summer's ending; or how to let Peach Cobbler make you a star

though this weekend is a long one here in the States, and Labor Day traditionally means the end of summer and that school has begun, it is only the start of peach season. We've had about two or three weeks since the best of the Chambersburg peaches have made their way westward across Pennsylvania.

Even though Georgia is renown for its delicious peaches, my family has always been partial to those grown in south central Pennsylvania. Known as Chambersburg peaches, they are nearly always of a high quality, firm of flesh, sweet, and powerfully peachy. All that, and they are easy to find in local farmers' markets here in Western Pennsylvania. I bought a half bushel this past Saturday for $25.

birthdays are normal days, too

today, I turn 29. I threw myself a party on Saturday, and myriad members of my family and assorted friends came.

Part of me really wants to write the Vogue article, using vivid adverbs and mentioning the hand-detailed dress I wore, the hand-made floral crowns for each guest, how the birthday girl and her best friend recreated days from years ago with Chanel makeup and giggles in the bathroom while rushing about and cooking and toasting bread.

Instead, I leave you with some hazy Instagram shots from the glowy evening and head off to bake myself a birthday cheesecake. Hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves as much as I did, as it was a delightful gathering to mark the beginning of the end of a decade.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: or a final hello to my twenties

this August 27, I turn twenty-nine. Frankly, this number is far less stressful than twenty-five was, even if it is the start of my final year as a twentysomething. I've greatly enjoyed my twenties, and I'm looking forward to my thirties.

Perhaps it is a growing maturity, but all the things on my mental checklist that freaked me out by their lack of completion by twenty-five aren't such a bother with thirty looming. Thirty doesn't even seem to be that great at looming. It is just there, the next milestone, something else to celebrate on the road of life.

Even though I'm approaching thirty with a friendly wave and a cheery "hello," I'd still like to mark the final year I get to be in my twenties with a bang. As such, there's to be a party.

I've invited as many people as I can {which is still a fairly small number} and have planned a fancy dress party. If Jay Gastby threw a "Midsummer Night's Dream" themed party in my backyard, this would be it.

Planning and prepping for this boho bacchanalia reminded me that while I often blog here about my menus and post photographs from this or that bash, I've never really explained how I go about dreaming and planning a party.

decay; or how the natural progression of bananas turns into banana bread

we are a family of green banana eaters, of spotted banana eaters, of a banana eating dog. {this is his "can I have a bite of your banana?" face}

Yet, we always have bananas about to go to waste. It stems at least partially of my mother & I's love of green green bananas. If they're yellow, we eat only begrudgingly. If there are sugar spots {the actual name for those disfiguring, horrible brown spots}, it just isn't happening.

My father loves the ones with the sugar spots. If the banana has even a hint of green or isn't beginning to spot just a little, he is not eating it. You would imagine that we'd then live in a happy little banana nirvana, mom & I eating until dad found the bananas palatable. Alas, you'd be wrong. If mom & I don't eat all the bananas first, there is a waiting period of a day or two between our target banana texture and flavor and dad's. In that day or two, bananas are often forgotten, laying, languishing on the shelf under the bread cabinet.

It is an ignoble end for a tasty fruit, and one that can be stopped at any moment. It is just as easy to mash a banana with the back of a fork and toss it into bread batter as it is to put that mashed banana into a container in the freezer or throw it away. Frozen bananas can be defrosted and baked into bread or added to vanilla pudding or blended in a smoothie.

April is the sort of time of year when it can be warm and sunny one day and cold and rainy the next. This bread works wonderfully as a mood enhancer while still in the oven, manages to make a dreary afternoon brighter with coffee or tea, and makes an excellent breakfast on the go, toasted and slathered with butter, cinnamon & sugar or even peanut butter for an Elvis twist. Give away the second loaf, or wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze until you need another pick-me-up. Later in the summer, this recipe can be gently adapted for Zucchini Bread.

