mojalodz: main dish

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Self-Centered or Self-Care: Lentil, Mushroom and Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be self-centered. It's kind of a sticky wicket, isn't it? You're supposed to take care of yourself, and be good to yourself, but if you do too much of that, people start to look down their noses at you. And how do you decide what you're doing for yourself, and what you're doing for someone else, even if it fulfills you?

For example.

I know someone who dedicated 40 years of her life to teaching in public school and raising her children. She paid her dues. And now she does the things that she wants to do: going to the YMCA, meeting friends for lunch, watching TV, helping out with a project at church. When you talk with her, she talks mostly about these things. Is that self-centered? Or well-deserved self-care?

And there are times I think that maybe *I'm* self-centered. I'm at home with N., but most days I go to the Y in the morning after the morning routine and playtime, and N. plays in Child Watch for an hour while I go sweat. We come home, I feed N. lunch, and she takes an hour long nap, during which I get to shower. In the afternoon, we do something ... sometimes a walk, or an errand, or on rainy days, we draw and do puzzles. Then there's picking I. up from the bus, and managing homework time trying to keep her entertained, and dinner. At night, I am out at a meeting sometimes three nights a week. Board of Education, the Board of the Friends of the Library, a meeting for church. Sometimes I go to yoga. Less often I go out to a discussion group. I feel guilty about going to yoga or to other events, because I feel like I am already so self-centered.

Not making my own salary has a lot to do with this worry, I know. I buy some expensive tea, or a book, and I feel like I have taken without giving back. Like I've tipped the balance of the Universe in favor of MEMEME.

I made this recipe even though my family isn't vegan, even though my husband really likes meat, even though I knew my kids probably wouldn't like it (and that N. probably wouldn't eat it at all). Is THAT self-centered? (I also made another version of it, which I will post later this week, which my son DID eat ... for breakfast. Maybe it's a matter of simply winning people over to doing what I want them to do in order to get around the problem of being self-centered?)

Lentil, Mushroom, and Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie
Adapted from the kitchn

5 medium sweet potatoes
1 c. green lentils, washed and picked over
3/4 c. uncooked steel cut oats
1 bay leaf
1 t. salt
1 T. olive oil
1/2 lb. white mushrooms, quartered
1/2 lb. white mushrooms, diced
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3/4 c. low-sodium vegetable broth
1/4 c. red wine
1 T. tomato paste
1 T. soy sauce
2 t. smoked paprika

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash sweet potatoes well and prick them a few times with a fork to prevent explosions. Bake the potatoes for about an hour, or until they just about collapse when you try to pick them up with your potholder. Set aside.

Place lentils, oats, bay leaf, salt and 5 cups of water in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, for 15-20 minutes or until lentils are just done, and no longer crunchy. Remove bay leaf and drain the mixture, trying not to eat too much of it before you add the other ingredients.

Add the olive oil to a large saucepan and heat over medium-high heat. Saute the quartered mushrooms with a pinch of salt until tender and just beginning to brown, about 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the remaining vegetables and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until they are softened. Reduce the heat to medium-low nad add the lentil mixture and additional seasonings. Simmer for 5 minutes, adjusting seasonings to your taste if necessary. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel the potatoes (this should be very easy; just grab one end of the skin and the rest should fall out) and mash into a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the the lentil mixture into a 9x9-inch pan and cover with the mashed sweet potatoes. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the lentil mixture is bubbly at the edges. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Remembrance: Slow Cooker Pork and White Bean Stew with Apples and Cranberries

It's the part of February that I hate: the intermediate space between the holidays (even if we're counting the Hallmark holiday of Valentine's Day) and spring, when the days stretch out mostly grey and interminable. It's a space of the year which is full of remembrances of loss for me. And it's often full of random winter storms these days, which bring wintry weather, but not enough to go sledding; just enough to make driving hazardous. My son and I have been reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I've been admiring the pioneering spirit that got the Ingalls family through those interminably dark days.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of my father's death. It's sort of an odd coincidence that he lost his battle with cancer in February; after all, he loved Valentine's Day (which, for him, was an excuse to buy chocolate ... the romance of Hallmark was lost on him), and blustery Sunday afternoons sleeping or watching Spanish TV in in his well-worn leather recliner. I've never visited his grave; grieving is different for everyone, and for me, the kitchen is a more useful place to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones lost than the cemetery.

My father was an eater of winter foods. Roasts, hearty stews, potatoes. And great quantities of bread. I'm not sure if it had to do with the region of Spain where he was born (despite the fact that he spent such a significant part of his life in the warmer climate of Florida and the Carribbean), or if it was just his preference for hearty fare, but we knew better than to feed him a meal that would make him demand, "where's the meat?"

I've been following a nearly vegan diet lately. Not because I want to be vegan, necessarily, but because I want to make more mindful choices about my food, and a vegan diet makes me more mindful. I've removed almost all of the dairy (very little cheese, no yogurt), cut way back on refined sugars (almost no baked goods or chocolate), minimized carbohydrates (almost no bread or rice or pasta), and consumed only marginal amounts of meat. I've been eating more vegetables, and hummus, and nuts, and legumes. I can almost imagine what my father would say about this. Something, no doubt, along the lines of what he told me when I informed him--old world Catholic that he was--that I was going to be married by a Unitarian minister; food was, after all, a little religious for him, despite his insistence that we "eat to live, not live to eat."

But my husband and my son are decidedly not vegan, and I still have to cook for them, too. And when I'm cooking hearty winter stews in the kitchen, I'm remembering my father. Who would nod with sage approval, watching me throw something like this together, even though he wouldn't agree about the beans.

Slow Cooker Pork and White Bean Stew with Apples and Cranberries

2 leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
2 pork tenderloins, 1 lb. each, cut into 1" cubes
2 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
4 apples, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 - 3 c.broth (your choice)
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1/2 c. dried cranberries (no sugar)
2 t. dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Add everything to your slow cooker; make sure that the pork is just covered by the broth. Cook on low for 7 hours. Remove cover and boil on high for 15-20 minutes or until the stew is a bit thickened.

Change, and Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Each month, my good friend and fabulous blogger Kathy Benson, who writes (among other places!) at Bereaved and Blessed hosts a blog hop and writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday. The Time Warp invites us to revisit an old post from our blog, and think about where we are now, how our thoughts about the post may have changed from its original writing. This month, during the season of resolutions and goal-setting, Kathy directs us to find an old blog entry about change:

The new year is often a time for new beginnings and changes in our lives. Choose a post from your archives in which you wrote about change. Maybe you wrote about a change that you chose to make or one that happened without warning or intention. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since.

Read more: http://bereavedandblessed.com/2013/1/time-warp-tuesday-change/

From the very beginning this blog has been all about and my attempts to cope with change (half-baked is, by nature, something in process), but the one that its feeling most important for me these days is a post I'd written back in 2011, in which I submit my letter of resignation.

I had struggled for months, composing that letter in my head, as conditions became untenable for me at work. I worried about what it would mean to give up a 12 year career, in which I had won accolades from my supervisors and earned the respect of literally hundreds of people. I worried whether I'd ever be employed again. Leaving my job was both a change I initiated and something that happened without much warning.

