• Worth the suffering

    Lentils, lentils, lentils. Oh, how I love them! But seriously, they sure do know how to cause problems in my house—strife and anguish, tears and bellyaching, much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    Like I said, problems.


    Nobody but me really likes them. Oh, they’ll all eat them, though only with the natural consequences clearly outlined: you may not have any more food, AND THAT INCLUDES DESSERT, till you eat your lentils. This is our general rule, no surprises here, but I have to repeat it several times, with painstaking enunciation, for it to sink in.


    What’s up with these people? Did they not come from my very own womb? Did I not eat enough lentils while they were in my womb? (I’m not talking about my husband here—though all my children have thought, at one point or another, that he came from my belly, too.)

    (And by the way, the Baby Nickel has a specific idea of where each of the kids sprouted in my body. He says that he came from down low, right about the spot of my c-section scar, that Sweetsie came from my tummy, that Miss Beccaboo materialized somewhere in my lungs, and that Yo-Yo came out of my shoulder, or maybe my neck. It’s rather humbling to see the world through my children’s eyes. I am a vessel and nothing more.)


    In any case, my approach to lentils is much like my approach to shoofly—I am convinced that at some point they will fall deeply and madly in love with the little legumes and so I doggedly continue to serve them. And again, as with the shoofly, Mr. Handsome is a major stumbling block. Oh, he’ll eat lentils when I serve them (and he acts—most of the time—like a big boy at the table, chewing politely and talking about other things), and he even takes the leftovers in his lunch some days (after I level him with my beady eyes and hiss that he has no other lunch options), but he’s not ga-ga over them.

    You’d think that after living in Nepal and Thailand for several months he’d have a little bit of affection for the lowly legume, but he does not. He remains totally aloof, even while I’m mounding the rice and lentils onto my plate, shoving tremendous mouthfuls into my mouth and then collapsing back into my chair, eyes rolling heavenward as I savor the luxurious flavors. He’s one cool cucumber, that man.


    To me, lentils are pure comfort food (as is pasta, red beans, buttered toast, popcorn, salsa, granola, tomato soup, and baked corn, so maybe that’s not saying much). I made a batch of them last week during the middle of the stomach bug attack (that I have still managed to successfully evade—three cheers for the SQUIRREL! technique), and I ate them several days straight, once even for breakfast. I served them to a friend who came for lunch and she gave them high praise and ate seconds (as did her kids, lucky woman).

    So ignore the wails of my children and the suppressed sighs of my husband and make these lentils. They’ll transport you heavenward, far away from the suffering of the other family members, and that’s gotta be worth something, no?

    And one more thing. Please tell me this: what is your favorite way to make curried lentils? I need more ways to torture my children.


    Curried Lentils
    Inspired from the collection of lentil recipes in Extending the Table

    *If you like your lentils hot, feel free to add some minced jalapeno, cayenne pepper, or hot sauce.
    *You can see from the pictures that I added a small white potato, too.
    *Swap the spinach for other greens, like chard or kale.

    3 tablespoons olive oil
    1 medium onion, diced
    4 cloves garlic, minced
    2 tablespoons ginger root, minced
    1 teaspoon cumin
    2 teaspoons curry powder
    1-2 teaspoons salt
    1/4 teaspoon black pepper
    1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
    2 cups dried lentils, rinsed
    1 large sweet potato, medium dice
    1 10-ounce package spinach, fresh or frozen, roughly chopped
    2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, plus wedges for garnish
    1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish

    Put the lentils in a saucepan with five cups of water and simmer till tender.

    While the lentils are cooking, saute the onion, garlic, and fresh ginger in the olive oil. When they are translucent (but not browned), add the cumin, curry, and salt and cook for another minute, stirring frequently. Add the potato, spinach, and one cup of water and simmer, covered, till the potato is fork-tender.

    Add the lentils (including the liquid, though most of it should have already been absorbed) to the vegetables and heat through. Stir in the cilantro and lime juice and taste to correct seasonings.

    Serve the lentils over rice, with a flurry of cilantro on top and a wedge of lime alongside.

