Blue Yonder

No Longer a Sous Chef

My oldest has been in the kitchen since, oh, I don't know, birth. 

He was the kind of baby that was happy all time, provided that you held him, ALL the time. 

So, pretty much every meal I made in those early days was prepared with one hand. When he got a little bigger, he'd sit in his little chair as I scurried around the kitchen, tossing things into the pot, quickly as I could, while doing my best to entertain him. I sang "Mama's little baby loves chicken and pasta..." and passed him spoons to bang and then hurl overboard. 

Just as soon as he could manage it though, he was on a stool at the counter, "helping." He liked to dump ingredients in for me, and stir. He loved to cut out the biscuits or cookies. Anything at all that those little hands could do, they wanted to do, "all by myself!"

And now, he really can do it all by himself. 

My boy made cookies today, start to finish, on his own. 

If you look really closely, you can see the reflection of a proud mama in the mixing bowl. 

I was banished from the kitchen - sweetly, but ever so firmly, told to sit at the bar and leave him to his culinary magic. 

It was hard, REAL hard, not to step in, but I didn't and he did it, all by himself. 

His cookies were beyond delicious. He was so proud, as he passed his goods to his brothers who gave him full mouthed, mid-chew praises, "Mmmmm! Lukie, you're a really great cooker!"

Indeed he is. 

In the morning, we'll be packing his cookies in a basket with a couple of jars of apple butter and heading off to Granny's house for a few day's visit. 

While we're out, my little chef highly recommends that you make up a batch (or four) of "his" cookies.

In truth though, it was our truly thoughtful friends who passed along this highly addictive recipe and also a ginormous bottle of Saigon Cinnamon. Do you know about this stuff? If not, trust me, and the other house chef, when we say that you must run right out and find some. 

It's nearly as divine as my earnest little baker. :-) 

Did I Expect Angels

I'm not gonna lie. 

I was pretty excited when Trish of TLC Book Tours asked if I would read and review Kathryn Maughan's new novel, "Did I Expect Angels."

I was so thrilled, in fact, that it wasn't until I actually received the book in the mail that I started to worry.... What if I didn't like it? How on earth would I look at the photo of the author and say something uncomplimentary about her work? But then, how could I NOT and send all the lovely folks that visit my blog out to spend their hard earned money and harder earned time on a book that wasn't truly worth it? 

So I held my breath and started reading. It felt something akin to how I feel at the boys recitals -fingers crossed, hoping that their work has paid off, that they will finish their songs smiling, having hit all the right notes. 

I needn't have worried. 

Kathryn's book is beautiful music - not the full orchestra, put-on-your-beaded-gown-and-tiara kind of music. It's not a big intense, complicated epic. It's more like the song that comes on the radio while you're washing the dishes - the one that takes you back to a place you'd forgotten you'd been to, or has a lyric that speaks exactly the right words into your day. 

"Did I Expect Angels" does the remarkable job of revealing the inner workings of two souls in a way that is surprisingly simple, pleasingly real. 

 I have a feeling that it's the right song for so many different ears, for as many different reasons. 

"Did I Expect Angles," is about a woman, Jennifer, who could be a girl you new in college. She's got her quirks but she's lovable, smart and loyal - just good people. You root for her. You hope for her. And then you're there holding her hand, wishing you could do something more than say, "I'm so sorry" when tragedy strikes.

It's also the story of a Costa Rican immigrant, Henry. He's the kind of older gentleman that you might pass on the street on any given day and not think twice about. He's nice enough, with his velvet accent and easy smile -  but you just don't have much more in common with him than a shared aisle in the grocery store. You smile and walk on, not knowing that his worn hands belie a tale that could make all the difference in the world. 

"Did I Expect Angels" drifts seamlessly back and forth between Jennifer and Henry's stories, each of them drawing you in, but all the while leaving you wondering how an earth these very different tales have managed to find themselves on the pages of the same book. 

