Life Force

Loretta had her first day of kindergarten last week. She cried, I cried. Talking to my friend Ricky about my nostalgia and the kids getting bigger, he said, "Wasn't that the plan?" Yes! I'm so happy for every day they are alive, but also so wistful.

I saw the following scene at the gas station later in the morning. A young father, dirty jeans and scruffy beard, carrying a large back and pulling a suitcase. And his elementary-age son, wearily following him and chugging a soda. Why wasn't he in school? Probably because that family is homeless, and school is complicated. Clean clothes, being somewhere on time, lunch money. And which school do you enroll your children in if you don't have a home?

I felt so many things in that moment. For starters, despite her tears and trembling lips on kindergarten's first day, Loretta will be just fine! Her every move and milestone has been celebrated in this family and in our community. But EVERY CHILD should have that. Every child should have their picture taken, standing proudly with their little backpack on and lunch to look forward to. 

I think of MLK: "I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be." There's something missing for me in Loretta's sweet first week of school because there are so many children who don't have enough love, celebration, kindness, food, or clean water. I think of how much I love her--sitting in her classroom in rapt attention, trying to keep her new shoes clean and figure out where the bathrooms are. Despite my mistakes, I know she's growing into who she ought to be. But, again in MLK's words, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" We're not okay until everyone's okay. There's a lot of work to do.

I'm amazed lately at the sheer force of life. We keep having children, making plans, sending people into outer space, curing cancer. Sometimes I think, "For what? We're all going to die anyway!" Wyatt's been scared of death lately, and I can't tell him it's an irrational fear. Quite the opposite--he's in touch with something most of us manage to block out. What I'm coming to is that the point, more than posterity or legacy, is the sheer joy of the present moment. The moment when Wyatt plays with my hair as he's falling asleep, or the moment  on the trail when I'm overcome by the goodness and mystery of God. We are all, every one of us, going to die. And some more unfairly or untimely than others. I can't tell my children otherwise. But I can teach them to pay attention, be kind, and be brave. 

This milestone business--indeed, this life business!--is not for the faint of heart. But one of my favorite quotes (don't ask me who said it) is that rest is not the antidote for being overhwhelmed. Wholeheartedness is. I'm in.

P.S. Thanks to my friend Jackie (one of my biggest and most enduring fans) who asked when I'd be posting again. Thanks for liking me and believing in me.

Blueberry Slump

I was too absorbed to take any photos of the blueberry fields yesterday, but it was summer personified. Warm, the soft "plop" of fat blueberries falling into buckets, Loretta stuffing her face under the shade of the bushes, and my Mom rattling off all the things she'd make when she got home--pies, crisps, galettes, and blueberry jalapeno corn muffins. (Clearly, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Or the blueberry from the bush. I come by this obsession honestly.)

Every summer, my gratitude for farmers reaches a fever pitch. I was telling the kids as we picked how hard it is for farmers to take vacations. And how they put everything into their crops, hoping the weather is right, the insects stay away, and the birds don't steal everything. Thank you, hardworking farmers, especially those of you doing it the hard way, without pesticides, insecticides, and other shortcuts. I owe you a lot.

We stocked the freezer with bags of berries. They'll make the winter more tolerable. Wyatt and Loretta love to eat frozen blueberries out-of-hand. I know the popular way to freeze berries these days is to lay them all out individually on a cookie sheet. That takes forever! And takes up so much space! I wash them, spread them out on towels and lightly pat them dry, then freeze them in large ziplocs in a shallow layer, stacking the bags on top of one another so the berries freeze not individually but almost. You'll use more bags this way, but it's much quicker. I figured out long ago that speed in the kitchen is much more important to me than perfection.

So I'm grateful for farmers, and sitting here writing is always an invitation to be grateful for lots of other things. Among them, I'm grateful for: 

• John Kabat-Zinn, my virtual meditation teacher. He's patient, authentic, and ONTO SOMETHING. I am doing it very imperfectly, but I really needed his guidance in my life right now.
• On Being podcasts, my spiritual director in the summer when I can't seem to darken a church door.
• My husband Yancey who's been working tirelessly the last 2 months to get our house ready for painting in a week. New siding, framing in a garage and a front porch, making our house look less abandoned by the minute. We have a good laugh when I say, "Some people buy houses that look good right away!"
• Making friends in Bellingham--Liz, Megan, JoElla, Breeze, Kate, Ann, a neighborhood BBQ. Gift after gift.
• Many dear Seattle friends about to descend on our house for Labor Day Weekend.
• My sister Naomi, who inspired me by working all year to raise money for a trip to El Salvador where she helped dig a well for a village that had been waiting for years. When her team left, the villagers said, "Thank you for coming. We know now that God has not forgotten us."
• Klushan Brewing Company for setting up shop one mile from our house. 