Banana Bread (two loaves)
at least 2 and as many as 4 or 5 bananas, mashed

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
vanilla

2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped roughly chopped pecans or walnuts (if desired)

Mash at least two if not four very ripe bananas in a bowl or plate and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the sugars and butter, then add the mashed bananas, eggs, milk mixture and vanilla individually. Next add the dry ingredients. Scale up the flour if your batter appears rather wet. You want a thick muffin batter consistency.
Once the batter is combined, divide evenly and pour into two sprayed/greased glass loaf pans {9x3.5x5 or so}. Sprinkle the nuts on top of each loaf pan of batter, pressing them gently onto the top.
Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for 90 minutes. yes, this is the longest banana bread recipe known to man. You will still enjoy it, especially the scent of bananas and toasted nuts filling your home.

{apologies for the continued use of my Instagram feed for recipe photos. Soon enough, I'll return to my pretend proper photography of food. Until then, we're cooking and eating too quickly to pause for documentation}

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

violence; or when it is time to stand up and speak out

in a six day period that ended two weeks ago, five people died and one was injured. This is not a post about gun violence {yes, four of the five were killed by a hand wielding a gun}, but one about another specific type of violence: domestic violence.

One of the victims was a two year old child, killed by his own father. One of the victims was shot as she watched her husband shoot the son they created together. She survives. One of the victims was a wife, having finally gained the courage to file for divorce from her retired state trooper husband two days previous. One of the victims was an 18-year old woman on the cusp of the rest of her life. One man is in jail for allegedly chocking and stabbing his girlfriend repeatedly with a screwdriver, then hiding her body in the woods. Two of the victims were men who turned their violence on themselves, committing suicide after having violated their wives' trust.

This violence was not spread over a swath of the country. This violence was not even spread over an entire state. This violence was confined to three counties here in Western PA, all within a single television station's coverage area and well under two hours drive from my home.

It is axiomatic that a subject does not hit home until it actually hits home. I do not live in a home where domestic violence occurs. I do not directly know of {though statistics suggest that I do} a home where domestic violence occurs. I do, apparently, live in an area where five people die, and one is injured, in a six day period due to domestic violence.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make this right, and I especially don't know how to make this right for the women and men who suffer daily under the torture of domestic violence all over the world. It is heart wrenching. A donation to a shelter or hotline is easy, and it helps.

At least one of the women, and I think both, had a Protection From Abuse order against her husband. A PFA is meant, in Pennsylvania, to keep a person safe from one threatening his or her life. One who violates a PFA is off to jail...unless he or she manages to perpetrate violence and either escape punishment by fleeing or self-harm.

Some PFAs require the subject to turn over all guns to the local sheriff's office, lest he or she use one of them to perpetrate violence against the protected party. The man who killed his wife at her grocery store, place-of-work had such an order against him, yet he still managed to obtain another weapon, which he then turned upon himself.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to make this right. I don't think any of us really do, but I think we can all stand up and speak out. Don't jump into a situation where you're liable to make the situation worse, but pay attention. Stand up, be it for yourself or someone else. Speak out, for anyone and everyone who might be affected.

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline {1-800-779-SAFE} or visit their website. Call 911. Talk to your gynecologist, she may well be a source of information on local avenues of help. I know mine is. Stand up, speak out. Be safe. Maybe together we can fix a world where the bonds of trust between partners are rendered completely by those partners all too often.

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

cuddles; or how pillow forts are for grown-ups, too

even though spring is finally, well, springing, my little home is quite chilly. It has to do with being a concrete block basement without insulation, and it has to do with only three days in a row over 60 degrees so far. On these chilly nights, as do most people, I tend to spend a bit too much time online. There are a number of sites I check daily {Persephone Magazine, cupcakes and cashmere, Fuck Yeah, Boston Terriers!, Smitten Kitchen, Bourbon and Pearls, and Tea & Cookies}, alongside the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but one site in particular allows me to waste time like no other.

xkcd. I keep hitting random again and again and again. You hit random, then again, then suddenly two hours have passed. Usually the comics are funny, even for me who is a nerd but not really of the computer/advanced math & science variety.

...

...

oh, damn. Sorry. I just spent 36 minutes hitting random. Where was I? Yes: time wasting on chilly nights. While hitting random ages ago {actual ages and not faux internet ones} I came across a particular comic that hits home for so many of us between 21 and 35, or even 45. Somehow, a generation or two has become confused about how exactly they became grown-ups. The traditional markers of those who have graduated high school or college, have gotten a job with health benefits and a pension, gotten married, had a couple of kids, bought a house, etc. have changed.