I chose this post because I've needed to remind myself, especially lately, about how proud I felt, taking that step into the unknown, risking my career to maintain my sanity and integrity. As busy stay-at-home-parent life took over, and as the economy continued to lag, the job opportunities evaporated. Now, nearly two years since my daughter was born, and over a year and a half since I left my job, I'm still not employed outside the home. I've questioned my decision to resign more times than I can count. I've questioned my credentials, my intelligence, the fabulousness of my resume, my network. It's hard going some days.

But sometimes even when we initiate change, life takes us in directions that we didn't anticipate. We create the catalyst, we set things in motion, but there's a world out there to contend with, much of which is beyond our control. Our choice is to find acceptance, to be more like water, flowing with change, rather than trying to work against it.

And, like cooking sometimes, change is slow. I need to keep reminding myself that worthwhile changes can take time.

The first time I read through this recipe I was a little reluctant to try it. After all, isn't the whole point of the slow cooker to minimize your cooking time, rather than requiring that you essentially cook something twice?

But for someone who doesn't eat all that much meat, I have to say: cooking the chicken this way made it practically melt in your mouth. Slow and steady for the win.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
based on the original at tasty kitchen

9 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 T. coriander
1 T. cumin
1 t. kosher salt
1 c. yogurt
4 T. butter
for the sauce
4 T. butter
1 large onion, peeled/diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. kosher salt
3 T. garam masala
2-3" piece fresh ginger, peeled/grated
4 c. crushed tomatoes
2 t. agave nectar
2 t. cornstarch
1-½ c. evaporated milk (or cream)
cilantro (optional for garnish)

Cut the chicken into 1" pieces, place them into a bowl, and sprinkle with with spices. Stir in the yogurt to coat the chicken thoroughly. Cover lightly and let sit for 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Melt 1 T. butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Brown the chicken in four batches, using one tablespoon of butter with each batch, and transfer the browned chicken to the slow cooker.

For the sauce, melt 4 T. butter over medium high heat. Add the onions, garlic, and salt, and stir. Saute until the onions just begin to brown around the edges.

Stir in the garam masala and ginger and cook about 1 minute before raising the heat to high and adding the crushed tomatoes and agave. Scrape the caramelized bits from the bottom of the pan, and bring to a boil. Pour the sauce into the slow-cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 5 hours, or until the chicken is so tender that it falls apart on your fork.

Use a fork or whisk to stir the cornstarch into the evaporated milk until smooth. Pour into the slow-cooker and stir gently until the color is even. Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbly around the edges; the original recipe suggested that you re-cover the slow cooker, but I found it worked better without re-covering (perhaps because I used evaporated milk).

Serve with rice (tasty kitchen suggested rice with peas), and whatever else you like!

Pratyahara, and a Birthday: Carrot Leek Soup

So I turned 39 yesterday. It was, in many ways, an ordinary day. Little or no fanfare, no dinner at a fancy restaurant, just good wishes. I went to the Y and tried a Boot Camp class that kicked my proverbial arse, but was told by the instructor that I "had potential to stick around." My son baked me a birthday cake from a box (which I have to tell you about in my next post, because it deserves discussion of its own). Though it was a quiet birthday, it felt just right.

This month in yoga, we're focusing on the practice of pratyahara. In a nutshell, pratyahara involves sensory withdrawal, removing the information overload that we live in every day in an effort to draw inward, and pay more attention to the self.

My yoga teacher says that everyone on earth, when we strip away everything else, wants the same things: peace, happiness, and to be seen or known, by ourselves and by others. Though I'm not sure I can agree with such a reductive statement about humankind, I do think that most of us want to be known. And I also agree that sometimes all of the noise--both the noise that the world creates for us and the noise we create within ourselves, with negative self-talk or attachments to worldly things--gets in the way of us knowing our deepest selves. Pratyahara--which we practiced by closing our eyes, blindfolding ourselves, and covering our ears--counters that noise by creating silences: by removing visual or auditory or other sensory distractions.

It so happens that I spend a lot of time in asana with my eyes closed. I know it's not recommended; it's a force of habit. And yet, I never realized why it was so natural until tonight. Yes, in some ways it's relaxing (though I'll warn you, you're going to feel that stretch in your side seam a whole lot more in trichonasana, and it's a lot harder to balance in vrikshasana when you can't focus on a spot on the wall). But it's mostly relaxing because those distractions go away, allowing me to focus on what's happening in the physical body. Once you realize that's what you're doing, that sensory withdrawal is like a laser beam, illuminating one small piece of you at a time.

That drawing inward to look at ourselves, and to gather energy for what's coming next, is a perfect winter activity. The pause, the caesura, the time of waiting. Just as people do physical cleanses, and get rid of the junk food in their lives, so it's important, sometimes, step away from all of the noise. To meet our truest selves. Pratyahara offers one way to withdraw, to restore our senses, to renew.

And in some way, even if I couldn't articulate it at the time, maybe this was my wish for my birthday: to withdraw a little, to go inward, and to prepare myself for what's coming next.

Here's looking at you, 39. I'm ready.

Carrot and Leek Soup
adapted from The View from the Great Island
Good mental nutrition requires good physical nutrition. And though I hate to admit it, sometimes you need something a little better for you than cookies. This is what I ate when I came home from yoga tonight. You can strain it to get rid of the seeds, but I sort of like them, for a little crunch.

1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
2 t. yellow mustard seeds
2 t. coriander seeds
1/4 t. tumeric
1/2 t. garam masala
1" piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 leeks, sliced (white and light green part only)
1 small green apple, peeled and diced
1 lb. carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
4 c. vegetable or chicken stock
salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Heat the oil and butter over medium heat in a large soup pot and saute the spices for a minute or two. The seeds will start to pop. Add the leeks and saute for a few more minutes, stirring often to prevent browning.

Add the apple, carrots, and stock to the pot. Bring to a simmer and cook until the carrots are tender, about 25 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender. Add additional water if necessary.

Difference at the Table: Moroccan Root Vegetable Stew

Despite my love of the harvest, and the falling leaves, and the apples and squash, and even the raking, I don't love November.

It's something about the darkening sky, the full-tilt rush towards Christmas and the pressure to give extravagant gifts, the starches of the Thanksgiving meal, the conversations I'm doomed to have around our Thanksgiving table.

World War Three, the Passive Aggressive version, came early this year. With my mother's fall down her stairs, and her move to our house for her recovery, we've been dancing around difficult conversations for weeks now, me sometimes biting my tongue, and sometimes not. Imagine Thanksgiving, with all of its family land mines, stretching out for three, then four, then five weeks, and you'll get some sense of what it has been like around here.

Reflecting on the difficult topic of religious pluralism in church this week, our minister reminded us of another meal that wasn't exactly the most congenial of meetings.

Edward Winslow wrote, in a letter dated December 12, 1621:

Our corn [i.e. wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

Can you imagine? The Pilgrims had invited Massosoit to sign a peace treaty, and spent three days eating with ninety surprise guests with whom they couldn't communicate (except through Squanto), warriors who were bearing arms, not really sure whether they were going to be killed. And you thought your Thanksgiving table conversation was a little tense? Not that I am entirely sympathetic with the colonists, but it sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? At least we're not armed. And the one thing I've noticed is that over time, even if the conversations are still difficult, they've become less charged, as if time has diffused them, just a little bit. Maybe we are figuring each other out, even if that understanding doesn't make us best friends.

