Household Blog

In an effort to adapt my beloved banana bread for local and seasonal considerations, here’s my July-in-Virginia version. I made this last week and was thrilled at the result. I’d recommend adding a little bit of lemon rind too, or possibly using honey instead of sugar - play with it, see what you like!

2 large ripe peaches
2 eggs
1/3 c. brown sugar or rapidura
1 T. olive oil
1 ¾ c. gluten free flour mix (I use Pamela’s) or regular flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
½ t. sea salt
¾ c. fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Slice peaches thinly and then cut slices in half. In large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, and oil, then add peaches. In separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, tossing together with a fork. Add the dry mix to the wet mixture and mix with fork or spoon just until combined. Add blue berries and mix gently. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake 1 hour. Enjoy!

Here’s a new recipe I made the other night for a girl’s night supper, using leftover roast chicken, and lovely farmers market produce. I use garam masala, an Indian spice blend, but fully realize that many may not keep this stocked in their pantries. BUT. Allow me to say that I’ve found this spice extremely useful in pumpkin bread, curries, apple pies, oven roasted home fries, and much more. You might give it a shot, or you can use a blend of nutmeg, cardamom, coriander and the like. This dish is as pleasing to the eye as it is to the palate—be sure to eat it fresh to get the best texture and flavors.

Curried Peach Chicken Salad

1.5 – 2 c cooked chicken, pulled into bite-size pieces
1 large or 2 small ripe peaches or nectarines, peeled and chopped
1 long sweet pepper, julienned (I used green cuz it’s pretty)
2 t. fresh thyme or marjoram or basil
¼ c. plain yogurt or mayo
1 t. curry powder
1 t. garam masala

In bowl, combine peaches, chicken, peppers, and thyme – toss together. In separate small bowl or jar, combine yogurt/mayo, curry, and garam masala. Pour dressing over the chicken mixture and serve on top of fresh veggies, rice, or roll up in a leaf of lettuce or collards into a lovely GF burrito!

I am a fan. I’ll try to keep this brief.

Rising out of the stalemate of last year’s writers’ strike, Joss Whedon (creator of such pieces as Serenity, Firefly, Buffy, and the upcoming Dollhouse) brings something new to viewers. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was created during the lapse in studio work in Hollywood, essentially a bunch of Whedon’s friends and family getting together to produce and perform in a mini-musical about love, villains, heroes, and other important stuff. Consisting of three acts, the piece was released exclusively on the internet to be viewed for free initially and is now available for download through iTunes—at only $2 an act.

I’ve been a big fan of Whedon since I lost a bet in college and was forced by my roommate to watch three episodes of Buffy. Life’s rough. Whedon’s characteristic wit and quirky dialogue return in full force, along with surprisingly skillful musical arrangements (as many will remember from Once More, With Feeling) and an ensemble, led by Neil Patrick Harris, that is unselfconsciously and delightfully goofy. Click on the image above to check it out. I promise you won’t regret it…

Took a lovely drive this morning, as promised in my previous post, out to Avery’s Branch Farm to see the operation and most importantly, to meet Sunshine. Spending a sunny July morning in peaceful rumination, I am proud to say that she was quite a gracious hostess.

Located south of Richmond in the county of Amelia, Avery’s Branch is a family-run farm focused on raising all-natural meat, dairy, and produce. Though not certified organic (a lot of hoops through which to jump), the farm uses sustainable and organic methods to ensure the highest quality of life for their animals. Their dairy cows are predominantly Jerseys and are grass-fed in rotating pastures. An assortment of chickens are similarly rotated and grass-fed (and bug-fed, and whatever-else-they-can-get-their-beak-on-fed). Throw in a few pigs, a smattering of adorable feline rodent control agents, and one enthusiastic lab/pitbull mix named Sammy, and you’ve pretty much got a complete menagerie. Farm products include pork and chicken, eggs, raw milk and dairy products, as well as fruits and vegetables and fresh-baked goods; most of which I can vouch for as being absatively dee-lish.

If you don’t live near Richmond but would still like to find a farm to support in your area, visit Local Harvest, a site replete with information on farms nationwide, what they produce, regional CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), farmers markets, an online store, and tons of information.

Happy eating, lovelies! And by the way, Sunshine says, “Moo.”

I was recently listening to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air in which Terry Gross spoke with Bishop Gene Robinson. Fascinated, I listened as Robinson spoke of the role of prayer in his everyday life. His words were honest and simple when he spoke of how he had grown in prayer, that he (and most people) had started praying at first with words and requests, often repetitive, but as he aged and matured spiritually, his prayer grew into a deeper, non-verbal experience. I’m certain I’m not doing justice with my paraphrasing, but how he described this experience struck a chord…

Now I’m not a Christian, though I was raised in a Christian household, have studied it in-depth, and find it to be for the most part a noble philosophy. I have been struck time and again by the common experience of those walking a spiritual path. By spiritual path, I should clarify, I don’t necessarily mean a person who goes to church or temple or whatever motions designated as devout by their chosen religious group. A spiritual path, to me, is a commitment to challenging oneself and one’s ideas, of not taking anyone else’s (or any book’s) word for it, of living spiritually within this life, this world.

