goods and heroes

dia de los muertos, part 2

We had ourselves a little Day of the Dead fiesta here last night. I figured it was time for me to get together with friends and honor my mom in an upbeat, colorful and communal way. (It was her birthday on Friday and so it made twice as much sense to celebrate.)

Both Sam and I really enjoyed the art activities they had at the Mexican Fine Art Museum when we went last week. So we set up a table for the kids where you could decorate a skull and make a couple of ofrendas. Over at Secret Agent Josephine's blog I found this whimsical ofrenda download, so I printed some of those up. 

I went to the Dulcelandia store to get some cajeta lollipops and I noticed they had blank sugar skulls for sale. Blank as in you get to decorate them yourself. I was so excited when I saw them I let out a little yelp. I bought a box of 20 and the lollipops and smiled all the way home. For the party I made a super basic royal icing, dyed it different colors and set everything out.

It was messy going with the skulls but the kids dug it. I mean, come on--hyper-bright sugary icing stuck to your fingers which you have to lick off? Not such a bad deal. Plus, I put out these tiny gum drops which the kids used as little fetching hats and then popped a few in their mouths. 

 
Oh and we ate, how we ate! I made sopa de tortilla and picked up a couple dozen tamales down in Pilsen. My neighbor Beth brought an enormous bowl of guacamole, my friend Sarah brought a gorgeous bowl of brothy beans and my other neighbor Maria brought dozens of delicious chicken and green chile burritos (made with chiles we brought back from Colorado) and a wonderful bowl of Mexican red rice. It felt like an old fashioned neighborly pot luck, in the best way. We had good conversation, the kids were tearing around the house, we went back for seconds and we just got to hang out with each other. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. Exactly. 

 

dia de los muertos

I've been kind of stuck on what to post, what to say, really. I don't want this blog to be this morose, sad place and yet I don't think I am ready to totally switch gears and my tone and tell you about say, a really righteous doughnut experience or a cutesy craft I stumbled upon. But I think I found the perfect segue for where I am at . . . Dia de los Muertos. Day of the Dead is a day in Mexico and parts of Guatemala where you don't mourn the people in your life that have passed away, you celebrate them. It's a way to happily remember your loved ones and their favorite things. One way to celebrate them is to create an ofrenda, an alter where you put photos and momentos and little bits of foods and sweet things.

Last Wednesday I was feeling kind of lost and blue. It was a rainy, dreary day and I didn't have to work. I wasn't sure what to do with myself and then I remembered that at the Mexican Fine Arts Museum down in Pilsen, they sell sugar skulls right around Dia de lost Muertos. So I hopped in the car and first went and enjoyed a very large plate of chilaquiles at this funny family restaurant I like. And then, with a happy, warm belly I made my way over to the museum. The museum gift shop was buzzing with kids on a school field trip and sure enough, behind the main counter were sugar skulls in a super wide range of sizes--those as small as a gum ball to those bigger than a softball. I picked a medium size skull out, it was covered with bright candy colors I knew my mom would adore. I also picked out a couple of chocolate skull lollipops for the boys. I paid and was ready to head back home when then woman behind the counter said, "If you would like to have a name put on it, the Alvarez family is on the other room decorating the skulls."

I had forgotten, but yes, every year the museum brings a family from Mexico for Day of the Dead. They bring thousands of sugar skulls that have been painstakingly made in molds in Mexico. They are "bare" and then once they get to Chicago the family members start embellishing them with colorful frosting and bits of shiny foil and even simple sequins. And sure enough, in the next room, behind two tables covered with all sizes of sugar skulls was a couple, probably in their 70s if not older, and they were both quietly decorating skulls. I came to one end of the table and the man had me write down the name I wanted. Then he picked up a small plastic bag filled with pink icing and he slowly, somewhat shakily piped my mom's name on the skull. When he carefully and thoughtfully handed it back to me with such modesty and grace and just plain purpose, my whole day went from dreary and down to happy and bright. My Mom adored the folk art of Mexico, she surrounded herself with it and this was certainly a thriving, vibrant folk art being placed right in my two hands. I waited for the icing to dry and then slowly wrapped the skull in tissue paper. "Mom would love this," I thought to myself.

I left the museum, bought a sack of warm churros from a tiny old man standing out in front of the museum and ate one of them happily in the front seat of the car. I brought my Sally sugar skull home to my growing/evolving shrine for my mom. It is so her and wherever she is, she's loving it. I am grateful to have a concrete and celebratory "place" to channel my thoughts, emotions and memories. (By the way, I purchased the sweet little etched glass pedestal that the sugar skull sits on at the thrift store last week for 69 cents. In the spirit of Sally, of course!)

 

Tonight me and Ted and the boys are headed back down to the museum together ("juntos") as a family. They are hosting their Community Celebration of Dia de los Muertos. There will be music and crafts and snacks and alters made by local artists to view. It promises to be a bustling, bright and I hope, happy gathering.

thoughts

I must admit that I am feeling a little hesitant and a tad self-conscious with this post. Not sure what the tone of the post after I posted that my Mom passed away really ought to be. So I think I am going to just go with my gut on this one and try and be myself and share a tiny little sliver of the somethings happening in the last week or so.

Well, basically, it's an odd and relatively mundane thing that happens when someone you love very much dies. Life around you still goes on. The kids still need to be fed and bathed and you get a postcard that your Saveur subscription is just about over and dogs still bark out the window and dirty clothes pile up. Cars honk, leaves fall gloriously from the trees, you walk by a condo and you smell garlic simmering. The checkout person at the little produce shop gossips in Spanish to the checker on the other side of you as she scans your apples, pears and bananas. You get an email from school saying lice has appeared in a certain classroom. You try to make chocolate chip cookies and end up with puddles of oozing dough and try really hard not to cry because crying over chocolate cookies at this time would be really stupid. You walk to the bus and rejoice in it, you go to birthday parties and pumpkin patches and a harvest festival. You walk to school and kick leaves. Your son starts a list of how many decorated Halloween houses he see and is currently at 158. You curse someone in traffic since you are running late to a meeting and they are in your way. You eat lukewarm Ramen straight from the pot and it tastes superb. You do a late night run to Target for diapers and walk the aisles like you're in slow motion. You clip you nails on the bus even though you know you shouldn't.

