Be grateful? Let me find the many ways...

An offering of Thanksgiving flowers from Matthew, my husband

Thanksgiving is truly a great holiday; the feasting, the family, the friends, the counting of blessings and the sharing of goods and talents, not just in preparing food but in spreading joy to those less fortunate, all make it a day we Americans should cherish and celebrate.

Of course we should reflect on our big blessings that day as we (if we are lucky) sip Beaujolais Nouveau and gaze on a perfectly roasted bird, but we all know that building an attitude of every day gratitude that lasts through good times and bad is really where it's at if we want to be amicable and generous the whole year.

The simple things in life are the backbone of joy.

Fruit is one of those simple things for which I have no trouble being grateful. Our family usually has plenty in the house, including berries. My children love their fruit, and I am glad to know they are consuming it, because I believe they will be much healthier.

I am truly thankful for fruit.

My gratitude in having a nice, warm bed also increases as I get older.

Likewise, I am grateful for big trees and birdsong, sunsets, my little home, vehicles that run, water in the desert and always and especially for my large family, my healthy children.

I feel blessed that I know peace to a far greater degree in this country than I would know in many other places of the world.

Okay, I guess I mentioned some pretty big things there.

But there are things and circumstances that I have a much more difficult time bringing in line with everyday gratitude: housework, our family's busy schedule, my husband's blasted smartphone.

Though I despise the tendency I have to complain, I nevertheless cave more often than I wish. So I try diligently to turn my own rotten attitude on its head.

For instance, if I am balking at the never ending housework, then I try to say (out loud, mind you, for my kids to hear), "But thank God I have the health to do it!"

I know how it feels to be temporarily unable to perform the simplest tasks, so overall health is indeed something to treasure and extol while we have it.

As for the fact that every evening of the week after school and work and volunteer hours, our family is running to this or that practice or class, splitting up to go separate ways when I just wish we could be together calmly, it's hard for me to be grateful for that time apart. My childhood was nothing like that. But, after all, what is that time for? It's for the development of our four children. We don't believe at all in over scheduling them, but the one activity (or two) that each is in contributes to running around.

Yet, I am glad we have the money to put them in those activities. I am grateful that they are getting abundant exercise in sports practices instead of sitting at home in front of screens. I am happy to see my children outside for a good part of Saturday at their own or their siblings' games. I am privileged to see them pursuing their interests.

As for my man's phone, I grit my teeth and I try to bear its presence, because what does it represent despite the fact that its steals my husband's gaze and attention? It represents a good job with benefits that provides very well for this family, and he rightly needs it because he has a team that looks to him for guidance while working different hours and days. He's a busy, important guy who mentors and guides.

So thanks for the smartphone, business world!

I guess...humbug...grrrrrrrr....

I'm still not inviting it to Thanksgiving dinner.

A Holiday Recipe - Mama Darlin's Sweet Potato Casserole

Something changes this time of year, and it's not the leaves in Phoenix.

Matthew thanked me last week for making a wonderful dinner of ham, parker house rolls and sweet potato casserole with salad and green beans. It was a rare feast.

I said with conviction, "I love cooking holiday dinners. Holiday dinners I get!"

"Every day's a holiday; every day's a holiday," he replied.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. I hate cooking daily meals....maybe if I could just bake everything....yet the dinners prepared at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter I absolutely adore. They're hard work, too - hours upon one's feet and miles of dishes before you sleep.

It's really about patriotic pride on Thanksgiving, standing apron to apron with countless other Americans who hope and pray for a moist bird. But I also love these dinners because I am a creature of nostalgia, always seeking an elixir to take me back to childhood, and the dishes I prepare are largely what my mother prepared - especially the rolls, pies and sweet potatoes. Add the fact that I appreciate the comfort of the tradition; I know exactly what to do. After all, I've been doing it for years, and it always turns out well (well, mostly...).