Such a path often leads to a common experience, and regardless of whether one calls it prayer or meditation, it is described with the same evocative images by people of all religions and paths: to be surrounded by a sensation of lightness/goodwill/peace/contentment, to feel that you are more expansive than your physical body, to rise above the mundane chatter and discomforts of the worldly moment, to gain a simple sense of clarity and objectivity and wordlessness, a sense of unity. One of my favorite authors, Phyllis Curott, describes it as a process of “unnaming.”

This led me to a thought: If so many have had this similar experience (putting aside the variations of vocabulary), why are so many convinced that theirs is the one True or Right way? Here’s the conclusion I drew.

We all start somewhere. Most of us got some early spiritual notions from our families, either conforming to or rebelling against their beliefs (or both!), but either is a reactive development. Our first independent spiritual experience is a coming of age, our first moment of being filled up to overflowing through prayer or meditation or just looking up into the vastness of a starry sky - it wells up, and we are changed. I’m certain there are people who go to church and never experience this bliss (to use Joseph Campbell’s term), as I’m certain there are people affiliated with no religious group or belief system that have nonetheless experienced it as profoundly as anyone.

Where we are when we have that first experience shapes our footsteps from that moment on. If we are in church, well, it stands to reason that it’s because of the Church or because of God’s love. If we are walking through the woods, it must be the encompassing energy of Mother Earth. Whatever we are doing, whomever we are with, whatever our affiliations or beliefs at that moment of lightness, like a duckling we cry out in recognition of that as our Mother (or Father), assuming that this is the reason this wonderful gift has been bestowed on us.

I think that everyone who attains this bliss, in that moment, is walking a True path, their personal True path, because it is what led them to that moment in the first place. Their path is not necessarily going to work for anyone else, and there is a beauty in that thought.

What a delightful thought, all these roads circling a globe and yet, in an impossible feat of physics, finding the same space and time, time and again!

Declaring a particular philosophy or dogma or religious group to be Right and True (generally to the exclusion of all others) is like plucking a flower. It is beautiful when first picked, but the very nature of the act separates the flower from its life force, its connection to that moment; it must be forced between the pages and trapped in time rather than continuing on in its own vital and vibrant cycles and seasons. Let the moment be. Nurture it gently, prune it occasionally, but let it grow, roots reaching deep into the earth of experience, leaves thrilling in a spontaneous wind.

It’s a long-standing rule of exchange that a thing is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. As necessary or prized commodities grow rare, they correspondingly increase in value. A few easy examples that come immediately to mind are oil, gold, corn, saffron, or art. And for some of us, touch.

This thought came to me yesterday when I went to see my massage therapist. It seems that our society, our culture, is increasingly becoming one of alienation. Our media overwhelms us and largely replaces what previously would have been gleaned from personal interaction or the expansion of our imaginations by (gasp) reading a book, gardening, creating art, or making music. A trip to the doctor’s office for many of us consists of sitting and waiting for an absurd amount of time, flipping with disinterest the pages of some similarly mindless magazine, trying not to draw attention from the restless natives. The payoff of this purgatorial penance is a cold, bright room, a doctor who rarely if ever looks up from his chart, a minute or two of rapid interview and a piece of paper to cure (or mask) your affliction.

How much I cherish the healing arts, those practices of wellness that thrive on essential human nurturing. The massage therapist, the chiropractor, the acupuncturist, these are vocations that focus on curing the cause, not just treating symptoms, and maintaining wellness and health, preventing dis-ease (a concept I wish, with all my heart, the insurance companies would embrace) - all of this through personal attention, intention, and touch.

Of course these interactions are professional and clinical, but also deeply comforting. There is a therapy that goes beyond kneading tissues and manipulating spines, a therapy of knowing the comfort of someone else’s hand on your body with healing intent. We open ourselves, we let down our defenses, we accept and are accepted. Such acceptance, that kind of touch, is a highly valuable commodity. Whether in the massage room or on the acupuncturist’s table, my meager funds are willingly traded for this deeper healing, with great gratitude to a person with such a calling.

Too many times have I withheld touch from someone, or when it’s been withheld from me, and the resulting and intense need that follows can be suffocating. On the other hand (and happily a much more common occurrence in my life), being welcomed warmly into a friend’s arms, being kissed fully by a loved one, the spontaneous and frank expression of fondness is a beautiful and simple joy. Touch, to me, is priceless.

Hooboy.

My dear darling wonderful gal pal Lauren just sent me this picture of her brand new bundle of joy, and I just had to share. I have to say, I’m glad that these parents are serious enough about parenting to know when not to be. Apparently the wee one conks right out after a few slugs from the jugs (oh I’m so sorry).

