Not Your Minister's Easter Post

Happy Holy Week. It's a time for renewal, reflection, re-dedication, and mass quantities of chocolate. (Ugh. When will I EVER get my eating habits back on track?)

One of my favorite Easter stories comes from my aunt, who had a woman in her congregation take a stand about the commercialization of the holiest of holidays. No Easter goodies for her kids that year, only celebration of the atonement and resurrection. Her young son's plea? (You have to hear this in your mind coming from a little Southern Cali boy with an inexplicable New Jersey accent.) "Mommy, can't we at least have a chocolate Jesus on a cross?"

Well, we do try in our home to focus on the Savior as much as possible at this time. But there is no denying that what my kids look most forward to are new Sunday outfits, filled baskets, chocolate, orange rolls, dying boiled eggs, chocolate, the cousin egg-hunt on Saturday, and of course, chocolate. They won't be disappointed. We'll have it all. And then some. (Do I make the lime cheesecake for Sunday dessert or the carrot cake? And if I do the cake, do I make it into cute bunny cakes or cupcakes?)

But one thing I've never done with my kids is perpetuate the Easter Bunny myth. I just can't. You may ask why not. That would be an especially understandable query if you know me well enough to know that I love the Santa stuff and Tooth Fairy fun. We are nearly over loosing teeth chez nous, but I still won't admit to my kids aloud that there is no Santa. And they can't admit it to me either, because, as they are warned, Santa doesn't bring presents to kids who don't believe in him.

The thing is, I find the Easter Bunny idea to be kinda, well, creepy. I have nothing against bunnies in general. Nothin's cuter than a little lop running around your house. Bunny Peeps? My favorite shape. Let 'em get a little stale and those crunchy ears are the best, Jerry, the BEST. Bunny cakes were already addressed above. Chocolate bunnies? Do I even need to respond to this one?

But an over-grown rabbit, who may or may not sport formal-wear, hiding baskets and boiled eggs that weren't even his own but that *I* remember dying (yeah, this issue goes waaay back)? Well, that's over the top. I think I may prefer an encounter with an R.O.U.S. because I know for certain that I should attack on sight.

As a kid there were several years that I tried to stay up to catch the Easter Bunny in the act. I was skeptical, frankly, as well as creeped out. I often wanted to see Santa as well, yet I don't remember ever feeling the need to prove something--I just wanted to hug him. (I guess for me a magical little old man with reindeer and a sleigh was a much easier story to swallow.) Those Easter-eves I always fell asleep before the Bunny's arrival, and I wasn't ever sure if I was disappointed or relieved to have missed him.

One spring, when I was about 16, I actually got a gig as the Easter Bunny for a week or so at our local mall. Strangers all over Western Mass have photos of me with their kids and babies in boxes up in their attics. Of course, no one can tell it's me. I wouldn't even be able to tell you if it was me, thanks to that top-heavy, hot, Lysol-coated, condensation-filled helmet of a torture chamber they called a "mask." That thing was brutal. And it was hard to see out of. You couldn't look down. Most of the kids sitting on your lap are below eye-level, and it was hard to see where they were or what they were doing. I about freaked when I had to hold a several week old infant for photos. I was just glad she was too young to roll over. Also, the Easter Bunny doesn't talk. So I just got to give hugs and pat heads and wave like a beauty queen on a float. That was harder than one might think. Not only could I not see these kids ... I couldn't answer them. And the ones who weren't screaming were asking lots of questions.

When I became a mom, and #1 was getting old enough to start the Bunny thing, I just couldn't do it. And really, I didn't even need to. We always had the big egg hunt on Saturday with our cousins, and everyone knew it was the uncles out there hiding the eggs. (Which, I suppose, could be it's own brand of creepy.) So on Sundays, I just hid the baskets. And that was that. No freakish rabbit. Same great treats. Win-win.

I'll be interested to see what my kids do when they become parents. Maybe they'll go over-board with the Bunny since they had deprived childhoods. Or maybe I'll have passed on that particular neurosis to them, and we'll have a second generation of Bunny-free* Easter celebrations.