My mother's sweet potato casserole is one of those dishes that is always on my holiday table. It wouldn't be a feast without it. Because of this simple, rudely prepared but shockingly delicious dish, I have been lavished with praise and accosted with multiple recipe requests. Even the husband of a dear friend who witnessed its messy creation with a potato masher was astounded and appreciative when he finally tasted it. My son, Berto, has honored it by choosing it for his 5th grade's multi-cultural/pre-Thanksgiving school luncheon.

Now I am finally sharing it with you. Because of my son's severe nut allergies, I've changed it some. I present the original recipe, containing nuts and also more sugar and butter, and then my altered version. You can choose for yourselves which you prefer to try. Warning: I've heard marshmallows are out of culinary favor. Do not omit them! It's plain wrong.

Mama Darlin's Sweet Potato Soufflé

Filling:
1 40 ounce can yams                                                
3/4 cup sugar                                                  
1/2 cup melted butter                                     
2 eggs                                                                
1/3 cup evaporated milk                                 
1 teaspoon vanilla                                       


For the Topping:                                            
1/2 cup melted butter                                      
3/4 cup sugar                                                
1 cup cornflakes                                               
1 cup pecans        

miniature marshmallows                                            

Nut-Free Version

Filling:
3 cups cooked sweet potatoes/yams (2-3 large, cooked on high in microwave for about 12-15 minutes, innards scraped into casserole dish)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 melted butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup Cascadian Farms Oats and Honey Granola
1 cup cornflakes (optional)

miniature marshmallows

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mash all 6 ingredients (yes, even eggs!) for filling in a 2 quart casserole dish, mixing thoroughly around before baking for 20 minutes in the oven. Meanwhile, prepare topping by melting butter in a small bowl, adding brown sugar, and then stirring in nuts or granola (large pieces broken apart with fingers) and cornflakes, if desired (topping will be chewier). Remove casserole from oven and spread topping evenly over it. Bake 10-15 minutes more. Remove and spread marshmallows over center of casserole, leaving a 1 inch gap around the edge. Cook just until marshmallows are golden, about five minutes. Serve with parker house rolls, if at all possible, and enjoy!

Some dishes bring comfort and nostalgia with each bite. For me this is one of them. Thanks, Mom. Love, Hoodoo

Don't Try to Force Your Man Out of Doors, Nakey

On Sunday my Man refused to sit on the back patio with the magic combo of our children, me, the newspaper, and breakfast. Just awake, he peeked out the sliding glass door to alert us to his presence. As he examined all the green, blue and brown of the outdoor realm with supreme disinterest, I became desperate for his company just this once. It was surprisingly nice out at that early hour, but my pleas and tricks were to no avail; he even tried to switch my allegiance by telling me CBS Sunday Morning was on. Really! I knew I didn't marry a nature-seeker, but sometimes it drives me wild all the song and dance I have to do just to lure him outside.

When I defected to the inside for coffee, I threatened. "If you don't learn to come sit outside on the patio with me by the time we're an old married couple, I'm going to put a cardboard cutout of you out there...or, better yet, I'll stuff an old man doll and stick it in a rocker on the front porch for company."

"Sounds like a plan."

Rotten old man.

The war of natures escalated when he discovered while grilling our lunch that the children and I had scattered bird seed all over the yard while he slept.

"I don't want all those stupid birds in my yard!" he cried. "They're going to poop all over everything and perch on the roof waiting for the next big seed party."

Other than the risk that our backyard could turn into a bad Hitchcock movie, I didn't see his point.

"So? They're part of nature."

"So, I even found some seed on my white table that I cleaned off."

"Your table? Yeah, right! When do you ever sit at that table?"

"Fine then. I'll leave them to poop all over your table and won't bother to clean it up next time."

"No...well...thank you," I amended. "But I'm the one who cleans those tables most of the time anyway," I added, still nettled. "And you're just scared of nature! Ha!"