Much has changed since 1621; though we haven't entirely abandoned our "roots," there's a lot on our Thanksgiving tables that is hardly "traditional" fare. This dish is a nod to those early settlers and to their native American guests at the table, a stew made with traditional root vegetables, most of which actually were around for that first Thanksgiving (no potatoes, since they hadn't yet made their way across the Atlantic). It's a perfect example of the meeting of cultures, American vegetables fused with the flavors of the Middle East. Even if peace may be hard to imagine, perhaps at least we can appreciate the result of the marriage of flavors, knowing that the longer we sit around the table together, the more likely it is we'll at least achieve some kind of understanding, if not agreement. And we can give thanks for that.

What--and who--will be at your Thanksgiving table this year? What do your Thanksgiving roots look like?

Moroccan-Style Chicken and Root Vegetable Stew

4 c. canned low-salt chicken broth
1 T.olive oil
1 lb boneless skinless chicken
1 1/2 c. onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 t. garam masala
2 t. ground cumin
1 cinnamon stick
2 c. sweet potatoes, peeled, 1/2" cubes
2 c. parsnips (I used kohlrabi, because I had one) peeled, 1/2" pieces
1 1/2 c. turnips, peeled, 1/2" pieces
1 large carrot cut in 1/2" pieces
1 c. rutabaga, peeled, 1/2"pieces
1/4 c. golden raisins or apricots (chopped)1 14-oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained
Juice and zest from one lemon

In a small pot, bring chicken broth to a boil, continue to boil until reduced by half, then set aside.

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Sauté chicken for about a minute until light golden and remove from pot; set aside.

Add onion to pot and sauté until golden and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and stir 1 minute. Add spices and stir 30 seconds until just fragrant. Add sweet potatoes, parsnips (kohlrabi), turnips, carrot, rutabaga, broth and currants. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Add tomatoes, lemon zest with juice, and chicken, and simmer over medium heat about 5 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. Sprinkle with cilantro if desired.

Stranded: Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Noon on a rainy Tuesday. The towtruck pulled up in front of my neighbor's driveway and began to slide the bed back, inclining it to the ground. N. heard the commotion and went running to the door, pressing her face to the glass, where her breath made frosty marks around her small nose.

I'd been expecting the truck; my neighbor told me the other day, in her matter-of-fact way, that the van was going to be towed. My neighbor is almost ninety, and the van has been uncooperative for a long time; finally, it rusted out completely underneath, leavings its entrails exposed to the elements. But uncooperative as the van may have been, it was the symbolic representation of her independence. It was her escape. To the Amish market. To the salon. To the doctor's office. To wherever she needed to go, by herself.

As I watched her from our doorway, standing on her own porch, I tried to imagine the thoughts in her head. About borrowing her daughter's car. About juggling rides. About not going places. About having to ask for help.

She stood there for a long time, stoic, half inside, half outside, newly coiffed with an auburn bouffant. There were no tears; it was as if she was standing watch to make sure it all went right, rather than offering her last goodbye. Finally, as the driver loaded the van onto the truck, she closed the door. Perhaps she could take no more.

I believe that part of what has kept her and her husband alive and healthy for so long is their sense of independence, their sense of freedom. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to give up that freedom. She was, effectively, stranding herself.

My mother is also now stranded here. She has no car, no friends, no lunch dates, not even 24 hour access to the Food Network, because we have no TV, much less cable. She is in some pain; she can walk from room to room, but prefers not to move from standing to sitting positions more often than she has to. She has to ask for help, and it's as if she doesn't quite know how; she doesn't want to be a burden, and yet sometimes not knowing how to help her is more burdensome than a simple request. Today I helped her wash her hair in the sink, and take a sponge bath, and felt an awkward intimacy, almost like I was intruding. These are things I do for my children.

This is a difficult negotiation for us. There were times, as an adult, when I wanted her to be there, to support me, to tend to me, and she wasn't. At least, not in the way I wanted her to be. And I couldn't ask her to be, because that is not the person she is. And yet now, I find myself in the position of caretaker. Feeling like I ought not to be feeling sorry for myself, because she is the one in pain.

In her 2001 book Bodhichitta, Pema Chodron writes

"Bodhichitta is [...] equated, in part, with compassion—our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy and envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot—our innate ability to love and to care about things—is like a crack in these walls we erect. It's a natural opening in the barriers we create when we're afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment—love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy—to awaken bodhichitta."

The soft spot. Our innate ability to love. The crack in my wall. Maybe this is the moment that Pema would call the "teacher."

There is more soup on the menu this week. The sort of soup my mother would like. Because when you're stranded, at least you ought to have something you like to eat.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup
adapted from no, 2 pencil

2 T. butter
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 T. flour
2 t. sage
1 t. thyme
6 c. chicken stock - plus additional to thin if soup is very thick
3 c. shredded and 1 c. diced potatoes
4 c. cooked, diced or shredded chicken
1/2 c. evaporated milk (or heavy cream)
1 cup of frozen peas

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and celery and saute until softened. Add flour; stir well and cook about one minute more. Add herbs and chicken stock, increase heat to medium high. Once chicken stock begins to simmer, add potatoes and let simmer for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes begin to break down and thicken soup. Add chicken and let simmer until heated through, then add milk and peas and let simmer about 5 more minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and adjust consistency of soup with additional chicken stock if needed.

First Grade Homework and Chicken Chili Verde: The Dilemma of the Overachiever

Last week, my son came home with his long-anticipated first homework assignments. I'd been hearing parents talk about homework for two years already, and was dreading this transition for all of us. Luckily, I. seemed to take it all in stride, and sat down on the first day immediately after he arrived home from school, and set about doing his homework. (He doesn't know enough yet to complain about it, I guess.)

I debated for a bit whether I hang out with him to help, or if it would be more helpful for me to keep his sister occupied in another room. I finally came down on the side of peacekeeping, and left I. to his own devices in the kitchen.

About half an hour later, I peeked in, and was surprised to see him still plugging away at the spelling worksheet I'd left him with. Words are his strength: he reads two levels ahead of his grade, and can write fairly well for his age, though his spelling is definitely ... creative, at best. One glance over his shoulder, though, revealed why: instead of writing the words twice, as the directions stated, he'd written each word multiple times, filling the page as he went, and getting a little more sloppy with each iteration.

I bit my lip. Should I rebuke him for not following the teacher's directions? Or cheer him on for going above and beyond what the assignment required? What would the teacher be looking for? And what would she think of me, the parent who was supposed to be supervising?

Yes, I was totally overthinking first grade homework.

I decided to first congratulate him on his ambition, then point out how the writing suffered when he was getting tired of the assignment and tell him it was OK to take a break, and then ask him if/how he thought it might have been different if he'd followed the directions. I'm not sure if covering all of the bases was the way to go, but the incident made me realize just how often we're given directions that place limits on our own creativity or industry. I know that children need structure, but it would have been just as easy for the directions to say "write the words at least two times." Or "write the words two, three, or four times."

Because these children, the ones given limits, are the ones that turn into the college students who used to ask me, "how long does that paper have to be?" and who are stymied by the answer, "as long as it takes to make your point."

That's one thing I love about cooking. You start with a recipe, and maybe you follow it the first time. But once you're comfortable with the ingredients, with the process, you start to take liberties with it. You get creative. You end up with something completely different. The best recipes actually encourage that experimentation, rather than stifling it.

What do you think? Have you ever been given a structure that actually limited your creativity? And do you think that there are ways to give people structure that makes them more creative?