*chocolate and marshmallows not excluded

It's what's for dinner ...

Okay. So some things just should not irritate me. But they do.

#1 has a habit of asking what's for dinner. This isn't necessarily the problem. It's when she asks, it's how often, and occasionally it's about the annoying Phineas and Ferb accent she uses. Sometimes I've been gone all day, I'm tired, and the second I walk through the door I hear, "What's for dinner?" Sometimes I've answered this question of hers several times and yet again I get asked, "What's for dinner?" Sometimes I can see that she's looking AT THE MENU posted on the fridge in our pantry as she's asking, "What's for dinner."

And it makes me want to scream.

#1 is not a creature of habit, per se ... she's a creature of expectations. She simply wants to know what is going to be happening in her life on any given day or in any given week. It's how she processes the world around her. The problem isn't really that she wants to know what dinner is, the problem is entirely my response. I really do want to have patience with her.

Yesterday, while shopping for a family "jobs" board, I was inspired with a solution to this problem of mine. I found a little red magnet board, the perfect size for hanging an index card with dinner printed on it. I came home, hung it, made a cute magnet, and posted our dinner for the night. #1 came home, and I showed her, and told her how she can always look on this board for the correct menu item. (I will occasionally switch around my weekly menu, so it's not always accurate.) #1 seemed very excited about this.

I congratulated myself.

Today #1 came home, went straight to the menu board, and asked, "What's for dinner tomorrow?"

F2: Friday's Feast, Soup or Treat

Some occasions just taste a certain way to me. Food is such a central element of celebration and, as I am sure is quite common, I often get flavors stuck in my head as representing certain holidays. Some of those flavors traditionally make sense. Others are a little less obvious. For years, Halloween has tasted to me like taco soup.

I can't recall when I first made Taco Soup as the pre-trick-or-treat meal, but I did it for years. It's warm, it's hearty, and it's a little spicy--all a nice prelude to a cold, sugar-laden evening. Then we moved up to a small mountain community where Halloween was celebrated in the middle of town, complete with parade, carnival, haunted house, and businesses passing out candy. Those years dinner was hot dogs and hamburgers prepared by the Lion's Club.

Now we're back in a regular neighborhood, more or less, and so we will be able to reinstate our soup tradition. If you'd like to join us, I'll make a double batch. Alternately, you can make your own pot of soup. Make it ahead, even. I see no reason why this couldn't sit in a crock pot all day on low. Serve it with some corn muffins and apple slices. At our house, we also have a bowl of toasted pumpkin seeds, courtesy of our jack-o-lanterns, sitting out to munch on. (Dessert graciously supplied by the neighbors.)

Taco Soup

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 pkg. taco seasoning
• 1-20 oz. can stewed tomatoes, undrained
• 2 c. water
• 1-8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1 can corn, undrained
• 1 can kidney beans, undrained

Cook beef and onion together in soup pot. Drain fat. Mix in taco seasoning. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Top each serving with:

• coarsely crushed tortilla chips
• sour cream
• grated cheddar cheese
• chopped avocado, if desired

Visit Ca-Joh for more Friday Feast Halloween Fare.

F2: Friday's Feast, Recipe Swap

I love autumn. I love the weather, I love the colors. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love cinnamon and nutmeg and all of those warm spicy scents and flavors. And I love pumpkin! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ice cream (I recently had a pumpkin malt to die for at a local ice cream shop), pumpkin pie, pumpkin bars, pumpkin pasta (sounds weird, I know, but I once had an amazing pasta dish with a pumpkin cream sauce at a place called Café Aroma we used to frequent back in Cali), pumpkin roll, pumpkin Peeps (which, I grant, taste just like every other Peep), pumpkin bisque, and pumpkin cheesecake.

CaJoh is doing a recipe swap for his Friday Feast feature today, so head on over here for more great culinary contributions. Being the time of year it is, I decided to submit my new favorite Thanksgiving dessert, Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake. I nabbed this recipe off of epicurious.com two years back. It was originally printed by Bon Appétit in October 2002. It is the best served with freshly whipped cream. I've thought about replacing the graham crackers in the crust with ginger snaps. I'd make the swap ounce for ounce. It makes one tall, rich, 10" cake.

