herb dumplings

Rosie has had a lot to show me lately, and although it's been a big time of "hold on, honey, I'll be there in a minute" (after which she proceeds to count to sixty), her method of request has been making me melt.

"Momma!" she says, and she gestures with her whole hand. If I'm smart enough in that moment to realize that I always have a minute for this, and that I better follow her, she rewards me by turning on her heel and skipping as sure as she is confident that I am following her. Wherever we are going, whether it's across the kitchen or outside, she skips. Sometimes she'll only have enough space to get one skip in, but it happens anyway. She is so happy to show me her rock or her princess with green hair or her mutilated buttercup that she skips! That's been making me happy every single day.

The events of last week are still leaving me a little shaky, but somehow moments have become more vivid. The transience of all this is clearer than usual, and my new age rainbow bus upbringing that usually makes me roll my eyes is coming back to help me out a bit. Don't hold on so tightly. Just enjoy and be here. I have been fixating on the freckles on the bridge of Sadie's nose- with every sunny day there are more of them. I don't know why I love them so much, but those freckles on her unique and wonderful nose- I just want to drink them up!

These moments are helping, and every day I hope I'll kick myself enough to notice them. I list them for myself as I go along, and they form a poem of the day:



I'm remembering how important it is to screw the to-do list and take a night off, or an hour off, or even a few minutes with tea in the garden.

The other night, I had the great fortune to spend a night out with two friends. We all stepped out of our lives, got into a car, and went to see a play. We drank wine, and we ate fancy fries with vinegar. It was a night that I didn't have time for, but luckily I went anyway.

The play was about women, and kitchens, and soup. I smiled my way through it, and then I came home happy and a little drunk and thinking mostly about the soup part. Over the course of the play, the women made a pot of soup in this tall shiny stock pot (I covet!), and it smelled phenomenal. After the play, they shared the soup with us, and it tasted just as good. The beauty of this soup was that it was totally non-specific. It was really just kitchen soup- I'd guess it was chicken broth with a whole lot of leeks, maybe a bit of garlic and onion, definitely a few zucchinis, and a few chili peppers for bite. It was salty and warm, and in so many ways it tasted like the words of the play that had been said over it. Is that crazy? You know what I mean, right?

Because soup- really that kind of soup, just absorbs the room around it- it uses what's left in the fridge or what's growing in the garden. I love a good soup.

I went home and made a kitchen soup of my own- a bit of chicken, some shallots and garlic, thickened with handful of semolina flour and chopped spinach that's fighting it's way into the garden through the weeds. But my kitchen soup had herb-green dumplings, because that's the kind of day it was.



Someday perhaps we'll gather together that recipe for kitchen soup- the shifting and changing formula that works every time. But I'm guessing you've got one of you own. As for the dumplings, those are Deborah Madison's, and I'm sure she'd be happy to share.

Herb Dumplings
adapted from Deborah Madison, Local Flavors

1 potato (about 1/2 pound, or more potatoes to make up that weight), peeled and cut into chunks
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped fresh herbs- whatever you have, but I used a combination of chives, oregano, and tarragon
1 cup all purpose flour

Cover the potato with cold water, add 1 teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil. Cook until tender- then drain. Gently mash with a masher.
Stir in the beaten eggs, then the herbs, 1 teaspoon salt, and a bit of pepper. Gently stir in the flour, being careful not to overwork. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead a few times. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Gently roll the dough into a rectangle, approx. 10x4 inches. Cut lengthwise into thirds, then cut each third into 10 or 12 little rectangles.
Bring a wide skillet of water to boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and add a third of the dumplings. Let them cook until they float, about five minutes, then transfer to a buttered dish. Repeat with the rest of the dumplings.
Add to your soup about five minutes before you are ready to serve, just to rewarm them.

Makes 30-36 dumplings.

a pause

I'm needing a little help today.

