Home is Where the Tribe Is...

Yesterday was a day like the days I envisioned prior to actually having my children. You know the ones I'm talking about. The sweet imaginings that lull you into a delusional confidence which allows you to actually decide to start a family, inspire you to think "I want to do this". Then the children come and for a while chaos ensues leaving you to you wonder what actually happened instead. But after a while parents get their roots, just like children, and start to create that vision, or the parts of it that still actually fit after the dust and debris of the child's arrival begin to settle.
That's exactly what happened on Saturday. The perfect kind of day because all my errand running was finished before 9:00 o'clock so I was able to experience the crisp, quiet freshness of the day before it became muddled with the imprint of human activity. The stores were empty, parking was easy, the clerks at my favorite Trader Joe's were lively and anticipating their lunch at 8:30 as they had been at work since 3:00 a.m. The day was brimming with a positive, quiet energy that I welcomed.

Arriving home, I greeted my family including my amazing brother-in-law, George and my sweet nephew who is smack dab in the middle of my own two children, making him the ideal playmate and companion for either one. He is that cousin that they will get into trouble with, create memories with, and tell stories about when they are older. Watching that relationship unfold and develop is a blessing that I cherish.

For the rest of the day I barely left the kitchen. Rest assured dear ones this is not a complaint. In my visions of motherhood, starting as a young girl, I wanted to be the home where people came and hung out for the day, unexpected, or stayed for lunch on a whim, or even dinner, and felt at ease to do so. I saw myself....the mother who nurtured the spirits of her family and friends with a hospitality that centered on the making and serving of good food.

I think this desire was inherent in me, part of who God created me to be. The dream to be the matriarch of said home was encouraged in part, by the lack of such an environment as I was growing up. We were not the home where people "dropped by", nothing impromptu was happening at 510 Market street. My grandmother had lived on her own for years before my mother returned with me in tow from Los Angeles. She had her routines, and her Victorian- era parenting sensibilities coupled with her Southern upbringing informed her that the return of a child to her home was not going to disrupt the rule of order. My gram "received" guests in the main living room that housed her Steinway grand piano, the best of the furniture we owned, and an exquisite bookcase built into the wall, filled to the brim with an impressive variety of books. The room was a showcase not only for the piano, but also a collection of antiques that held the legacy my grandmother clung to. Each piece told a story that she painstakingly retold to me in hopes that I would treasure them and protect them with her fervor. In the cooler months, my grandmother's "parlor" served the dual purpose of being the room where many Roane Countians were schooled in the proper way to play a piano. When those lesson were not in session, my grandmother's very few friends might come by and gossip in hushed tones as I strained to hear what was being discussed. Good Southern women did not "gossip", so the whispering I believe was not just for my benefit but for the sake of propriety as well.

As a child I longed to have friends come over on a whim. It was strictly against the rules in our home to invite anyone over without prior permission from both families, absolute planning about the time and date, a notarized letter attesting to the quality of the visiting child's family....well, okay, the latter might be a stretch. Certainly it felt that way. As a rebellios third grader I took on the establishment and bucked the home system. I brought a classmate home from school, unexpected and unplanned. I believed I would not get in trouble and that it would just be accepted because I had done it. I will always remember my mother pulling me aside, her stern face, her admonishment that I had broken the rules and my astonishment as I realized they were going to send my friend home and not let her stay. Mercifully, there was time for a phone call to her parents, a wait while they came to pick up my poor friend, and time for me to show her my room and save a little face. Through that humiliation, the severity of the rule was made clear. It was not to be broken.

I think along with being a rebel, I was seeking to break through the isolation that my grandmother craved and created as she played mama bear to my mother's mental illness. This I completely understand now as a mother, a gift I have received in my parenting, compassion for my grandmother who watched her own child struggle her entire life. She was, in part, also protecting me, but even more, protecting our name and her image of who she thought we were, a dream long past though. She was the defender of our facade, gatekeeper to secrets. How my mother and I both came out rebels....as daughters generally do is a story that will continue to unfold dear ones.

Fast forwarding to the present I am blessed to finally have my tribe...family and friends who come together in times of need, celebration...in ordinary time. We have gotten so far away from tribe but I firmly believe we are archetyped for it. Our earliest ancestors lived and survived in community. Responsibilities were shared, work was shared, very little was done in isolation. To have such a longing for community fulfilled satisfies my soul in the most wonderful way. When my house is full of children playing and having fun, and loved ones eating, laughing, sharing, enjoying one another and the food we have all prepared, then the world seems for that moment complete. In those moments I know I am loved because it is a dream come true. It is that humble place where intent and longing meet God's plan, collide with an uncanny grace and precision, and leave me awestruck as I observe the seamlessness of it. I know it's something I wanted, yet the delivery of it, for me, is profound and humbling...its perfection assures me of the hand of God in my life.

So it was with great peace and gratitude that I spent Saturday exercising my creativity in the making of breakfast burritos, savory bowls of buttered basmati rice coupled with smoked salmon, peanut butter rice crisp bars, laughter, music, story. My kitchen is the hub because I am there sharing gifts that warm the belly and the body...the spirit.

Feeling this good inspired me to try a new, wildly simple recipe for peanut butter rice crisp bars that I found on the side of Trader Joe's brand "rice crisps".

I am always looking for ways to get more fat and protein into the vegan, gluten-free, dairy free diet of my dear boy who has Asperger's syndrome. He was so excited, waiting patiently as the prepared bars "sat" using the quick method in the freezer. When they came out of course he was ready to consume them that moment. I encouraged him to wait until they softened a bit and attempting an "out of sight, out of mind" maneuver, opened the door to the unheated oven for temporary storage.

My son knows his mother well and was concerned about my strategy. I was eager to get back to my chatting (I know, so hard to imagine) with my brother-in-law. My son's consternation however was evident, so I assured him that it was fine. "The oven is not on, don't worry, it's my job to take care of these things" As a panacea to his concern and for my own reminding as well, I set the oven timer, feeling confident in how tricky I was at that moment.

Dear ones, this is how I discovered the flexibility and resiliency of these simple bars! Somewhere in time the signal to take the bars out went off and I hit the "cancel" button and returned to my conversation with George, thinking to myself "I really should...." Much later, who knows exactly when, as I preheated the oven to prepare dinner, nary a thought of peanut butter rice bars crossed my mind. So when I opened the oven door to place a lovely baking pan full of cod inside, I broke out into some exclamation of dismay at the sight of the extra crispy, NO BAKE, treat. My brother-in-law watching me understood almost immediately what I had done and we both broke out into raucous hysterical laughter as we chortled over my assurances to my son about my competency. That moment, holding what for me, is the sweetness of life....