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

Makes 12-16 servings

Crust

9 whole graham crackers (about 4 oz.), broken

1/4 c. sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 c. butter, melted

Filling

4 8-oz. pkgs cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/2 c. sugar

3 large eggs

1 15-oz. can pure pumpkin

1 c. whipping cream

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground allspice

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350. Wrap a double layer of heavy duty foil around outside of 10" springform pan. Combine crackers, sugar and cinnamon in food processor. Blend until crackers are finely ground, drizzle in butter, and pulse until crumbs begin to stick together. (Alternately, crush the crumbs in a plastic bag with a rolling pin, and mix together with remaining ingredients with fork.) Press mixture into bottom (not sides) of springform pan. Bake until crust is slightly golden, about 10 minutes. Remove to cooling rack but maintain oven temp while preparing filling.

Cream cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin and remaining 7 ingredients. Beat until just blended. Pour into prepared crust. Place pan in large roasting pan. add enough water to some halfway up sides of springform pan. Bake until slightly puffy and softly set and top is golden, about 1 1/2 hours. Transfer springform pan to cooling rack and cool. Cover and refrigerate cake overnight.

I guess I need to admit here to being at times a poor reader of directions, and I do not believe I have ever put the cake pan in a pan of water. And my cakes have always turned out great. Maybe I'll try the water bath this year, and see if I can tell a difference.

Well, I wish I had a great photo of this to share, but I haven't taken pics before, and there's no way I will make one of these just for that purpose. Because then I'd eat it.

F2: Friday's Feast, OCCD

Obsessive Compulsive Checkout Disorder.

I have had this disorder in varying degrees my entire grocery shopping career.  And right now I am at a high point.  Or maybe that's a low point.  I guess it depends on who you're askin'.

I like to put things on the checkout belt in categories.  This habit became more ingrained when I lived in the mountains and needed to put all of my cold things in a cooler for the half-hour drive home.  One would think that a bagger would do that automatically.  Uhhhh, no.  One might then think that if a customer specifically asked that all of her cold things be put together, that they could manage it.  Wrong again.  I always had to look through my bags to take out the stragglers.  And if I'd asked, I would become extremely irritated at the necessity of that obnoxious, time consuming task.  So I stopped asking and became extra diligent about my categories.

Boxed items all are put on the belt together.  Then meats.  Freezer, refrigerated, and deli items. Cans and jars.  Any bottled juices.  Baking goods.  Fresh produce.  Breads.  That's pretty much it.  I do group non-grocery items together after the food items.  

This really doesn't take as long as it may seem it would.  That's why the boxes tend to go on first.  Those are bulky, easy to spot.  Once they're out of the cart, it's easy to sort the rest.  A lot of it is already grouped in my cart that way, just because of how the aisles are arranged.

I never thought that anyone noticed this.  Maybe they haven't in the past.  But the last time I went grocery shopping, the cashier, who was also bagging, commented on my anal behavior (her words).  Rather than criticizing, she was thanking me.  It was so much easier to bag that way, she said.  I told her she was welcome and felt gratified.  I instantly realized that any hope I had at rehabilitation was just dashed.  Reinforcement like that will sustain my OCCD for quite a while.

Visit CaJoh for more Friday Feast links.

F2: Friday's Feast, Easter Menu Light

My good bloggy friend CaJoh has created a recurring feature post called Friday's Feast, dedicated to all things epicurean.  If you're interested in his vision for the feature, click here.  

This week seemed like a no-brainer.  It's Easter weekend.  Time to meditate core beliefs.  Time to celebrate hope and new life.  Time, also, to eat.  Time to eat a lot.  I guess one upside here is that, opposed to Christmas Season which runs a month complete, Easter feasting generally only lasts the weekend.  That's a little easier on the waistline.

