place when you mix or change the temperature of different elements.  They've watched yeast activate and dough rise.  In short, this is one of the best activities the kids and I undertake together.  And while it might occasionally throw some zingers of stress my way (I prefer, for instance, to bake without eggs because Boy Wonder cannot be dissuaded from putting every utensil and measuring cup in his mouth--the kid eats flour, baking soda, baking powder, you name it, straight up, and dissolves into a pool of wailing if I try to convince him otherwise), if I manage to keep my cool it's one of their favorite parts of the week.

But I've also realized over time how versatile and economical it is.  If I keep a couple of kinds of bulk flour in the pantry, I can feed the family in conjunction with whatever else I happen to have on hand: over-ripe or dried fruit, perfect for muffins; applesauce, yogurt, eggs, all great filler for quick breads; cheese and leftover pasta sauce magically become pizza.  If I can't get to the grocery store, I can pull something together; and on those occasions when grocery money is lacking, I fall back on my "bulk strategy" of baked goods and other grains and dry goods I can store in quantity (rice, couscous, beans).  Funny how after so many decades of "progress" we discover that our forebears probably had it right to begin with--cooking whole foods.

But here's my strategy's Achilles heel: when we bought our house six years ago, the house came with a stove-slash-oven that has certainly not weathered time as well as our historic house itself has.  We noticed a couple of years ago that the outside of the oven was getting really hot.  Now it appears that the whole top heating element is not working, so it heats up the stove and kitchen far more than the food inside (which just compounds the fact that our kitchen is on the west side of the house and it's 110 outside).  Luckily, the bottom coil still works, and I've learned to time my creations so they're nearly, almost, hinting at browning on top, but still not burned on the bottom.  I have, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of an Easy Bake oven--I've learned that my baked goods will not brown if I don't have the oven light on.  (Perhaps time for a new oven?  Yes, we've been saying that for a while.)

I've never been big into cooking--though I have tried to get more into it since I'm at home with the kids and in charge of most dinners, and I've got a penchant for farmers' markets--but I've realized after baking for a while what the difference is, for me.  Cooking stresses me out because everything has to be timed appropriately, and I never feel like it's coming together when it should be--some veggies are overcooked, some still rather hard, the sauce isn't put together in time to add it to the cooking veggies, etc.  But baking is so much more zen, in my opinion: you do things at your own pace, the oven is preheating and will stay at whatever temp you ascribe until you're ready for it.  The oven waits for you, the stove does not.  So the kids and I can take as long as we wish to dance in the flour, and lick the applesauce spoon, and try to stick our hands in the soft butter when Mama's not looking, and it will all be okay.  We can have our Old-Fashioned Coffee Cake, and eat it too.

Extraterrestrial Direction

Sometimes it's hard to discount the idea of fate, of something steering you in the right direction.  In my life, I find that things tend to just come into alignment when and where they are supposed to.  Case in point: Boy Wonder started preschool last week, so I now have three mornings a week to myself.  And while there are any number of things I probably should be doing, after the first week I decided I'd like to try to focus on writing as much as I can (otherwise, that fledgling novel will never get done).  So after getting two hooligans dropped off at school this morning, I scrounged some change for a coffee from the car's ashtray and decided where to go.  There's a coffee shop near the school--which happens to be on the way to the Y, where I plan to swim this morning, too--a shoe-in in terms of location, but something in me really wanted to go to a different shop, which is a bit more out of the way.  I decided to indulge myself and opted for the latter.

This is a good place to mention I'm infatuated with design.  I've always loved art and dabbled in it as a hobby, but as I've gotten older I've gotten particularly interested in architecture, interior design, and industrial/furniture design.  I pore over the pages of my Dwell and ReadyMade subscriptions when they come and fantasize about going to design school.  But having two small children to care for at home, and a part-time career established as a writer, always recalibrates me to focus on the projects that are already right in front of me.