All's well that ends well. Turns out that no bake rice crisp bars can stand 5 to ten minutes in a 400 degree oven, in fact, it made the peanut butter slightly gooey and comforting. My boy said to me "Mama these are the best peanut butter bars ever"

It is in these fluid moment that I am writing these entries for you my friends...my spirit relaxes and the story begins to write itself in my head as I work and play in my kitchen...it is a joyful exercise when something happens and I know that I will share it with you. I knew on Saturday at noon that I would be writing about this experience the next morning and it brought me full circle in that moment...more will be revealed...

Super Yummy No-Bake Peanut Butter Crisp Rice Cereal Treats
1 cup Trader Joe's Brown Sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
1 cup Trader Joe's Blue Agave Syrup
1 cup Trader Joe's Creamy Peanut Butter
7 cups Trader Joe's Crisp Rice Cereal
Combine sugar and syrup in a saucepan and bring to a near boil, stirring often. Continue stirring until brown sugar
dissolves. Remove from heat.
Add peanut butter to mixture. Mix well. Add cereal, mix well.
Press the mixture into 13x9x2 inch greased baking pan. Refrigerate for several hours to cool and harden. To harden more quickly, place in freezer for about an hour.


Postscript....
Because I am human I once again left the remaining bars in the oven today, and once again preheated it with the bars still in the oven. Although I'm not sure about the lid to my Pyrex pan, the bars seem to be remarkably hearty! Our dear friend "Uncle Larry" tried them right after they came out and couldn't get over how delicious they were....we are still enjoying our Twice Baked No Bake Rice Crisp Treats! I had to share that with you!

The Best Gluten-Free Cookies Ever....

DISCLAIMER: To date, this is the most difficult article for the blog that I have written. It has taken me a few weeks to get it fully written and published. Mostly this is because it involves a subject so close to my spirit, my autistic son. I have purposely left both of my children's names out to protect their privacy. I also did not do a final edit as I could not read the entry one more time! Publishing this article is part of my own journey to fully accept my life as the mother of an autistic child so that I can be the best mother for him possible. Since I'm giving you my heart, I'm trusting you'll forgive any typos....

Although it is difficult to tell sometimes in the Pacific Northwest, summer has arrived. While we are currently despairing the lack of sun and warmth, the days are longer, my "rustic" yard is full of flowers, and despite the lack of summer sun, a lot of folks are preparing to go on vacation, perhaps seeking warmth and the absence of rain elsewhere. It is a time of transition, even when Mother Nature refuses to transition with us.

Likewise, we are transitioning in our family. Between March and June we celebrate all four birthdays in our little family, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day and several other birthdays in our immediate family. We go at a a rapid clip for several weekends and then suddenly the summer is upon us.

Equally significant are the transitions each child made at the end of this school year. My amazing daughter completed her first year in a sweet and gentle Waldorf program exactly one block away from our home, two days a week. She "graduated" and next year will return for three days a week. This is a relief as well as an anxiety to me. While I am deeply connected to my girl, her her infinite imagination and inherited gift of gab can be exhausting. Yes, if you know me, you are literally laughing at loud at this moment. Our Little Bit is at least the third in the line of women who could talk all night and still not be finished. I once found a letter from my mother to her mother, written before we moved to West Virginia. In it my mother described me by saying "She talks incessantly". I can only imagine the kick my grandmother must have gotten from reading that letter, as anyone who knew my mother knows she could talk your ear off, and then talk the other one off! I love listening to my daughter's stories, explanations, and concerns but the child needs a wider audience!

My amazing son finished kindergarten at the EEU not long ago. The Experimental Educational Unit, located on the campus of the University of Washington, is a fantasic environment for both developmentally challenged children as well as the typically developing. The Boy falls into the former category having been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the age of four. Asperger's Syndrome is considered by most a type of autism that is characterized by difficulties interpreting social cues, understanding the pragmatic use of language and in The Boy's case, accompanied by an array of sensory issues that evolve as he matures.

While I mark my son's diagnosis as a time I will never forget, there was never a moment where I was surprised by it. Relieved, confirmed, affirmed, saddened, retreating, these words describe the emotional places I reside on my own continuum of acceptance and denial as I live into raising a child on the Autism spectrum. But dear ones, I was never surprised.

When The Boy was born, I fell in love immediately upon seeing him and within the first hours of meeting him I was certain that he was experiencing the world differently than the average newborn child. Everything seemed difficult for him, but it was all readily explained away by the deluge of professionals in and out of the room over the days we stayed in the hospital while I "recovered" from a scheduled C-section. From fussiness to poor latching the first days with my new baby were stressful, exhausting, and anxiety producing. I loved him and celebrated his arrival and simultaneously knew inside that all was not well with my boy. We have a picture of him as a newborn...a close-up...it is the picture that I recall when I remember this time. His little face is worried, anxious, pinched...and while it is true that infants do adopt that expression from time to time, my son looked that way most of the time, even asleep he often did not look like he was actually relaxed and peaceful.

Jokes in the room about him looking like a little old man with his wide-eyed worried expressions did not relieve my concerns. I had the gift of, early on in my life, of being the girl who everyone wanted to babysit for their children. At one point, I was so in demand, that my friend Linda Knight Jerrnigan, would schedule me a year in advance for New Year's Eve before anyone else called me! I loved children, they were eaiser for me to be with than my peers and I could read them without any problem. More importantly, they loved my back, unconditionally. Even in my young adulthood, I seemed to always have friends with children all ages and was accustomed to being the the default aunty. Simarilarly, I worked in vocations where children and youth were being served. By the time motherhood was miraculously looming, I had received all the vicarious edcuation that I could consume without pushing the biological clock any further.

So when I watched my own sweet boy, I was filled with a loving and a connection that I now understand is part of being a mother. This knowledge informed my awareness of my son and I could see that he was struggling with input from the new and wide world around him. His reactions to external stimuli continued to be ones of surprise, fear, shock well after we left the hospital. He startled so easily. Other people around the two of us would find the reactions cute, amusing and this angered me. How could they not see that he was distressed? I could not understand or appreciate at the time that my understanding of my son was directily related to being his mother. It is my gift to him that, having carried him in my body, our cells comingling for that period of gestation, I am forever connected to him in a way that he will never be able to reciprocate. I know when the world is impedeing on his comfort level and when it is too much. Six years later I completely trust my sense of him, even if no one else can see what I see, when I see it; even if they they think I'm crazy. I will admit, I might even look a little crazy when I'm advocating for this boy and I can accept that too! I believe now it is part of being that mama bear for your child to be a little crazy when your child needs you and I know for certain it is part of the mother's job when her child has any kind of "special need". Our children are depending on that unique tenacity we have as mothers when they need us as advocates.