Chicken Chili Verde
The original for this recipe, located at Grubarazzi, is fabulous. But I like my small variations, and the original also inspired me to make a similar green sauce with the first roasted ingredients that turned out to be excellent as a base for chicken/white bean and spinach enchiladas. Somehow, I am embarrassed to admit that I completely missed taking a picture of both dishes, which sort of suggests how they were devoured here. (Luckily, there is a picture at Grubarazzi. Go salivate there.) I would recommend making double the amount of green sauce, and saving some for a future experiment of your own.

1 large red onion, peeled and quartered
7 garlic cloves
2 green bell peppers, cut lengthwise
2 jalapenos, cut lengthwise and seeded
15 tomatillos, husked, cut in half
Pinch of salt
Drizzle of olive oil

3 pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
5 tablespoons stone ground corn meal
Pinch of salt, oregano, cumin, and pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups canned low-salt chicken broth
5 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 avocado, thinly sliced (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 450. Place onions, garlic, bell peppers, jalapenos, and tomatillos on a large baking sheet in a single layer, cut side down. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast for at least 20 minutes, or until caramelized. Remove and allow to cool, about 10 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables to the blender, and blend until smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine corn meal, salt, pepper, oregano and cumin. Toss the chicken in this mixture until coated.

Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add half of chicken to pot and sauté until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Repeat browning process with remaining chicken. Return all of the chicken (including its juices) to the stock pot. Add blended vegetables, chicken broth, corn, oregano, chili powder, cumin, paprika and cinnamon to pot. Bring liquid to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens and flavors blend, stirring occasionally, about 2 hours. Season with salt throughout the cooking process to taste.

Mix cilantro into chili. Garnish with slice avocado (or your garnish of choice) and serve.

Friending My Mother, and the Need-To-Know Basis: Tomatillo Stew

About a month ago, I got a facebook friend request from my mother.

I sat, staring at my screen in disbelief for a while, and then, I confess: I pretended that it never happened. The notification is still sitting in limbo in the friend request tab, glaring at me accusingly every time I open that page, shaking its virtual finger at me, neither accepted nor ignored. Because I simply didn't know what to do with it.

I've been on facebook since July 2005, a bit longer than most people my age. I originally used it as a professional tool, for the purpose of hunting down students, because they weren't responding to email any more, and hadn't yet been sucked into their little text bubbles. It worked remarkably well: my students both responded more promptly to my questions or requests to see them, and sought me out more often, saying that they found me more approachable because I had a facebook profile. My policy was not to friend students unless they friended me first, using the tool primarily as a messaging device until they made the decision to use it to build a relationship.

A few years later, my high school and college friends found facebook, and my personal and professional lives collided online. Suddenly I'd been tagged in pictures from the third grade. Not long after that, my family started to find me on Facebook, and I could see who my brother had been out with, and where my father-in-law had taken his homemade rail bike. Unlike some of my colleagues, I have been OK with this collision, because I felt like it represented a more complete picture of me to my students. I've never posted anything particularly objectionable. I don't really have anything to hide from one group or another. There are no pictures of me with a red Solo cup in hand (mostly because those pictures don't exist). I've never (as far as I can recall, anyway) used facebook to gossip or to say anything derogatory about other people.

Now. My mother isn't exactly a Luddite, but she is a slow technology adopter, and not an avid user. As of a week ago, she still receives and forwards chain mail with animated gifs. Google isn't exactly a verb for her. Even if I were to accept her friend request, it's unlikely she'd troll through my archives looking for dirt. She may or may not look at the pictures I've posted, most of which are dated. She certainly would not read my status updates with any regularity. At least, I don't think she would ... though the fact that she only has 14 other friends might make me stand out.

So why am I so hesitant to friend her?

When I lived in West Hollywood, I was mugged at gunpoint late one night by a small group of teenagers while on my way to Starbucks for a cup of coffee. I'm sure it was a small time gang dare, because they seemed nervous, and the "give us your money, bitch" that they whispered in my ear as I felt the cool barrel of the gun at my head inspired more indignance than fear. I'd grabbed my purse back from them, told them to "hang on a minute," and gave them the $20 I had for groceries, taking my credit cards back and feeling pissed off because I was a poor graduate student. They seemed satisfied, we parted ways, and I called the police to make my report. I didn't call my parents to tell them until about a week later, because I didn't feel like they needed to know; they were 3000 miles away, and would have been upset about something they could do nothing about, something that was already over. I didn't want to dwell on it. When it finally did come up, I told my mother that the situation was information I shared on a "Need to Know Basis," and that at the time, she didn't need to know. Though I didn't mean them hurtfully, I know that she has carried those words in her heart since then; it colors all of our interactions, all of our careful stepping around one another's lives. As I've been thinking about the facebook problem, I've been wondering if I could draw parallels between my reaction to my mother about her friend request, and the fact that I didn't tell her about getting mugged. Is this about trying to control what I think she Needs To Know? [updated: I am aware of, and use, various custom groups for making some posts more private. For some reason, that doesn't affect the way I feel about this situation; I would feel uncomfortable accepting the friend request and then excluding her from my posts.]

The other night, I was talking with a friend whom, I was surprised to hear, was experiencing the same dilemma. Only in her case, her mother was demanding that she friend her. Unlike my mother's friend request, which was quietly brooding, only creating guilt because I was inviting it to make me feel guilty, her mother's friend request was like a Howler arriving at Hogwarts, screaming in real life, at the top of its lungs: "you'd better friend me or else." Her mother was actively looking for pictures to which she didn't have access, feeling left out of an imagined circle of communication. She threatened my friend with hurtful consequences if she continued to exclude her from her friend list.

I told my friend that this amounted to harrassment in my book. That she shouldn't have to experience this. That it was wrong of her mother to make such an unreasonable demand of her adult child who, in my opinion, should be allowed to decide whom to friend.

When we were talking about this, I compared my facebook account to a private room in my virtual house. I may not have anything to hide in that room. There are no sex toys, or hidden drugs, or anything that my mother should be worried about. I bring anything that might be of interest to her directly to the recliner in my virtual living room, where I've invited her to sit. In fact, she has more access to the things in the rest of my virtual house, where she gets to browse freely. But if I found her in that one room snooping around, or felt like she demanded to have access to that room, I'd be upset.

The irony, of course, is that I find it perfectly acceptable for mothers of children going off to college to expect that their children friend them (which is a conversation I had with another friend just the day before). I'm not sure if this is a generational division in my mind. Do I find it acceptable because the younger generation has always lived with their parents looking over their virtual shoulders? Or because these children are not yet old enough to be completely individuated?

Facebook friends are not really our friends. It's a poorly-conceived term. Some of them are friends, some are acquaintances, some are colleagues. Some are people we probably don't care very much about at all, especially if we're not vigilant about purging our friend list. And maybe that's just it: the people I don't care about at all are like people on the street who see my public self when I'm walking downtown with my children; what I post on facebook means nothing to them. My real friends are the ones for whom my posts have meaning. So perhaps if I considered my mother my friend, I would friend her ... or, ironically, if I didn't care about her at all, I wouldn't mind accepting her friend request? What does this say about my attitude towards social media?

I'm stewing. What would you do?

Tomatillo Stew
Here's something different we decided to do with our CSA tomatillos last week. It requires a green sauce, but uses that green sauce in a slightly different way than usual. It's easy to make vegetarian/vegan by using chayote squash as a substitute for the chicken. Adapted from here.