But in the middle of all of these things . . . you get a card. Or twelve in one day. Or someone at work stops and puts their hand on your elbow and says how sorry they are. Or you walk into your neighborhood bookshop and they stop the registers, get off the phone and get off the computer to come hold you, tightly. All three of them. Your gorgeously sensitive husband with a terrible cold is fuzzily aware that you got up, packed lunches, changed diapers, filled cereal bowls and then takes one look at you and says, "It's okay to go back to bed." And you do. Your neighbor (that you want to know better) locks your gaze in the narrow hallway as you prepare to carve up pumpkins, hands you a foil-wrapped burrito and asks questions about the mom she never met. You get emails from across the globe and a call from a college friend driving to Fresno, CA and she didn't even know you were born there. People you know are extra kind to you and you feel it and you appreciate it on a level you never thought you would. And even though it is hard, you know it will get easier and you know you will be okay and you even know it's okay to miss someone like crazy.

And then you go and you buy a jar of hot fudge from Margie's, since your mother adored Margie's and was adamant that you should only ever have real hot fudge (not chocolate sauce!) on ice cream. And you put it on the dresser that was your mother's mother's, your Grandma Ruthie's. And you decide two things. To make a bit of a shrine to your mom, since you want to and you know she would love it. And also that you will leave the hot fudge on the shrine until your mom's birthday on November 6th and on that night the whole family (and maybe a few friends) will enjoy hot fudge sundaes. After a hearty but simple supper of really good soup and excellent bread and salty butter.

And so it is.

 

(Thanks for indulging the second person action, it was just easier that way.)

remembering

Thank you to everyone for all of the thoughtful kindness and sympathy you have sent my way. The cards, the emails, the phone calls, the food, the words of encouragement, the gifts in my mother's memory (such as five eucalyptus trees being planted in Australia) all of it has been so amazing.

Here is a link to her on-line obituary, a few of you have asked about it.

We will be hosting a memorial service on Sunday, October 25th at Syl and Lyle's farm. It will be a small-ish gathering and pretty simple in its essence. Mainly we just want to remember my mom and allow people to share their thoughts and emotions. 

I have started a list of things I do and want to remember about my mom. It's a very straightforward list at this point, like a laundry list. But it has been so good for me to keep it. For example, her never wavering love of butter. How she would tuck a spring of mint in her bikini top when we lived in Fresno. Polishing her white nurses shoes with white shoe polish for a quarter. Her ancient red wallet held together with a thick rubber band, the kind they use on broccoli at the supermarket.

It's just this quiet way for me to cope. But also to remember.

sally

My mom passed away last Tuesday, at about 8:30 in the morning with my brother Richard and my sister Jen at her side.

I might post more thoughts and images about this later, or maybe not. But just know that I think my mom's passing was just as it should be and we of the Tawse clan have been surrounded by tremendous support and kindness.

One thing I would like to share. I am so thankful that in the late afternoon on Tuesday when we were collectively full of so many different emotions and energy levels and just an awkward jumble of thoughts and feelings, we all headed to the Pueblo Nature Center on the Arkansas River.  And we just started throwing rocks in the water. My Mom told me about 15 years ago when we were up at the cabin in Beulah that when she was frustrated or scared or really ticked off, she'd go find some rocks and just toss them over and over. If she threw enough she might start thinking about the rocks and not the other thing on her mind. So we went to the river and we tossed rocks. We chucked them. We held them in our palms. We even smelled them (they smelled salty). We didn't say much. But then we started skipping them and we even had a bit of fun, trying to see who could get the most skips and find the flattest, rock for skipping. (I think my niece Em and my dad tied at seven.)

I am so glad we did. And I think my Mom, wherever she is, would be glad too.

7 for Sam

Sam turned seven today. Seven, it sounds and feels so lucky, such a good number.

Of course, a party was in order. We tossed it yesterday on our street no less since we got the permit for a block party. It was super urban and open and odd and just good. A few things needed to be organized to make it a real party.

Let's see . . . goody bag action? Check.

Vienna Beef Hot Dogs straight from the plant? Check.

Kids running in the street when the party really kicks into gear? Yep.

Snakes and turtles as the "surprise" guests? Yes, very much so.

A very large, delicious Calvin and Hobbes themed cake? No problem.

After the cake and the friends departed we went inside and Sam opened up some of his presents. It turned dark, Ted took Ben to bed.  Then we heard of few of the neighbor kids still out tearing around the street on their scooters and their parents laughing at a joke. I grabbed the bag of sparklers left over from the 4th and Sam and I headed back into the street, lit only by the street lamps. The other kids joined us and we closed the day with mini pyrotechnics and lots of whooping and hollering right on Glenwood Avenue.

And today, on Sam's actual birthday, we opened the rest of the presents and then he and I and his cousin Talia headed over to Welles Park to see the Midnight Circus perform. This was a pretty last minute plan, to hit the circus, we just found out about a few days ago. To quote a certain 7 year-old, "It was awesome!" 

I thought so too. We were laughing and beaming and cheering and just loving every minute of it. Clowns, jugglers, tight rope walking, lots of aerial acrobatics, goofy music. It was such a happy, simple way to wind down all the birthday action.

A party in the street, a circus in the park. Not too shabby. And very Chicago. Happy Birthday, Sam!

paris, pastures and pie

We flew to Colorado for a little party last weekend. It was my sister Syl's 50th and so a soiree was in order.

The theme for the party was "Paris" since that's where Syl wants to go next. We figured, if she couldn't get to Grand Paris for her birthday, why not bring a little Frenchie action to the farm?

If you're going to act French, you must don a beret. A black one, of course.

And you must have glasses of bubbly and kissing

and a basket of macarons . . . (with a petit Eiffel Tower tag).

And if you want to get extra fancypants extravagant, you will have a towering, gilded croque en bouche.

