This is not my recipe, but it it very, very easy, it’s good for what ails you, it doesn’t have a long ingredient list, and it’s what I’m making for dinner tonight.
I’ve found other recipes but the one I’ve linked to is the first one I found so I’ll share that one. Lots of room for experimentation and using what you have. It’s also in The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian MacNeill, with a few variations.
I recently took E out for sushi at a local restaurant. It was a Wednesday afternoon and we were seated near the bar. As we ordered her favorites and mine, shared some chamomile tea, and chatted like Big Girls, our conversation was occasionally punctuated with loud screams of delight from across the room. In the corner across the restaurant there was a couple with a yearling in a high chair who was clearly delighted about something and felt no need to control her volume as she shared her happiness. We watched them for a little bit, and noticed with each scream more people turned around to give them an angry stare. These people were not mollified in the least by the fact that the parents were, in fact, not pinching the baby in order to make her emit such screams, or even by the fact that they were really trying to shush her the best they could as they scrambled to finish their meal quickly.
After a brief talk with our server (who also had children and specifically also remembered what it was like to have young children) we sent them a secret cookie. She dropped it off at their table and said, “One of your fellow customers remembers what it was like to have a child this age and wanted to say ‘good job being out in the world.'” The angry restaurant patrons nearest them heard and quietly turned back to their own meals, and hopefully found that it didn’t actually prevent them from eating delicious Japanese food for someone else to have a baby in a restaurant. The couple was surprised and said thank you (I think-we were far away and trying hard not to give ourselves away) and then thanked her again on their way out the door five minutes later.
You know what? Parents whose children are behaving perfectly aren’t the ones who *need* to hear that they’re doing well. Don’t get me wrong…I love it when people like my kids. It makes my mama heart swell with pride and contentment. I work very hard with my children to set the culture of our family. We have expectations and try to set examples of kindness, politeness, generosity, honesty, and many other ways of being with each other. It’s an astonishing amount of work, and I don’t mind when people notice that.
You know what else is an astonishing amount of work?
Parenting a toddler who’s throwing a fit because the seam of their sock isn’t hitting their toe just right (not that they can articulate that that’s the problem). When they throw themselves on the ground and start kicking and screaming in the grocery store aisle, there’s some tiny part of me that just wants to do it too as if that would make them stop. In the movie Riding in Cars With Boys, Drew Barrymore has this scene where the baby’s been screaming for hours and she just falls apart. She sobs, “WHY WON’T YOU STOP CRYING?” If you’ve never considered your child with this air of desperation, you’re a better parent than me. Or, at least, this post isn’t about you.
If you have ever felt that way, particularly in public, I just want to say…hang in there and keep doing your best. Parenting littles is no joke and sometimes when it’s the hardest, people judge you the most harshly.
There are ways in which I try to absorb most of the impact of my kids’ public tantrums…I will not go home immediately from the library if my kids are losing it, but I also won’t make the librarians talk to them. I will be the one to deal with my children climbing all over the motorcycle chairs in the kids’ room at the hair salon, but I won’t make a stylist the big bad or insist that she risk her fingers trying to cut my child’s hair as he tries to climb the walls or shriek and run away (having stylishly coiffed children is really not that important to me; especially factoring in considerations of courtesy, safety, and fairness to the people who work in that industry, but that’s just me).
All that aside, those are decisions we didn’t make on the fly. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s nearly impossible to think clearly. It’s hard to come up with a plan that makes everyone happy when someone is screaming in your face, spittle and boogers flying every which way. It’s even harder when you can feel the angry stares from all around; unless you are a very secure person it may be tempting, just for a split second, to want to just run home and stay there. Maybe you should give up restaurants and libraries and really anywhere where people are until the kids are “ready”. When will that be? When they are five? Ten? Surely by college…?