But dear ones, there was one area where this mother completely missed the boat with her best intentions and I am slightly embarrassed to admit that it was in the realm of food consumption! This is hard for any mother to accept, food preparation being a natural expression of our love and devotion for so many of us. Yoiu can imagine then how difficult it was for a self-edcuated foodie who wanted to give her firstborn child the perfect beginnings and was delusional enough to think she could! The Boy, after a difficult stint for both of us with nursing, ate very well. His diet was full of only organic, homemade, whole grain foods. Nothing processed touched his pallete, in fact, he didn't even have candy until he went to kindergarten! He loved eating and delighted his mama with his consumption of lentils, hummus, tofu, whole wheat pastas, breads, and cereals.

As he got older, our son continued to have strong reactions to external stimuli that would otherwise, generally be considered child-friendly, although some of that I still think is debatable (think "Dora" screaming instructions at you with her wide-eyed, oversized head, she fills me with anxiety!). I learned to see the world through my boy's eyes and ward off as much intrusion as possible. Transitions were next to impossible, as were playdates with new people who didn't understand. Although he was showing clear signs of intelligence, communication seemed hopeless and he overwhelmed easily with the frustration of not being understood. In those years, our world became very small.

By the time he was two, I had my hands full with Little Bit on the way. My son was tantruming at the drop of a hat, didn't talk to us in a typical way, seemed unaware of most people until they were too loud or invasive in some other way. I was scared. This was more than the "terrible twos". My heart was telling me I I had a child on the spectrum, in some way, but I was unwilling to articulate that to anyone save his pediatrician and one very dear trusted friend who I knew would not judge us or the behaviors. Her unconditional love and acceptance as well as her stint in pediatrics while studying to be a physical therapist were tremendous gifts to this lonely and scared mother.

Now God works in mysterious ways, generally slipping things in the back door and making me think I'm doing one thing when He's actually preparing me for something thankfully and mercifully unknown to me. After I moved to Seattle, I made some major changes in my diet. Having been diagnosed with IBS since my young adulthood, I learned that dairy products can often agitate the condition. Removing dairy from my diet led to an exploration of vegetarianism that resulted in five years of meat-free eating for me with two years spent as a vegan.

As a result, I never introduced dairy in The Boy's diet. It is commen for both Asians and African-Americans to be lactose intolerant. With both of these ethnic groups represented in his gene pool, and two aunties who ordered soymilk in their lattes, I felt it better to withold dairy from the beginning, knowing that we could introduce it later if he were not allergic. Thank God for that insight. Children on the Autism spectrum often have difficulty processing products with dairy, while lactose is not necessarily the troubling ingredient the prevalent protein casein is particularly troublesome. One theory suggests that the neurological breakdown in the autisic individual causes a disconnect between the brain and the stomach. This disconnect results in the digestive system's inablilty to properly deal with certain ingredients and casein is one of these ingredients.

Somewhere in the vast amount of research I did on food and diet, when I had time to do that kind of thing, I happened upon a blog so lovely that I had to stop and read it. I was happily surprised to see that it was written by a local woman, who lived in a neighborhood adjacent to ours. Shauna James Ahern, author of "Gluten-Free Girl" has written and photographed a blog so aesthetically pleasing that I recommend it to anyone who loves to read about food and loves good writing. Her writing is outstanding and moves me each time I indulge in it. Shauna shares her struggles with illness prior to be diagnosed with celiac's disease, a seriuos illness where the intestines cannot deal with the persavive ingredient gluten, found in most breads, pastas and cereals as well as hidden in unsuspecting places. Reading about her discomofort and her experience led me to other blogs and other research which revealed that many autistics have difficulty with gluten as a result of the neurological disconnects in the brain.

I pulled every bit of gluten from my son's diet immediately. Still without articulating that I thought he was autistic, but desperate for some relief in our home, now occuppied by two children, I didn't really require an explanation. Dear ones, the result was a miracle. Within twenty-four hours my son came down for breakfast and said "Good morning" to his parents for the first time. Honestly, I didn't even know he was aware of the phrase, but had been saying it to him all along. After a few experiments re-introducing the gluten, it was clear. Gluten and/or wheat had been making my poor boy so uncomfortable that he had been too miserable to even communicate properly with us. Although he was still exhibiting intolerance in his behavior to transitions and certain stimuli, the ability for him to communicate with us about it had increased dramatically.

We eventually had him tested for Ceiliac's and thank God it came up negative. The child has enough to deal with already. His inablity for his stomach to properly digest gluten is not life threatining so we don't have the added complications cross-contamination. Small, trace amounts of gluten do not effect him. In removing the gluten from his diet, I also reduced the amount of gluten I was consuming, by default and came to notice an immediate relief in some of ,my IBS sypmptoms that had been plaguing me for years. We are now almost completely gluten-free in our house.

As a result of removing gluten, my culinary skills have been challenged in some curious ways. I was delighted when I finally found a recipe for peanut butter cookies that was gluten-free, ridculously easy, and so yummy. You may recall from earlier writings that my cooking expertise does not include a flair for baking, so the simplicity of this recipe is quite welcome! It's a family favorite and I'm sure Little Bit will be able to cook them on her own before long. When I master something like that and see the delight on my son's face as he waits for them to cool, I can forgive myself for not knowing earlier that the food I thought was good for him was the food that made him so uncomfortable for a year and a half. We are so blessed to have learned this early on and I am so thankful that my son did not needlessly struggle for several years like so many people do before they find out...Thanks be to God....more will be revealed.....

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

(I have adapted this gloriously simple recipe from Simply...Gluten Free. It is so good and simple that my Aunt Peggy makes them for my Uncle Jim from time to time. Neither of them are gluten-free, but my Uncle has a wicked sweet tooth and Peggy says she can whip these up at the same time that she cooks dinner. I hope you'll make your way over to this lovely blog and see the pictures of another sweet boy, who also happens tobe autistic, as he makes this cookies. The beautiful expression on his face says it all!)

1 cup of peanut butter (the type, brand does not seem to matter)
1 cup of sugar (ditto)
1 egg (we use a nice happy egg from a happy chicken that ate Flax Seed since the kidlets don't eat meat)
combine ingredients, roll into little balls and make the fork indentations, bake at 350 degrees for NO MORE THAN 10 minutes. It is easy to overbake these cookies because when you take them out you'll swear they are not yet done. Do not be tempted! Overcooking results in the typical, dry, crumbly gluten-free cookie we all are used to. Cook them for 8-10 minutes, let them cool for five minutes or more. The result will be a cookie that no one will no is gluten-free, they'll just know it's yummy! Enjoy!

French Fry Pie....

A few years ago we were fortunate enough to get a Barnes & Noble bookstore adjacent to our neighborhood mall. After years of trekking to other neighborhoods to shop for books it was a welcome addition for a community that had long yearned for its own bookstore. At the time of its opening, my daughter had just turned one and my son was three. Staying home with my children had so far been a rewarding experience that I did not want to change, but I also had a need for something of my own, a desire for conversations that did not revolve around my children. Suddenly, our new store was offering this mother of two an opportunity to be doing something other than mothering. When they called back after my interview, I eagerly accepted.