The world isn't feeling as safe as I'd like it to be. It's amazing how much it's all how you look at it. But I can't help but feel like I'm sitting in the darker side of things.

All throughout the little campaign around here, I kept finding myself talking about the girls as motivation for what I was trying to do. I said that just their presence makes me feel optimistic. It's the truth. It has to. Creating a person has to be the most optimistic act there is, I think. I just can't think that the world is anything less than a good place for them to be.

I keep reminding myself of this.

But I get so busy trying to make things happen, that I don't actually see those little motivators so much. I have to work, and Joey drives them home. I scoot upstairs to write, and Joey brushes their hair before bed. Sometimes it's hard to find balance. I'm really trying. It shouldn't be so hard- I'm doing such small things every day- but I think about women who do great things- who leave their children to do great things. The world calls, but it must be so hard to go. I always say that my first goal as a parent, after getting that baby out, has always been to make the world feel safe for my children. I know that this is a luxury, that I can even hope to do this. For some children, it just can't be safe at all, no matter how secure momma's lap is.

Today I got a call from one of my closest friends. Slowly, with several breaths, she told me that one of her friends had died, and when I had steadied myself, she told me the story of her violent death. This is what we are most afraid of. I don't watch movies with violent crime- I am too quick to see my children in the characters. It's a weakness I have. But this one was real. I knew her a bit- we came together to create all of the festivities around our common friend's wedding years back, and I had seen her here and there. She was lovely. And everything about how her life ended was wrong. I am so sad for her family, and for the community that loved her, and I am just feeling shaken.

I could feel really afraid. And I do, but I'm fighting that, too. Because no matter how hard we try to hold on to our safety, our control is so limited. I can only try to take that gift- to get that kick to remind me that the day is really, really precious. Hell, the moment is precious.

I'm working on that tonight. I'm mulling over these moments of the night- making pizza, calming tantrums, reading books, kissing heads, clearing dishes- I'm just trying to take a pause in each of these moments.

Thanks for sitting in this pause with me for a bit. More food soon.

vanilla extract

If there's one piece of advice I'm hearing a lot lately, it's this:

You can't make everyone happy. Don't even try.

I beg to differ.

In politics? Absolutely. If I had a formula for universal happiness in that arena, I'd be president. And as I am a fairly compulsive "make everyone happy-er", this is going to be a real challenge. It's okay. The girls have started to train me on that one.

But in flavor? There's always vanilla.


What is that flavor, really? I guess it's a sweet thing, but I don't think that sweet is inherent in its true self. It's just... vanilla.

Amateur that I am, I have only recently come around to vanilla beans. The price always put me off, and so when a recipe called for vanilla beans, I always used the extract option that they put in there just to be nice, you know, for the people who don't do the vanilla bean thing.

I had nothing against them- it's just that sometimes it's hard to do something new, even if you are adventurous by nature. When Joey and I got married, we swore that we would switch sides of the bed every few weeks, just so that we wouldn't get too set in our ways. We got distracted by babies and life, and we forgot. After a few years, we switched sides. We couldn't sleep at all. So young, and so set in our ways. Tragic.
And so, with vanilla beans, I decided to cross over and switch it up. I hesitate to call myself a foodie, but it seemed that I couldn't even look over at the popular crowd until I became acquainted with vanilla beans and kosher salt. There was still the money issue, but then I discovered the secret. I'm sure that you all know this, but vanilla beans are best bought online, and in bulk. I buy mine here, but there are a lot of good sources out there.
Once you've got a nice little bag of vanilla beans in your pantry, the world opens up a bit. Vanilla ice cream becomes flecked with little black lovely bits, pudding reaches a high point, poached fruit becomes food for royalty. If you are at all like me in your secret thrill at little fancy things, it's an ingredient I would recommend.
Usually, a recipe instructs is to cut the bean lengthwise, and to scrape the sticky paste of seeds into our milk or cream or what have you. Sometimes the bean gets thrown in as well. But then, the recipe always says this: "remove bean, and discard or save for future use." Future use! Shall I recycle it as a bracelet? Or a Christmas ornament? What recipe calls for a prescraped and withered vanilla bean?
Actually, this one does.