But if you are partying on the Pastures of Plenty farm and you are my sister, it doesn't matter where you are or how old you are turning, what you really must have at your party is pie. Not just one pie, but eight. Eight pies made with fruit grown on the same road you live on. Peach pie. Apple pie. Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Peach-Raspberry Pie. Pies made by your daughters and your neighbors and your best friends.

And two coconut creme pies made by 70-something Belle, who could bake blindfolded.

And then you drink your bubbly and eat grilled lamb and quail and get silly 

and then move the party in the house and dance so hard that the glasses rattle in the cupboards and the floor bounces. You dance until 2 am. And you fall into bed. And when you wake up, you have pie for breakfast. With a slice of cheese. Maybe even a little glass of champagne too.

At least, that's how we did it.

itchin'

banana peels
nail polish remover
Comet
baking soda
salt
bleach
jewelweed
Calamine lotion
honey
Vick's Vap-o Rub
eucalyptus oil
plantain leaves
watermelon rinds

Can you guess what's been going on in our casa this past week? We're not trying to concoct some sort of diabolical elixir or acting out Shel Silverstein's poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout. Nope. The list above is just a sampling of the different items I have applied to my inner forearms and Ted has slathered on his shins in an intense and at times completely pathetic battle with Poison Ivy.

Apparently the grape-like vine we were yanking out of a heavily weeded bed up in Michigan a few weekends ago wasn't grape at all but the evil, pernicious and insanely tenacious Poison Ivy. Maybe I should have suspected something when I wasn't seeing any grapes. Ahem.

We are humbled and we are desperate. I have reached out to friends who have dropped off remedies (jewelweed) and before you can say "thank you for driving out of your way to deliver me a zip loc baggie of jewelweed" I was mashing it up and slathering it on my arms. It helped, it pulled some of the poison out. But then it was all gone and I couldn't forage for any in my hood. So then I rubbed banana peels and watermelon rind on the horrid red bumps filled urushiol. (That's the poison oil that the plant rubs off on your skin and then causes all the horror on your sweet, unsuspecting epidermis.) When the banana peels and watermelon rinds didn't do much (but smelled nice) I rubbed salt and baking soda into my arms like a complete madwoman.

I have pleaded with co-workers, one of whom turned me on to Tecnu. It's pretty good stuff, despite its creepy origins--it was created by Dr. Robert Smith, a chemical engineer, in the early 1960s during the cold war years. The wash was originally intended as a waterless cleanser to remove nuclear fallout dust from skin and clothing for families' personal bomb shelters.  Because I applied it a week into my rash (as opposed to suggested first 2-3 hours of exposure) it didn't knock the evil rash out of the ball park but it did seem to mobilize it. Sort of. I mean, the yicky, itchy bumps aren't gone but are slightly less horrifying. Maybe I need to switch to Tecnu Extreme. I'd say things have gotten rather extreme around here. Maybe the fine folks at TecLabs need to come up with Tecnu Totally, Utterly Desperate. I'd be so all over that.

Oh, did I mention that we itch with a burning that seems kind of biblical? I'm not kidding. it's so crazy that I wouldn't be surprised if frogs started falling from the sky in about 22 minutes. I've actually been jealous of friends who were sidelined by lice last week. I mean, lice, big deal, you wash your hair and clothes with some nasty pesticide and in a few days, you're good to go. The way things are going around here, I'll still look like something between a sketchy junky chick and an escaped leper next weekend when we're in Colorado. (People have been taking one good look at my arms and giving me some really healthy personal space.) And I bet I'll still be itching!

Got any remedies? Ooooh, do let's us know. The removal of limbs isn't an option but has been considered. The one thing I am too scared to try is sandpaper. That's right, I read in one of my many, many internet searches, that you can take medium grade (not even fine grade!) sand paper and just sand away the blisters. Apparently we aren't the only desperate sufferers. But it sure feels like it right about now.

first day of first grade

Today Sam made the big transition to "upstairs" at his school, to a new classroom with new faces and all sorts of other firsts--including bringing a packed lunch and having a locker with a real combination. He is there now. I wish I could peek in a window and watch him. Here's few shots from this morning. I am a proud mama today, goofy giddy and a tiny bit anxious. Which, I think, is sort of how Sam felt at 8:15 am.

new hampshire

The boys and I are back from our NH adventure. We covered all the bases -- hitting the arcades and the drive-in movie theater at Weir's beach and then swimming in lakes and rivers up in the White Mountains. Kind of a nice blend of kitsch and Mama Nature.

The most fortuitous discovery of the entire trip was staying at the Boulders Motel on Little Squam Lake. It was built in the 40s and has these great little screened in porches overlooking the lake. Here's the view from our room.

There was a tiny little sandy beach and a raft you could swim out to and rocks you could clamor on. We found mussels and a crayfish and floating acorns. The temperature of the water was spot on.

In the morning there were homemade blueberry muffins, still warm and served with butter. After gobbling up our muffins we headed to the Squam Lakes Science & Nature Center where we saw mountain lions, bobcats, black bears, otters, deer and a slew of raptors. We will definitely be returning to this neck of the woods next year, but next time for more than one night. And with Ted along. (What were we thinking having him not come?)

Up at our friends' place in Bethlehem we enjoyed the local river: wading, swimming, looking for "cool" rocks, lazing in the sun, me and my friend Jen sitting on our towels, catching up.  Going to the river was my favorite part of that end of the trip. We liked it so much we went two days in a row.

I think Ben's favorite part of the trip was feeding Shaun's chickens every morning. We'd run down to their funny pen and Ben would take one bite of the bread and then toss a piece at the clucking hens. "Kickens!" he'd holler. "Here kickens!"

Speaking of being fed, it wouldn't be a trip to New England without scoring a lobster roll. I had this my  first night at a roadside shack with a very large neon lobster.  I could have easily eaten two but I didn't. (But I wanted to.)I pulled off the insipid tomato and iceberg lettuce bits. When you only eat one lobster roll a year, you don't want it sullied by anything that's well, not lobster.

