Traditional

How many times does a family have to repeat an activity before it can be called a "ritual"? How many years must contain the same activity, in the same season, before it can be called a "tradition"?

For our household, blueberry picking has become a tradition.When Stone Hill Blueberry Farm opens up in July, we schedule a day to pluck several buckets of the little blue lovelies. Picking our own fruit continues to be one of the few activities which, for all four of us, can be productive, healthy, energetic, and fun all at the same time.

For scale, here's the haul, drying on the kitchen counter, with my two-year-old son looking on with excitement:

Jam and jelly, here we come!

~ emrys

Big Fat Lies?

Upon reading my lament about lowering my cholesterol and saturated fat intake, my brother sent me this link:

It is the first of a series of four videos which lay out an argument for why blaming heart disease on fat and cholesterol is wrong.

I'd love it if you would pursue an investigation of this argument with me, and let me know what you discover.

Shalom,
emrys

It's Time for a Change

I am no longer invincible.

This is my confession. Up until Friday, 5 October 2012, I have lived my life with bare audacious impunity. Like my fellow humans who live the same way, I have chosen a particular realm in which to express my impunity. That realm was fat.

Lipids. Long chemical chains with hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions which, when present in sufficient quantity in food, produce flavor.

Whenever possible, I chose cream over milk. I chose butter over margarine. Taking advantage of a metabolism that kept me rail-thin no matter what, I avoided low-fat products as if . . . they would kill me.

On Friday, the day of my pentannual checkup, my physician told me that my cholesterol and related numbers were up too high. Time to change my diet, he told me. Less cheese, less butter, less cream, less licking the spatula when making pie crust.

I am no longer invincible.

~ emrys

Blueberry Picking - Round 2

Today we managed to pick another 2 gallons of blueberries at Stone Hill and kept GBaby happy and beat the storm. It was a good afternoon! (Read about the first 2 gallons here.) Today's pickins are in the dehydrator and freezer and waiting their turn for round two in the dehydrator and freezer.

Gratitude with Filling

I like to make pies. I'm not sure how this joy came about for me, though it may have something to do with the challenge of making pie dough just right (from scratch, of course). At any rate, I enjoy both the process and the product. What's more, I've noticed that others also enjoy the product, even when they don't enjoy the process so much.

I have also discovered that gratitude is a healthy discipline. This principle goes not only for one's attitude toward God, but also for one's attitude toward other people. Being thankful just plain improves one's quality of life and one's view of others. I could go into the whys and wherefores, but not today. This eve I'll just offer the observation that being grateful colors the world a bit brighter each day.

Somewhere along the line (after I discovered my joy for pie-making) I decided that for those who give me (or my family) gifts of service or favor, I would express my gratitude by making them a pie. It is the best of both worlds for all involved.

It has turned out quite well so far. It's fun to make pies, to deliver them, and to hear that folks are enjoying them. Furthermore, my pie-making skills are improving. (The peach pie pictured above only leaked a little filling, as opposed to the dripping cascades of ooze I usually leave behind in the oven.)
Of course, by entering this in the blog, I run the risk of receiving a host of favors from those hoping for pie.

Oh, well. I suppose there are worse fates to contemplate.

~ emrys

4 Months & New Things

Gwen had her 4 month check up on Friday and measured up to 25 1/2 inches long and 13lbs 10 oz.  She is as healthy as can be: growing and developing by leaps and bounds.  She has great control of her neck and is on her way to sitting up on her own.  

We gave her her first bits of rice cereal last night.  Once we got the consistency to her liking, she ate it up!

Birthday Weekend 4.0: The Rural Gourmet

In times long before ours, families would join for feast to celebrate special occasions.  This year's birthday weekend was a family gathering for feasting.  While we had some great meals, it was really about the time spent preparing and enjoying the meals that was the most memorable and enjoyable.  Mom and dad came to see us, ok they really came to see Gwen and we happened to be her, but all the same they came here for a long weekend. 