We're taking longer to complete schooling. Jobs are often scarce, and ones with pensions nonexistent. Marriage remains unattainable for a large percentage of the population, and those of us for whom marriage is a legal option are putting it off for longer. Houses are available, but only if someone is willing to add to their mountain of student loan debt. More and more people see starting a company as a way to make a living, even if for many of them it means moving back in with parents or keeping roommates well beyond college. The definition of being a grown-up has changed, expanded, come to mean that being a grown-up merely means being allowed to make one's own choices.

"grownups" at xkcd.com

It means that we're allowed to turn an entire apartment into a ball pit. or go paint-balling on a Sunday afternoon. or make our own pillow forts on a chilly night. I'm not saying that we get to shirk whatever responsibilities we have chosen for ourselves, but, damn, if a pillow fort doesn't make those responsibilities easier to bare and complete.

I've set a deadline for my Westylvania project novel: a rough draft of about fifty Word document pages to hand over to the Book Club Ladies at our next Book Club {The Hound of the Baskervilles} on May 4. Pepper and a comfortable fort of pillows and couch cushions make research and forcing words out of my mind rather a lot easier.

Pepper does his best to get me started.

While one isn't required to gather matching implements {I suggest not: half the fun is the haphazard mess of your extra duvet, every throw pillow in the house, plus the guest bedroom bed pillows} do attempt to make them coherent. Your surprise guest is going to ask to play in your pillow fort. That sort of playing is way more fun the grown-up way.

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

tomatoes; or getting the best pasta sauce out of the not best tomatoes

the whole local only food movement is a great one, but puzzling. How precisely are a large percentage of Americans to eat fruits and vegtables when they either {or both} live in non-farming metropolitan areas or the weather does not allow for a growing season 6-8 months of the year? Especially this year. Snow began in October and was still coming down outside my window this past Wednesday.

The ground is still hard and bare and even grass is finding it difficult to grow. There are a few nurseries operating their greenhouses, but they're mainly supplying pretty plants not food ones. In a larger population center {my address is a village of maybe 250 people, but that actual place is three miles from my home} there is a far better selection of food brought in, but that's not exactly within the required 30 to 50 or is it100 miles locavores suggest. Besides, the California strawberries and the Mexican blackberries at my stores are cheaper than the ones in the growing season. That and the fact that this rural area really doesn't farm means locals are stuck without options, even in summer.

We could all be growing our food. My neighbor raises and butchers hogs. His heifer just dropped her calf yesterday morning. We'll have pig and cow when he butchers them. But when it comes to veg, we're lucky if that same neighbor {a retired roofer who farms for fun and keeps house when his wife is at work} plants some sweet corn. We've attempted gardening at least once every three years since I can remember. The store's busy season doesn't allow for it.

There are some farmer's markets and friends who garden, but often those farmer's markets are stocked with items grown in Ohio or New York or clear across the state, more than the requisite locavore distance for food to have traveled. As such, I just don't care whether my food is local or not. I'd prefer it, but I've become far more worried about how much it's been processed before it hits my plate.

I'm nearly to the point where I only buy "whole" foods. Is it a piece of chicken? ok, then. Is it in a freezer bag, with enticing comments suggesting it is an easy appetizer? no thanks. Are there ingredients listed that I'm not sure I can pronounce but mean that the jarred whatever will last until 2025? nope. Is it a piece of fruit or veg that with a tiny bit of coaxing will taste delicious? I'm on board, season or no.

So, when whole tomatoes are in the grocery store and maybe they're from California or Central America {the same for early green beans and asparagus because I'm dying for any tiny bit of spring by now}, I'm still buying them. I'm buying out of season, out of country tomatoes and pretending it is spring.

This sauce and pasta will take just under 30 minutes, making it perfect for a thrown together meal that feels far more nuanced than opening a jar and microwaving it.