If you're feeling a little tinge of envy at our New England bliss, let me tell you, it wasn't all sunshine and shellfish. I managed to get a speeding ticket (my first ever!) as we were headed to the airport on the last day and the fine itself would buy a round trip ticket to any lovely North American city. And since the combined edge and drag of getting a super high price ticket wasn't enough, I also managed to (ugh, I am so loathe to admit this, it is just so stupid) run out of gas about 30 minutes later. (My first time ever running out of gas!) Oh well, I had the dumb luck or the grace of some higher power to have a Fish & Wildlife guy pull up right behind me as the engine cut out. So we had gas back in our tank in no time and were back on I-93, headed back home and back to reality.

And here we are. Back in Chicago. Happy to be back with Ted but sort of stunned to be back where work and a routine and a lack of rivers and chickens and lobster shacks is still a little noticeable. We have exactly nine days left before school starts. Let's see how we do.

Up North (and east)

Guest Blogging: Ted Grossman   

Hey there folks -- bonnie and the boys are in New Hampshire and having a total blast. This is a partial rundown on their adventures: went to old fashioned arcade at Weir's beach where sam struck triple 7s and got a lot of coin; ate lobster rolls; saw a mountain lion at the nature center; and went swimming in the golden pond from the golden pond movie. Now they are with Jen and Sean and Calvin in Bethlehem.

For some stupid reason I am here. We can't remember why this trip was planned without me, maybe it had to do with work. Ugh.
 Bonnie will fill you in when she gets back. Hopefully the house will be clean.

block party!

We spent the weekend tootling around on our bikes.

We hit the lake pre-Air and Water Show and marveled at the diversity of grilling meats, even at 10:30 am. We hit a garage sale of a guy who used to own a shop full of collectible action figures. Actually, we went to his sale twice. And then we went over to a Block Party a friend had invited us to.

I'd never really been exposed to any block club party action in my youth in California, I mean where they block off the street with the wooden saw horses and set up one of those bouncy things. I guess this is a Chicago thing? Or maybe it's a Mid-West thing? I've walked by them for years here in Andersonville, but I'd never actually been to one. Other than a wide open street, a bouncy thing and some hot dogs, I really didn't know what to expect.

The first thing Sam did after eating two helpings of free "old-fashioned" popcorn was to go straight into the bouncy house.

Yeah I know, shudder. But they love those things. Something about being hot and sweaty and having a stomach full of pop and salty snacks and bouncing every which way, just makes them deliriously happy. Well, it seems to work that way for most kids. Ben was completely mortified of it in one of those "irrational fears" kind of way and I was fine with him keeping his distance on it. So he found a Stomp Rocket and watched the foamy rockets go shooting up to the sky.

And then he found the Corn Hole game. This has been huge around our parts the past few summers, do you know of it? Our neighbors play it for hours. It makes quite an impressive THWUMP when the bag lands in the hole. Ben played for about 7 minutes. He also opted out of drinking a beer while doing so, which seems to be part of its charm--or at least for our neighbors and every other grown man I've ever seen playing it.

Sam then got to ride in a Go Kart, he was in heaven and it actually zipped around pretty darn fast, fast enough to slide his chin strap up to his little nose.

In addition to all this kiddie action, there were quite a few families gathering at our friends house and there was pop and beer and wine and chips and guacamole, we sat around talking about going back to school and what sort of trips we took this summer, how to rig your bike up to haul your kids and which classroom are kids would be in. If you didn't have kids it would have been shockingly boring I am sure, but we all did and it was just the kind of thing to happily chatter away about. 

We had brats and burgers and salad. I brought a green bean salad. I really did. It was the first one in months and this was a pretty new crowd for me, so I think I was safe. The boys were munching on Doritos and hot dogs, Sam was sucking down a can of Coke, giddy and covered with orange cheese fuzz. As if all this debauchery wasn't enough, someone hollered that there was a pinata filled with candy, waiting to be to pummeled. And pummeled it was. More candy came out of that thing than seemed possible. Sam filled a beer cup with candy and popped a neon purple Laffy Taffy hunk into his mouth.

The sun was starting to go down. Ben found a sprinkler and tore his clothes off, leapt around in his tired diaper. Sam and a posse of boys showed up with those giant Nerf guns that shoot foamy bullets. And then disappeared to terrorize some girls in front of the house with the popcorn machine. We were just about to pack up when Judy informed us that we couldn't go just yet. There was the cookie relay and the balloon toss yet to come. I wasn't quite sure what the cookie relay was, so I asked. A cookie relay is when two or three teams line up, they each send a person down to a table and each person has to take a big bite of cookie and chew it and swallow it. They can't turn around and run away until all of the cookie has been swallowed. There is a cookie-swallowing referee standing there to make certain you chew and swallow all of your cookie. All of the Dads were kicked out of their soccer chairs and ordered to participate. It was totally sexist. I loved it. Here's Ted working hard for his team.

The first team to eat the entire cookie wins the relay. It was a good three minutes into the relay race and there was this much cookie action left.

The dads were looking winded and kind of urpy. The kids were looking sweaty and crazed. We (the moms) made the executive decision to make the cookies smaller, much smaller so the relay would end sooner. (This was done by each Mom being given an obscenely huge chunk of cookie to then eat herself. We had to -- we were protecting our kids! And our husbands!)

All I know is Sam's team came in second and nobody threw up.

We ended with a balloon toss. A balloon toss that just involved balloons and water. Hurray. It ended quickly and managed to wash off some of the chocolate smears on some of the kids' faces.

We packed up our stuff, sweaty and dirty and happy to have been invited. "That was awesome!" is what Sam hollered as we climbed aboard our bikes. It was awesome. It's awesome that neighbors block off a street so that they can sit in front of their houses and watch their kids have a blast running around on a street that is normally totally off limits. It was awesome to watch kids making instant friends. It was awesome to come together around something simple like burgers and brats and chips and enjoy the conversation.

I am still with Ben, I don't care much for the Bouncy House. But I think hitting a block party once a year seems like a fabulous summer tradition. Heck, I might even look into throwing one of our own in 2010.

everything's just . . .

 . . . peachy!