Three and half years later, I am still working at the Northgate Barnes & Noble and looking back, amazed at the gifts that have come from the experience. From the beginning, it has taken me back to a part of myself that had been forgotten in the daily grind of mothering. I found that I could actually form complete and cogent sentences once again. To my amazement, the parts of my brain not necessary for parenting were still intact, a bit dusty, but ready for a challenge. Even better, many of the skills that I had mastered as a mama were transferable to the work place. For the first time in three years, I had a frame of reference for conversations that did not involve bodily functions, my children’s latest accomplishments, or battling the fatigue of parenting little ones. I was and still am challenged as well as blessed to be working with people who are often half my age. Being with them is a gift because I am able to see some of the ways that I might be getting a bit stuck in some of my thinking, gain friendships in places unexpected, learn a lot from them and occasionally (when I least expect it) am able to reciprocate. I have even been able to promote a book by a local photographer, Jennifer Loomis, who photographed me while I was pregnant with my daughter. My picture is one of many featured in Jennifer’s work “Portraits of Pregnancy: The Birth of a Mother”. Northgate Barnes & Noble has graciously hosted Jennifer two times for book signings that were successful both in the sale of books and also in the nurturing of the spirit for those of us fortunate enough to attend

Although these have been wonderful treasures and welcome opportunities, two significant doors have been reopened to me as a result of my bookselling path. In my life, God has a sneaky way of slipping in the back door, knowing full well that if He tries the front door, my stubbornness will kick in and the job will much more difficult. Most of the best things that have come to me were unforeseen, but in hindsight I am thankful for the ability to see how God was working to prepare me for what He wanted all along. Although I have always been a reader and a writer, life outside of my Self had previously dictated the ebb and flow of both of those activities in my life. Being at the bookstore, surrounded by so much writing and talk of writing and reading began to call to the forefront my passion for both. Suddenly, I wanted to read again and write something that other people might want to read.

But before that realization came to me, before the store even opened (those unique two weeks where we were the only people in the store, discovering all its bounty) another awakening began its formation. One lovely shift I began to assist my fellow booksellers in setting up the section for cookbooks. The rest dear ones is history. The array of books both beautiful and practical in the cookbook section beckoned to me loudly and clearly. It was the section I could not walk past without stopping to look. Even today I have to stop and check it for a minute when I walk by. In our store we have a beautiful feature armoire for the most aesthetically pleasing of our cookbooks. It has been my great pleasure to be the person who arranges the books on the armoire and gets to help select the best of them, gets to see customers stopping to enjoy them as well. I am pleased to have become the person that is generally called to the second floor when there is a cookbook question, and it is a special shift when a fellow foodie drops by my that section and I get to assist them with their selection. Equally enjoyable is locating the right cookbook for the person who is not a culinary expert but needs some guidance selecting a book. I love to see their faces light up when I hand them the book that might be the perfect selection.

Our Barnes & Noble is literally a 5-minute drive from home, making it possible for me to be with my children throughout the day before I go in for my closing shift. During my four-hour shift I get a 15-minute break. It is one of the sweetest pleasures of my day when that time rolls around. I grab an Americano from our fabulous café staff and head over to the newsstand meticulously maintained by the incredible Caitlin F. who always makes sure I get my weekly copy of The Economist. But during that break it’s the cooking section, not current events, which I am drawn to. For a few short, glorious minutes I peruse the best and most beautiful of the array of cooking magazines that we have at our store. Although I frequently find recipes that I am drawn to, think at the time I might cook, I rarely, if ever, actually make any of them (I am nothing if not consistent). But one evening dear ones, while thumbing through Real Simple’s annual collection of favorite recipes, a dish spoke so loudly to me that I knew we were destined to meet in my kitchen! It was called “French Fry Pie”…. just the mention of the making of it drew intrigue from my Facebook family. It was so compelling to me that I had to share the idea of it with several of my fellow booksellers. Being me, I had already begun to rework the recipe before my shift ended and my colleagues helped stoke that creativity. I did indeed, make the reworked pie and it delivered one hundred percent!

Dear ones, this dish is hearty, caloric, comforting and not for the faint of heart in any way! The original recipe calls for ground beef that has been cooked in the skillet, mixed with pasta sauce and topped with French fries. When you click on this link and see the picture, I believe you will come to understand why I had no choice but to make this yummy dish! After a few conversations with my bookselling friends, I decided to omit the pasta sauce and exchange it for Trader Joe’s All Natural Barbecue Sauce. Don’t let the name fool you; this sauce is sweet and delicious, with a smoky kick of chipotle that lends itself to kicking up the most mundane dish. Use this sauce and you won’t require any other seasoning. After draining the meat (also from Trader Joes, the 80/20 blend) and adding the sauce, I put it in a glass pie dish and topped it with sharp cheddar cheese and let it bake at 350 long enough to melt the cheese. I then placed my fries, which I had already cooked and kept warm with some foil, on top of the dish and baked it long enough to brown the fries. I’m sure some of us could talk for days about the correct fries to use but really, there is no great gastronomical science happening here! You play with this dish any way you want…. which makes it the perfect thing to be cooked by me! It can easily accommodate a vegan/vegetarian palette using a meat analog and omitting the cheese for vegans. I’ll leave it to the comment section for us to debate the best techniques and tweaks.

Real Simple gives you menu ideas to serve with this dish. I must object at this point and say, really, unless you are a teenager or in your early twenties, (or a pro athlete) you will not need or WANT anything else to eat with this! As Caitlin F. put it, “You made it like a cheeseburger” Exactly! It is rich, satisfying and so filling that even Mr. Ling (husband of mine) could not eat more than one serving, albeit a very healthy one. If you are in your thirties, you will eat it all, and wonder the next day why you feel hung over…for those of us forty and over…. enjoy with caution…I have to go now and plan a French Fry Pie party with my bookselling friends. …more will be revealed…

It's Not That Far from Stewed Chicken.....

When I was first "setting up house" in my early twenties, I was sadly ignorant of how little I knew and how much growing up I had to do. Life was coming at me fast and I was bound and determined to dodge it and any self-examination that went with it. So I did exactly what my mother did, much to my horror of course. I went to college, got married, became "independent", and started playing house in an attempt to hatch my new and improved autonomous self who would never be like the adults who raised her.....right? Right.

Those days were lean in the pocket and in the spirit. I thought I had opted out of my family script (the hope and fantasy of most 20-somethings) but I had only managed to sever myself from everything that made me my-Self. In doing so, I set in motion a ten-year cycle of avoidance that would take another ten years to heal.