Simple Thyme Tomato Sauce, with Vegetables {scale up to serve 4, down to serve 1}
3-4 tablespooons olive oil
2 to 4 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
pinch of dried rosemary, bruised
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 to 8 Roma tomatoes, quartered (1 to 3 standard tomatoes, depending on size)
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 to 1/3 cup wine
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 to 1 cup each, asparagus and green beans, cut into bite sized pieces
1/4 lemon

pour the oil into a cold pan, turn on low heat and add the garlic and herbs. Allow spices to meld for five or ten minutes, depending on how much time you have until service. After the appropriate time, turn pan to medium-high heat and add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cover and allow to simmer for 5 minutes, tossing occasionally. After five minutes, gently press the tomatoes with the back of a spoon, then add the wine (I prefer rose for this, though anything you'd like to drink with the meal works) and sugar. Taste for flavor, then reduce heat to low and allow to simmer to a thick sauce, usually about ten minutes.
Meanwhile, you should have heated salted water to a boil and been cooking your favorite pasta. When the pasta is two minutes from al dente, toss the asparagus and green beans into the sauce, increasing the heat back to medium-high. Then add the nearly cooked pasta (I prefer penne or gnocchi for this sauce but whatever you like is best) along with pasta water, if necessary, and the lemon juice. You're looking for a sauce that will soak into the pasta as it cooks for the final two minutes, but not so soppy that it will pool or run on your plate. Cook sauce, veg, and pasta until the sauce is desired thickness and the veg and pasta are done.
I prefer my asparagus and green beans to be lightly cooked. This method cooks them for five minutes or less. If you prefer a more tender and not at all crunchy veg, add it earlier before adding the pasta. Serve with some grated cheese, good bread, and possibly a salad and/or grilled meat.
Feel free, also, to omit or substitute the green beans and asparagus. Neither is required, but their addition makes it easier to get away without adding any sides.

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

kindness; or how the little things make a better day

as I picked up a coffee the other day, the college student making my latte complimented my blazer. It had been a rough day, but with that little boost my day instantly became better. That incident got me thinking about how often I see someone wearing something or doing something that I want to complement, but since I don't know him or her, I simply keep my mouth shut.

Similarly, we make a valiant attempt to compliment parents who have incredibly well-behaved children. We see so many that are poorly parented and who behave inappropriately that we try to say something to those who are appropriate. Sometimes we don't say something because those who visit our store are strangers.

I'm also single. While I'm not actively looking for a partner, I am also nearly twenty-nine and do not wish to turn one away. When a person is no longer in school and has been at the same job for a period of time, meeting new people and making new friends becomes a bit more difficult. You {or at least I} tend to feel awkward attempting to make conversation without it seeming desperate or turning into a pick up.

As I've been spending time pondering the good deeds and excellent style {also, ahem, attractive men} that float by, I thought a little card might just do the trick. I've seen the business cards that say something to the effect of "you're hot, call me" as ice breakers, but they don't seem to me to be more than a lame attempt to be cool while trying for sex. Instead, I threw together the following sentiment.

& I happen to think you... seems to be the best way to thank someone or compliment them for whatever it is they happen to be doing that caught your fancy. Interested in a pick-up? write something with innuendo. Think someone is parenting well? mention the kids' behavior. Love that pair of shoes? ask where the wearer got them.

Now, to gather the courage to pop one of these babies out of my purse and hand it to that attractive man at my yoga place...

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

styling; or how the internet confuses me into a larger closet

the other day, I tweeted & Facebook-ed a simple thought: "sometimes I think about what I want to wear tomorrow and forget that the things I've pinned on Pinterest aren't in my real closet."

Quite a few of my friends responded positively...we've all been there. You look and look through Pinterest at all the pretty clothes and pin outfits and styles, thinking "I like this and I don't like that, oh that would be pretty with that skirt over there, and shoes!" It is a great time killer, while you still feel as though you might still be creative. It gets worse when you add Polyvore to the mix. 

I'm still on the fence with Polyvore. I like Pinterest the way I like tearing photographs out of magazines, as an inspiration for styling myself and my home. I like seeing how the women on the street look, how the stylists make them look, how one adorable skirt looks great in one photo and not so great in another, depending on the cut, the rest of the outfit, and the woman. 