Vanilla beans, powerful and lovely as they are, have quite a bit of strength in them. Soaked in alcohol for a while, they are, as you would imagine, very good at creating vanilla extract.

So here is how it works. Fill a jar or little glass bottle with vodka. It can be the cheap stuff. Put it on your shelf, preferably not in direct sun. As you go through your vanilla bean stash, rinse the spent bean after use and throw it in the jar of vodka. Keep shoving them in there. Let it sit around for awhile. When the liquid is amber colored and tastes like vanilla, it's ready to use.

Happiness for all, in a jar.

and the signs come down

Oh, boy. I could add in a couple of expletives, but I'm still on good behavior.
Yesterday, in between sign holding and pacing around the house and making everyone dinner so that we wouldn't forget to eat, I sat down for a minute with my mother and brought up that topic that seems to be revisited quite a bit these days.
"Am I totally insane?"
My mother, as mothers do so well, put it in the perspective of the whole time line of all these years.
"You do this kind of thing. You always have. You're really good at keeping it interesting."
I guess we all have a talent.

At the end of the night I was at a little bar across from town hall, shakily sipping my vodka tonic.
Joey ordered dessert and just looking at it made me want to yak. You know I'm nervous when a brownie sunday doesn't draw me in. Joey just looked at me with this half amused "this is all great- let's change the world, but then let's go home, talk about our day, and maybe watch a Buffy" look that absolutely keeps me going through these moments. There were some other kind souls sitting with us while the vote was tallied, and as they talked amongst themselves, I whispered my own little mantra..."good if I win, good if I lose."
Really, that's the truth. As I've said before, I've got other things to do! I have radishes to grow, and recipes to test! But, if? If then, I'm ready. This is my town, and if I'm going to be here, I'm really going to be here. There is work to do, and I've got my gloves on. I'm even ready for the prickers. Ready as I'll ever be, that is.

I dated a guy just before college. He was a forest fire fighter- terrified of relationships, but wildly excited to sprint into an expanse of burning trees. I found the latter pretty sexy- that was the kind of girl I was, and luckily the former finally sunk in. I don't know him anymore, except through the sometimes artificial but fascinating "friend-ness" of facebook. He's moved up in the world- instead of running into fires, he's jumping into them from planes and helicopters. I know, I know- I was lucky to get out of that one. But lately he's been posting these jumps on facebook, and I watch them with awe and fear. I myself am afraid of heights, but something about these little shaky camera moments pull me right in, and there I am, jumping from 8,000 feet to the patterned world below. I've been thinking about this jumping, and how I think we all have our different ways of falling backwards, closing our eyes and hoping that the parachute will work.

I've been finding lately that the more I put myself out there, eyes closed or open, I run into more and more people who are taking risks too- this creates a fortunate loop that inspires me to keep jumping.

And then, it was done. I ran over to town hall, and the votes were counted.


A lot of people voted yesterday. In some cases, they had never voted in a local election. Yesterday, they decided to participate. I hope it won't be the last time. Because in the next three years that make up my term, I think we're going to get some good work done. But we're going to need help. It's going to take some more jumping, just to continue the metaphor.
I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.
I'm optimistic.

And that's the story. Tonight I have my first meeting at town hall.
Today, I got back into the kitchen.

I don't think that rhubarb necessarily has anything to do with any of this. Except that like the rest of it, it's what's growing, and it's what I've got. I've also got a bit of straggly mint. And too many blueberries in the freezer.


Last week when we had all the ladies over, Jen and I made a little compote with raspberries and rhubarb. I've been thinking about that compote. I've been waiting for more.

So today, I messed with it. I made it again, but all different. It made my kitchen smell sweet and spicy, and I realized that things might actually calm down again.