We were one of those brazen couples that took our babies (and later, toddlers) to restaurants with us. And sometimes they even cried there! And we didn’t leave immediately! We learned early that there was a certain percentage of the population which is offended by the audacity shown by those who dare to have children in public. But we have this idea children can best learn how to be in public by, y’know, actually being in public.
So you…yes, you with the twelve month old screaming happy screams into her miso bowl at the sushi place at 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday…good job. I remember how hard it was to get out with a kid that age, and I think you’re doing just fine. ❤
We use this to clean almost everything in our home. Vinegar contains about 5% acetic acid, which has antimicrobial properties and will disinfect nearly as well as bleach, but without the environmental and health concerns. If you would like to read more about that, and when bleach is appropriate to use, here’s an article that goes into much greater detail.
From a user standpoint, my vinegar spray and a microfiber cloth or old piece of flannel clean windows just as well as windex (not that the windows around here are always or even usually hand-print free; ahem). It can be sprayed thoroughly on a cloth and wrapped around faucets or laid over stuck-on food spots, to be wiped off easily later.
If you have some pretty basic supplies, making this cleaner only takes the time necessary to open and close bottles, pour, and shake. I really like when homemade things are easier, cheaper, and better than what you can buy at the store. This is one of those times.
Distilled White Vinegar (this is the cheapest option, but other vinegars may work)
essential oils of your choice*
water to dilute, if using
old empty spray bottle, rinsed**
small funnel
Funnel essential oils into the bottle first (that way the vinegar will catch any drops that end up on the funnel by mistake). Use about 20-30 drops, depending on your preferences, the oils you chose, and the size of your bottle. Fill the bottle half-way or more with vinegar, then fill the rest of the way with water. For extra disinfecting power use straight vinegar and don’t add any water. Shake and use.
*there are many essential oils that do very well in cleaning applications. Lemon, sweet orange, tea tree, and lavender are popular and easily accessible. Eucalyptus, Thieves blend (or some mix of oils like rosemary, clove, cinnamon, etc.), peppermint, or other scents that you enjoy will also work nicely. Follow good sense guidelines for using essential oils, and be aware that some oils are not recommended to put on your skin undiluted as they are very concentrated (to make about 10-15 pounds of tea tree EO they start with approximately 1,000 pounds of raw materials; it makes sense to use oils as needed but sparingly for a number of reasons).
**the spray bottle pictured there is a fun drinking bottle from an afternoon out, the cap of which turned out to be the same thread size as the top of a bottle of some store bought cleaner I had sitting around from a long time ago. Now I feel fancy when I clean.
As we are still mostly dairy free around here, I’m always on the lookout for things that taste creamy. I’ve served this at several events and it’s always a big hit. This is adapted from a recipe from Handmade In the Present Moment, which is a delicious raw food (also sometimes called “sun food”) restaurant near my aunt and uncle’s home in St. Augustine, Florida. Obviously, with the addition of roasted peppers and onions, it becomes no longer raw food. We think that it’s worth it because ROASTED PEPPERS AND ONIONS. Yum. But once you get the basic idea of cashew based cheeses down, there are endless variations and room for creativity to flavor this cheese-like food (but not in a Velveeta, “processed cheese food” sort of way) to suit your taste and serving needs.
1 pepper, washed, halved, cored and seeded. (red, yellow, or orange…dealer’s choice)
1 medium onion, peeled and halved.
1 1/2 C cashews, soaked for 2 hours in lukewarm water, or overnight in the refrigerator
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp olive, sesame, avocado, or other oil of your choice
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp maple syrup, honey, agave, or other sweetener of your choice
1/2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
salt, to taste
hot sauce, to taste, if desired
Place onion and pepper in a baking dish and roast at around 350 degrees F for half an hour or so, until the edges begin to turn black. After these come out of the oven, place the peppers immediately into an airtight container of some kind, or the whole thing into a paper bag big enough close around the whole dish. Leave it for at least five minutes, to allow the skins to loosen. They should slip off easily, although you might have to peel them a bit in some spots. Discard skins.