A piece I love by itself I might hate on a woman who is built like me and love on a woman like Christina Hendricks, or maybe Mila Kunis or Karlie Kloss. With Pinterest, a lot of the time it's about the feeling in the photo...so long as we're thinking Pinterest for clothes. It also does a lot of the best and worst looking recipes to be found online, has home decor stuff, and is possibly the widest range of workout motivation/fat shaming quote boxes I've ever seen. 

But regarding clothes, I can be a lot more difficult to see how that blouse you have that looks like that one picture would go with that pair of jeans from another, until you get to Polyvore. It's where every person in front of her computer gets to become the stylist. I've been there a while and admittedly still don't understand the following other people function, because most of those styling boards are on Pinterest anyway. That doesn't stop me from styling away though.

Polyvore seems to bridge the gap between Pinterest's aspirational clothes and what is actually hanging in your closet. You won't find exactly what you already own, unless you're covered by designers who show at the Paris haute couture shows, but you will find lots and lots of things that look remarkably like what is hanging in your closet. It might be an easier way to decide what accessories to pick up to go with a dress you already own. I've played around a bit:

Like I said, I'm still on the fence, and I still tend to spend more time on Pinterest than Polyvore. Still, it is nice to have a site where you are the active participant in creativity instead of the passive consumer of it. 

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

family; or how a long, snowbound winter turns horrible

six weeks ago Thursday, my frail and elderly grandfather fell as he was walking to his sitting room from the supper table. I wasn't there, I was at yoga...but my parents were. Dad had just sat back down in his own seat as they were chatting, as is our wont, after supper. Grandpa attempted to stand, using his cane as he has done for the past ten years since his third stroke, caught his feet together and fell sideways. Dad attempted to lunge after him, but managed only to fall heavily to his own knees a foot from Grandpa.

It took three hours for us to convince Grandpa to agree to a hospital visit, despite his horrible pain. He had broken his tibia, very near the hip, and required a surgery our local rural hospital could not provide. Thankfully, another hospital two hours away could and did take him and performed the necessary surgery less than 24 hours after Grandpa fell. Even better, my grandmother, my father's mother-in-law, lives just ten minutes from that hospital. Soon Grandpa was recovery as best he could from the surgery and everything seemed as though it would progress.

Then, because he wasn't eating and complaining of urinary issues and because he was already in the hospital, the doctors found that he has what is likely a cancerous growth over 2/3 of his left kidney. The growth requires surgery to remove the kidney, but that should be the end of it. Alas, as are most things with my headstrong paternal grandfather, that has not been the end of it. He was then too week for the kidney surgery, so off to a rehab facility to strengthen him and his leg he went...still two hours away from our home and business, but only ten minutes from my grandmother's.

Things are never easy, and things have only gotten worse. Grandpa refuses to eat much, claiming hatred for the "prison" food. He has never eaten or drank anything in his life that he does not want to consume. As a baby, his mother had to give him Eagle brand condensed milk instead of any other milk since it was the only kind he'd drink. This 81 year old man has never even tried pizza, not a single bite. He won't even lick a piece. "It looks like a dog puked on dough," he says. Adding his newer wish to simply die to his disdain for just about all foods has lead to an untenable position.

We have taken care of every family member too ill to take care of him or herself for quite some time. My great grandfather passed at home. So did my grandmother. Grandpa has starved himself to a condition where we are not able to care for him at home. It is eating each and every one of us from the inside, none more so than my father.

After five weeks of one person one place, two at another, constantly switching and driving, my grandmother living two hours away from her own home, then taking care of unexpected house guests, Grandpa has finally been moved to a nursing home just a half hour away from our home and business.

He was thrilled to get out of the "concentration camp" rehab facility, but frustrated with an inability to understand that he cannot be left alone for any period of time. Due to that, our full time seven days a week no employees business will not allow us to care for him. He has been there for forty-eight hours and has already swung from looking as though he could pass in hours to sitting up and dining with the other residents and carrying on full conversations.

We've now embarked on the long winding road of Medicare and nursing homes and waiting, hoping, waiting. It is life. it is how things are for us now. It doesn't beg sympathy, though it does garner it from unexpected places. It brings tears and laughter and family we haven't seen for some time. It is life and life is how it is.

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor