Monthly Archives: January 2009

>Dutch Babies (pannekukken)

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>A simple breakfast or brunch dish from my Plurk buddy Barb in Nebraska

In a large oven-safe pan, melt a stick of butter at 425 degrees.
While butter is melting, break 6 eggs into a blender and whirl at high speed for 1 minute. While motor is running add ½ cup of milk. Then slowly add 1 ½ cups flour. By now, the butter is melted. Slowly pour batter into the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Check periodically to pop air bubbles. They look frightening, but they taste just fine.
Use pizza cutter to cut into pieces. Serve with maple syrup or jelly.

This reminds me of when my kids were young and I made French Toast regularly. Sourdough bread from the day-old bread store, half a dozen eggs, and a little syrup made an easy and inexpensive brunch for the family. If the grocery store had a sale we might have had bacon on the side.

As is my style in the kitchen, I’ll experiment with the Dutch Babies recipe. I might try it with wheat flour or oatmeal added, cranberry sauce on top, or other goodies. Maybe egg substitute for half the eggs, too. In spring and summer, the eggshells will go in the garden or the compost, of course.
Enjoy! My next planned kitchen experiment: Monkey Bread!

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>Word of the year

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>Resolutions. Goals. Good intentions. Words.
Words?
In another trend sweeping the blogosphere, the philosophy is this: choose a word. The word will be your focus, guiding changes and progress in 2009.

G’s Cottage, the first place I saw this, chose Cultivate as her word. This is a great multi-meaning word. It encompasses nurturing, planting, growing, assisting, caretaking, and many more action words. Cultivate would fit my teaching profession and my gardening hobby and, face it, motherhood.
But cultivate is G’s word. No matter how well it might fit me, it’s not quite right.
Christine, the leader of this movement, provided a long list of words from which to choose. This list, while comprehensive, doesn’t cover everyone’s personality and/or needs. It’s meant to guide and suggest, not limit.

So far, my personal list is narrowed down to these.

Clarify: Think, act, speak clearly. Keep goals in mind: eyes on the prize, while simultaneously focused on the process. Maybe Clarity is even better.
Mastery: Aim high, don’t settle. Improvement is good; mastery is better.
Acceptance: Change is good, but accepting limits is also good. As in the famous serenity prayer, the key is knowing what I can and cannot change, and accepting this.
Willingness: Not digging in my heels, but moving ahead willingly. The opposite might be “grudgingly.” No one sets a goal of being unwilling; it seems to happen on its own. Willing or willingness would be reminders to push forward with a “glass half full” philosophy, working to make the glass overflow.
Balance: need I say more?
Health: this one is almost too broad. Physical, emotional, mental health; my own, my family’s, my pets’ health?
Action: Similar to willingness or willing, this word would remind me that thoughts and ideas are cheap. Action is where the change originates, begins, ends, and succeeds.

Later this month I’ll choose a word, a term that will guide me toward goals that make sense. One word. It will most likely come from this list, but maybe a better one will turn up. Until then, it’s back to school, back to work, and back to (hopefully) a consistent sleep schedule.

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>Packer Pride helps the hungry

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>Green Bay Packer fans are proud people. We spend our Sundays (and some Monday nights) wearing green and gold, sporting hats that resemble wedges of cheese, and simply cheering on our team. Win or lose, playoffs or no playoffs, we still identify ourselves with the guys doing the Lambeau Leap.
Green Bay Packer fans take pride in other contests, too. Campbell’s Soup’s Click for Cans is going on right now. Here’s how it works.
Click on “Vote Now” and then choose the contest that includes the desired team. Click on the appropriate helmet (yellow, with a big G), enter the code to prove you’re not a robot, and voila! You’ve voted.
Fans can vote once a day.
The highest scoring teams will receive donations of soup for local food pantries. I drive past the Salvation Army headquarters on my way to work, and the lines and crowds there have grown noticably. Our local food pantry is getting fewer donations even as the requests for assistance increase. My own school’s Adopt-a-Family program is serving fewer families while we’d rather be serving more.
I hope you’ll help the Packers once again win the Click for Cans. But most of all, bloggy friends and acquaintances, I hope you’ll take the time to make a difference. Soup can be a meal for a hungry family. Help those cans get where they’re needed.
For more details on the contest procedure, look here.

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>Mom’s playing — in the kitchen?

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>Gardening and baking. Two seemingly dissimilar activities, both serve a similar place and purpose for me.

I tried to blend butter and sugars the other day and the butter wasn’t ready. It reminded me to plan ahead, get the butter out ahead of time, and let it sit. I stopped, waited, and got back at it with better results and a more peaceful, easy feeling. The cookies were delicious.