Well, at least it was this past weekend and even into lunch today. You see, we headed up to Michigan for a quick weekend stay along the lake with our friend Jonny. Lots of digging in the sand and collecting rocks and swimming. (Sound familiar?) On Saturday, while Ben was napping (and maybe Ted too) Sam and I sneaked off for a little treat in Coloma, at the local Dairy Queen. Now normally, I would avoid a chain ice cream joint and seek out the Mom and Pop ice cream shop. But here's the deal: the DQ in Coloma is the Mom and Pop ice cream spot and it employs pretty high school girls who keep the little patio area with picnic tables under a bright red awning spotlessly clean.  In the middle of the day, when it's just too scorching to be at the beach but you want to do something after lunch, going for a soft serve cone at the Coloma DQ strikes me as a perfectly civilized outing. Sam thinks so as well.

We got into town and immediately noticed there was some sort of festival on the main "drag," the streets were blocked off and there were lots of white small tents and people were coming and going with babies in strollers and kids carrying balloons or stuffed animals. When we turned past the Lutheran Church we saw a big banner proclaiming that Peach Pulled Pork sandwiches were for sale as well as homemade peach pie, whole or by the slice. You can only imagine what I wanted to do. (Make that "errrrrrrrr" sound of brakes being slammed and a car turning around.) But it was super hot and we'd already had lunch and I knew Jonny was making a gorgeous-sounding buttermilk cake with mascarpone and sherried berries to have after supper that night. So it just wasn't in the cards. I did hover with the Volvo, oh I certainly did, I pulled up and checked out the church ladies and the smoke coming from the pit. Sam even asked, "Why are we sitting here in front of this church?" I think I mumbled something along lines of, "I just--pork . . . peach pie, I mean, oh no, we can't, right, Dairy Queen, sigh."

We went down all of one block and pulled into the DQ (which Sam kept calling the "DK" which I found rather amusing). We walked up and I noticed a little sign to the left of the tiny window where you order your treats, it said, "Peach Specials for the Festival" and listed a Peach Sundae, a Peach Shake, a Peach Blizzard and a Peach Smoothie. "What is the festival?" I asked. "Oh, it's the Glad-Peach Festival" the tanned 16 year-old with impressively applied green eye shadow informed me. "Here, take a flier, it's lots of fun!" So Sam ordered a twist cone (that's half chocolate, half vanilla for those of you who don't partake in DQ soft-serve action) and I opted for the kids' serving of the Peach Sundae. I was a little worried that it would be canned peaches and I loathe them, they make me shudder. So I outright asked, "Are the peaches fresh?" And the lovely green eye-shadowed gal in the window told me, "Oh yes, I mean, sort of, well, we sliced them here but we tossed them in a really light mixture of water and sugar so that it's kind of like a topping for a sundae." What the heck, I thought, if this is the closest I am going to get to the Glad'Peach Fest I might as well give it a shot.

It was exactly as she described, fresh peaches that had been tossed in a super simple syrup. The peaches were still juicy and the syrup was very light. Sitting on the hyper-fluffy soft serve ice cream on such a hot day, it was perfect. I mean it, it was actually refreshing (as opposed to having the ice cream topped with hot fudge or caramel). I couldn't have ordered a more perfect thing for me at that moment in Coloma on a hot August day. Lesson to self? Don't be a snob about something like soft serve (which I like immensely anyhow) because sometimes it can be taken to another level with something as transforming as local summer peaches.

Loving the peaches and the spirit of the festival, I still did not know what the "Glad" in the "Glad-Peach Festival" stood for. Are people extra happy eating all these locally grown peaches? Then I was taking a picture of Sam and noticed a riotous bouquet of gladiolas sitting in a bucket at the DQ, just inches from the trash can and the water fountain.

Oh, so there you go, it's a celebration of Gladiolas and Peaches! It turns out that they have been celebrating the gladiolas and peaches of Coloma a very long time, according to the brochure for the event, Coloma turned 175 this year. Huzzah!

So we went back to Jonny's but I was all jacked up about peaches. I really wanted to go pick some but it just wasn't in the cards.The weather was pretty freaky the next morning, super hot and insanely windy. So what's a girl to do who can't pick peaches? She goes and finds a farmer selling them in his front yard.

This is Walt Johnson, his farm is a stone's throw from my in-laws' place on Spring Hill Road. He grows his own peaches and his wife hand writes the little tags that tell you the price and the variety. He was wearing a tattered old cap that had a peach on it and it said "Orchardist."  He seemed pretty hard of hearing since he didn't look up at all when I pulled into their gravel driveway. I was smitten with him and his peaches and his red tent and brown slacks almost immediately.

"Where you from?" he asked me jovially. "Chicago," I said. "Ah good. Good. Glad you found me."  Just so you know, this was not some desperate roadside operation. I think Walt has a steady flow of business from the ladies, both local and of the Chicago kind who buy a whole bushel of peaches to can or freeze or just gobble up. Two were just in front of me when I pulled up and another was on her way.  I actually only had $7 in bills and then I scrounged up another two bucks in quarter and dimes and nickels and them Walt just told me to stop fussing to make the $10 price for the small box. And so I did.

 

We trucked Walt's peaches back to Chicago. I put a half dozen of them in the fridge, which I was hesitant to do, but with the heat I was worried I'd wake up to deflated, mushy balls. The next day Ben opened the fridge and said, "I want that one!" I handed it to him and he took care of the rest. The same happened last night for Sam and then it was repeated again this morning for all of us.

Like I said, everything's just peachy around here and hopefully it will be for a few more days.

just add water

If you have three boys on a rainy summer day with a beautiful big back yard just begging to be played in, why not have a water fight? As Sam said way back at the beginning of the summer when we got caught in the first balmy rain of the season, "C'mon, Mom, it's just water."   He's right . . . but then again, sometimes it can be so much more.

salad days (the real kind)

Sometimes things just fall in place in a simple but fortuitous kind of way. In the past few days, things fell together in a totally kismet way around the making of a salad. Yes, a salad.