This hiding of Self is clear to me today in how my creativity suffered. For years I thought I had no creativity. Closing myself off the way I did, shutting down the truth, it rippled through every aspect of my being and living until I no longer recognized who I was. Although I sporadically journaled throughout those years, my writing greatly suffered. Ironically, I married a gifted and aspiring writer and supported him in his goals to be published. I lost sight of the fact that I ever even had the gift. I allowed my-Self to disappear in the shadows. Thankfully, God sent His angels, like He always does, to remind me of what He had given me. I recall a beloved Marshall University professor, Dr. Kenneth Ambrose, who always went out of his way to comment on the essays or papers I had written. He and others were beacons that didn't let me completely forget who I was.


But no where dear ones was this disparity in budget and psyche more apparent than in my lack of culinary finesse! While I still had my signature gumbo and a few other things that I could make well, some of my regular dishes still make me cringe a little! For instance there was my ramen noodle, Hillshire sausage casserole, a processed-food nightmare! Around that time, I fondly remember a comment made by one of my dearest friends Francie Hartsog Dolack who was also in her first marriage at the time. Francie and I were doing our best to be little Hope Steadmans "Thirtysomethings" seemingly all-together super-mom/wife. But like Hope, we often faltered and loved each other through all the mis-steps and victories. We wanted to be young, fun, successful in our careers and studies, perfect in our roles as wives and mother. We were young women of the 80's and we wanted everything right then. Francie observed, in that way that only a good friend can, that every recipe I ever made started out with stewed chicken! She was right!


As I was growing up and learning to cook, my grandmother, who mostly raised me, was, unknown to the family very slowly deteriorating from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. I remember the earliest sign of her leaving herself was the dinners she prepared for my mother and me. My dear Gram had raised two children, widowed, and alone, during the depression. She knew how to cook from the leanest pantry and stretch a meal. She also never fully recovered from that experience and so all times were sparse to her from that time on, both in the purse and places held more deeply. While she had been an accomplished cook and baker in her day those skills left her in the earliest portion of her mental decline. Dinners were often bland and uninviting, she had done the best she could just getting a plain stewed chicken on the table...often. I knew how to stew a chicken! And dear ones, I knew that 3 women could eat several meals from one stewed chicken.


Something in me also knew how to take that chicken and turn it in to something more inviting, cozy, comforting. Flash forward 20 some years and I lovingly laugh at Francie's observation, because my friends, it is still true! With astonishing regularity, every Thursday morning, I trek to our neighborhood QFC deli to purchase their 12 piece baked chicken. I have at least abandoned, forever I believe, stewed chicken. As a mother of two spirited children my time is precious and the time it takes for me to skin and stew a whole chicken is not very family friendly! However, more undesirable to me is handling raw chicken, in fact, I actually refuse to do it!


I spent a year as a vegetarian and another two as a vegan. During that time one of the things I loved when I cooked was the absence of handling raw meat. While I do cook and eat meat now, I draw the line with raw chicken! So I rely on my favorite Holman Road QFC where the service is friendly and fast. Go at 10:00 or right before dinner and you will find the juiciest, most flavorful baked chicken ever....and at 9.99 for 12 pieces, it is very budget friendly (more to come) (price based on having a QFC club card).


When I first started cooking again, here in Seattle, I pledged to use the very best, finest, most fresh, organic ingredients. That was a lovely time when I ate and cooked some of the best food in my life and I was able to expand my culinary education in valuable ways. However, in these current economic times it is not always budget-friendly for a family to purchase food that I now refer to as "pampered". Don't get me wrong, it's still my favorite food and it still remains an issue of social justice for me that the best food is unavailable to the people who need it. But that dear ones is another blog entry..... At QFC, my chicken may have not had a wide-open field of organic grass to nosh on but it is hormone and antibiotic-free, a concession I can accept.


I generally make one dinner from serving the chicken on the actual bone as it is intended. But the value of this chicken for me comes from cutting the meat off the bone after dinner is over and meat is still warm and moist. Once all the chicken has been removed (as well as any skin or fat) I store it in a glass container with a lid and dole it out for the rest of the week in a variety of delicious and creative ways.


There is a cornucopia of books at your local bookstore about ways to use rotisserie chickens so I can't claim to be doing anything innovative. Here are some of the ways that I regularly stretch my 12-piece chicken from QFC. These are 10 easy, quick, healthy meals that are are also family/budget friendly. I think they would make my Gram proud...

1. Southwest Chicken
*mix chicken, your favorite jarred salsa, 1 can pintos (or home-cooked 1 cup), cover w/shredded cheddar cheese or cheese blend, bake 30 minutes at 350
2. Chicken Curry
*chicken, Trader Joe's yellow or red curry sauce, frozen spinach, garbanzo beans, mix & heat serve w/rice
3. Pepper Chicken
*chicken, Trader Joe's Black Pepper sauce, green onion, Trader Joe's Rice Sticks (rice noodle), saute onion and chicken in sesame oil, add pepper sauce to taste, prepare and saute noodles in same skillet add pepper sauce to taste
4. Chicken Quesadillas
*Trader Joe's handmade corn tortillas, sliced chicken, cheddar cheese and whatever else you like to add, if you are lucky enough to have access to Trader Joe's handmade corn tortillas, you really don't need much else as they are quite tasty and filling
5. Chicken Tacos
*sky's the limit! great way to clean out the frig and use up veggies
6. Caesar Salad w/Chicken
7. Chicken Salad
*endless options...I prefer mine w/Best Foods Mayonnaise (known as Hellmann's, East of the Rocky Mountains) sliced grapes or mandarin oranges, fresh black pepper and kosher salt. My friend Linda Knight Jerrnigan used to make it with pineapple and almonds...she also introduced me to the use of scissors for cutting food while making her chicken salad. The best kitchen tip ever!
8. Chicken Fried Rice
9. Chicken Potato Hash
*this can be made w/leftover potatoes from your frig or frozen diced potatoes although I prefer the former...add whatever veggies in the frig you have and some seasoning for a hearty meal. Salsa adds a nice kick...
10. Chicken Burritos
*add whatever you like to your burrito, but your leftover Southwest chicken, chicken curry, chicken salad, Chicken Caesar, Chicken Fried Rice, or Chicken Potato Hash all make excellent fillings.


We put forth all that effort to stretch our wings and fly from the women who raised us, do our best to try to be different from them and finally come home to find out that we're not that different after all and what a wonderful thing that can be...more will be revealed.....

COMING ATTRACTIONS!!! Stay tuned for French Fry Pie!

My Two Moms.....

It is my fortune to boast that I was blessed with two mothers. However, there are some days I view my blessing less as fortune and more certainly the genesis of every neurosis that sent me to therapy. Naturally, Mother's Day is a day when I reflect on the dichotomies that sprang out of the complex maternal relationships from being raised both by my grandmother as well as my mother, all three generations of females under the same roof for 15 of my formative years.

