DEMO! How to Slice an Apple

I had a few friends over about a week ago for an evening of playing with Salt Dough - inspired by Sister Diane's clay podcast. We were having a good time, needing a snack, and I started to cut up some apple slices.


Simple, right?


That's what I thought. I cut it in half, sliced out the stem on the top and the stubby bit on the bottom. And then my friends started looking at me funny.


Because I pulled out the melon baller. This is the way my mom always did it. I knew not everybody did it this way, but I didn't think it was as weird as my gasping, staring, stunned-into-silence* friends seemed to think.


I use the melon baller - like my mother before me - to scoop out the seeds. It leaves perfectly concave centers and sets the stage for lovely little slices of apple-ness.


Served with peanut butter (the kind that made it through the recall unscathed) it's super yummy and looks so good.

Yup, I can't even eat apples anymore without slicing them up like this. Sad isn't it?



*(I exaggerate for effect.)

Wasting Time in the Kitchen

Ok, maybe I'm being a little hard on myself with all of this wasting time stuff. Everyone needs to eat, and everyone needs a little down time. The last three weeks have been crazy busy, albeit in a really good way, and taking a little time to do something other than work (like bake, poke around on Facebook, or watch Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with the Sweetie) is actually time well-spent.

So there.

Last night, I whipped up a batch of gluten-free brownies, and used the new Baker's Edge pan the Sweetie got me for Christmas (he had more under the tree than just flesh-eating beetles! what a guy!). I really love the chewy, crunchy edges of brownies, and there's always a bit of a battle in the house to get the corner pieces, then the edges, and then, determine who's desperate enough for a chocolate carbo-crack fix to eat the interior pieces.



No more. Now every piece has at least two chewy edges. The brownie mix itself was a bit cakey, but the brownie edges? Still chewy. YUM.

Wonderful Wheat-Free Weekend: A Creative Life Primer

On a wing of inspiration from CraftyPod, I just signed up for Creative Every Day 2008. Not that I necessarily needed another commitment (save perhaps of the psychiatric type) for the coming year - particularly after my Blogolutions. But something about Creative Every Day's philosophy resonated with me - and seemed so in alignment with my own ideas about creativity, my desire to live a creative life, and my mission to support the creative spark in others, that well, I couldn't resist being a joiner and signing up.

Besides, I clearly don't have enough blogs that I'm reading on a semi-daily basis.

Yup, the ennui is gone, the fog has lifted, the gloom has run its course. I'm back to my usual over-stimulated self, delighted and inspired by everything from a mote of dust to these mind-blowing birds by Ann Wood. Or this daft and dear bird with a thread nest over at WhileSheNaps. Or Tamara Mogendorff's nifty little birds with houses. Or food.

I just finished reading Gluten-Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern. Her foodie blog, a delight no matter what you eat, is here. And guess what? I found the book totally inspiring!

Like the vast majority of women born in the latter 20th century, I have a love/hate relationship with my body and its essential building blocks, FOOD and EXERCISE. I was a bookwormish kid in a family that leaned towards the large and struggled with weight. My early childhood is filled with memories of my mother's homemade chocolate meringue pie and grilled cheese sandwiches; my middle years dominated by microwave pastries eaten during Dukes of Hazard and chewy European breads; my later teen years a blur of Italian food and family conversations about restaurants, food, and diets.

In addition to a medley of body-image madness, I started getting chronic headaches as a teenager. Over the next 10-15 years, I tried everything to get rid of them: wearing glasses (even though I have 20/20 vision), regular massage, vitamins, hot/cold compress, steam, chiropractic, doing yoga, drinking more water. Finally, after years of snorting behind my hand at people who claimed to have "food sensitivities," I got tested. And then I stopped eating wheat. And then my headaches decreased. DRAMATICALLY.

On the one hand, it was a relief. Finally! I knew, at least in part, what was causing the headaches! I could stop most of them! On the other hand, it was one more way to make food the enemy. Food - which I loved, with whom I was having an illicit tastebud affair - could not only make me fat, it could make me sick. Now, I was "depriving" myself not only of "fattening food" because I had an unrealistic idea of what my body should look like and a fear of obesity, I was "depriving" myself of some of my favorite foods: pastas, quick breads, cookies, pastries. Foods I had only recently learned to cook.

