The Letter I Wish I could Actually Send

To Whom it may Concern:

You are just a group of fools sitting around a big board-room table if you don't accept Samantha into your prestigious college or university- not that I'm even a little worried.  This kid is smarter and wiser than any adult I know, and her sense of what is good and right is eerily angelic.  Sam is an outstanding listener, counselor, and friend in general to all her peers.  Sam tends to know what's best in most situations.  I must admit, this is also true in my home when she watches over my three children (all under the age of 5).  While I spend most nights tugging, pushing, coaxing and finally giving up and watching the girls as they finally fall asleep, exhausted from their various tantrums, Samantha pops over for an evening, somehow gets them in their pj's, teeth-brushed, and actually in their own beds on time and-- get this-- they go to sleep almost instantly.  This all happens with ease, without fail, every time I leave my hero Sam with our children.

As an obvious aside, the kid is like a genius.  She's taken a zillion AP courses in high school, belongs to all kinds of various academic, athletic, and philanthropic groups, and all the while she has time for her family.  Oh and she reads The New Yorker for fun.  This ain't your average kid.  Did I tell you she works too?  And on a farm where there's real labor to be done?  Samantha is not a complainer.  She is hip and classy, fun, beautiful and attractively dorky, athletic and charming-- an all-around wonderful person.  I can't say enough about Sam, other than that I can't imagine the rest of the world sees her any other way.  She belongs wherever she wants to be.

In conclusion, if Samantha chooses to be a part of your college or university community, you will be luckier for it.  Your family will be a warmer, smarter, happier place too.

Sincerely,
Sam's Aunt Sue 

Biddeford Winter Farmers Market

It was preceded by quite a bit of local publicity.  All the Southern Maine newspapers covered the story, and the locals were abuzz about the upcoming event.  It would be Biddeford's first farmers' market, and in the middle of February at that.  The donated mill space is part of the old Pepperell building where we used to go to get factory sale blankets with my mom when we were kids.  It's right over the bridge from Main Street in Saco, on the Biddeford side of the river, of course.

 I walked in around 8:10 on Saturday morning to find my ample 10x10 space taped off by Deanna Weaver, the market's organizer and owner of Biddeford's Sweet Specialist.  While D. and many of the rest of the vendors (including me) appeared apprehensive and nervous about how the day would go, we were all relieved by 9:30 when storms of locals appeared at the mill to welcome our presence.  It was a terrific first day.  I sold tons of jam, and I'm pretty sure everyone who had food for sale sold out before we closed up at 1:00.  Hopefully the trend will continue.  More info and feedback in the weeks to come. Thanks, Southern Maine, and hope to see you there next Saturday!    

Cabin Fever Anecdotes

We've been trying to get our cat Woodpile to stay outside more during the day so that he will sleep instead of terrorize us all night with his nocturnal antics.  This has led to some desparation on his part.  Poor cat.  Wants to be in where it's warm now, but he really wants to be out running, falling asleep in the sun, and watching the birds.  I know how he feels.

 

Another cold day, I came out of our bedroom to find this on the middle of our island counter.  Joe had replaced the big fruit bowl with this giant troll, which he brought into the marriage, and which I am removing from the marriage.  It scares the heck out of the kids.  

 

And finally, I cleaned out the refrigerator.  When you make batches and batches of jam, you have little leftover amounts that won't fill up jars, so you put them in jars in the fridge to feed your family and yourself later.  Over time, as I am now aware since cleaning, these amount to literally dozens of partially filled emptied jars.  Who knows what's in half of these?  Now they're empty, and my fridge is emptier too.  Can I call this spring cleaning even though it's only February?

    

3 Days of Peace, Love, and Acidified Foods

Today I signed up for this fall's upcoming Better Process Control School at the University of Maine.  Yeah, I know the fall seems like a long time from now.  But it's a course you have to take if you want to sell pickles to the public within the standards of the FDA, they only offer it every other fall in odd years.  While talking to the woman at Maine's Cooperative Extension (she was lovely), I learned the course is three days and takes place in Orono, which is rather far from here to travel back and forth for three days, don't you think?  She was going on about course details, the acidified versus non-acidified parts of the class, things I would need to plan for, and yet all I could think about was being away for three days, albeit in Orono, with no responsibility outside of the class.  No kids.  No responsibility outside of the class.  I interupted her to ask where I would stay while there.  I think I sort of caught her off guard actually.  She thought I'd be more interested in what she was saying, of course.  Suddenly I imagined myself napping in the afternoon between class sessions, drinking my own personal bottle of wine each night, maybe lounging in a hot tub-- totally uninterupted peace.  If you're a mom, you understand that I love my girls.  I mean I  LOVE  them with all my being.  But can a girl get a couple days of peace?  I shall shout it from the rooftops:  "THANK YOU, PICKLES!!!"  And thank you, lady at Maine Cooperative Extension, for suggesting several hotels in the Bangor area.