To the brave parents: Slainte! We salute you!

Moo. I want to meet my cow.

I’m a person with a mission people. I recently got my very own cow share, and I want to meet my cow. For those of you who don’t know what a cow share is, it is an arrangement in which I legally purchase a share in an animal, thereby entitling me to a portion of its raw milk. My specific arrangement is with Avery’s Branch Farms, a family-run operation out of Amelia, Virginia. The family gets a secure long-term investment covering the costs of keeping their cows, and every week I get a sweet, creamy gallon of raw milk from a grass-fed happy (named Sunshine), plus raw butter, happy chicken eggs, raw cheese, etc., upon request.

And I want to meet my cow.

Think for a moment about what you eat in a week. Can you pronounce most of the ingredients? Does it come in a disposable package? How many hands working for how many companies and corporations have touched it? How many miles were driven and how much gas was consumed moving the product between the original ingredients, the suppliers, the distributors, and who knows how many other middlemen, before it reached its spot in your supermarket-of-choice? How much are the farmers paid, at the root of any such equation? How do they treat the land, or their animals? These questions, and the fact that I cannot answer most of them, disturb the hell out of me.

So many of our consumables (is that a word?) end up in our cupboards or refrigerator in packages bearing no resemblance to their original source. Beef comes from cows people, it doesn’t just grow into steaks like cabbage patch kids. And I like to eat meat sometimes, but I also like to know my food comes from an ethical source.

So I’ve made a decision. As much as possible, I want to consume responsibly. I want to know exactly where my “stuff” is coming from, that my money is going to support sustainable farmers, not brand-name “organic” and “free range” mega-farm monstrosities that make a mockery of those very ideals. I want to shake the hand of the person that cultivated my food, and know that we are supporting each other, that the money I spend with them to nourish my body is in turn going to be recirculated within our local community – that’s sustainable.

Beyond that, I want to be able to pronounce all the ingredients in my food and not eat anything with corn syrup in it unless I’m adding it myself (mmm… caramel corn…), to know how my eggs and veggies and rice and meat get to my table, exactly where they come from.

So here’s what I’m doing. I’m going to the local farmers’ markets. I’m trying to eat whole foods, in season, sustainably farmed right here in Virginia without use of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides or the like. For those staples that I cannot garner from local farms directly (such as rice or olive oil), I’m seeking out companies directly, informing myself and choosing whom I want to support. I will continue to enlarge my garden year by year and learn more about growing my own food and herbs. I learn to make other foods myself – cheese, yogurt, wine, kombucha, etc. I will eat food that is tastier, healthier, fresher, and I will bask in the goodness and wholesomeness. Or I’ll just say “yum.”

So I’m going to meet my cow. I’ll keep you posted…

I’ve finally found it, my uber-recipe for banana bread, the unicorn of gluten-free quickbreads, the bodacious babe of the banana cabana!

You know, I didn’t really care for banana bread when I was younger – the texture never seemed quite right, it was often dry, and why waste a perfectly good banana (or four, for that matter). But these things change. It all started with Kat.

Kat is a darling. She’s a dancer and, even though I am admittedly biased, she’s one of the most lovely and graceful and powerful dancers I’ve ever seen. She’s also a wholesome and warm person to be around, and so was the banana bread she made for our tea date one fine afternoon. It was moist, it was flavorful, it was hot from the oven, it was… healthy?

Okay lalala fad diet nonsense and what-what, but yes, healthy. Flour and sugar played their roles, but not in large portions. The real star of the bread was the FIVE bananas it used for one loaf. Currently swooning with divine memories of the goodness…

A year later, blood sugar issues have brought me to a gluten-free diet plus a sizable reduction in sugar intake, but going without banana bread??? Not an option, clearly. Another great gal pal (and chiropractor extraordinaire) by the name of Ruth took me under her wing to teach me the wiles and wonders of GF baking. Le sigh. I will never be the same again. Since then I have worked and reworked this recipe, but I’ve pretty much got it nailed down. It takes no more than 10 minutes to assemble and is guaranteed to produce good mellow smooshiness and smiles all around. Yay, therapy food!

Gluten Free Anna Banana Bread

Ingredients:
2 eggs
5 ripe bananas
1/3 C. or less brown sugar
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 3/4 C. Pamela’s flour, gluten free (can also use regular flour, for you non-GFers)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs in large mixing bowl. Add bananas, sugar, and oil and mix with potato masher (a good way to get your agression out). In a separate bowl, combine remaining ingredients and add to wet mixture. Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake 55 - 60 minutes.

Suggestions: Experiment with adding nummy spices - nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, etc. Also, for variation, I’ve found that using only three bananas and adding 1 cup fresh berries (oh blueberries oh) is fairly nigh exquisite. Enjoy!