A few of you may have followed along this little rant only to wonder, "Ok, but isn't this a blog about creativity? Hello?"

And that's exactly my point! Stay with me a few moments longer, oh gentle reader . . .

My attitude toward food at that point in my life - and frankly, for most of my life - has been antithetical to a creative life. Creativity is about making connections across boundaries, seeing possibilities within constraints. It requires not only cognitive skills - like having and evaluating ideas - it requires affective skills. Emotional skills like being open to novelty, curious, playful, or tolerant of ambiguity*. You know, all those things that allow us to be excited by and engaged in life rather than totally terrified by it all day long?

And Shauna, when she got her diagnoses - not just as "wheat sensitive" but "gluten intolerant" meaning that grains like wheat, barley, spelt, rye and their derivatives were off her list because her body produced gut-destroying antibodies in their presence - what did she do? She got totally excited about all the foods she could eat!

With curiosity and open-minded abandon, she ran headlong into the possibilities. She experimented. She tried new foods. She created, within the constraints her body required for health and pushing the edges, just as a painter creates within the constraints of the canvas and the pigments, always pushing them to do more.

I sometimes feel that if I could consistently cultivate this attitude towards food, I could unlock the whole secret of a creative life.

Baby steps. So, today, I made biscuits. Without wheat.


*for those of you who are curious about the cognitive/thinking skills theory of creativity (and the complementary affective/feeling skills theory), Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change by Dr.'s Puccio, Murdock, and Mance is a great primer (though spendy, as it's a textbook)

Happy New Year! With Greens . . .

I'm from a Southern family, (see how I even capitalize it?) and it is a Southern tradition to eat black-eyes peas on New Years Day for good luck. In my house, you were supposed to eat one black-eyed pea for every day of good luck you wanted in the new year. I don't think my dad actually counted them, but he was very diligent in his bean consumption.

This is one of my favorite recipes for black-eyed peas, which I made up one year after I had discovered the glory of cooking and eating kale. Since it's made up, it changes a lot, and I'm constantly adapting it based on what I happen to have on hand. Leeks have found their way into the mix, as has chard. Needless to say, all amounts are approximate! Adjust to your taste.



And here it is, written out:

New Year's Day Black-Eyed Peas with Kale

2-3 bunches of kale, cut into 1" ribbons
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 large onion, diced (you can dice and freeze the other half to use later, or just use a smaller onion)
1/4 to 1/2 water (depending on amount of kale used)
2 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
2 cans of black-eyed peas, drained

Heat oil in a large stockpot. Add onions and garlic, and cook garlic and onion 'til tender. Add kale, and toss in the onion, garlic, and oil mixture. (The kale will be bulky, so this will be tough - just get as much off the bottom of the pot and onto the greens as possible). Add 1/4 cup water, cover and cook entire mixture over medium heat until tender. The kale will brighten and wilt down when it's ready. Add extra water only if pot starts to run dry.

Toss in crumbled feta cheese (I love goat feta!) and black-eyed peas (depending on your taste, and the number of people you're serving, and how lucky you want to be, you may want to add extra black-eyed peas). Add salt and pepper to taste. I have also been known to add toasted pine nuts over the top. Serve it with ham! YUM!

I feel lucky already . . .

Cookies and Birthdays

If my math is correct, my dad would have been 59 years old today. Sadly, he died several years ago, when he was only 54. But I associate these cookies with him. Like so many memories, it's all a little blurry, but I seem to remember that this recipe came from his mother, and I seem to remember him making them. I certainly remember him enjoying them. I made them for Christmas this year, and am giving you all the gift of this easy, high-calorie, high-taste, and slightly addictive recipe in his honor.