After soaking, drain cashews and rinse until the water runs clear.
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend for about five minutes until smooth and creamy.
My favorite ways to serve this so far are:
-warm with pieces of bread
-warmed with hot sauce and pieces of chicken, dairy-free buffalo style
-cooked up like grilled cheese on a sandwich- I haven’t tried this yet but I have friends who make cashew cheese and look forward to trying it as we approach soup season here in Cleveland.
-as a serving garnish for pasta or risotto
-cold, on creamy vegetable curry soups
-cold, as a vegan sour cream substitute with other taco toppings on Vegan Taco Soup (or, ahem, chorizo based; make your own food choices and love them, people!)
I’ve been researching my ancestors. As a middle class white American person, it feels disingenuous to look at only the fun parts of my family history, so I’m struggling to get my mind around the other parts. I’ve been thinking about it a lot during this process. I was clear that there was going to be some stuff I might not be proud of, as well as some things I was very excited to learn. And there is a lot of exciting and interesting history I look forward to delving into. Still, it’s jarring to see census data from 1830 and 1840 with my four times great grandfather’s household, neatly sorted out by age bracket, male/female, and free/slave.
If you are one of those (almost definitely white) people who think that slavery was “a long time ago” and people should stop “whining” about institutionalized racism, white privilege, and other parts of this complicated issue, try doing some ancestor searching. Because realizing how few generations ago it was legal in this country to own another person is sobering; and some of us do not have the luxury of living as though it never happened.
Institutionalized racism does affect ALL of us negatively (whether we acknowledge it or not), though not all of us have an increased likelihood of going to jail or dying because of it.
Disclosure: Christianese ahead. I’ll try my best to deconstruct it, though. Also, there are entire fields of study dedicated to answering some of these questions, so please don’t mistake this one post in the middle of my journey for an attempt to conclusively provide answers.
My faith tree feels like it got struck by lightning this past year. Maybe even a few times. The damage doesn’t go all the way down to the root; I still see clear signs of quickening and health, even if they aren’t perceptible in the same way as ten years ago. But there are definitely some branches falling away. I can feel it. Some of the work is too close right now for me to be sure exactly which branches are being pruned and how, but I am trying to trust the process.
I’ve been asking questions I would have been afraid to ask before, and letting go of pointless shame wherever possible.
One of the questions I’ve asked is “What is the point of God?”
If people can still get sick.
If children can die of cancer.
If everything is so damned confusing sometimes.
What are we doing here? Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
The thing is, I think maybe that was the point of Jesus. Because the Old Testament is full of stories of God and Israel just missing each other. There are moments when they see things for the truths they are. But the great majority of the time the nation of Israel is wandering around in the desert, suffering atrocities, committing atrocities, or making and following lots of rules (all the while recognizing themselves as God’s specially chosen people).
There are a lot of things in the world that are utterly bewildering. What is God like, if this is how it’s going to be?
In a letter to the early Jewish church (so some of the first Messianic Jews) it says “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…”
I took some Chinese classes a few years ago (long story) (there were a lot of Chinese kids in my preschool class so the center I worked for paid for me to go) (OK not that long). </digression>
I remember in one of my classes the teacher explained that in Mandarin there are different words for light. In English we talk about “the light you turn on” and “the light you use to see”. We can use that word somewhat interchangeably. In Chinese though, the word is not interchangeable. “Tài yáng” means sun. The one that rises in the east. “Yáng guāng”, on the other hand, is defined as “sunshine, sunlight, or sunbeam”. The light that is, is a distinct concept from the light you can see by.
As a child I tried once to stare at the sun. Luckily I didn’t do it for too long, because looking directly at the sun can make you blind (I will sometimes foolishly ignore my mama’s wise advice, but only so far it seems).
There are ways in which it hurts my eyes to look at God right now. Through cancer. Through unexplained illness. Through death.