Gardening is also a slower process, a contrast to my high pressure teaching job. When I put the garden to bed for the winter, it’s a melancholy feeling not only for the yield, but because I truly miss working with my hands in the dirt.

Both gardening and baking let me incorporate a few more healthy ingredients into our menus. Spinach, fresh tomatoes, and crisp green beans make their way onto the family table in late summer and fall. When I bake from scratch, I can control the ingredients that make their way onto my family’s plates, not to mention using up foodstuffs that might otherwise go to waste. I recently used up two very ripe bananas in a banana bread. Husband helped; he peeled the bananas.

Gardening gets me out of the house and away from distractions like the telephone. Baking doesn’t do exactly that, but it does take me out of the whirlwind that is my life. Putting the ingredients together, measuring properly, following a recipe (well, to some extent) all take just enough concentration. Just enough, that is, to take my mind off the many day to day stressors.

We’re steadily working our way through the Christmas cookies, so I’m looking at a few other ideas to plant in the kitchen. Cranberry muffins, anyone?

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>Four by Four

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>Jill from Charming and Delightful tagged me with the 4 by 4 meme. Yes, I’m still conscious; it was figurative, not a literal tag. Those boards don’t measure a true 4″ by 4″ anymore, either, just like a 2 X 4 is really only about 1 1/2″ by 3 3/4″.

Four places I go over and over again (not counting my workplace):
The Post Office – they recognize me as the one who mails books for PaperbackSwap.
Walgreens – a quick stop on the way home, and the medicine cabinet is refilled.
Jo to Go – I drive through for a coffee treat more often than I should. Well, I drive through when the temperature is reasonable and my driver’s side window cooperates.
The public library, more in summer than during school. This is usually a joint trip with Amigo while he looks for audio books.

Four people who mail me regularly:
My mother (and brother and sister-in-law)
La Petite, when she’s away at school
Margalit, my cohort and fearless leader at MidCentury Modern Moms
My grad school friends. That’s four, not one, but since we were dubbed the Fab Five, I’ll count them as one. We no longer teach together, so we email a lot.
I’ll leave the foreign lotteries off the list.

Four of my favorite places to eat, (apart from home)
Confucious, Chinese take-out or eat-in. Delicious.
Mary’s Family Restaurant, a locally owned place with tasty chicken dumpling soup
Blueberry Hill, local pancake house (Amigo and I tried it out last summer and liked it)
Angels family restaurant (a little hard to get to now with road construction, must do it again)
I notice a theme here: these are all local, no national chain restaurants on the list.

Four places I’d rather be now:
In bed, asleep. I need a lot of sleep.
A hotel – any hotel, as long as I’m not responsible for cleaning. And it needs to have wi-fi, and in-room coffeemaker, and the daily paper. I don’t ask for much — or do I?
Shopping with friends — buying optional, talk is free.
A local coffeeshop: good brews, good music. Who needs a bar when a favorite blues musician is playing at Brewed Awakenings?

Four favorite TV shows:
Jeopardy!
Green Bay Packers football games
Scrubs
When Weather Changed History (Okay, I’m a science geek. I admit it.)

Four movies I could watch over and over again:
Always
Sleepless in Seattle
The Muppet Movie (“Not often you see a guy that green, got the blues that bad.” Classic.)
The Terminal

Four people I’m tagging:

Minnesota Matron

G from G’s Cottage

Green Girl in Wisconsin

Margalit at What was I Thinking?

I hope 2009 is starting well for all of you!

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>Hindsight is always 20-20, so enjoy it!

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>Looking back over the year: here’s the way each month started in 2008. I offer the first line of the first post of each month, complete with link to the post should you want to read the rest.

January: Last January 1st was a retrospective like this one, so I offer instead New Year’s Eve 2007.
February: It’s a little like Supermom meeting her Kryptonite.
March: One thing that keeps me judging music festivals is this.
April: When Jordan proposed “Savoring the Season” for her next group writing project, I thought, savor what?
May: I bake bread when I’m home watching a sick teenager. Doesn’t everyone?
June: Some days I think the world revolves around underwear.
July: I can’t call it a la king, or a la queen, for that matter.
August: Dumbledore’s wisdom.
September: A passive chore is something that “does itself” while I’m doing something else. October: Pepper and Potential
November: I remember the days when teachers could have kids bring in candy wrappers….
December: Ah, contradictions. This is a case for “Shoulds are Bogus.”

It’s interesting that none of these First Date posts were election-related. The primary and general elections were huge on the national scene and in my own life. The selected posts do touch on other big subjects for 2008: Amigo’s illness (May), our family travels (June), and the challenges and changes in teaching (November).

May you live in interesting times, and may the interest and challenge be exactly what’s right for you. Happy New Year!

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