1 1/2 lbs. tomatillos
2 T. canned chopped green chiles (mild)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 t. kosher salt
2 T. lime juice
pinch of sugar

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" cubes & patted dry OR 3/4 lb. chayote squashkosher salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
extra virgin olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. ground coriander
2 more cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 c. chicken or vegetable stock
1 t. dried oregano1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

Preheat the broiler to high. Line a baking sheet with foil and set aside. Remove the papery husks from the tomatillos and slice them in half. Place them cut-side down on a baking sheet about six inches from the broiler and roast for 5-7 minutes, until blackened in spots and cool enough to handle.

Add the tomatillos, any juice they released, chiles, garlic, salt, lime juice, and sugar in a blender and puree until well blended.

Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large skillet over medium high heat. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken or squash and drop it in the hot skillet. Brown the cubes on each side (they don’t have to be cooked through); remove from the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions. Cook until softened and the browned bits on the bottom of the pan have loosened. Add the cumin and coriander and stir until fragrant. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more.

Once the garlic has become fragrant, add the browned chicken or squash back to the pan. Stir in the tomatillo sauce, stock and oregano. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, partially covered for 20 minutes, until the chicken or squash is cooked through. Add cilantro just before serving.

Now You See Them: Nonchiladas Verdes

Our new neighbor has been working on the house next door since he moved in a few months ago. I'm glad; my former neighbor was like a surrogate mother to me, but it was hard for her to care for her house: the exterior paint was peeling, the landscape was a little overgrown, and parts of the roof needed TLC.

Like many people around here do, my new neighbor hired a day laborer to help him paint. Though I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, my town has a its share of poor immigrants, and there is always a group of men needing work who congregate at a convenience store down the street. Most of them, according to the Latino cultural organization in the county, are undocumented. I think of them often during the summer, when the temperature is in the 90s and the humidity is about a billion percent. The sun is brutal, and there is very little shade at the convenience store. If they are lucky enough to find employment, they ride bicycles to work, often carrying nothing more than a single water bottle. Some employers are more considerate than others, but no one, of course, offers health insurance.

My daughter and I have been watching this man patiently scrape and paint for days now, making his way around the house and standing precariously on the top rungs of his ladder, and yesterday, I happened to notice his shirt. It was a long sleeved tee advertising a new residence hall that had opened at my former place of employment just a few years ago, a residence hall known for its posh amenities and slightly higher cost for board.

The juxtapositions were hard to ignore. The oppressive heat, and the long sleeved shirt. The classy residence hall name plastered across his back, and the beat-up bicycle with its single water bottle parked in the driveway. I wondered where he'd gotten the shirt, knowing from my few conversations with him that he didn't speak much English, and suspecting that he probably didn't have children he was sending there, either, at least, not children who were living in that hall. The shirt and the job were both cast-offs, things that no one wanted. Things that he was grateful to have.

I thought about how this man was a strange combination of visible and invisible: visible because it's hard to ignore the day laborers at the convenience store, invisible because people see him as just another nameless worker, someone we look past, look through, someone who is reduced to a body part, a "hired hand."

Over the years, I worked with undocumented students at the university level. These students had made it through high school, had been accepted to a moderately competitive college. All of them were smart; some of them were downright brilliant. And having worked so hard to achieve their goals, they were faced with dreams deferred. With taking the cast-offs. They, too, often vanished after graduation, becoming invisible, because that was their only option.

On August 15, eligible undocumented immigrants can apply to receive a 2-year deferral on
deportation and a 2-year work authorization card. In order to be eligible, they must have come to the U.S. before the age of sixteen; have continuously resided here for at least five years; currently be in school, have graduated, or be honorably discharged; have not been convicted of a significant crime; and not be above the age of thirty. The provision would make it easier for some of my former students to pursue their dreams; I can think of one, for example, who recently reappeared on my Facebook feed, who wanted more than anything to be a teacher, and knew that pursuing her teaching degree was a fruitless effort because of her illegal status: she'd never be able to get a job.

At the same time, this Friday, the State of Arizona is due to respond to the currently blocked provision of a law that requires police to conduct immigration checks on people they stop, question or arrest whom they suspect are in the country illegally. Making Latinos more visible, on the one hand, susceptible to profiling, and invisible, on the other, erasing people's identities.

I have been thinking about what the way we treat immigrants here, especially the way we treat undocumented immigrants, has in common with the way that women are treated, or the way disabled people are treated, or the way that other marginalized groups are treated in the U.S. On the one hand, they are too visible. Visible when it's convenient, when we need them to work, or when they're complaining too much, or when they're becoming a financial burden; invisible as long as they don't rock the boat, or when they are easier to ignore.

The man painting my neighbor's house is not invisible to me, or to my daughter, who watches him with rapt attention. We brought him some ice today, to let him know that we see him. I hope he understood.

Nonchiladas Verdes

I call these nonchiladas because we generally don't use chiles in sauce; my kids don't like it too spicy. But the cilantro and garlic impart lots of flavor, so we don't miss the spice. Now you see them, now you don't.

1 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken OR 3 c. white beans/cooked rice
1 small onion, halved crosswise
2 garlic cloves
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 c. loosely packed fresh cilantro
1 1/2 lbs. tomatillos, husked and rinsed
8-10 six-inch corn tortillas 2 oz. queso blanco or Monterey Jack cheese, grated (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup Greek yogurt, thinned with 2 T. water

Place chicken, onion, the garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Add enough water to cover by at least 1 inch. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat. Simmer until chicken is cooked through, 18 to 22 minutes. Reserve 3/4 cup of the cooking liquid; set aside. (If you're using beans or rice, you can cut up half the onion and saute them with the beans/rice; use water later instead of cooking liquid.)

Let chicken cool on a plate. When cool enough to handle, shred. Set aside.

Preheat broiler, with the rack about 6 inches from heat source. Broil tomatillos and chiles on a rimmed baking sheet, rotating them as they blacken, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool. Remove the blackened skins, stems, ribs, and seeds (optional) from chiles. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Coarsely puree tomatillos in a blender with remaining 1/4 t. salt, cilantro, and reserved 3/4 cup cooking liquid (or water). Take 1/4 c. or so of the salsa and toss with chicken/beans/rice. Transfer the remaining salsa to a large bowl.

Using tongs, toast tortillas over an open flame of a gas stove, 5 to 10 seconds per side., or heat them in a skillet over high heat.)

Dip 1 tortilla into salsa to coat lightly. Place 1/3 cup chicken on half of tortilla. Sprinkle 2 T. cheese on top, and roll up. Place it seam side down in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Repeat to make more enchiladas, lining them up snugly in dish. Spoon remaining salsa on top, and bake until heated through, about 20 minutes.

Drizzle with yogurt.

A Surprising Guest Post (even for me!): the 80/20 Rule

I arrived home from BlogHer last night, and I think I have a lot to say. I even had a post planned for today. But it turns out that my husband also has something to say, and asked if he could guest post here. How could I turn that down?

I talked a lot with the other BlogHer attendees about voice this weekend, about the fine line between telling our own stories and telling other people's stories for them, about the choices we make to include or exclude people or aspects of our lives from our blogs, and it occurred to me today that there's something about putting a voice in context that can give it another dimension. It's like reading a character in a novel. We love the monologue if the writing is good, but we read for dialogue, too.