It all started Wednesday afternoon. Sam had a play date with his friend Gabriel and when it was done, we drove Gabe back to his house. Gabe's mom met us out front and asked if I would like to take home some fresh eggs and veggies. Their house is the neighborhood pick-up spot for a CSA and apparently a few people couldn't make it to pick up their shares of eggs and veggies this week. I said, "Of course, I'd love to!" And while the children buzzed around the back yard, I held a bag that was generously loaded up with fennel, red cabbage, a head of red leaf lettuce, a pound of green beans, red onion, chives, sage and two dozen brown eggs. When a super easy play date ends in two happy 6 year-olds and a bounty of produce and eggs on my end, that's a winner. Plus, I knew I needed to make a salad for an al fresco birthday gathering we would be heading to the next night at Millennium Park. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make, but I knew I could incorporate at least a few of the items that were tucked snugly in the bag.

I had to work the next day, including doing a field trip for a dozen 7th graders from a gardening club. The volunteer who was helping me out, she and I have clicked on so many levels in the past few months (she's from the Central Valley in California, as am I,  she's a writer, she is an amateur birder). So after the field trip was over we got to talking about how we were both going to the concert in the park that night and how we needed to throw together some sort of an easy salad. "I guess I can make my green bean salad," I told her, "but I feel like I have been making that for every outdoor picnic and party I've been to the the last two years." It's true. I still like it, but dang, I wonder if my friends are doing the eye roll when I come walking up -- there she is with that green bean salad. (Actually, my friends are much too nice to do such a thing but the truth is, I have been in a green bean salad rut.) She told me about this article Mark Bittman "The Minimalist" wrote in the New York Times last week, 101 Simple Salads. I am somewhat of a geeky Mark Bittman fan. I adore how he makes things so straightforward while still providing inspiration. I came home, Googled his piece, found it and just loved it. It really is a listing of 101 recipes for salads. Amazing.

I actually spent so much time enjoying the article and all the recipes (I confess I didn't read all 101) that I almost spaced that I had my own simple salad of my own to make for our friend John's party. 

I reached for the green beans . . . and I looked at them intently and put them back. Sorry green beans, I whispered in my head, I adore you and you always deliver the goods but it's time for me to stretch my simple salad making muscles a bit.

I knew I had to use the fennel, because it was fresh and I love fennel. Especially raw fennel. But I have to tell you something. I stood there with the gorgeous baby fennel in front of me, on the chopping board, and I realized  . . . I had never before cut or chopped fennel before.  When we have had fennel at home, Ted has always prepared it. But I had read enough to know to tear off the outer layers and then cut around the tough core. I cut it pretty coarsely and tossed it into the bowl. There, I had fennel, sliced. I had the basis for a salad. What to add now? What would Mark Bittman do? I sliced up the sweet little red onion, very thinly and threw that in. I don't like too much onion in any of my salads since I feel like they totally overwhelm the taste of it all, but a little bit can go a long way.  I remembered I had half a red pepper in the fridge, so I got that and sliced it as thin as a girl with not such a great knife can. I feel the same way about bell peppers as I do about raw onion. Be judicious. I then grabbed a can of cannelini beans from the cupboard, rinsed them and then threw them in the bowl. Any kind of a bean adds a little creaminess and chewiness that is welcome in a cold salad. Hmmmm. It was starting to look like salad. It just needed a little more color (in my humble opinion) and a little texture.

I remembered the red cabbage and wondered if I would be completely mucking it up if I threw some of that in there. My limited experience is that people are totally divided when it comes to cooked cabbage of any kind, but the raw shredded stuff isn't so freaky to people, I figured I could toss a bit in if I didn't go overboard. So I did just that. I cut some of the fennel fronds into the mix, put more salt and pepper than you would like to know about and drizzled it with olive oil, tossed that around and then drizzled it with a little bit of homemade vinaigrette. I let it sit in the fridge for about an hour before the party. Which is what these sort of salads like to do. They like to sit and settle in and mingle with the other ingredients and the oil and just meld and have time to blend and relax. Before they (hopefully) get devoured.

I thought about tossing tuna in at the last minute. Ditto for bacon. (Both of which I had in my fridge.) But I didn't, I just brought it like it was.

It wasn't the world's most gorgeous salad, I should have cut the fennel a bit thinner and I wished I'd had some flat leaf parsley on hand to brighten up the color a bit more.  Regardless, I think I had an audience with a pretty adventurous palate, because it got completely gobbled up, there was only one lonely little bean left at the bottom of the bowl as we cleaned up in a misty, drizzly rain that was not unpleasant at all. (It was a lovely party, the kids were in heaven running on the Great Green Lawn and the grown-ups enjoying the music in the background and the conversation.)

I don't know what Mark Bittman would think, but I know that I am thrilled that I used seasonal produce (except for that bell pepper) that came my way in a happy and unexpected manner and that I relied on instinct and not a recipe to toss a bunch of ingredients together.  You might be thinking, "What's the big deal? You made a salad?" but I am not super intuitive when it comes to preparing food. I tend to stick with old stand-bys (hello green beans salad!) that were almost always recipe-driven. But this time, I just opened the fridge without looking at any recipe or cookbook at all and created something. It was surprisingly satisfying. And heck, I think it tasted pretty good to boot. Hmmm what's next? Playing with kale? I'll keep you in (what I hope continues to be) the spontaneous salad making loop!

procrastination, paint and pickles

If you don't already know this about me, long-term projects that require multiple steps and some degree of patience aren't my strength. Not by a long shot. I got this gene from my father where we like to start things . . . but not necessarily finish them. Knitting and sewing? Not so much. Baking bread? I want to do it but I always get scared off by the rising and repeating and coming back in a few hours or waiting overnight. Now, whipping up a batch of scones or throwing together a salad? Much more my speed.

Back in May my buddy Sean gave us this super great wooden chair that his kids had used when they were no longer into sitting in a high chair but still too little to sit in a grown-up size seat. It is the perfect height, it wraps around so they are sort of enclosed but you don't have to deal with a tray or straps or anything. It is basically the perfect transition chair for a toddler. Ben instantly fell in love with it, proclaiming it "Ben chair! Ben chair!" Hoorah for Sean.