 Since Gwen’s arrival I haven’t had as much time to play in the kitchen.  I really enjoy cooking and since I don’t have 8 hands, the gourmet stuff has gotten thrown to the wayside as my energies have been spent on the care of a newborn.  So this weekend, since we had 8 hands in the house, I got to play in the kitchen. 

 

Dad had his meal of steaks, baked sweet potatoes and salad upon their arrival on Friday night (had to wait for him since the steaks were in his cooler!).  The gourmet touch to this meal was one of Emrys’ strawberry-rhubarb pies and homemade vanilla ice cream.  It was wonderful!

Saturday sent us in a lot of different directions since Emrys had an all day meeting, the ‘rents and Gwen and I ended up down in Binghamton running some errands.  Sunday was church and then my grand-daddy of cooking projects.  Last summer I got a ravioli mold at a random little kitchen store in Pennsylvania.  I kept saying that I wanted to make ravioli and somehow fall turned to winter turned to parenthood and I didn’t get the chance.  We have the pasta-rollers for the Kitchen-Aid but it never happened, until Sunday.  I started with this recipe and I tweaked it enough that it only remotely resembled the original for pumpkin ravioli with a pecan cream sauce. 

 

My dad is a fan of kitchen toys.  He got a food processor for my mom for their anniversary that he has more fun with than she does, I think.  The real gift is that there are now dishes that she doesn’t have to gook!  So when I proposed the ravioli project which requires the ravioli mold and the kitchen-aid pasta rollers and dough hook, Dad was in.  We started rolling pasta dough while Mom and Gwen snoozed.  The dough kept going and going and by the time we were done we had the pumpkin ravioli that was the original plan as well as cheese ravioli and sun-dried tomato pesto raviolis and blueberry and cream cheese raviolis.  

All of them were so good and I have cheese raviolis in the freezer for later.  One of my kitchen philosophies is that if I’m going to make that big of a mess, I better get more than one meal out of it.  So I had the original round of raviolis for dinner on Sunday with green beans and Tiramisu Cake and leftovers of the pasta and the cake on Tuesday for my birthday! 

 

Emrys’ birthday fell on Monday which is also his day off and he wanted Eggs Benedict for his birthday meal.  This brought on two new kitchen firsts for me.  The first was making hollandaise sauce; the second was poaching eggs in boiling water.  Both were great successes and the eggs were served with fruit salad and OJ. 

I crammed in about 3 months worth of cooking into one weekend.  I was tired, but it was fun to have family here and to spend so much time on a hobby that I really enjoy.  

Iron Chef NY - Kumquats

For those who have seen Iron Chef America on the Food Network, you know that it is a challenge between two chefs to make a five course meal, each course including the "secret ingredient".  Well my youngest brother is in town visiting for a couple of days and came with two plastic grocery bags relatively full of kumquats.  I'd never seen or eaten a kumquat before but hey, around here, we don't turn down fresh produce in the middle of winter!

For those unaware (like I was before noon today), a kumquat is a small, golf-ball sized citrus fruit with really thin skin that you can eat and it's not yucky like eating an orange peel straight up. These kumquats came to our door from St. Simon Island, GA and I'm told grow year round. 

My Brother's initial inkling was to make marmalade.  Since he arrived on the eve of icy-yucky weather, and I didn't have all the makings for the marmalade, we went to plan B and consulted with google on kumquat recipes.  Thanks to the Kumquat Growers we found some pretty good recipes.  Here's the bowl-o-kumquats we started with: 

From here we went on to make kumquat pound cake - so good but so bad for you!

Kumquat, Oatmeal and White Chocolate Chip Cookies - also very yummy...

Ginger Candied Kumquats (we added ginger)

Ginger Candied Kumquat Cream Cheese Dip with Almond Crisp Crackers

and for dinner we had a Polynesian type pork stir fry with a kumquat-pineapple-teriyaki marinade with rice and mixed veggies.  I forgot to take a "before" picture of the finished dish, but here is what the marinade looked like 

and this is all that was left: 

And with all that - there are still quite a few kumquats left - looks like I could end up making marmalade yet!

(and so far it doesn't seem that kumquats have any labor inducing properties) :D

~sjt