Rice and Beans Sundaes

I've only really gotten into cooking over the last few years.  Something about having kids did it to me.  I mean, I've made jam for a long time, but until the girls were born, I really only had a few staples in the house with which to make a few simple dinner recipes.  Joe brought this one into the relationship, and we love it to this day. 

Rice and Beans Sundae (I'm pretty sure Holly named this after Joe and I shared the recipe with her). 

Layer 1:
-Make your favorite kind of rice.  We love the brown kind, but it takes a lot longer to cook than white.  If you're going for healthy, take the extra time to cook the good stuff. 

Layer 2:
-Heat up some black beans, right out of a can.  Spoon some on top of the cooked rice.

Layer 3:
-Add your favorite kind of shredded cheese on top of the beans.

Layer 4:  SALSA.  I prefer the stuff we make and can with fresh tomatoes during the summer, but I've been known to more often use Newman's or even Pace. 

-Layer 5:  Specifically, Joe says sour cream is not to be replaced by anything else as the perfect topping.  However, on Friday night when I made it, we didn't have any sour cream (ha!), so I used cottage cheese (of the non-fat variety), always Cabot-- it's the result of having lived in Vermont so long).  Surprisingly, it was wonderful, and it has to be healthier.

Now, we normally just eat it the way the recipe reads above; however, whenever we've gotten together with my brothers to have it for dinner, they scowl at the no-meat factor.  So, feel free to add cooked chicken or ground beef or turkey.  It is yummy either way.

 

Drying Cranberries

Remember how I mentioned buying upwards of 50 pounds of cranberries last fall?  Here's a glimpse at what I've done to preserve some of them outside of the freezer.  I highly recommend picking up (or borrowing, like I did) a food dehydrator if you're into picking local fruit and/or you have kids who like dried fruit.  Our girls love craisins the most, so I tried making some myself.  It was SO easy, and they are SO good.  Sweet and tart.  Yum.

What you need is a pound or so of fresh or frozen cranberries.  Either boil them until the skins split (less than a minute), or cut them in half yourself.  I found that halving them worked best and didn't add more water to the process like boiling would.  In a bowl add 1/2 cup of your choice of natural sweetener.  I used brown sugar.  I also added about 1/4 cup of honey.  Mix it all up, then spread the berries out onto several racks of your dehydrator.  Dehydrate for 8 hours or so, then check them.  You'll probably need 10 hours, but it's good to make sure you're not drying them too much.  They should be chewy inside and out.

 

Gone SWAT

I may be way behind on this one, but my cousin Kristin informed me a while back that I am what is labeled to be a "SWAT" mom.  Smart.  Woman.  Available.  Time.  And of course this is true.  I mean, for God's sake, I have a master's degree, was a school administrator for several years, belonged to all kinds of important boards and did professional or otherwise intellectual things smart grown-ups are supposed to do.  I was the bread-winner.  And, on top of that, I was cool.  I went out with friends for dinner and drinks, and I had a cool car-- wait, ok first it was a Jeep, then a truck, then a small sedan, then a sporty wagon.  Ok- the sedan was a Neon and the wagon was a Mazda, but compared to the mini-van I drive now, they were cool.  Now I'm a SWAT mom.  After Joe and I had Addie, we got pregnant seemingly the next day (maybe it was a couple months later), and... who knew?  TWINS!  The high school where I worked just required too much time, and I really never gave it the time I was supposed to from the beginning, forget about what I could give them with three babies under a year and a half old.  So when twins came, and we learned that day care would be- O. M. G. -more than five hundred bucks a week, we decided I would leave my job, we'd up and move back to Maine, and I'd be a SAHM (stay at home mom, in case you're also new at this).  So now I am that.  A SWAT SAHM.  Yep, I have a part time job, which I enjoy fully, which gets me out of the house, and which does not require an advanced degree.  And I make jam.  I do this because I love it, and I can do it at home, thereby working AND being a Mom, which I also love.

And, having available time also gives me plenty of opportunities to do things I'd never really cared about doing before.  Like standing around outside in the winter in my pajamas and Joe's muck boots, trying to determine whether or not my chickens are intentionally mooning me like high school kids out a school bus window.  Ah, those were the days.  Smart Woman?  Available Time.