Then, sometime in mid-May I got this notion in my head that Ben's chair would be even more fabulous if I painted it a really raucous bright color. So I went to the paint store on Clark Street and I bought some sand paper and grabbed a handful of paint chips in different shades of orange. Yes, orange. I came home, sanded the chair to the best of my ability i.e. not so superbly and then showed Ben, Sam and Ted the paint chips and let them pick the color. We ended up going with Benjamin Moore's "Tangy Orange" which is exactly what I was looking for -- tangy.

The following week Ted went out and purchased the paint and some primer. And I'd say maybe a week later I got around to primering it. (Is that even a verb?)

The primer was of the super fast drying variety which meant that technically I could have started slapping on the Tangy Orange the next day. But did I? Of course not. The next week, maybe? Negative. For a month and a half I walked by the sweet little chair, looking awkward in its not-quite-finished-ness there on our back walkway. Every time I saw it I didn't feel inspired to act, to complete the project I'd started. I just felt guilty. And so it went.

Until last Friday when I decided, after walking once again past the chair as I took out the garbage (and wincing) I had no choice but to release the Tangy Orange albatross from my procrastinating neck. And so while Ben was napping I begrudgingly applied the first coat. And you know, painting when it is very quiet and the weather is damn near perfect is an exceedingly pleasant thing to do. Really. By the time I had the whole thing painted I was rather relaxed.

The following afternoon I applied the second layer of paint whilst Ted and I tried to hash out plans for the rest of the summer.  (I likes me a project that can handle some multi-tasking!) I put it out to dry and actually kept peeking at it like you do with a cake in the oven. And this morning Ben sat in his safety orange "tangy" chair and happily gobbled up his bagel. "This is Ben's chair," he said to his brother. Sigh. It took me so long to paint the chair that Ben's speech has improved since he first sat on it. Oh well, I love it, I love the wild color and I must say, I am pleased with myself for finishing it.

And so today, while Ben was napping, the plan was to make some pizza dough. I went to find my dough recipe in my bulging recipe folder and came across another recipe I clipped this fall when my friend Rachel had given me a stack of fun magazines to read. It's three different recipes for refrigerator pickles. I noticed one was for radishes and I remembered that I had a bowl of home-grown radishes in the fridge that a co-worker gave me on Friday and if I didn't do something with them soon they were going to go all rubbery. And gifted lovely vegetables that go all rubbery also make me feel quite guilty. So I decided to hold off on the pizza dough action and opt for pickled radishes instead.

Wow, talk about easy-peasy. It's just salt, vinegar, sugar, a few herbs and of course, the radishes. The entire process took 30 minutes. And now I have this charming little jar of soon-to-be-pickled radishes sitting in my fridge. (And I tapped away that little air bubble that's floating in the shot below.) So I guess you can say I procrastinated on the pizza dough, but in this case, I am glad I did. Next up I am going to try pickling some beets and caulifower. I'll get around to making the pizza dough at some point. Just ask the Tangy Orange chair.

Mr. Cornell

All that talk about making shadow boxes immediately reminds me of Joseph Cornell. Sigh, Joseph Cornell and his heartbreaking, beautiful boxes. They have quite a collection of them at the Art Institute. The first time I ever went to the Art Institute was with Ted--we were dating--I came to Chicago for a week to visit. I would have been around 26 years old. Anyhow, I was rather overwhelmed by all the over-the-top Super Famous Paintings in the museum but when we entered the little room with the Joseph Cornell boxes, might heart opened up in a very specific manner and I stayed there gazing at them for a very long time. And for years, whenever I would go to the Art Institute, I always made a point to go to the little room up on the second floor and say hullo to his magical boxes.  I haven't been to see them in ages. And now with the Modern Wing open and things moved every which way, it might be tricky to find them. But I think I owe them a visit.

Here are a few of my favorites.

p.s. . . . here's a nice bio on Joseph Cornell and this is a pretty great book to introduce kids to his art as well as inspire them to create their own boxes. 

the days are just packed

I have one boy napping and another boy home sick with a fever. Plans have been tossed aside, play dates rescheduled and a little nest has been made for soft, quiet time. A cup of chamomile tea and a dog-eared copy of Calvin and Hobbes seem to be helping make it all feel a little bit better.

I took advantage of the especially still house to catch up on a little bit of work, some correspondence and poke around a bit on the internet. I came across a post over on Design*Sponge about this place in New York called Moomah. It's an art space with classes for kids, plus it has a yummy sounding cafe and sprinkled throughout the space are all these amazing, thoughtful touches . . . not to sound all dorky country cousin, but we don't have anything like this here in Chicago. Check out all the gorgeous images of the space here. I want to pack up my kids (well, when they are no longer ill) get on a plane and go make some inspired crafts while sipping lemonade and just soak in the playful energy.

 

Actually, Moomah did light a little fire under my glued-to-the-computer-while-my-kids-sleep posterior. I saw these pictures of their shadow boxes . . .

 

 . . . and remembered that for years I have wanted to host a little gathering with friends where we make our own shadow boxes. I even toyed with doing just that for my birthday this past May but decided going to pizza would be a whole lot easier. But now I am going to do it. This September I am going to host a Shadow Boxing party. I will keep you posted. Thanks Moomah, I will get to you one day soon. For now, I have two boys to check in on (and a little arty gathering of my own to put together).

playing with paper

I was invited to participate in the Art Institute's "Kaleidoscope" family event this past Saturday. The museum was free to families for the entire day and sprinkled throughout (which now feels like two museums with the addition of the Modern Wing) were stations where families could make art or watch dance or listen to music.

The challenge with these "make and take" art activities (for me, anyway) is they need to be affordable in terms of materials, they need to be quick and appeal to a super wide variety of ages and they should make someone want to stop and spend a little time to play/create. Oh, and for me wearing my Lurie Garden hat, whatever I come up with has to have some sort of connection to the garden.