And here it is written out:

No Bake Chocolate Cookies (or: The Only Reason I buy Peanut Butter)

Mix the following in a pan on the stovetop:
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1 cup butter
2 1/2 cups sugar
Bring to a rolling boil, stirring regularly, for 3 minutes

Remove from heat and add:
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter (I like smooth)
2 1/2 cups oatmeal (I usually use rolled oats rather than quick oats, but either will work)

Stir! When mixed, pour into a 2 quart casserole dish or drop by spoonful on wax paper. Let cool. Either way, I cut it into fudge-sized pieces after it's cooled because this is some rich stuff! Devour.

Though I'm not sure where the original recipe came from, the version I have here at home is written out in my mother's handwriting, so thanks Mom and Dad! And thanks to Mollie Katzen and the Moosewood Cookbooks , Futuregirl, and Summer Pierre (if you click through, scroll down to see the pumpkin pie recipe) who gave me the idea for making my own illustrated family recipes.

After the Carnage

Most everybody was asleep yesterday by the time the turkey was actually done, and the Sweetie's dad actually slept through most of Thanksgiving dinner - jet lag. In spite of these challenges, I am proud to announce that the crew still managed to do some decent damage to it. The Sweetie's little brother used his Marine training ("They taught us how to butcher a goat") to carve the turkey and folks wandered dozily around the house gnawing on little bits of it.

It was declared good. If you interpret "munch munch mumble mumble snore" to mean good. Which I obviously do.

I sent some of the turkey home with the Sweetie's folks, and was left with approximately 95% of a 15 pound turkey - which translates to approximately 1000 pounds of leftovers. I did what any self-respecting cook would do - I stripped the meat off, threw it in plastic containers in the fridge and then put the carcass in the stock pot. Because we're not going to have enough to eat and we need soup.

Actually, turkey soup is one my favorite Thanksgiving memories. Some folks love the day-after turkey sandwiches, but for me, it was my Mommaw's turkey and wild rice soup.

So today, I got in there and separated all the meat from the bones. And I have the meatiest, tastiest soup stock this year that I've ever had! Could it be the brining? (Usually, I'm just making off with the carcass from someone else's house while they give me funny looks and say, "Sure. You can have it if you want it . . . . but are sure you dont' want to take any actual turkey with you?")

This year, though, the carcass started off at my house. And found myself looking at the bones with slightly different eyes. In the past, I've kept only the wishbone. This year, though, I set aside part of the spine, the breastbone, and what I think are the hipbones. I'm boiling the rest of the meat off of them now. The real question is, after the carnage, how do I prepare the bones for use in art? I was thinking about dumping them in bleach after they're done boiling and I also considered hanging them up outside all horror-movie style, but I'm really not sure on the best approach.

A Google search ("Google first, then ask stupid questions") for "preparing bones for use in art" turned up zilch. So now, I turn to you, my loyal readers, for any advice you may have . . .

To-Do List

Left to do today, the day before The Sweetie's family comes over for Thanksgiving Dinner:

1. Make two pumpkin pies (one inspired by Summer Pierre's Recipe - make sure to double the honey and the molasses)
2. Make pineapple pumpkin bread (special treat for The Sweetie)
   
3. Prep Mommaw's (my grandmother) recipe for Bundle o' Beans (I've been craving it - she always made it for Thanksgiving, which we used to always have at her house . . . couldn't find my copy of her recipe, so looked it up online. Two of the recipes I found called for a full stick of butter, along with sugar. No wonder I remember this being so good. )
4. Prep roasted sweet potato and apple dish (my recipe, making extra for leftovers!)
   
5. Brine Turkey (this is supposed to be very important - I've never cooked a turkey before - and it arrived today still largely frozen - Hmmm)
   
6. Find my cookbook with the large, friendly orange letters on the cover saying "Don't Panic"
7. Go to Fred Meyer's for the six things I forgot to get in my grocery delivery order (delivered today) and my last minute grocery shopping trip for things I forgot (on Monday).
8. Take advice found on cover of cookbook. Realize that it is not a cookbook, but The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
9. Consider journeying to Mars for Thanksgiving.
10. Reconsider, stop blogging, and drive to grocery store. All while NOT PANICKING.