My grandmother, who actually raised me, was the epitome of the old-school Southern lady. A lady never raises her voice, always leaves the house in gloves and a hat, is always in possession of her Self. Decorum was essential for a woman to be perceived in a positive light. On the other hand, my dear, Bod Dylan loving, hippy mama was the polar opposite of most of what her mother represented. She generally did raise her voice about anything that she felt deserved a platform, was seldom a fan of decorum and often was not in possession of her Self. Although the latter was sometimes a choice, it was more often than not the manifestation of a mental illness that was more covert than obvious well into her adulthood. My mother was brilliant in her intelligence, so far ahead of her time in many ways. Like many people with chronic mental illness her brilliance often masked the darkness of the mental instability that plagued her from childhood till her passing in 2008.

I am often aware of the ways that I sit somewhere in the middle of the two extremes that are represented by the personalities of these two women. In fact, I could probably dedicate a blog to that topic and cancel the rest of my therapy appointments! But this is a food blog and I am most at peace and thankful for the ways that my two moms contributed to my love, understanding, and passion for all things food related.

It is my grandmother's practical creativity and I believe, hidden inner foodie, who informs the more traditional, homey part of my cooking and food interests. Gram raised two children as a single, widowed mother, during the height of the Great Depression. In the sweet small town of Spencer, WV my grandmother was well-established as the woman who taught you how to play the piano, played the organ at your church, your wedding, or your funeral at one of the town's two funeral homes. It was not uncommon dear ones, that she would be present for all those occasions for any one given person. It was the income from those four jobs that put food on the table for my mom and her younger brother. I think it was during those years that my Gram learned how to combine her homey technique with a practical and necessary frugality, that she frankly never really was able to let go of, even in more bountiful times.

Whenever I put together an amazing meal or casserole with barely anything in the refrigerator (look for my yummy enchilada casserole recipe coming soon!) without any recipe at all, it is an homage to my Gram's practical and essential creativity. I think I must have picked up on this through the osmosis of watching her cook and consuming the fruits of her labor. One area she excelled in that I did not come by, either via osmosis or otherwise, was her exceptional baking skill. She knew, innately, how to follow the exact science of the recipe and also make it her own. I can still see her stained recipe for Honey Bear Brownies, with her scrawled comment "delicious" in the margins of her hand-crafted cookbook in a binder (a cookbook I hope to have someday!)...and I will always remember her secret for the most mouth-watering chocolate cake. (can you guess what it is?)

While my mother could duplicate my Gram's dishes with ease and skill, her influence on my culinary interests has been, like her influence in other areas of my life, more eccentric, out of the boundaries of the cultural norm. My mother spent many years living with relatives in Southern California, where I was born, and where she met my father. (at a Civil Rights demonstration where they were both arrested!) Thankfully the experience of living on the West Coast never left her even after returning to her hometown in Spencer, WV with me in tow. I still remember, with absolute fascination, her stories of staying with my grandfather's sister who had avocado trees in her yard. My mother would walk out in to the yard in the mornings and pick fresh avocados...right off the tree, for breakfast. Such decadence! Even my eight year old brain understood her morning ritual was a rare treat that she must have missed. I would envision her, with her long dark hair flowing, walking out to those trees in the early morning sun. Unusually tall for a woman of that time, I could imagine her carefully selecting the best, most ripe avocado, reaching up with grace and ease......beautiful!

It was my mother who introduced me to my life-long love, the avocado. She ignited a desire by offering me that first bite of creamy, nutty, fresh goodness. After we finished it, she amazed me even more by actually growing an avocado tree from the pit. Although it sadly never bore fruit, it was so healthy and sturdy that it served as my own personal Christmas tree for many years. I don't think any of my classmates had an avocado tree that they decorated at Christmas!

Mom opened the door for my palette, opened it to adventure. She brought home enchiladas and tamales, albeit Swanson's, spicy and a bit tinny from the tray! She talked about jambalaya, Mexican food, and her beloved avocados, nurturing this future foodie all the way. Although my first forays in the kitchen were more closely aligned with my grandmother's tastes and served to meet the requirements of my 4-H projects, my later experiments as a teen reflected my mother's influence and were designed to please and impress her. My first huge success was a gumbo recipe, very complicated and thankfully very delicious, right off the pages of "Glamour" magazine. I felt very sophisticated and it was my signature dish for many years.

Some of mom's passions took a little longer than others to take root. My mother loved and appreciated the virtues of tofu long before it was "cool" or healthy, like most things she was way ahead of her time. Now I need to digress a bit and share with you a bit of history about our hometown, Spencer, WV. It remains one of the lovely and unusual things about Spencer that right on Main Street, there was what my mother called a tofu dairy! A small and mysterious establishment, unavoidable because of its prominent location, they made tofu and shipped it across the country. How could such a business develop and survive in the heart of West Virginia where biscuits and gravy, baked apples, pork chops and fried potatoes reigned supreme? Let me explain dear ones...

In the late sixties and 70's there was an influx of "hippies" who moved to rural West Virginia, drawn to the availability of cheap, private, yet incredibly beautiful land, ideal for urbanite granolas to come and develop communities for peaceful living. According to Barbara Fisher, said hippies were unable to make a living farming so they decided to sell the tofu that they had been making at home. Twenty-five year later, there remains, in the heart of Roane County a successful tofu business, Spring Creek Natural Foods, that ships it's tofu nationally! I am sure that between my mother's influence and that of the people we knew from this community that I can trace my own granola tendencies!

My mother tried in vain to get me to eat tofu. It wasn't until I moved to Seattle and spent four years as a vegetarian/vegan that I grew to appreciate its versatility and yummy goodness. Sadly by then, my mother's mental illness had made it difficult for me to have quality conversations with her. However, I believe that she knows and is sending me a loving "I told you so" even now!

It is the gifts of these two very different women that often will show up on the pages of this blog. So it seemed appropriate on this day we celebrate our Mothers to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Frances Owen and Leith Owen for the things you instilled in me, for laying the foundation for things borne and things yet to come..I still miss you both...

more will be revealed...

"Angels lay her away...

Lay her 6 feet under the clay"

Josh Ritter "So Runs the World Away"

P.S. I wrote the previous piece this afternoon at my favorite Northgate Barnes & Noble. It was significant to me that as I finished the last sentences I became aware of the beautiful, folksy music that was playing and of the above lyrics, poignant on their own right, but even more meaningful to me in the context of what I had just completed writing. The Josh Ritter CD is a wonderful, Ritter has outdone himself, far superior to his previous CD. I know my hippy mama would have loved it!