Blueberry Slump
I followed Saveur's recipe exactly. Almost. The first time I used my 8" cast iron skillet, and you can see from the photo that I had an avalanche of spillover. Good thing I put a cookie sheet underneath. The next time I actually read the directions and pulled out a 12" All Clad skillet, and it worked much better. As you're boiling the berries and sugar on the stove top, don't worry about it looking liquid-y. Blueberries have enough pectin to thicken up, and you'll get such a pure taste--no flour, cornstarch, fillers. And these biscuits are really dumplings--more milk than butter, which makes them wet and perfectly tender once cooked up. We had this for dessert the first time and breakfast the next. 

Blueberry Slump

This is the Better Place

Just home from our annual trip with Yancey's family to Ross Lake. It never gets old--Cascade Mountains in the moonlight, feet dangling off the dock, morning coffee and books, Wyatt practicing dives into the cold, clear water.

I read Anna Quindlen's memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. Emily read it first, then mailed it to me from her vacation in Michigan so I'd have it for mine. Is that true love or what? Reading Quindlen's reflections on aging, career, motherhood, and womanhood seemed especially poignant as I sat in the sun and watched my children. My life is now. What matters most are the sandwiches in ziploc bags, serving my clients between homework and laundry, teaching my children about money and kindness, reading the news and trying to love the world in all its brokenness and beauty.

Anna remembers her mother's early death, and the empty consolation of well-wishers:

"She's in a better place," [the friend said]. There is no better place. This is the best place, here, now, alive, a chipmunk scampering across the stones, a cloud scudding across the sky, the dogs barking at nothing on the road, the road running empty into an unseen distance and beyond, my husband busy at the office, my children busy in the world. The better place is along the Hudson River, where the loon bobs on the swell from the ferry and dives for unseen fish until it seems he must drown, then pops up glistening  twenty feet from where he went down. The better place is that spot on the highway when you can suddenly see New York City strung like a necklace of jagged diamonds, and that corner of the porch where the house wrens build their nest and disassemble it and build it again, and the table at Thanksgiving and tree at Christmas.

And I'm learning (again?!) that my task is to pay attention, both to the suffering and to the Cascade Mountains in the moonlight. And it's to pay attention to myself--my anxiety, my fears, the food I eat, the addictions that sometime seem easier than paying attention. When I take a breath in and then breathe out, I can remember that everything I need is right here. There is no better place.

And if you find that the unlikely luck of a 5 year-old fishergirl turns up a beautiful rainbow trout, you can do the following:

Whole Roasted Trout with Cumin and Lime
Preheat over to 425. Take a scaled, cleaned and gutted fresh-caught trout. This one happened to be about 15" long and a little over an inch thick. Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a cast iron skillet. Add a big handful of thinly sliced red onions, a finely chopped clove of garlic, and cook down about 5 minutes. Add a tsp. of ground cumin, coarse salt, freshly ground pepper, and a big squeeze of lime juice and simmer for another minute. Along with a handful of fresh herbs (parsely, basil, cilantro, oregano, chives), stuff the fish with most the onion mixture. Sprinkle more herbs and the remaining onion mixture over the fish, drizzle with a little olive oil, and lay some thinly sliced lime over the top. Put the skillet into the preheated oven and roast about 15 minutes per inch of thickness, or until fish is tender and opaque and the skin slips easily from the flesh. Stand around and eat with your fingers, like proud Loretta did.