That did not go over well, especially when our eldest son cried, "Yeah!" Matthew does not tolerate insubordination from offspring. We backpedaled and tried to mumble how we just wanted his company outside sometimes to sit and play, but it was too late.

Matthew and I finally made up that afternoon the way all exhausted parents do: over a nap. When we woke up, the kids, robbed of more television, had nothing better to do than look out the windows. Soon afterward they started telling us excitedly about all the birds in the backyard (the little rats even counted them for accurate reporting). I giggled nervously as my husband turned his smug gaze on me.

"Ix-nay on the ird-bays," I growled at the kids. "Nobody needs to know."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cooking french toast and bacon for dinner that night, I passed by my husband and made smooching noises instead of actually kissing his lips. I didn't want to get too close to the frying pan.

"So that's how you two kiss when you're cooking," said Berto, our eldest. "It sounds like what you do when you're nakey."

Instantly, I went on the defensive.

"Listen, Berto," I said, waving my spatula and trying to keep it matter-of-fact. "If you walk in on Papa and Mama when we're like that, it's your fault. That'll teach you that you should always knock."

"I think he said, 'what you do with Nike'," corrected my Man, enunciating slowly and giving me a look as he referred to our pet hamster.

"Yeah," said Berto, confused. "That's what I said - Nike. The kissy noises you make at Nike."

"Oh." I went back to minding my french toast. "Well, then, just scratch that and...uh...ignore it."

Short, mostly unedited post #3 - Chicken Noodle

I walked into my kitchen early Saturday evening, and I smelled home. It was emanating from a large blue crock pot on the stove. I breathed in deeply and sighed. My tiny little kitchen smelled and therefore felt like home, and I had warm feelings for it despite its diminutive size.

The smell was a whole cut-up chicken simmering in broth and a potpourri of onion, celery, bay leaf, carrot and thyme. The soup was a Mama's love offering for my eldest boy who was running a fever. Thankfully, it wasn't interfering with his appetite, for every time he passed the kitchen, he exclaimed, "Ummm! That smells good."

Of course it did. Fresh chicken, fresh veggies. Old memories. Homemade chicken noodle soup has been a part of my life since childhood. My mom used to make it with handmade noodles - not those fancy kind that pass through the pasta press a few dozen times, but rough, country style ones - thick, doughy and delicious. My dad was very particular about how long the soup should cook after the noodles were folded in and spread thickening flour ribbons through the pot. Off from the burner the soup must come after the last noodle entered the heat. Then it rested for only a couple minutes before my mom presented a steaming bowl to her husband.

Though Mom's chicken noodle soup nurtured me as I grew, it betrayed me when one cool autumn evening in Idaho, I hovered at the edge of the counter and asked self-consciously, "How do you make it, Mama? Can you show me?"

My mom practically giggled over the implications of my request, and I saw her grin and wink at my dad. I had never asked to be shown how to make anything. Of course she guessed what I myself barely knew: I was becoming serious about Matthew.

But not all memories can be satisfying, no matter how sweet the conjured smell. After a few years of marriage I made the soup for My Man's family, hand-rolled noodles and everything. He has four brothers, and some of them have wives and children, so I had to double the recipe, but I neglected to double the seasonings. After my unaccustomed labor, I heard low voices saying, "It's a little bland."  Missing something...."  "Does anyone else want the salt?"

I tried it and got a familiar sinking feeling. It was indeed bland and pathetic, like my every other attempt to impress my husband's family with my kitchen skills. Thwarted again! A curse!

But never mind. Let by-gone bland soup be by-gone. On Saturday evening I heard the noise which always signifies a happy family at dinnertime - the eager click-clack of spoons on bowls.

Of butter, and Julia, and romantic pauses

I had two chocolate scones last night, spaced decently to aid digestion, and two cups of skim milk - one cold and one not which always turns me off. I won't drink milk if it's not chilled and accompanied by at least a humble cookie, and to drink milk with anything savory would send me into convulsions of disgust, I suspect.