I'll be back tomorrow, but tonight, here's another voice from my house. Unedited, because you deserve to hear it like it is. I'll be curious to know whether it helps you to imagine dialogue in my small corner of the universe. He'll be reading the comments, so feel free to leave one for him, or for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me introduce myself: I am known as "S." here, J.'s husband. While J. was away at BlogHer the past few days, I played stay-at-home dad, and walked a few miles in her shoes. Part of that walk involves cooking dinner and trying to live up to the high standards that Justine sets for meals in our house.

I am an engineer, and one of the rules of thumb I use frequently is known as the 80/20 rule. Although it has many incarnations depending on your field, for me it means that the first 80% of the job is accomplished with the first 20% of the effort. Taking this one step further, it means that the remaining 80% of your effort is spent doing tasks that aren't necessarily very meaningful. Often those tasks need to get done, but not always. One place with some leeway is cooking.

There is a certain joy in preparing a meal completely from scratch, and assembling it all yourself. It is your creation. It is unique. It feels like you've accomplished something. Unfortunately, it is also a great deal of work. It's even more challenging with a one year old pulling at your legs and demanding constant attention. This is an opportunity to apply the 80/20 rule and make life a little easier.

Although J. shared a pizza recipe with you recently, the job of pizza-making is usually mine in our house. About 80% of the effort (you know where this is going) goes into making the homemade crust. I've experimented with many variations on the crust over the years, including different flours and herbs, trying to make it just right. Last night I didn't. I cheated and tried out a pre-made frozen pizza dough from the grocery store. The result? Certainly not as good as from scratch, but still tasty and it sure did save a lot of time.

Is it really "cheating" to use pre-made ingredients in your cooking? We all do it to some extent. Many ingredients require inordinate effort, equipment, or time to make. When a recipe calls for yogurt, cheese, mustard, pasta, or a pickle, I think most of us just pick those off the grocery shelf, although we could make it if we chose. This ingredient "self-sufficiency" falls along a spectrum. At one end, if you avoid the pre-made ingredients altogether, it's an impressive statement of purity and devotion. At the other extreme, filling up your shopping cart exclusively with frozen TV dinners won't lead to very interesting blog posts (*Blog Owner's note: assuming you're writing a blog that discusses food, of course. And even so, there are probably, somewhere out there, amusing TV dinner blogs) or nutrition awards.

Where do you place yourself on this spectrum? Is there an ideal range that one should aspire to? Or does it vary from meal to meal or based on the time you can make available on a particular day?

If you'd like to try my "cheater" pizza, the recipe is below. From start to finish it took just under 40 minutes, and it was enjoyed by both kids and by me. It also used up some of the leading edge of the tomato bounty from our garden and CSA.

Preheat oven to 450 F with a pizza stone in the oven. While oven is warming, slice enough tomatoes to cover the pizza in a monolayer (did I mention I'm an engineer?) and place on a paper towel to absorb some of the moisture. Don't worry about getting the slices too perfect -- that's an 80% task. Grate 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. Roll out the dough to the size of your pizza stone. Brush with olive oil and place the tomato slices on top. Sprinkle with cheese, and add a little salt and pepper to taste. Spray on a little more olive oil. Place on the hot pizza stone and bake until crust browns (but cheese isn't burnt), about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and place some fresh basil leaves on top. Slice and serve.

Finally, remember to remove the pizza stone from the oven before your wife tries to make cupcakes in the oven the next night.

The Politics of Chick(e)n

So I wasn't going to post about the whole Chick-Fil-A debacle. I don't eat much chicken, anyway. Or much meat at all, to be honest. But the Muppets keep showing up in my FB feed, and after my homage to Kermit in yesterday's post, I'm taking it as a sign.

First, let me make sure you understand my lens on this: I'm a Unitarian Universalist (UU). Which means I subscribe to seven principles and take my wisdom from six sources, including Jewish and Christian teachings about love. I'd be that way if I weren't UU, too, but UUism helps me to name what I believe. And I am pro-gay marriage.

I've known since I was a kid that something was different about Chick-Fil-A. I think my mother was the one who told me that they closed on Sundays, though that didn't matter where I grew up because of the blue laws that closed the entire mall on Sundays anyway. I knew that it was a business owned by a particular group of Christians (not to be confused with Catholics, according to my very-Old-World-Catholic father, and at that point I didn't really understand the difference between Baptists and Lutherans and Presbyterians and other sects), who really believed that the seventh day was for rest. Honestly, I never gave their politics much thought. It stands to reason, though, that the values of Chick-Fil-A's Baptist leader would align with the majority of established Baptist congregations in this country.

Where this begins to get tricky for people, so it seems, is drawing the line between the beliefs and actions of an individual--who happens to be a business leader--and the product of his organization. The Muppets say you can't separate the two. Others say you can.

I guess what it comes down to for me is that an individual with a particular belief system, who chooses to use the profits from my chicken sandwich to support organizations that I would not choose to support, may be a little less offensive on the scale of business-antiheroes than, say, a company that overtly discriminates in its hiring practices, or creates a hostile environment for employees and customers. But if I know that my money is, in the end, going to support organizations that don't represent my beliefs, then I feel that I have the responsibility to act on that knowledge. Maybe that's where Kermit is coming from, too.

Now, as KeAnne points out (in her fabulously written post on the subject, which you should go read RIGHT NOW), there are a lot of other companies out there, and a lot of other politics to wade through. Sure, Haagen Dasz seems pretty harmless. And ice cream is always a good alternative lunch. But if I go digging deeply enough, what will I find?

This isn't the first time I've had to come to terms with the thorny problem of putting my money where my mouth, and head, and hands, and heart are. (That is, assuming I'm ever faced with the unlikely situation that Chick-Fil-A is a real meal option.) And I'm sure it won't be the last. I would love to say that every time I make a purchase of goods or services, I know exactly where my money goes. But the truth of the matter is for the most part, I really have no idea. We get hand-me-downs for the kids when we can, and I'm not about to turn them away because they were made abroad in a factory where unfair and even unsavory labor practices prevail. Though I cook most of our meals from scratch, and can get local eggs and butter and honey, I use things like sugar and flour and other pantry staples that come from large companies whose profits could be spent in all kinds of unsavory ways. There are two problems here: one of them is that the chain of commerce is infinite, that even if I know about official company policy, I can't ever hope to track the expenditures of every employee (sort of along the lines of my MckMama post, there does seem to be a point at which a private person's life is just that: private); the second is my own lack of time to do even the most basic research in the first place. And I'm clearly not alone: why did it take so long for people to put two and two together to figure out where Chick-Fil-A's leadership stood on the promotion of the "Biblical definition of the family unit" (Dan Cathy's words, not mine)? Unfortunately, in the end, I suspect that time--of more correctly, lack of time--will often make my decisions for me. It does now.

Still, in the case of Chick-Fil-A: my research has been done for me. And as a supporter of gay marriage rights, I can't support a business that nurtures other anti-gay marriage organizations like WinShape. So Chick-Fil-A can continue to serve up its patties. And if, in this mostly-vegetarian household, I get a craving for chicken, I'll continue to make my own souvlaki. (Which, if you're really not into chicken, would also be tasty when made with some hearty mushrooms.)

How about you? How do you make decisions about companies to support with your business?

Souvlaki with tzatziki is the perfect way to use up all of those summer squash and cucumbers now filling your CSA boxes and farmers' market stalls, for those of you in the northern hemisphere. Southern hemisphere residents: your time will come soon enough.