I would like to tell you that in preparation for these sorts of events I spend uninterrupted, Zen-like time at my desk coming up with so many ideas that it's almost impossible to choose. But if I did that, I would be fibbing. What I tend to do is wait until a week or two before the event and rack my brain for something unique, cheap, compelling, fast and garden-related. Sometimes I look around my house and my cube and see what I've got in terms of materials and let that be my inspiration. Sometimes I borrow ideas I have seen at other events or in books or magazines and tweak it just so to fit a particular event's theme. Sometimes I call or email friends/former colleagues in a mild panic and beg them to toss a good idea my way.

For this one, I looked under my desk saw a box overflowing with colorful but outdated postcards and brochures and magazines. I also knew I had my stash of overstock Binth cards and boxes that they had donated to me last fall. I then started thinking about flowers, since the garden is just popping with flowers right now.  I remembered these cool flower pins my friend Sarah makes as part of her ScrappyNation line.

She takes fabrics with different prints and textures and she cuts them in a variety of shapes and stacks them up and brings them all together with a fun button sewn in the center. Hmmmmm, I thought, maybe I can riff on that using recycled papers and those brass fasteners (also known as "brads")?

I made a mock-up at my desk and thought it looked pretty good. And realized all I would need to buy would be some brads, nice and easy on the teeny tiny materials budget I have. And what's not love about re-purposing colorful papers that would otherwise be sent to the recycling bin? And so that's the project I brought to the event on Saturday.  We put tons of different papers on the table, as well as some of those giant hole punches in flower shapes. We also put out scissors, glue, markers and brads.

I had an intern helping me with the set up, she made this as an example for the families.

Slowly the families arrived. This one little guy stayed at the table for more than 30 minutes, he was enjoying the cutting of the paper and gluing it very much.

Another young lady went mad with the brads. It made me think of 4th of July fireworks in the sky.

One Mom took a couple of Binth notecards that said "You're Invited" on the front, and she covered them up with flowers she hole-punched out of a different postcard.

Another Mom made this over-the-top gorgeous flower. Amazing. (Call Martha Stewart Living!) This is her daughter holding it, she was too shy to let me take her photo.

I love that people were going off in their own direction, playing with the materials on hand, having a good time. In my humble, non-artist opinion, that's how it ought to be. Keep it open-ended and relaxed and totally open to any sort of interpretation and inspiration.

Anyhow, it got pretty slow for the last 2 hours of the event, so I started checking out what the other folks were doing. The Chicago Childrens Museum was to my left and they were making these sweet little accordion notebooks that you hung around your neck. More floral action, love it.

When I was packing up I thought, hmmm, maybe we could make our own little garden books, accordion-style but rather than going and buying Kraft paper, we could use some of those Binth cards?

So today while Ben was napping I played around a bit.

I cut one of their "Sorry" cards in two. Voila, I now have the two sides needed to create a simple book.

Then I took a blank 8.5 x 11 piece of white copy paper, tore it in half length-wise and taped these two longs strips together so that I would have a nice long piece of paper to fold accordion-style for the inside.

I glued the paper to the front and the back pieces.

Ironically, all of my supplies from the weekend were out in the car, so I didn't have any fun hole punch shapes or brads or anything. I found a sticker in my label stash and placed it right where it said "Sorry."

But I thought the color of the sticker didn't really jive, so I pulled it off and put a fuzzy heart left over from the Valentine Cards we made.

I am not super crazy about the heart but I think this little accordion book has legs. I could see a flower on the front or a simple circle with a person's name on it. You know, Sam's birthday is in two months and how cool would it be for each kid to help make one and get to decorate it, take it home? Or these could be like mini-adventure journals, say if we go on a trip to Colorado . . . Sam could fill it with drawings and glue in little mementos. I need to keep playing. Playing with paper. Well, shoot, maybe it can be Zen-like, this playing with paper and thinking about future projects. Maybe it's all about doing it when the timing is right and not trying to cram it in a week prior. I think this concept has legs too. Playing to create instead of cramming to create. Yes.

city kids

After a long, happy nature-soaked weekend like the one we had up in Michigan over the 4th, I sometimes wonder if we should just do a complete life switcheroo and buy a little house in a tiny town, with a little creek in the back or a patch of beach nearby and no sidewalks and just become a country family.

And so it seems that the gods of urban dwelling were listening to my fanciful and somewhat naive (although I did spend much of my upbringing in small rural communities) thoughts and wanted to remind me of all the treasures that can be found right here in the Big City. Or the Second City.

Saturday we spent most of the day on the bikes and then ended the day at the beach. I think Saturday needs to become "Supper on the Beach Day" from now until September.

Sunday we were invited to a movie to help raise funds and awareness for a food pantry garden my friend Sarah is masterminding. It was still too sunny at 6 pm to watch the movie outside, so we moved it into the church gym, sat on the floor and munched on free popcorn while watching Wall-E.  Everybody loved it so much that there is now talk of doing this once a month. We will certainly be back for more if it happens again. (I have figured out that I like the down-home community action that often happens in smaller churches. I like the chili suppers and the White Elephants and the bake sales. Too bad I have no desire to go to church on Sunday.)

Monday morning we were in another church, this time in the basement. Ben and I have been taking a Musikgarten music and movement class for the past few weeks. Ben loves the instruments and when we get to "dance" with scarves and he also like banging the big drum that Miss Amy brings out. I am not so good at the signing the kids up for structured activities and classes (I doubt that my children will ever be "over-programmed") but I am so thrilled that Ben and I are doing it. It's totally our special thing. We ride the bike over, go down the stairs, see our class pals, make music and march around in circles and then come up, go right across the street and play in the park until we get hungry. Not a bad way to spend a Monday morning.

And then last night, we kept the music appreciation going until the sun went down. We headed to Millennium Park for a special tribute to Shel Silverstein, aptly called a "Shelebration."

Poems were read, songs were sung and we ended the performance sort of dancing and romping and tossing a ball around while the Unicorn Song was belted out. We stayed out much later than maybe we ought to have. But I think it was worth it. I am pretty sure my kids thought it was worth it.

So I think we're going to hold off on fleeing to the country. There's just too many fabulous and magical things to do right here.