It's a story about the power of realizing that we all have more in common than we might think. It's a story about the urgency of looking closer, really listening, really SEEING the people that you might otherwise walk on by. 

It's a story that you find yourself thinking about long after you've read it. 

I'm happy to say that I loved "Did I Expect Angels", and I hope that you will too. 

This Land is Our Land

My littlest sometimes asks me to get down his "horse's shoes" - a pair  that we found in our yard during the regular course of gardening and playing, years ago. Suburban archaeology. 

They're heavy and rusty and usually reside on a shelf in his cowboy-themed room, but sometimes he just wants to sit and hold them and talk about what used to be. 

He finds it amazing, satisfying, awe-inspiring that there were once longhorn cows here where our house now stands - great horned cows in in an endless scrubby field. There were little houses too, just behind our yard. I know because their Daddy has said that as a boy he use to peek in the windows and even went in a few times. He said there were canned goods, things left on the table, as though the ranch hands had just up and left one day, right after breakfast. They were long gone by the time we dated, but then, and now, I wish I could have seen them - those earnest, brave little houses. 

Along with those settlers, there were Cherokee and herds of buffalo - lean brown bodies and great wooly beasts rolling across this land. It is hard to imagine buffalo grazing the hallowed ground where Wal-mart now resides. 

My little man and I like to sit in the grass and close our eyes and let the homes and toll roads, office buildings and strip malls just melt away. We like to hold those horseshoes and wonder how they wound up here. Was the barn where our yard is? And what became of that horse and it's rider? 

I imagine those shoes dropping, as a ranch hand held a hoof between his knees, brow furrowed in concentration. I imagine the horse's warm breath making trails of smoke in the chilly air has he waits, patiently, for his new shoes. 

I think about that day, decades ago when a pair of work-worn boots walked away, leaving in the dust behind them a set of heavy iron horseshoes that someday a small dreamer would hold in reverence. 

We sit, us two, and we let the wind take us back to the days when this land was not broken by fences and scarred by asphalt. 

Sometimes if we listen hard enough we can smell a campfire and hear the far off sound of hooves pounding, wild across the land. 

Preserving

You should know that I'm no stranger to fast food. 

On occasion, when Daddy's traveling and it's been a long day, the drive through line looks like sweet respite from the impatient starving mongrels chasing me around the kitchen and the dirty dishes that they leave in their wake.

Sometimes, the shortcuts are necessary to preserving my sanity. 

Other times, I need to take the long road, meander a bit. On those days, a little preserving of a different sort is just exactly the deep calming breath that I need. 

I need to stand over a pot of something rich and warm and inhale the memories that rise from it. 

Here, at the end of summer's harvest we have in our freezer and lining our pantry shelves, all the evidence of a summer well spent, and a mama who has had plenty of time to boil and stir and meditate on her many blessings: 

10 half pint jars of pesto with which to remember long summer days, the smell of green and a little boy who couldn't get enough;

8 pints of strawberry jam and two quarts of strawberries that bring to mind pink cheeks, dusty rows, and dirty fingers seeking their red reward;

7 pints of plum jelly - just like my Momo made with me at her side, begging to lick the spoon;

4 pints cherry jam, which is really more like cherry syrup, but makes a truly fantastic frozen treat when combined with yogurt;

3 pints of pear preserves that will go to make Pear Cake just like my Granny does;

6 quarts of purple hull peas - shelled by 5 sets of hands that I hold very dear.

6 quarts of peaches which will bring all the taste of a summer sunset to the chilly grey days ahead;

1 quart of blackberries - not nearly enough, if you ask me, but the return in purple grins will be great. 

And now, now that we have all those spring memories and sweet summer goodness saved up for another day, it is time to savor a little bit of fall's riches too. 

LIttle brown jars filled with apple butter, yes, but also filled with the cinnamon-y goodness of a fall evening that we'd like to taste again and again. Those jars are full of giggles and dancing in the kitchen, the radio on our counter spilling out a fiddle's honeyed notes, and wafting in from an open window, the satisfied murmur of chickens feasting on apple peels. 

