What I won't do

This morning I woke up and, with a few minutes of peace and quiet, I thought about what I had to accomplish today. And then I thought otherwise.

I thought about everything I won’t do today.

I won’t sift through rubble and debris to find my kitchen. Nor will I wonder if today’s radiation levels will be more than my family can safely endure.

I will not walk barefoot miles down a dirt road to a filthy river and scoop water for my children to drink.

Nor will I have to take three buses to get to my job, only to discover I’ve been laid off. I won’t have to tell my son that he can’t go back to college after spring break because there’s no money for tuition and he has to get a job to help support his family.

When my children get hungry for lunch, I won’t have to tell them there’s nothing to eat. And when dinner comes, I won’t have to trade my body in hopes of making enough money to buy them supper.

When I kiss them goodnight, I won’t tuck nets around their bodies to ward off malaria-carrying mosquitoes and wonder if they’ll wake up too weak to stand because we’ve gone another day without food.

I won’t worry about my boys when they go to visit friends, that they might get shot or tortured or kidnapped. When we go to church on Sunday, I won’t expect guerrillas to storm the building and kill us for worshiping our God.  

People who know me might label me: white, upper-middle class, middle-aged, mother, wife, writer, homeowner, tax-payer, Christian, woman.

But to the rest of the world I am privileged, wealthy.

What will you not do today?

Red Ribbons

Ever since the Red Ribbon campaigns hit my kids in elementary school, I've had mixed emotions. Is it really appropriate to tell a kindergartner about the perils of drug use, only to have them rush home and label Mommy a druggie for having a glass of wine? Try giving Tylenol to a kid fresh off of Red Ribbon Week. "No," they'll scream. "I don't do drugs." So you chase them around the kitchen, trying to reassure them you're not a pusher, just a woman trying to keep her kids healthy.

This year's Red Ribbon Week brought about a sweet reprieve. My daughter's second grade class wrote letters to the high school students, asking them to stay off drugs and alcohol. Since she has a brother who's a junior, Mia was allowed to address hers to him. Then, in return, Ben wrote one back to her. Here's their correspondence:

Dear Benny:

Please stay drug and alcohol free. Don't smoke. If you do, we will wrestle over you drinking. So Ben, do not go drunk. Make healthy choices or Mom and Dad will be mad. At you. 

Sincerely, 

Mia

Dear Mia:

Thank you so much for sending me the letter. It made my day. You don't need to worry about me doing drugs or alcohol. First of all, I am way too smart to get into that sort of shenanigans. Second, look at me. Well, you can't, but when you get home, do. I'm super cute. Why would I throw that away by doing drugs or alcohol? You know who is also cute...you are!! So, I don't want you getting into that crap either or I'll have to wrestle you. And watch out, because I have been working on some moves and when I get my cast off, I can take you. Also, Mom and Dad would get super mad at you too. Also, it's hard to ride a horse drunk. Trust me. Just kidding. I have not and never will drink or smoke bad things and neither should you. Anyway, have a good day at school. LEARN!!

h&k's

Love,

Benny ♥

Now I understand the value of Red Ribbons.

Let's eat!

Tell me I'm a good dancer and I know you're humoring me. Tell me I'm a good cook and I might agree with you. I think I'm good at it because I enjoy baking and feeding people--probably because my family tends to love what I cook.

That's pretty natural, I think. I remember loving my mother's cooking and, years ago in her honor, I assembled a cookbook with our family recipes. My maternal grandmother's family hailed from Holland and she was one of four sisters: Anna, Grace, Frieda and Jane (aka: Antje Jacoba, Greitje, Fredericka and Martha Jane). So, because I'm also quite creative when it comes it naming things (We have a goldfish named Goldie, if that tells you anything.), I titled it Four Sisters Cookbook. Every woman in my extended family submitted recipes, and I bound them together so we'd have a shared recipe cache.

Over the past 12 months I've probably purchased more cookbooks than I have in my lifetime. Through recommendations from friends, I've gotten to know The Pioneer Woman and The Cake Mix Doctor.


My daughter and I have played Hello, Cupcake! and my friend Tracy introduced me to A Passion for Baking. Girlfriend Jennifer bought me the Cook's Country Cookbook, which is a treasure trove of kitchen-tested recipes. This doesn't include the few recipes I've purloined from the Internet.

Recently my friend Joan had surgery, so I opened Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader and whipped up a batch of Puny's Chicken and Dumplings--good for anything that ails you and sometimes when you're just plain hungry. On my Need-to-Bake-for list are: my daughter's teacher, the crossing guard who has managed to keep hundreds of children and their parents from getting run over this year, and the paramedics who came to our rescue the other night when my husband lost consciousness.