But I had to have the two scones, because I was watching Julie and Julia, and butter is mentioned an ungodly amount of times in that tale. It's a movie that makes even a reluctant cook like myself think of possibly, remotely in the future, maybe, eventually delving deeper into the culinary arts just to eat the delicious meals in Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Plus, my dad has so exalted French food since his vacation to France with my mother that I am sorely tempted to feel that I have not truly experienced life if I do not find a way (and soon!) to have French food on a semi-regular basis.

But honestly, I don't have a yearning to master the art of any cooking, and French cooking makes me think of being chased by an angry mob through Paris' streets in my underwear; I imagine the result of my efforts would make me feel similarly desperate, outmaneuvered and exposed. Just watching shows about competitive cooking, like Gordon Ramsey's Master Chef tv series, sends me into spasms of chills and makes me involuntarily curl up my limbs in awkward tension. If by some cruel conspiracy of the universe, I ended up on such a show, I would army crawl out the double doors silently while everyone else was viciously whipping their egg whites into clouds, terrified that the cold, skinny Italian guy might spot my escape and throw a supercilious dart of parting pure disgust my way.

But back to the movie. I needed a good movie last night. My poise, patience, selflessness, and compassion were tapped out by evening time. That's not such a problem if one can be alone at the end of a long day, but if you have four children to put to bed it is a serious deficiency. I turned into "a grumpy bear" according to my eldest girl. I was not the gentle lullaby-singing, child-cradling, laughing, long-hugging mother that I do truly try to be as much as possible. My frustration had climaxed, and it had rushed forth to its denouement which left me, after my children were finally in bed, feeling guilty about my lack of motherly softness. So I cried it out to my husband on his birthday when he came home from having drinks and dinner with friends, and I apologized for not wanting to make love on his special day, but added wolfishly, "Well, would you want me like this?"

And by that I meant sniffling, puffy-eyed, looking like a pacing animal in my stress-induced wildness.

"No! Not like that," said Matthew with a shake of his head and a chuckle, but with disappointment hanging behind the words.

So we turned on the movie, and I began to relax. We sat together in the recliner. That is quite a feat, because my hips are so voluptuous that I have to fold up the lower part of my body at a strange angle just to accommodate anyone else. But we fit, and once the movie had begun, it was so lighthearted and sweet, especially the parts concentrating on Julia Child's life, that the tension seeped out of me. Matthew held my hand, something I don't get often in public since he has a blanket policy about even little PDAs (except for the surreptitious bottom pat when he feels he can get away with it). I began to play with Matthew's thick, dark hair that I love so much which he took as an invitation to caress back, of course.

There's a scene in the movie when Julia is writing a letter to her sister or a pen pal, and in the missive she describes her husband coming home for lunch and how she cooks for him. Then next you see him pull her to the bed in a playful embrace, and Julia is writing "and then Paul takes a nap..."

"That's about right," I said to Matthew with a smile. He agreed with an answering, mischievous grin.

Men will zonk out right after lovemaking, and women will be awake, all keyed up and energetic regardless of how tired they may have been beforehand, and it is my solemn belief that if we made love as often as men want us to we could literally rule the world, because we would be so unflagging in our productivity.

The unexpected, somewhat disjointed chemistry on screen between Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Stanley Tucci as her husband made me giggle and made Matthew bolder in his advances to me, and he soon found he had warmed me up sufficiently to receive the birthday gift he wanted.

He kindly offered to rewind my movie after our romantic interlude, and then he stretched himself out full on the couch and, as was only expected, fell asleep. I meanwhile had replenished my energy stores enough to get through the second half of the movie, had my second scone and now too warm milk, and thoroughly enjoyed my alone time while the sleeping presence of my husband a few feet away sent off friendly, warm, comforting vibes.


Julie and Julia