These jars are filled with rowdy laughter over made-up fruity knock-knock jokes, the warmth of candle light and the stiff-shouldered pride of one little man who likes to say, "Grandfather's favorite is apple butter, and so is Daddy's. Now it's mine too!" 

They are full of a golden moment that will never be lived again, but will be savored for a long time to come. 

Our apple butter calls for: 

6 pounds of apples. After weighing, peel, core and chop them (It's tastiest if you use a few different kinds of sweet apples, like Gala, Fuji, Braeburn or the Delicious varieties)

4 cups of sugar (you could probably use less)

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt. 

Mix the dry ingredients then pour over the apples and toss. Cook in a crockpot on high for an hour and then on low for 10 hours. Remove the lid and cook for another hour. 

At this point, you can put it through a food processor or blender (as we did) to make it extra smooth. Just do it in very small batches. It will be really hot and could burn you. It does some kind of crazy weird expanding trick in the blender when it's hot, so I only fill it half full and blend it on the lowest possible setting. I don't even push the button all the way in. I just sort of pulse it. 

Spoon into clean jars (leaving about a half inch headroom), put the lids on and process in a hot water bath for 20 minutes. Ours was gently boiling. 

If you want to skip the hot water bath, you can just freeze your jars (plain old jars have worked just fine in the freezer for us - just let them cool to room temperature before putting them in the freezer). We tried freezing with one of our jars of apple butter, just to see if it would alter the texture once it was frozen and then defrosted. Nope, no difference. It worked great!

We doubled this recipe, and it yielded exactly 16 half pint jars (of course I had a lot of bowl lickers, so it might have been a bit more :-)

The Case of the Missing Case

You might have noticed that there's been a distinct lack of sewing here at the Blue Yonder ranch. 

Mmm hmmm. 

Lemme just tell you: 

I got all set to sit down and make myself of pretty fallish version of my all time favorite pattern (oh alright, my favorite of the THREE patterns that I've ever managed to finish). 

I cut. I pinned. I poured the wine.  I queued the iTunes "Late Night Sewing" playlist, and then I discovered one fatal flaw. 

No bobbin case. 

It was neither high nor low. It was not under couch cushions, not in my notions box, not in the junk drawer, NO WHERE!

To say that I was a little miffed would be putting it very, VERY kindly. 

The next morning, I lined up all the usual suspects for interrogation, but no one was talking. 

Harumph. 

Well I was not about to go down without a fight. I tore apart the hall closet (which needed cleaning anyway). I reorganized my notions box (you know, just in case I missed it the first 90 times that I searched there), ditto for the junk drawer. I cleaned out Ryder's toy box and closet and drawers. I cleaned out all the stuff on the dining room table. 

And there I was - clean and organized, and as of yet, bobbin case-less. 

Double harumph. Forced into fruitless cleaning!

I was pretty determined that I was not going to go and get a new one. I would find that bloody bobbin case if it killed us all!

Weeks went by though, and my little men started talking about Halloween costumes. I began noticing too that the boys' pajama pants look more suited to high water than to cool mornings. 

So I did it. I drove all the way across town to the ONE shop that had the stinking bobbin case and I forked over the cash to a twinkly-eyed older man who said, "Just how do you lose a bobbin case?"

This I'd like to know. 

All's well that ends well though. 

 

Three little sets of legs are snug and warm this morning, and my bobbin case is snug in it's little hole too. 

So, if you've got missing items of your own, they're probably somewhere in a blackhole next to my old case. I can't help you there. But, if you've got wee little legs in your house that need warming, that I can remedy. 

I made our fleece pajama pants exactly like summer's bandana pants, only longer. I just measure their legs, hip to floor and added an inch and half (ish)  for making the elastic's casing. I measured the width of the pieces using a bandana, and added about an inch so we'd have a little extra room to wiggle. 

 I didn't even hem the bottoms... it's fleece, it won't fray. 

You can find the pattern for the basic how-to here. 

Be warm!