With a little yogurt, this got so pretty that it was hard to eat. But I was up to the challenge. We'll see what comes tomorrow.

Rhubarb Blueberry Compote
loosely adapted from the Hay Day Country Market Cookbook

1 pound chopped rhubarb
2 pounds blueberries (thawed if frozen)
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon maple syrup
1 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Cover the rhubarb with water and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the rhubarb starts to release it's juice. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the rhubarb to a bowl. Pour off all but 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid. Add the sugar and ginger to the reserved liquid. Place over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves. Add the rhubarb and the blueberries and stir to combine, allowing to cook for another minute. Add the lemon, maple syrup, and milk. Serve over ice cream or yogurt.

radish salad

I have a couple of things I need to tell you!
Nothing huge or substantial, but details I think you will appreciate.

It is a gray and windy morning (my favorite, secretly), and it is mother's day (happy mother's day!) and this is my 300th post (wahoo!). Rosie has been walking around for the last couple of days with a little sparkly tissue paper wrapped present, voicing a countdown to Mothers day (hooray! 2 days, 1 day, etc) and at 6:30 she woke me out of a dream that I was in Japan, and informed me that it was time to open the sparkly package. It was in fact, the most beautiful bookmark I have ever seen, covered with the word that she knows best how to write, that is "LOVE". Joey shyly pushed a package in my direction, a new and sturdy food mill inspired by a conversation by our local resident French store owner who claims that the food mill is the only way to create silky hummus. This morning, we will pick Sadie up from a sleepover and we will head over to a mother's day wildflower hike over at the cobble. And so the day begins.

Tomorrow is the election, and I'll tell you how all of that goes. Either way, I'll have more time to cook again. Yay Hooray! I actually haven't had granola in the house for weeks now. Without granola, I am hungry all the time.

Yesterday, there was a rainbow that ended in our backyard. The bottom of the rainbow fluttered over our gone to seed dandelions. If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.

And the best thing? The farmer's market started yesterday. It poured for most of it, and there was even a few dashes of lightning, but I was so happy to be there. Even in the rain, people came out to celebrate the vegetables, and we pretty much sold out of everything. The table was covered with these radiant and lovely radishes, and people drifted over, semi-possessed, and pointed at the radishes. Over and over, customers gave me their two dollars, took their radishes without a bag, and I could see them eating them whole before they were even out of the parking lot. Radishes in spring do that to people. Somehow they are the answer to all that old food we eat all winter.
We had a couple of other treats on the table: baby asian greens, sorrel and pea shoots. There were a few bunches of elegant chives with tightly budded flowers, and bags of tender baby arugula. All morning, I was telling people about this salad that I had made earlier in the week- handing them a bunch of radishes, a bag of arugula, and a bunch of chives. They nodded and purchased the whole array of ingredients, but by mid market I started urging the purchase of two bunches of radishes instead of one. I knew that the siren call of the radishes would be to strong; the radishes would never make it home and the salad would never be made. So although there is one bunch of radishes in this recipe, go for two. Then you can eat your radishes in the car with wild abandon, a pleasure I would never want to deny you.

Radish Salad
adapted from Deborah Madison, Local Flavors

1 large bunch of radishes, sliced thin, greens removed (if greens are in good shape, sautee in butter, fabulous!)
2 tablespoons snipped chives
2 handfuls baby arugula or spinach, chopped if it is larger than 2 inches in length
a glug or two of good olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
about ten peels of parmesan cheese, peeled with a vegetable peeler

In a large bowl, combine the sliced radishes, chives, arugula, salt and pepper. Pour a glug of olive oil in the bowl- just enough to coat the mixture when you stir it. Lay the salad out on a platter, and top with peeled parmesan. Top with a touch more salt and pepper if needed.

time for cake

I have been thinking about this cake all week.
After our dinner party on Saturday, I kept finding treats in the fridge. Jen had filled her car with produce from her farm, and a few bundles of this or that found their way into my crisper drawer. There was the most beautiful bunch of rhubarb, and on Sunday morning, as I peaked into the fridge in a bleary "stayed up till two cleaning up and drinking wine after I spent the morning going door to to door for my campaign" sort of state, I saw that rhubarb and I said,
"Screw it all. I'm going to make rhubarb cake."