The past few years, however, I have tried to lighten up our Easter dinner, mostly to lessen the guilt of eating my weight in jelly beans, m&ms, and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs.  I have given up some of the traditional foods that I grew up on and adore, but I have found the replacements to be quite elegant.

Traditional:      

• Ham
  
• Cheese Potatoes (funeral-style)  
  
• Artichokes
  
• Jello-Salad
  
• Rolls
  
• Several Desserts
  

New:

• Roasted Pork Loin
  
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
  
• Asparagus
  
• Fresh Fruit Salad
  
• Orange Rolls (This one is worse.)
  
• Green Salad
  
• Carrot Cake bunnies
  

I got a recipe from Kelly a few years ago for a spiced maple marinade that gives the slightest sweet crust to the pork loin.  The sweet potatoes I peel, cube, and toss with a little olive oil and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and allspice before roasting.  The asparagus is only better than the artichokes because of the dipping factor.  I saute´ them in a little olive oil and freshly pressed garlic.  Now the rolls.  Regular rolls are healthier than these orange rolls of my grandma's that are an unglazed cinnamon-style roll.  They are scrumptious, though, and remind me of my grandma.  So they stay.

The carrot cake I make is pretty good, if I do say so myself.  It is my mother's recipe, lightened up just a touch.  It gets rave reviews.  I use applesauce in place of the oil, and I use neufchatel

 cheese in the frosting.  Still not a diet food, by any stretch, but I like to pretend it's healthier.  I need to try it sometime with wheat flour to see what that does to the recipe.  But not on Easter.  I make the bunnies by baking two 9" round cakes.  Each round makes one bunny.  Cut the round in half across the diameter and frost together taco-style.  It will sit on it's cut ends.  You then carve out a little chunk to create a neck and stick that on the other end of the cake for a tail.  You end up with a three-humped cake.  Frost that.  Add jellybean eyes and nose to the head.  The ears you can cut from construction paper and insert into the head.  I often surround the little guys with green tinted coconut and more jelly beans.  (The photo I got on-line.  I don't cover my bunny with coconut, because some of my kids don't like it.  I also make a slightly smaller head by cutting the notch further down the arc.  I think it's a little cuter that way.)

Have a blessed Easter weekend!   And bon apetit!

Friday Flashback: "Cookies, Conversation, and a Little Celebrity"

Welcome to my first Friday Flashback.  When I wrote Monday's post, I had an older post from the first year of my blog already in mind.  When I went to look it up today, I found this one and changed my mind.  I worry that this may not be my most impressive piece, and I really wanted to start off with a bang.  So why this one?  Well, I think it comes down to the fact that I'm really missing my husband while he's in CA this week.  I know I'm blessed because he is returning, and also because we have a relationship that makes him so miss-able.  But for tonight, I'm still kinda lonely, and reading this cheers me up.  Enjoy ...

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Trying to get back into more regular date nights, Larry took me out for Chinese last Friday night. I love Chinese food. And I have to say, it's not just the food, it's the whole experience. Our little Chinese restaurant up here is no exception, although in a quirky sort of way. 

There are several celebrity photographs gracing the wall, taken at the restaurant with the owner. The one that stands out, for various reasons, is of Dolly Parton. Over the PA system croons a recording of a female vocalist doing Beatles covers who sounds a bit like Vikki Carr which seems like it would play more easily in a bakery in Little Italy. The waitress/maitre'd tends to seat folks just a little too close together for the number of parties in the place. There is an art to spacing. I tend to require as much of a buffer as possible.

Dishes are plastic versions of the Asian-inspired china one might find elsewhere. This bothers me, I have to admit. Good plates are a one-time investment, unless you have a careless dish-washer. Perhaps that's their problem. The glasses are also plastic. Water, even with ice, seems warmer if you drink it out of plastic. Larry ordered a 7up and was served a can along with a plastic glass of ice. I noticed the trio seated next to us ordered beers and received glass glasses. They couldn't put a name with Dolly's face, and got a couple of photos of themselves seated around the table.