Pepperoni Rolls & Upper Big Branch Mine

One of my greatest joys in finally succumbing to Facebook a little over a year ago might be considered a little cliche but nonetheless meaningful. I'm speaking of course about finding friends and acquaintances from years gone by, kindergarten, grade school and high school. In my case, coming from a very small town in the heart of West Virginia, that meant connecting with people who have known me mostly since kindergarten and/or before. While the conversations have ranged in topic from "Do you remember....?" to "I need a nail and a board! Thanks!" and sometimes "Marshall! No WVU! No Marshall!" there have been no conversations more engaging to me than the ones where food is the topic.

While this is not a surprise knowing me, it seems that others have the same experience. We call back yearnings for Tudor's Biscuits (and I'm sometimes teased unmercifully by a certain person every time he indulges in this local treat unavailable to those of us who no longer reside in West Virginia), we try to recall too many wasted (both literally and figuratively) hours at Hulios in Huntington, WV, a Marshall University institution now long gone. We discuss fried apples, creamed tomatoes, grits and other regional fare that unifies and comforts us. Folks who sometimes have few comments come out of the woodwork, long enough to stop work on that farm (wink) or give me a break from ribbing me about my liberal politics (you know who you are!) , we all wrap ourselves in the recollection of food we can't find in our new homes or just don't know how to make! No conversation has been more rousing or educational to me than the one we held about the enduring and popular pepperoni roll, I heave a sigh just writing out the name.

If you hail from West Virginia the pepperoni roll warrants no explanation and it is possibly unfathomable to you that anyone else would not know what it is. Dear ones, there are many folks who have not had the pleasure of what I consider to be our state food so for their sakes indulge me while I share with them our great secret. Perhaps some of this may even be new for you as it was for me when I first learned it.

A pepperoni roll is cunning in its simplicity, severely lacking in any nutritional value, comforting in every way possible and easily found in every convenience store from backroad to 7-11 in the state of West Virginia. Simply put, a pepperoni roll is pepperoni baked into the softest white bread yeast roll you can find. Those are the basics. Beyond that, there is not a lot of agreement about what constitutes a proper pepperoni roll. For myself, I must admit I'm a purist. Ideally it would be stick pepperoni, although I've had decent ones with slices too. However, I think there's something more sublime about those last few bites of a roll that has the stick. All the yummy oil from the pepperoni seems more concentrated and more infused in the the actual dough (a process that occurs during the cooking of the roll) with the stick. It is even better if coupled with a Mountain Dew (Jamie Oliver, wherever you are, cover your ears) But that's just me. Google the term "pepperoni roll West Virginia" and you will find what I found, within the state the variations on the roll are abundant varying in types of cheese, peppers, the brands of pepperoni and a few radicals who even top theirs with chili! I am such a purist in my own love of this native food that I won't even attempt to make them myself for fear that I will fail to properly recapture the memory.

Some people might wonder why I don't simply run down the street to my nearest Seattle 7-11 to purchase a pepperoni roll. The answer dear ones lies in a USDA ruling regarding the meat being unseen yet cooked in the roll, the ruling sought to reclassify the bakeries that made the rolls subjecting them to stricter standards. Once again the simple roll turns out to be a bit of a mystery as it is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why, but it appears that while the ruling stuck in other states, West Virginia was saved by an intervening Senator Jay Rockefeller who pointed out the economic hardship that the bakeries would endure if they had to conform to the rulings.

This ordinary pocket sandwich is not only a culinary treat, its cultural and historical origins are closely tied to a recent tragic event in our beloved state of West Virginia and that is what prompted me to write about it today. Like most good, simple fare that holds us in such memory and desire or that calls us back daily to the convenience store, for you lucky ones, the history of our famed pepperoni roll is one of practical and ethnic origin.

There is of course disagreement about the exact person to make the roll famous or to whom it should be attributed. But it seems that even the New York Times can pinpoint the roots of this unique food to the legacy of coal mining and the influx of Italian immigrants who came to West Virginia to work the mines. It seems these folk were in need of a food that was easy to carry, substantial, and could be held in one hand and thus the heavenly roll became a West Virginia icon.

Outside of West Virginia the culture of the mining industry is not well-known or understood. Our history lessons fail to underscore the experience of the land and the people who worked it and work it still. Elsewhere, it is unfortunate that two-weeks after 29 men were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine, many people across the United States have already forgotten. In this age of technological advances it should stay with us a little longer that such an accident could occur. In a country where health care is at the forefront of political and social debate we should be appalled to know that the deadly disease which has taken the lives of miners for years, Black Lung, is once again on the rise after a significant decrease.

As the days after the explosion wore on, I struggled with what part I could play in raising the consciousness of the people around me. This blog entry is my humble offering. If I were in West Virginia, I would go to my local convenience store and ask them to take one of those ribbons so many West Virginians on Facebook are using to memorialize the fallen miners and hang it next to the place where they sell those simple rolls whose legacy is tied to that of the miners whose great-grandfathers may have carried the same rolls to work as they too worked the mines. Maybe since I can't do that, reading this blog might inspire you to do it, or to send me the address of your local store so I can send them a letter and ask them if they would. Better yet, maybe someone somewhere has already started doing this very thing.

I hope you'll join me in this invitation to remind people that we are a state with a history of saying "no" to social injustice. We are the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state. We are home to Harpers Ferry, the historic site of abolitionist John Brown's raid. Let's remind people of all that is "almost heaven" in West Virginia. In honor and memory of the 29 miners who lost their lives, let's all work together so that it is not so easy for the rest of the country to forget. I look forward to hearing from you about what that might look like....More will be revealed...

It Takes a Village to Raise a Food Writer....

Before I jump off this cliff, I want to acknowledge the women that have held me, literally at times, on this path to be seen as God intended me to be seen...as a writer.

To Lisa Z, Lisa L, Gretchen, and Sherry. Thank you for never doubting that my vision was true, no matter how many false starts along the way. You have seen me as a writer because I said "I am a writer" not because you ever saw anything that I had written. You believed in me when my fear kept me from believing. You held the vision of my truth at times I could not. You honored me as a writer before ever seeing anything concrete that said "Odetta is a writer". You trusted and believed me. I am humbled by your faith in me.

To Rusti, thank you for your time. Thank you for your unfailing vision of the good in me. Most of all, thank you for calling me to task when I failed to step into that vision, for holding up a mirror to me that showed me what I was becoming, and for the reminder that if we do not call forth our God-given talents, we will surely perish in our spirits.

Finally thank you to Dana for lovingly kicking my butt and for saying "It's your turn" and holding me accountable for not answering God's call.

I love you all, I could not have arrived here without you...

The Birthing of a Food Writer...