Of course, I don't have time to make cake. I don't even have time to make a sandwich. The past few weeks, you might walk into the kitchen and find me eating potato chips for lunch, or cold cuts out of the fridge. It is not a good time for my belly right now.
So on Sunday, I did not make a cake. On Monday, I did not make a cake. On Tuesday, I did not make a cake.
On Wednesday, I made a cake.
Life did not mysteriously clear before my eyes. I didn't find myself standing around with nothing to do. But I did go into that fridge, and I saw that rhubarb, and it called to me.
"Stop! It's time to make cake!"
I closed the computer. For some strange and coincidental reason, my phone actually stopped working. And as I creamed the butter and beat those eggs in one at a time, I thought,
"I never want to be so busy that I can't make a cake."
Because a cake like this takes no time at all. If you take out the butter to soften in the morning, you can spend 15 minutes sometime later in the day, even less if you are a speedy chopper (which I, sadly am not). And then the house smells like butter and sugar, and there is a pan on the counter that radiates with golden light. You know cakes that do that? They make a kitchen feel like a place you want to sit, no matter how busy you are. Because who doesn't have time for a piece of cake? A cup of tea, or a glass of milk, and then back to it.


This cake is one of my favorites. Simple, not so sweet, and super moist. It is nice enough for dessert, but also perfect for tea, and just permissible for breakfast. Rhubarb is the fruit of choice at the moment, but the it can act as a great base for a raspberry or blackberry cake. Creme Fraiche or whipped cream could be nice, but really there is no need. The cake and fruit do just fine together on their own.

Rhubarb Cake
loosely adapted from Erma Mabel's Rhubarb Cake, Moosewood Book of Desserts

(Fills a 9x13 pan, which is a lot of cake, but it stays good for several days. If you prefer to have less cake, halve the recipe and use an 8x8 square pan)

2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds chopped rhubarb (about 5 cups), cut into 1/2 inch pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 baking dish.
With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
In a separate medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine the buttermilk and vanilla in a measuring cup.
Starting and ending with the flour mixture, alternately add the dry and wet ingredients to the butter mixture, beating after each addition.
Spread a bit more than half of the batter in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the batter with the rhubarb pieces. Then cover with the rest of the batter, taking care not to press the rhubarb into the bottom batter layer. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife, when inserted, comes out clean and the top of the cake is golden.

cooking with jen

I finally did my salon challenge. I cooked with my friend, Jen.

In the midst of all of the craziness, we cooked together for most of the day. Both of our lives are a little fast paced at the moment, and although I wasn't sure how it would all work out, it ended up being the most amazing time out from it all.


I didn't answer the phone or check my email. I just chopped and kneaded and stirred.
And in the end there was dinner.

This dinner party was a little different from the others so far. As a benefit for the girls' school, mothers bought seats for this one. And it was exactly that, a table full of mothers.

We ate and talked late into the night. With the most astounding assortment of produce from Jen's farm, local meat and cheeses, and blueberry wine concocted by Jen and her husband Pete.

I'll be honest- we weren't as quite prepared as we planned to be. For the last hour, we were actually running around the kitchen at a sprint. But with four hands to do the work, I stayed much calmer than I probably should have. Somehow, I just had faith that we would make it happen.



And we did.

Any one else take the challenge? Tell us! Tell us!

If you're still thinking about it, I'm not so keen on rules around here, and deadlines shmedlines. Especially if the dinner party feel daunting for you, I would take this particular challenge.

With a friend, a whole lot more is possible.