But if God is utterly like Jesus, as doctrine teaches, then there is some hope; though by no means a full explanation. Jesus, who cries with devastated people. Who uses mud and spit to cure blindness, who hangs out with embezzlers and prostitutes, who takes away shame where it can be of no help, and who preaches shame over those that would presume to make God so very exclusive and inaccessible to oppressed and hurting people.
So if Jesus is the Yáng guāng of God’s Tài yáng, I think I can see the point of him. I can’t look directly at the sun. But the light of the sun is the means by which I begin to see everything else.
My friend Jodie surprised me with this cake for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was super delicious, so I asked her to share her recipe here. Thanks for guest posting, Jodie!
This recipe was adapted from a recipe I found online at Food52.com. I have made this cake 4 times now, and have found what I believe to be the winning combination. Really, it is hard to go wrong eating anything covered in chocolate ganache. I am not a vegan, but I eat and cook a lot of vegan food. My family, especially my mom, is hard on me when it comes to yummy baked goods. I have been accused of not making my sweets with enough butter and sugar. But this cake got rave reviews, and my mom ASKED me to make it for a holiday party. She doesn’t know it’s vegan. This is my claim to fame and super sweet victory.
We went to a family party with my husband’s family this weekend. It was a lot of fun. There were delicious pizzas on the grill, fun drinks, and most importantly, fun people.
I love that this big noisy Slovenian family I’ve married into gets together and has fun. And they pull other people in, too. One of J’s cousins married someone who has a beautiful firecracker of a Croatian mama. She’s fantastic. Her name is Vesna (because I think maybe if I tried to shorten it to an initial, even on the internet, she would know and maybe I’d hear about it). We talk about canning, about which local farms we go to to get the best blueberries, peppers, and apples. We talk about childbirth and momming and chemicals in our food. She’s so interesting.
This weekend, at the July 4th party, I got to have this conversation with Vesna:
V: I made this one. It has flour, organic sugar from Costco, eggs, and butter. It’s good!
K: I believe you! I think I’m going to try some, even though I don’t really eat butter.
V: Why you don’t eat butter? It’s good for you.
K: I agree, usually, but S has a milk protein allergy and he gets sick. He’s still nursing, so I have to avoid it too.
V: He’s still nursing? FROM YOUR BREASTS? That’s disgusting!
K: HA! Wait, aren’t you from Europe?
V: Yes! Over there they do it until like age seven! It’s disgusting!
K: Well, we really like it, and it’s really good for him. We all got the flu a few months ago and he didn’t get it. And every time we’re all puking he’s just fine. It’s awesome.
V: Oh….huh.
K: *shrug*
V: Well, does he eat any solid food?
K: Yes definitely! Breastfeeding a 3 year old is not like nursing a newborn. He only nurses about once every day or two.
V: Well, that’s ok then.
K: Cool, thanks. Hey! This IS delicious!
If I had chosen to think differently about what she was saying to me (in particular about how much of it actually belonged to me and should direct my actions), I might not have felt like that conversation went very well. More importantly, if I was reacting from a place of defensiveness, it likely would not have gone very well. But as it stands, I think it was kind of hilarious and I look forward to talking to her about it again at some future family gathering.
These are my friends, Doc and Anne. They have lived in a renovated (mostly with their and their friends’ hands) home in Glenville near Case (a couple of neighborhoods away from us in Cleveland Heights) for about 8 years now, and raise two kids there.
This is their son M, pictured hiding under a table with our daughter a couple of years ago. They were not as good at hiding as they thought they were.
Doc has consistently built up relationships and neighborhood investment since making the Glenville community his home. The Harrills are a great example of how people can and are investing in Cleveland in tangible and meaningful ways. With a lot of intentionality and hard work this city is being reclaimed from empty lots to community gardens; instead of to scatter and live in fear, the response is becoming to gather, connect, and support.