Tzatziki

1 c. Greek yogurt
1 cucumber, shredded, squeeze out excess water with hand
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1/2 t, salt
1 garlic clove, minced

Combine all ingredients together and stir well.

Souvlaki

6 T. fresh lemon juice
1 T. fresh oregano (or 1 t. dried)
4 t. olive oil
1 t. salt
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1” pieces (vegetarians can use portobello mushrooms)
2 zucchinis or other summer squash, cut into 1” chunks, halved if large
cooking spray or olive oil
pita bread (I used whole wheat)

Combine lemon juice, oregano, olive oil, salt, and garlic in a bowl. Add chicken pieces and coat well. Marinate in refrigerator for 30 minutes, turning once. Remove chicken from bowl; discard marinade.

Light your grill and set it to medium, if you have some control over it. Thread chicken and zucchini alternately on metal skewers (or wooden if you don't have metal ones, but makes sure you soak wooden skewers well in water first). Spray grill with cooking spray or olive oil, and grill skewers, turning ever few minutes, until chicken is no longer pink inside (about 8 minutes). Remove from grill.

Serve skewers with tzatziki sauce and pita triangles.

Learning to Un-Mother: Chard Pie

"Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?" It's certainly not a new question, but judging by the number of tweets and shares that this week's New Yorker article continues to accumulate, it's still a popular one.

Elizbaeth Kohlbert describes, among other things, two ethnographic studies done collaboratively by two anthropologists in the early 2000s, in LA and in Peru, which found drastically different approaches to parenting and--as a result--patterns of behavior: the Peruvian children were cooking their own food at age 3, left to their own devices by their parents; the eight year old Angelenos were still asking parents "how am I supposed to eat" when they found no silverware on the table, despite the fact that they knew perfectly well where it was kept, and parents would whisk away to get them utensils.

There's a pretty common name for the phenomenon among my higher education colleagues: helicopter parents. It's not meant to be derogatory so much as descriptive: the phrase conjures parents hovering above their (semi-adult, in this case) children, ready to swoop down at a moment's notice to fix whatever it is that needs fixing. In most cases, the children don't even ask for help; it simply appears.

I read the article with interest, because I think we tend to do a bit of both over- and under-parenting. Our son is Montessori-educated, and Montessori philosophy teaches that children are capable of doing a great deal by themselves, and that we should only help if they ask for it, that we should allow them to become self-reliant. (This holds true even when responding to the incessant questions children ask: we often start with "what do you think," rather than offering an immediate answer.) Our house is not child-centered, but child-friendly: the shelves are filled with both adult books and with toys, there are few toys on the floor in shared family spaces, and we periodically purge their rooms of clutter. On the other hand, there are times when I just need to get out the door, and I've been trying to get out the door for fifteen minutes already, and it's easier to carry my son, protesting all the way, than to make him walk.

So: what do you think? Do we do more for our children because we have a lower opinion of our children's capacities? Is it that we fear they won't "make it" in this competitive economy, and so we overparent in hopes that we might be able to control their advantage? Are we prolonging adolescence in preparation for an increasingly complex world?

Chard is typically a slightly bitter green. We've been getting quite a lot of it in our CSA share, and I like it in this dish because the chard is not overpowering, and it's certainly not bitter. It's like motherhood and apple pie turned on its head: you sneak that bitter vegetable into the flaky pastry crust, bake them in cute little muffin shapes, and no one is the wiser ... but everyone gets more than their daily recommended allowance of vitamins A, K, and C.

Chard Pie

1 pound Swiss chard, stems and ribs removed
1 small onion, finely diced
1 T. butter
1 1/2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 15-ounce container part skim ricotta cheese
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan
2 large eggs
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. minced fresh thyme
1/4 t. minced fresh oregano
1/2 17.3-ounce package frozen puff pastry (1 sheet), thawed

Cook chard in large pot of boiling salted water until just wilted, about 2 minutes. Drain. Squeeze out liquid. Chop chard.

Melt the butter in a heavy large skillet over low heat. Add the onions and cook slowly, stirring often, to caramelize, about 5-10 minutes. Empty onions into a bowl and set aside.

Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; saute  1 minute. Add chard; saute until excess liquid evaporates, about 5 minutes. Transfer chard mixture to large bowl. Cool slightly. Mix in ricotta and next 7 ingredients.

Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 375°F. Roll out 1 pastry sheet on lightly floured surface to 12-inch square. Cut into 9 equal squares. Transfer pastry squares to 9 muffin cups (either lightly oiled with cooking spray, or preferably, use silicone). The corners will overhang the sides; that's OK.

Fill pastry with 2 t. or so of caramelized onion and then chard mixture. Bake until pastry is golden brown, about 45 minutes. Cool 10 minutes, but serve warm!

No Place Like Home: White Beans with Chard

I live in a modest house in a county of extremes. Around my slightly-larger-than-mile-square town, sprawling mansions dot the former farmland punctuated by hayfields and rustic farmhouses. In town, the older Victorians on one side of the main street stand in sharp contrast to the apartments and row houses on the other. Some people refer to our town as "the hole in the middle of the donut" of the Township; it's not an entirely inaccurate way to describe what the demographics look like.

On Saturday morning, towards the beginning of my run, I passed the dilapidated two-family rental that always seems full of shouting. There was a lot more junk than usual at the curb today, though. It looked like someone had emptied the entire contents of their house. There were toys, and furniture, and even food: boxes and boxes of canned goods, pasta, baby food, toddler meals, tossed haphazardly into the front yard. A sign on a plain white sheet of paper taped to a chair read, simply, "FREE." This wasn't just junk.

Seeing me pause in front of the chaos of boxes, the landlady, a leathery woman, stuck her head out of the second-story window. "Take as much as you want," she yelled encouragingly.

"What happened?" I asked, knowing.

"Tenant didn't pay up," she said, disgusted. I nodded; she waved and went back inside.

I stood looking at the piles of belongings for a minute. It was hard to look at. But most ironic: the impossibly small pair of red sequined shoes--ruby slippers-- smaller even than my own daughter's foot, whose owner could no longer even click them together, and think, "there's no place like home."

I didn't take anything. But for the rest of my run, I was haunted by the piles of belongings, the ruby slippers. No matter what the tenant had done, it didn't seem fair to the kids, who, judging by the size of that shoe, couldn't have done anything wrong. Where were they now, I wondered? Did they have a place to stay? And the food, all of that food ... were they hungry?

When I got back home, I found my son playing Legos in his pajamas. "Come on, I.," I told him. "I need your help. We're going on a mission. You can keep your pajamas on." He protested; he was, after all, happily playing. And maybe it was voyeuristic of me, I don't know. But somehow, I felt like he had to see this.

I grabbed the camera, some brown bags, and my car keys. I'd gotten it into my head that it would be better if I delivered that food to the food pantry. I felt powerless, and I needed to feel like I could do something. That at least maybe, even if we couldn't help those kids, we could help someone else.

My son hopped into the back seat, full of questions. Not knowing what we'd find when I returned there--I'd been running for at least another half an hour, plenty of time for people to collect things--I stalled. But when we pulled up to the curb, everything was untouched. I explained, as best I could, what we were looking at, and what we were going to do. He agreed, took some bags, and began to transfer some of the canned goods out of broken boxes and into my trunk. Some of the canned good were expired, and judging by the assortment, had come in a basket of Thanksgiving items from the food pantry; I tried to sort those out, wondering, worrying about what the children had been eating.

We were working for a few minutes when the landlady reappeared in the open window, encouraging us again to take more. I told her that we were going to take the food to the food pantry, if that was all right; she said of course, saying she'd thought about doing so, but just didn't follow through. I told her I understood, that after all, she had a lot to do, to empty the apartment. It's not for me to judge.

Seeing me look again at the ruby slippers, she asked if we wanted more shoes. Some little boys' things, she said. At first, I told her no, but then: "wait ... yes." I could find new owners for the shoes.

She came down with a bag, and as she emptied it for us, displaying the contents, she told us that there had been five children living there, between the ages of 2 and 15. That the mother, according to the accounts of neighbors, had often been high. That the oldest son quit school to hang out. It was awful to hear, her context for the piles in the yard, even if only part of it was true. They lived just a few blocks away from me.

When we'd filled my trunk with food and shoes, we got into the car and drove away. I asked I. what he thought. He said he felt sad, sad for the kids especially, and then asked me why adults don't pay rent. I thought of those five kids, about the parents-in-waiting who would give anything to provide a child a home, and I bit my tongue. In a way I hoped he could understand, we talked about poverty. About how it's a complicated thing. Because I will never know what really happened in that house, and because life happens to all of us, and sometimes we are called to make impossible choices.

We dropped off the food in a bin for the food pantry, and headed back to I's Legos. I found myself holding my kids a little more closely today. Tonight, wherever she is, I hope that the little girl who is missing the ruby slippers feels like she is home.

Alubias Estofadas
White Beans with (Sausage and) Chard
This homey stew uses canned beans, like the ones we found in those boxes, and the chard in season at our CSA. It's good for cooler nights that we've been experiencing around these parts, or for using up frozen chard you put up during the winter. You could omit the ham hock if you are vegetarian, but the chorizo does lend a smoky flavor, so I recommend finding a vegetarian andouille sausage to substitute.

1 lb. Great Northern white beans
1 lb. ham hocks
1 whole medium onion, plus two medium onions, minced
2 bay leaves
salt (optional)
3 T. olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 lb. chorizo
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, chopped (see note below)
1 small bunch chard, washed well and chopped

Soak the beans in cold water to cover overnight.

drain the soaked beans and place in al arge pot with the jam hocks, whole onion, and bay leaves. Add coled water to cover 3 inches above the beans. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium, and simmer the beans until tender. This may take as long as two hours, but check them after about an hour or so. Season the beans with 1 t. salt during the last 30 minutes of cooking if desired (I didn't do so, because the meats are salty enough for me).

Remove the ham hock,onion, and bay leaves from the beans. Discard the onion and bay leaves. Cut the meat from the ham hocks and discard the bones.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium low heat and cook garlic and minced onions until soft (about 5-7 minutes). Add sausages (whole if they will fall apart if sliced, then slice them after they firm up). Cook for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and cook for another 5 minutes but not to a paste; the tomatoes should still be juicy. Stir in the chard and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes.

Add the chard mixture to the bean mixture, and cook over medium heat for another 30 minutes for all of the flavors to mingle. If it's too dry, add water, and if it's too soupy, cook over a higher heat.

Serve with a crusty bread.

That's a Wrap: Kindergarten Graduation and Lettuce Wraps

On Monday night, I found myself at kindergarten graduation. It was a small affair, with ten children and their parents and family, in the auditorium of my son's school. Most of the ceremony involved the children singing songs, and comments from the president of the Board of Trustees (whose dry remarks went over my head, and I'm sure went over my son's head, too, judging by the spacey look on his face during those five minutes). Towards the end, each of the children were recognized separately: the children's teachers had written a few sentences about each child, describing them--what "work" they loved best, what characteristics made them stand out, how they fit into the classroom community--and these comments were read as the children were called up to receive "memory books" that they'd made (not diplomas, thank goodness).

It was an emotional affair for me, because it was the first public milestone for my little boy, who, I guess, is no longer really that little. I watched him up on stage, filled with pride and joy but also with wistful longing for the small, exuberant form that has somehow morphed into a gangly first grader. There will come a time, soon, when he no longer wants to crawl into my lap, or hold my hand when we go for a walk, or hang out with me and talk on our front porch swing. I will miss those things, more than he will ever know, even though I know I'll be proud of the person he will become.

My son was feeling a little mixed, too, I think. Up son stage, as the children sang "What a Wonderful World," his face changed, and he looked upset; my husband made faces at him to try to get him to smile, but I. told me later how he was happy to be graduating, but sad that he would be leaving his teachers and friends. "And Mom," he said, "sometimes you just feel happy and sad at the same time." Smart boy.

I'd just watched, a few days ago, the video of Wellesley High School's commencement speech, which has been making its way around the internet, and couldn't help but think about its message, about the fact that no child is special. And yet, here we were, recognizing each child individually, in the classic Montessori way. How to reconcile those things?

Back where I used to work, we had just shy of 1,500 students participating in commencement ceremonies each May. And still, we called every name (even the completely unpronounceable ones); every student walked across the stage, some in ridiculous high heels that practically ensured they'd trip, some in boxer shorts and flip flops, some in the traditional formal dress of foreign countries. They waved to their parents and friends, they beamed when we called their names.

The thing is, every person is special. Yes, there are thousands of valedictorians, quarterbacks, prom queens, presidents of the student council. But that doesn't cheapen the achievement for the individual, or the fact that the individual matters. Maybe sometimes we lose sight of the journey in pursuit of the achievement; still, the achievement deserves recognition, not because it's unique, but because the person who achieved it is.

I know that the point of McCullough's speech was that we should seek knowledge and experience for its own sake, not for the accolades that we can earn as a result. And I couldn't agree more. I don't want to raise my children thinking that they are entitled to advantage; the students who brought that attitude with them to college were the ones who invariably failed, either in academics, or in their interpersonal relationships. But I do value the name-calling of every child who graduates, and the celebration of their unique contributions to the world. Because they are all, every one of them, a gift.

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps

For the dipping sauce
2 T. agave
1/2 c. warm water
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice wine vinegar
2 T. ketchup
1 T. lemon juice
1/8 t. sesame oil
1 t. hot water
1 T. mustard
2 garlic cloves, minced

For the stir-fry sauce
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. agave
1/2 t. rice wine vinegar

For the stir-fry
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. sesame oil
1 package of extra firm tofu (12.3 ounces), chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
8 oz. radishes, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
2 T. fresh ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 c. rice noodles, cooked according to package directions
6-8 large leaves of iceberg lettuce

Make the dipping sauce: In a medium bowl, dissolve the agave in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add the the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ketchup, lemon juice, sesame oil, mustard, and garlic. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate. Immediately before serving the wraps, mix 1 teaspoon of hot water with the mustard and garlic.

Mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice wine vinegar in a small bowl. In a wok or large saucepan over high heat, add the oils and heat until shimmering. Add the tofu, occasionally stirring, until lightly browned about 6-7 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium, and add the water chestnuts, mushrooms, onion, ginger, and garlic. Pour the prepared stir-fry sauce over the veggies and continue to cook until heated through, about 5-6 minutes or so. Remove from the heat.

In the meantime, prepare the lettuce leaves by placing the desired amount of rice noodles in the center of each leaf. Add the stir-fry mixture as desired and serve with the prepared dipping sauce.