We ordered a family dinner with sweet and sour shrimp and beef with black mushrooms, then chatted over some great fried won tons, egg rolls and duck sauce served with our soups. We talked about important things, and things with almost no significance at all. We had to chat quietly to compensate for a small buffer space. Our food came a little slowly, but we weren't in any big rush. This restaurant is odd to me in that they seem to skimp a little on the rice. Most Chinese places serve enough rice with your meal for a small army. That said, we always have left-overs to bring home.

And, of course, who doesn't like fortune cookies? My brother used to recite a funny SNL bit about the people who make up the lucky numbers for the fortunes. "4? What the hell kind of lucky number is 4?" That's all I can ever remember of it. When I was a teenager the cool thing for me and my geeky friends to do was to add "in bed" to the end of our fortunes. It can get pretty darn funny. But being grown up now and married . . . it's even funnier. It may even pan out. But not this time. I got, "You love playing to a crowd."

Larry opened my truck door as we left. I was thankful that chivalry is not entirely dead, and Larry was thankful that I appreciate such a gesture. Maybe the greatness of the night wasn't the restaurant at all. Maybe it was being with my sweetheart, with no one needing a drink filled or more ketchup squirted on their plate, or beans picked out or chicken cut up. Yeah, I think that was it.

Turkey Eating

I grew up with Thnksgivings at home with my mom, my brother, often two missionaries, and sometimes a person or two with no other place to go. It was small, but meaningful, and certainly very yummy. My mom made little traditions to make us stop and think about the meanng of the day. Two days after Thanksgiving, we'd feast again with my Dad and my stepmom. This generally included salmon loaf, apple pie, and Grandma's banana-pineapple Jell-o salad. At least one year, Amy made a delicious pumpkin ice cream pie, that I think was a recipe from her mom.

As great as that all may sound, I used to long to be part of a bigger crowd. My dad's family all met together every year in San Diego, and I thought that must be the way to have a holiday. Four, six, seven people--that was not quite in the category of "celebration" to me.

The first time that I experienced one of these San Diego affairs was when I was a sophomore in college. I came down from Utah with a cousin and her family and stayed with my uncle. That was a fun trip, but the fun had more to do with the time I spent with two female cousins and just being away from school. The actual dinner was interesting. These events more closly resemble a ward pot luck than a Thanksgiving dinner. It's in a chapel--boys are shooting hoops in the cultural hall, girls are watching them from the stage and little kids are running amok. Parents and grandparents are in the kitchen warming up and putting the finishing touches on what has been prepared at home. A buffet table set up in the hall leads to giant round tables in what I am guessing is the Relief Society room, decorated in theme. The food is much better than your regular pot luck, I will grant, but for me the dinner is just overwhelming and uncomfortable.

My first Thanksgiving after getting married, we already had one kid and had moved about two miles from my in-laws. That first one was rough. Men watched football, and women did food and clean-up. I had a six-week old baby, and was pretty miserable. Those family events got a little bettter, then a little worse. As more people joined the family by marriage or birth, my mother-in-law felt the need for more organization. There was a time when there were games and crafts for the kids and crafts for the women all scheduled and set up like some mass homemaking meeting/activity day. She's never organized anything for the men--they always have football. This has let up a bit, but there is usually some craft involved still--I hear this year we're doing little glass snowmen. But the only way to avoid going to Larry's family dinner is to decide to go to the San Diego one instead. We've done it a few years, but honestly, now that I have recipes for both Uncle Tim's mashed potatoes and Grandma's orange rolls, I have little need for that kind of Thanksgiving.

My dream is to do the big day up here. Just us, maybe some friends. I could make MY stuffing and MY yams and MY pumpkin pie--maybe even the ice cream pie. The mountain scenery would remind me that I am thankful for where I live, and sitting at a table with my kids would reinforce how grateful I am for my family. My house would smell good, my kitchen would be warm. My slippers would be just down the hall and my sofa would be waiting only for me to finish my turkey. It would indeed be small--six, eight, maybe twelve people. And that would now be my definitave celebration.