Our family has engaged financially and with our time and elbow grease in what Doc and Anne are doing before and we’ve always been glad we get to participate a little bit sometimes in the important work they are doing. And now they are at a point where the community has been asking them to expand what they have successfully done in summers past to be a year-long program. So many great possibilities if the kickstarter gets funded, but they only have a few days left!
Please consider investing, sharing, etc. if this seems to you like something Cleveland benefits from and should have more of (hint: this is something Cleveland benefits from and should have more of). I’d recommend that you at least find and watch the ReFresh video available on the kickstarter page because it captures something really important about a growing movement in the city of Cleveland.
I don’t need to say too much more about it because they said it well themselves in the video(s). Check it out.
When our family arrived home Saturday from saying a goodbye I will not share about here, both of us parents were dealing with a toddler tantrum and E wandered in the back yard, thinking. She met up with her friend A (our back yard neighbor, who goes to Fairfax Elementary and just graduated kindergarten with Rebecca Meyer). This is approximately how their conversation was recounted to me later:
E: I’m feeling sad.
A: Why?
E: Because I just saw Becca, and said bye to her. Because she’s dying.
A: What? No. That’s not true. I think you’re lying.
E: I think I can’t be your friend any more until you’re like a grown-up or something. I can clearly imagine her spreading her fingers in the air as she said this.
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We went down the street for a little while. When we got back, the neighbor girls were out in their back yard playing in the sprinkler. E went back to say hi, and came running in to tell me she’d been invited to go run in the sprinkler and that A’s mom wanted to talk to me. N told me over the fence what the girls had said to each other, and that afterward A ran in and said, “MOM! E says we’re not friends anymore, and that Becca is dying, and WHAT?”
So they had to have that conversation. I don’t blame N for not telling her daughter, and I really admire how she handled being thrown into the deep end. There is just no palatable way to tell your 6 year old that the friend they have seen every day at school or known since they were born is dying. That is an awful conversation I don’t wish on anyone, and the only honest way to make it remotely less awful for a child is to not pretend it isn’t horrific; that, and to let them know that you as their grown-up are there for them and with them. Sometimes it’s ok to cry in front of your kids.
I asked E about the conversation between the girls and said, “I feel like what you meant might have been that you couldn’t talk to A about Becca, because she wasn’t understanding what you were saying. Does that sound right?”
“Yes. That is what I meant.”
“Ok, you might just want to let her know that, because I think that whole conversation was pretty upsetting for your friend. I don’t think you did anything wrong, but it might be good to just be clear about what you meant.”
So she did.
I know many grown-ups who are not always so clear about what they mean, or so able to verbalize what they need. Sometimes I am one of them.
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She doesn’t bring Becca up all the time. Several times a day for the past week, since we found out this was imminent, but I know she is thinking about it almost all the time. Dropping a piece of food on the floor is enough to make her throw herself onto the couch in tears. Wearing the wrong shoes by mistake will turn her into a sidewalk-squatting, limping mess (unless I am not looking and she is walking behind me). She whined and did not want to get ready for ballet class today. The last class of the year. I almost let her ditch it, because the truth is I didn’t really want to go either. Becca happened to be signed up for the class too. Before she got sick. Before any of this happened, today was supposed to be their last ballet class together, except that because of everything that happened, Becca never attended a single class. And instead of going next door to celebrate at Sasa after it was over tonight, we will talk about her at bedtime and cry and prepare for her funeral on Thursday. I really didn’t want to go to ballet today. But we went. We showed up. I didn’t chat very convincingly with the other moms there, but I decided to be ok with that (even on my best days I’m not that great at small talk anyway). I am cutting E a lot of extra slack these days, and trying to keep some left over for myself.
Her feelings are her own and she is allowed them. All of them. Even if she does end up wiping her tears and her nose on my skirt sometimes.
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Spirit and Fire and Dew 