For me, baking soothes the soul and feeds the belly of those I love. I learned at the elbow of my mother, and my six-year-old daughter is already adept with a rolling pin. (Somehow the boys lost interest in the process years ago.)

With a long weekend ahead, I think I hear the kitchen calling me. I'll probably dip into my recipe box for a few favorites I've received from friends--which I think ultimately taste better since you know the person who baked it first.

Here are two cookie recipes I absolutely love that were baked first by friends. (These are both twice their original measurements; my theory is you just can't have too many cookies in the house! Plus they freeze well.)


Pam Koenig's Soft Sugar Cookies

3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup butter flavored Crisco
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 T. vanilla
5 cups flour (unbleached, all-purpose)
2 t. baking powder
2 t. salt

Mix together the first five ingredients. Stir in the dry ingredients. Chill overnight (or most of the day). Roll out on floured counter top (to desired thickness) and cut out. Bake on parchment-lined cookie sheets (or ungreased if you don't use parchment) at 400 degrees for about seven minutes. May bake longer if thicker but watch them--at 400 degrees, they go from underdone to overdone fairly quickly.


Cynthia Hester's Oatmeal Cookies

Cream together:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup butter-flavored Crisco
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups granulated sugar

Add in:
4 eggs
1 1/2 T. vanilla
2 T. milk

Stir together:
4 cups flour (all-purpose, unbleached)
2 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
5 cups oatmeal (I measure mine and then run it through my food processor so it's not 'bulky.')

Add dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg/vanilla mixture and then fold in about one pound of chocolate chips. I use a delicious choco-combo of mini chips, chips, chunks--basically whatever I have in the pantry. Refrigerate until chilled then scoop with a cookie scooper. Press in M&Ms if you want even more flavor. Either way, these are delicious. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 min. or so on parchment-lined (or ungreased) cookie sheets.

What are you baking this weekend?

Ambiguous

As a mom, I think I've done a pretty good job raising my kids to not be prejudiced or judgemental. In fact, there are times now, with two teenagers, when they'll correct me when something slips out that seems insensitive.

I'm also grateful that they've been exposed to professionals of both genders. When I was a kid, men were doctors/women were nurses. The same gender biases existed for pilots/flight attendants and other professions. My children have a female pediatrician and a female dentist and now even the dog has a female vet. (He doesn't seem to mind until she takes his temperature; then he's a little embarrassed.) Hopefully my children will approach their personal and professional lives with the attitude that people are people regardless of gender, race or orientation.

But I'll admit I was a little relieved when my daughter was born and the gender balance finally drifted a little back into my turf. At times it feels as though we're still outnumbered, but I try not to focus on boys v. girls around here.

But occasionally, I must take it to the opposite extreme and she's picked up on it. The other evening her dad was looking for something in the pantry and came up dry. She turned to me and said, "He looked like a man." I wasn't sure where she was going with this, so I asked for clarification. "He looked like a man," she repeated. "If he had looked like a woman, he would have found it." To prove her point, I crossed the room and looked for the missing item myself. Moments later I passed it off to him. Short of fist-bumping her when I returned, she said, "See? You looked like a woman."

Wonder where she got that attitude?

It's true that men and women are wired differently. Even when they're little, we girls have to be patient with boys and make sure we're understood. My daughter's two best friends and neighbors are boys (and they only have sisters, so it's a good match), so she gets plenty of practice. The other day one of her buddies was over and later his mother called him home. Before he left, I handed him a twenty dollar bill and said, "Give this to your mom. Tell her it's for the table she sold me." As I escorted him to the door, I said, "Don't forget." He turned to me and said, "Forget what?" I had to laugh. "The twenty dollars in your hand. Give it to Mommy."

He nodded and trailed down the driveway--looking like a man.

"Jantsen's Gift" author Pam Cope

I recently read Jantsen's Gift and encourage you to read it and let it speak to your heart. I know it changed me

What not to be when you grow up

Late this evening, while I was fixing dinner, my daughter came up to me and asked, "How do you spell 'id'?"

I said, "That's not a word."

"Yes," she whispered back. "I'm trying to spell idiot."

Apparently she was writing a note, tattling on her brother because he called his brother's friend an idiot for parking in the driveway, keeping me from getting in the garage.

Later, while watching The Biggest Loser weigh-in, her brother commented that one of the guys had lost ten pounds and that was pretty good. (The guys weigh in shirtless.)

"Yeah," little sister commented. "But he still looks like he could breastfeed."

I'm guessing her future career won't involve having to spell or being a life-coach. We'll take those options off the table.

My Ghost by Glass Pear

This song never ceases to affect me--no matter how many times I hear it. So moving...