Summer Salad Series: Grilled Squash with Preserved Lemon

At the end of a busy week, all I feel is blessed. I feel a list coming on. Thank you, Loving One, for:

• Rich, Mary, Oscar, Milo, and Sebastian being with us for the week and our precious friendship that's endured a move
• Liz and her amazing Lego Camp and how much delight it brought Wyatt, Oscar, and Milo every day
• Walking with my aunts and cousins in the Relay for Life and remembering my uncle's battle with cancer
• My new meditation pillow and the (surprising) discipline with which I've been using it
• Falling asleep in the sun
• Privileged time with clients doing good work
• Pandora summer stations
• My cousin Josh and his girlfrend Jamie coming up from Seattle to see us
• Volunteering in the Roosevelt Elementary garden and harvesting golden beets, kale, snow peas, lettuce, and broccoli
• Walking with my family and Bellingham First Congregational in the Pride Parade this afternoon. When our pastors walked in front with their robes and stoles on, I cried. Indeed, God loves everyone.

And a little meandering at the Bellingham Farmers Market where I bought a couple pounds of the World's Most Beautiful Summer Squash. Smooth, bright yellow, thin-skinned, firm, small. Just completely perfect.

We slathered grilled bread with pesto, laid some thick slices of French feta, then piled this salad on top of that. That was dinner, and there were groans of delight all around the table.

To make: Cut several small summer squash lengthwise into 1/4" thick strips. Grill with olive oil and a bit of salt. Toss the grilled squash with a few tablespoons of smashed preserved lemon (pulp, peel, and juices), olive oil, pepper, and lots of parsley leaves.

Summer Salad Series: Steak Salad with Corn Salsa

I'm serious. It's a blazing 72 degrees in Bellingham. I always joke that when the sun is out in The Ham, it's like you just handed everyone a $100 bill. People are so stinking happy.

Yancey is home recovering from knee surgery, and we're happy, too. The surgery went without a hitch, it was overdue, and he's mending nicely. And we've had the strangest couple days--just hanging out, doing puzzles (him, not me--I have ZERO attention span for puzzles), lolling about with the kids, family dropping by to bring food or say hello. I can't resist philosophizing here--it's too bad it takes a surgery for an unplanned weekend! We're pretty good about saying "NO!" to things, but still. I resolve to do LESS in the future. It's pretty great. Yancey's sister Kelly is here today kicking #%$ on the puzzle. Look at this sweet photo.

The biggest news around here might be that Wyatt is now riding around the neighborhood on his bike. Alone. And the shoes I just bought him are a size SIX. Get out. He is suddenly giant, witty, independent, and more engaging than ever. He took his bike out this morning and went garage saleing with his allowance. He bought a puzzle and a foot massager. He would grimace at me calling him cute, but God. He's cute. And mine. That is what's so crazy. He came from me.

I suppose I should get around to the food here. This site was down for a week (please say you noticed!) because of some technical glitches, and I'm all chatty now that it's up again. Sometimes I think, "Maybe In Praise of Leftovers has run its course." Then things happen to change my mind. Like it disappearing and me missing it. Or Jenny and Dusty bringing me cocoa nib shortbread from The Breadfarm and writing me a card about how much iPol has meant to them. Or Janie sending me an email and saying it's made her gluten intolerance so much more bearable. Or Emily saying, "Where did it go? It's a community service!" Ah. Happy to oblige.

Okay. Really getting around to the food now. Our new thing around here is salad bar. I cook, chop, and whisk some things, set them in the middle of the table, and wash a lot of dishes at the end. If you're into One Pot Meals, this probably isn't your thing. My Mom and I have always been into Thousand Pot Meals. Ask our husbands. 

There are going to be so many salads this summer that I can't see myself recording every single "recipe" or proportion. (Okay. I can see it. I just don't want to.) The great thing about salads is they're pretty hard to screw up. So I've decided to give myself a break and just post the ingredients, and by the end of the summer, you'll have lots of good ideas and you'll be proud of yourself for winging it.

For this salad, assemble something like this:

1. Salsa of cooked corn kernels (fresh or frozen roasted corn from TJ's), tomatoes, cilantro, basil, salt, olive oil, and lime juice
2. Avocado
3. Pickled or fresh red onions
4. Crumbled feta, cojita, or queso fresco cheese
5. Roasted or fresh poblano chiles
6. Greens (romaine, kale, beet greens, arugula, etc.)
7. Thinly sliced grilled steak or chicken (or leave meat out alltogether)
8. Dressing of lime juice, cumin, garlic, olive oil, and salt

Set everything out and let the fam or guests assemble their own. Mysteriously diappear when it's time to clean all the bowls. How I adore my home office.

Happy Summer, friends. I like being here with you.