When it comes to both architecture and industrial design, I'm ultimately wooed by sustainable and recycled solutions--objects and structures that are made from recycled or salvaged materials (including the reimagining/reuse of old structures when it comes to architecture), as well as things that are recyclable or reuseable after the fact.  My favorite furniture line, and the type I'd love to build myself, is Piet Hein Eek's pieces made entirely of recycled or found materials (see NYT Mag article about him here: The Imperfectionist).  But I'm also especially intrigued by modular design, the streamlining and flexibility of it all.

So back to my narrative: I walk into the coffee shop I was inexplicably drawn to this morning, and on my way to the counter I spy a man I know because he co-owns a coffee/breakfast joint in my own neighborhood.  I flash him a wave and smile and order my coffee, and he comes over.  I ask him jokingly if he's slumming or if he lives in this neighborhood, and he tells me his office is here.  I ask him what he's working on.  I know he's some sort of designer or artist in addition to being an entrepreneur, and remember having looked at his prefab housing website a couple of years earlier.  He says he's still working on prefab and he's doing something that no one else is doing yet--he's very excited about it.  I tell him how much I love design and my intrigue about prefab, and he asks if I want to see it.


I thought he meant a mock-up on his computer and followed him to his table, but he gathered his things and headed for the door.  I had a mug from the coffee shop and hadn't even doctored it with cream yet, but I really wanted to see where this would lead.  Turns out his comment that his office was here was literal--it was in the same building, and was more of a soaring hangar than an office.  He unlocked the door and there in front of me was a gleaming duo of aluminum cubes with giant glass doors and a walnut patio, nestled under the beams of a giant workshop, as if they had been plunked down there with minimal ceremony by a visiting spaceship (this impression may have been influenced by the fact that when I asked him how he learned to do this, he mentioned seeing UFOs as a kid in upstate NY and claimed to be guided by "extraterrestrial direction").

A gaggle of incredibly streamlined and colorful bikes lined the wall (apparently he designs and builds these, too).  He gave me a complete tour of the "house" and explained all the materials and process to me.  Not only were the materials all non-toxic, but the entire structure is recyclable, right down to the mind-boggling German-engineered plumbing drains that actually turn to water and evaporate when melted.  (Holy high notes!)  A one-unit washer/dryer (does the whole process in something smaller than a dishwasher), a countertop range that cooks by use of magnets rather than heat (holy friction!), and a whole host of other things I didn't know existed.  Seeing my obvious awe and enthusiasm he said I was welcome to help and get involved with the project.  He reiterated the oft-imparted wisdom: don't go to school to learn this, just start doing it.

And apparently I shall.  Right place at the right time?  Coincidence?  I have a hard time believing so.

Bloomin' Amazing

When you stop to think about it, the world is a bloomin’ amazing place.

The basics:

• Dirt, sun, and water can grow all the food we need to sustain us. I can pick dinner from my own backyard if I have the foresight to prepare a home for plants and supplement what nature might not be regularly providing in my climate.
• Our bodies can not only heal themselves, but create new life. They are capable of this with little intervention from us.

 

Modern miracles:

• This isn’t rocket science—it’s been done for millennia—but we can move water to wherever we want or need it.
• Modern medicine has made commonplace what you can only consider a miracle if you truly consider its effect.

Today, my dad had surgery to remove an organ that had developed cancer cells. This is a major miracle. Perhaps a lesser miracle, but miraculous nonetheless, is the fact that I take medicine every day that allows me to breathe unrestricted as I head out to my garden to pick chard for my family’s dinner, despite the fact that it’s 103°. My kids love chard from the garden, not only a miracle considering the modern diet of most families, but they in themselves are walking, talking little marvels of nature and science—they were conceived through artificial insemination, but there’s certainly nothing artificial about their robust personalities and charming quirks.

These are the miracles that make up my days. Dad has made it through surgery okay, and is apparently talking (I learned this through the marvel of cell phones). The kids laugh and fight, wrestle and read. The cat and dog (our loyal and fearless companions for what seems time immemorial) lay belly-up to cool off. Lovebug brings home the… well, tofu, and we all keep spinning ‘round on this blue planet, in awe and wonder of where were are and where we’re headed next.

