Saturday, May 31, 2014

When Life Hands You Lemons

If I were forced to give up every fruit in the world but one I would have absolutely no trouble choosing.  The lemon wins, hands down.
The lemon is the workhorse of the food world: dependable, versatile, and available all year round.  You can preserve it in salt, as the Moroccans do, and stuff your chicken with it, or you can stick it into a suet crust surrounded by butter, as the British do.  You can dice it up and put it into a salad with red onion and Italian parsley.  You can make lemon cookies, lemon cake, lemon icing, lemonade (hot or cold), lemon flip, and lemon rice pudding. 
"Lemons and Limes"  More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin


While I'm more a fan of limes, lemons were in the fridge and just called out to be made into Coconut Lime Bars.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Overheard

Jonathan:  "God is like a red blood cell."
Me:  "Really? How's that?"
Jonathan:  "He protects us."
 
~ ~ ~
 
Andrew:  Sometimes it just seems that parents forget what it was like to be a kid.
 
~ ~ ~
 
Stephen crawled into the kitchen with an injured foot.  Busily prepping a(nother) meal, I made some remark of pity.  He replied, "You said that like you didn't really mean it.  You sounded like you do when Josie has an invisible injury and you tell her to get a bandaid."
 
 

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Pantry Love


"Oh, I just love to clean pantries," Donna said.  The two girls held hands and ran across the lawn toward the Hollister house.  
The pantry was a large walk-in closet entered by a door in the kitchen.  It was bright and cheerful, having a window high on the outside wall. 
Shelf after shelf was covered with red and white paper, and on them were stacked neat rows of canned goods, spices, bottles of ketchup, maple sugar, and other good things to eat.  On the bottom one stood yellow canisters of flour and sugar.
"This will be fun to clean," Donna said as the three girls surveyed their chore.
The Happy Hollisters and the Sea Turtle Mystery by Jerry West
 
Via

Via
Via
Oh, how I love an organized pantry!  Aside from the beauty of clean and neat, I think it conjures warm memories of my childhood.  One grandmother had a walk-in room off her kitchen which housed neat rows of cans and jars (and an ample supply of Little Debbie treats!).  My other grandmother had a basement kitchen for her canning, and there was a storage room brimming with jars of apples, beans, tomatoes, and my grandfather's attempts at wine.  At home, I loved to sort and rearrange our own small walk-in pantry (I think my mom appreciated it?!).

But my favorite kitchen of all was an old house belonging to one of my teachers.  As a child, the ceilings seemed to soar.  A bank of windows brought a flood of light into the room.  Cabinets opened to reveal of myriad of shelves for storage.  But it all paled in comparison to the jewel: a butler's pantry!  This darling room was accessed through swinging doors and had lovely rows of cabinets for china, silver and much, much more!

Sadly, I don't have a pantry. I do have a coat-closet-turned-food-storage, but it doesn't function well in the capacity of pantry mostly due to the fact that it is too deep (pantries should be 12-18" MAX). 

But this girl can continue to dream of those organized shelves filled with food stuffs to feed a small army of hungry children.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Katherine at Ten Months

Ten shots at ten months 'cause I can't get enough of this girl.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Don't be alarmed by the tear: it was not induced by our photo session but rather from her alerting us to the fact that naptime was over (I thought it was too cute to wipe away).

Monday, May 12, 2014

Digging Out


School has officially wrapped up, and now it's time to deal with the neglected aspects of life
(namely purging, organizing, planning, cleaning, and planting).

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Friday, May 9, 2014

National Public Garden Day

As a field trip to put the closing marks on our school year, we traveled to the Huntsville Botanical Garden.
 
 
There was special Alice in Wonderland exhibit for the summer, and despite the rain and drizzle, the kids had a fabulous time exploring the rabbit hole, Mad Hatter's tea party and other activities based on the book.
 
 
 
Aside from the special exhibit, the garden is huge and lush with lots of delightful paths and themed gardens, with treats around each corner.
 
Miniature town with working train
Lovely water features
Argh, mateys, a pirate ship!
Large water features with small paths to make a mother very nervous
 
Creative garden art
This mother protected her eggs from hoardes of school children
 While most gardens, in my opinion, seem more suited to ladies of a certain age, this one was well thought out in terms of engaging children as well. 
 
 
One section was dedicate to children alone with eight or so themed gardens within, most of which had some kind of interactive water feature.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But the highlight was the butterfly garden, a building that houses turtles, frogs, fish and butterflies.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Despite the nasty weather (and the fact that I was feverish and under the weather), I'm glad we went.
 
 
 
 
It was a fun little day trip.