When I try to recall a time that I was not in relationship with food, I cannot. I'm not talking about my first memory of eating, or my awareness of my favorite food, or even my memories of food and family. There is an intimacy for some of us around food and what we do with it, how we perceive it, how much we think about it. Even how we use it in our lives. For me, food has always been at least, a preoccupation. Thoughts of when we were eating, what I was eating, what I could be eating, or would like to be eating,...well you get the picture...these kinds of thoughts danced through my head daily even as a young child. Particularly interesting to me was what other people were eating and in the 70's, prior to the dazzling array of food shows on television, my best foray into the eating behavior of others was the school cafeteria at Spencer Elementary in Spencer, WV. I was fascinated by the lunches that my classmates would bring to school. I would sit and watch as they unpacked their delectable mysteries. From their campy lunch boxes with matching thermos (the first object of my desire as I was literally a brown-bagger most days)..."Hey kid! What's in that thermos anyway? What is that pink dome shaped cake wrapped in cellophane?" It's was so pink, and even a few seats away there were enough preservatives in that cake that you could catch that first whiff as the bearer of the lovely mass of white flour and refined sugar snapped the wrapping open...it filled the space between us and I would forget myself momentarily. I would generally find myself, unable to stop, needling the poor child who possessed the object of my desire for just one bite so I could indulge my fantasy....I was nine.

Lest you worry dear ones that there was not enough food in my house let me assure you that I am not talking about physical hunger. This is especially noteworthy to me as I grew up in an area, known still today, primarily for the levels of poverty that exist. But in West Virginia there is a rich food culture that is a combination of practicality and down- home tastes which still teases my homesick pallette. It wasn't until I began to raise my own family that I began to see the ways that my Grandmother, who raised me, did her best and was stretching our food supply to accommodate a lean income. There was always a warm and substantial meal on the table. Often this meant something that seemed fun and novel to me, like eggs, bacon, and pancakes for dinner. Breakfast at night! I thought it was a delight, and I can see now that it was all that we had in the pantry at the time. But I went to school with children whose only meal for the day would be what they got on their cafeteria tray and this is a hunger I am blessed to say I have never experienced.

My desire for food is nothing that seems to fit in Maslow's hierarchy. It is not about filling the body or physical survival. It's the feeling that you have when you're eating something especially delicious, it's filling all your senses and you know you should stop. Maybe you were full a few bites back, but what you're eating is such a lovely experience that you must keep going...stopping is not an option, you must savor every morsel of what is in front of you. You're trying so hard to hang on to it, and when you take that last bite, you lament its absence, wonder if maybe you might have a little bit more room for just a little more...one more bite, one more glance a that dome shaped cake with its tantalizing artificial aroma, or even one more minute with my grandmother's discarded, outdated and forgotten cookbooks.

Early on, I was drawn to a surplus of old cookbooks belonging to my grandmother and her mother. They were tattered, dusty, smelled like old books do...musty...a word I don't hear much these days. A couple of my favorites were actually falling apart at the binding. There was nothing on the exterior to suggest in any way that a young child would be drawn to them, much less entertained. But something did draw me to them initially, a pull long forgotten because inside was a bounty so unbelievable to this budding foodie (a term not even in existence at that time) that it overshadowed most of what came before it. Inside were recipes that pulled me back to an era that is almost forgotten in our graceless age of cooking and living. A cornucopia of recipes that hearkened back to an age of hospitality when you had a parlor, "received" guests, and served crustless sandwiches with things like watercress on them. I of course had no idea what watercress was when I was nine, but I imagined it to be the most exquisite sandwich ever made, and really that fantasy is still with me now. Equally engaging to me were the endless array of recipes for things that were pickled or sandwiches that had cream cheese and meat with a little salt and pepper as their dressing, or custards....I remember custards in clear Pyrex bowls coming out of the oven, we actually called those "custard bowls" in our house. Their yellow goodness speckled with nutmeg calling to me from their little cups...

Perhaps your familiar with the wonderful collection of recipes from Cook's Illustrated "America's Best Lost Recipes". Thirty years later, pouring over Cook's nostalgic collection of recipes evokes the very memory of the food I'm talking about, and I still imagine cooking and tasting those dishes. Although I am pretty certain I will not make biscuits and creamed tomatoes anytime soon as I know no one who eats in my kitchen would dare even sample that dish, I would be genuinely satisfied to think of the recipe with fondness, write about it's comforting properties, the aesthetic of the sweet red tomatoes soaking into that pure white fluffy biscuit and then talk about it forever with you or anyone else I could get to listen. As a nine year old, I knew I would not be cooking the food I was reading about and my thoughts of them were my own little secret that I had no desire to share with anyone.

In fact, in our old home, built by my great-grandfather, those cookbooks were an escape. I would lose myself for hours in the reading of those recipes I knew I would never sample. I would wile away the hours in the fantasy of their aesthetic, history, and culture. In the hot and unbearably humid West Virginia summers, I would escape to a spare room in our house that was so cold we never used in the winter as it was too hard to heat with its one gas stove and filled with all the antique furniture my grandmother deemed unusable, but she couldn't quite discard. In the summer though, this room received the bounty of shade provided by majestic maples my great-grandfather had brought from the surrounding woods and transplanted in our yard. The perfect place to hideaway with my companion books, building menus like a "grown-up" knowing I would not cook them. But consumption dear ones was never the purpose, I see that now. It was the beginning of an education and the birthing of a foodie now apparently a food writer...yes, I said it I am a food writer....although, having said it, I use the term with caution and in the most conservative and humble way. It was the birthing of an addiction, a passion for talk of the endless aspects of food to anyone who will listen. The evolution of a bookseller whose favorite shifts are the ones were she can work near the beloved cookbook section so that she can make sure the books are arranged just so for other food lovers, help find the perfect cookbook and watch the delighted face of the person as they anticipate taking it home, and talk to her food soul mates who could spend hours in that one section...yes, I'll say it....my foodie "peeps".

But sometimes there's no one left to talk to, or everyone has heard my stories, or I am scheduled for weeks far away from my beloved cookbook section, near the business section and I need to find a place to have these conversations. It must be time to embrace my other passion and and start writing and at least take the risk to think about embracing the vision of myself as a food writer since the conversations running through my head about food are endless. I could talk about a Tudor's biscuit, or fresh asparagus, or my years as a vegetarian and then vegan, or my inability to completely give up sugar, or Michael Pollan's rules for eating, or the best cashews, or how on earth a person who can talk about food this way could ever develop an eating disorder, or how post-partum depression led to a Food Network obsession that reawakened my passion and let me to make the best shrimp and grits you've ever tasted. And I will confess to you now dear ones, that I often cook dinner with a narration running in my head as if I were doing my own cooking show.

Like my desire, the topics for this blog are infinite. I hope it will be your amuse-bouche. A little something that does not fully satiate your own desire, but inspires you to want. Or at least inspire you to leave a comment so that we might dialogue , or that you might converse with your own self, or someone else. Something that deepens my ongoing relationship with food as well as yours. More will be revealed....