Boy Wonder

Boy Wonder is two years old. He's like other two-year-old boys in many ways: he delights in throwing things and getting dirty; he is quite smitten with construction vehicles and the whole idea of digging up earth in order to dump it somewhere else; and he's inherently rough and tumble with the people he loves, jumping on his parents, climbing over his sister, and tackling the little girls we count among our close friends.

I'm not so much into digging in soil I'm not planning to cultivate for dinner fodder, and I generally abstain from tackling my friends, but the longer I know this kid, the more I look up to him. I'm swiftly realizing that he's so much more the person I want to be than I have mastered myself. He has a very gentle spirit, despite the bruising physical outpourings of his affection. He is incredibly in tune with the people and world surrounding him: concerned about babies crying; alert to all the sounds, textures, and colors that I ignore as I cruise past intent on my destination, hurrying and prodding him; alert to even unexpected stillness.

He's only now starting to master language and sentences, and I can't always understand him, but he shows enormous sensitivity and understanding in the things he does say. When he catches me suddenly sitting still, he stops what he's doing and says, "Whatsa matter, Mama?" When I explain things to him (like, perhaps, "Nothing, Pea, I'm just thinking"), he counters with, "Oh, I see." Perhaps these things shouldn't surprise me, and yet he's so much more at peace and ease with the world than his older sister is, or than I am, for that matter.

Boy Wonder is afraid of a great many things for a rough-and-tumble boy, but he's also incredibly positive and easy going, and this is part of what I admire about him. He somehow manages to be sensitive and funny and stay focused on his goals all at the same time. When I tell him he can't have or do something, he'll come very close to me, so his perfect, dirty small face is nearly touching mine, give a giant grin and say, "Mama say no, I say yes!" and then repeat himself over and over, "I say yes!" No matter how many times I thrust, he tirelessly parries.

And I suddenly realize he's even more like the Buddha than I ever gave him credit for. I've always thought of him as a baby Buddha, at least in my own image of Buddha as simultaneously mischievous and disarming. He smiles with joy as he continues to state his case over and over, neither arguing nor surrendering. He is at peace with his own mind.

Don't misunderstand me, Boy Wonder has his share of wailing fits--he's two, and barely knows the difference between anger and sadness. Perhaps he experiences them the same way, or simply expresses them in the same way, but any letdown makes him positively morose and inconsolable until I take a minute to hold him and acknowledge his pain. But even in this, I see his sensitivity.  A moment later, he's fine and back to construction and deconstruction.  He's exuberant about life and his tempers are short-lived.

And one of the main things I revere about him: he stops to smell the roses. Literally. It drives me crazy most days because, of course, I'm always trying to get somewhere, like the dolt I am. But he is absolutely in love with the natural world, and can sit and inspect flowers, plants, and insects for seemingly endless sessions while I prompt him to move on and watch my hair turn gray. We had a very wet winter, which yielded a bumper crop of weeds in our yard that the bees went nuts over. Once I got used to their presence in the yard and realized they weren't going to hurt anyone, I watched as Boy Wonder sat a foot away from a hardy flowering weed or clump of rosemary and just quietly watched the bees go about their business.

Every morning when we take his sister to school, he stops directly outside our front door to inspect the cacti in pots while I get Spitfire and all our gear into the car, and I have to come back, pick him up, and carry him to the car, because he simply can't be torn away from the cactus. If I do manage to direct him past it, he stops, instead, to inspect the grass. Once we get to school, we pass the same flower beds every day, and invariably he must squat down and visit each and every bed, circle around to the first again, and would continue to visit his friends the flowers ("I smelling them, Mama!") the rest of the morning if I did not force his unwilling body ("No, Mama, I smelling!") toward the schoolyard so his sister won't be late for class.  It's a tireless dance, this; but I appreciate him all the more for it.

If I were smart, I'd stop to appreciate beauty daily, too.  I hope he'll teach me to reclaim that.