    About one year ago: orange-cranberry biscotti

  • To meet you

    My dearest peeps,

    After nearly two years of being Mama JJ, I’ve had enough. I’m mama to my kids, and my initials are JJ, but I’m not Mama JJ. I’m Jennifer Jo.

    There, I said it.

    Hi. My name is Jennifer Jo.

    (Firm handshake.)

    It’s nice to meet you. And you are—?

    The last name is not coming out any time soon, but it’s not that much a part of my identity; it’s my husband’s name after all, just a little addition to my real name. So for now, I’ll just bippity-bop along with Jennifer Jo.

    It’s feels so good to say that. I had no idea!

    I’ve always liked my name. Never mind that my parents were totally uncreative—the year I was born the top girl name was Jennifer and the top boy name was Michael. But in all fairness, I don’t think they knew that till after they named me. Besides, it was rather comforting to be named the same thing as all my other classmates; it was the only thing I had in common with them, and without the popular name stamp, I would’ve been a total social misfit.

    And anyway, my parents gave me a really cool middle name: Jo, as in Little Women Jo. You know, the writer girl whose manuscript met a fire-y grate, I mean fate. (As of yet, I’ve never burned documents, only deleted them. I once got so angry over one that I threw—and broke—a chair. But I don’t want to talk about that right now.)

    I wasn’t ever really called “Jennifer Jo.” It’s always been “Jennifer.” But there have been variations on the theme:

    Jenny (my grandma)
    Jen (a handful of friends)
    Yenisfair (the Nicaraguans)
    Hot Little Thang (Mr. Handsome)
    Mama, Jen, Mama!, JENNIFER! (my kids when they’re trying to get my attention)

    But most everyone calls me just plain old Jennifer.

    (Mr. Handsome doesn’t actually call me “Hot Little Thang,” and with good reason. First, I’m not a Thang. Second, I’m not little [I used to be almost 5′ 9″ but I recently discovered I’m shrinking and am now closer to 5′ 8″ so by the time I’m eighty I just may qualify for some small adjectives]. Third, I’m not hot, body temperature-wise. In fact, whenever I climb into bed at night, Mr. Handsome yells YOU’RE AN ICE CUBE! and then I press my icy-cold hand on his toasty, tender tummy just to make him cry.)

    I never had any nicknames when I was growing up. My parents were pretty strict about calling me and my brothers by our full, three-syllable-long names. “We gave you a name we like. Why would we want to shorten it?” they asked. My dad did call me “Ginger” every now and then, and my highschool friends called me “The Oatmeal Child” because of my healthy lunches, naivete, and creamy complexion. My mom sometimes calls me “Jefinner.” I’m not sure why.

    As for the meaning of my name, it’s quite boring. It means fair one, white wave, white cheek, and white spirit. I’ve certainly got the white bit down—I’m about as white as they come without being albino. But wouldn’t it have been so much more interesting if my name meant “runs at the mouth” or “word slayer” or “lover of sweet things” or “sieve head”—something that speaks to my personality, not what I look like? But I guess there’s nothing I can do about it. My cheeks are white and my name is Jennifer.

    It has been, and will continue to be, a pleasure.

    Yours truly,
    Jennifer Jo

    About one year ago: thick, creamy homemade yogurt

  • A sticky sweet indoctrination

    I am Mennonite. My grandfather was a straight-laced Mennonite Bishop, and my mother wore a covering (until some point in her wild college career when she decided to risk God’s wrath and toss it). I never wore a covering, but as a teenager I was baptized by the straight-laced Mennonite Grandpa, and I wrote a paper in highschool explaining why Mennonites don’t go to war (and then underwent an impromptu inquisition headed up by my teacher—my mother wrote an article about the experience—maybe I’ll reprint it here some time). I can play the Mennonite Game (or I would be able to if I could remember any names), and I can throw around Mennonite acronyms like it ain’t nobody’s business—proof: I attended/participated in MYF, EMU, VS, and MCC. (For the non Mennonite reading this, that would be Mennonite Youth Fellowship, Eastern Mennonite University, Voluntary Service, and Mennonite Central Committee, respectively.) And I love shoofly pie.


    Mennonites have different opinions as to what a shoofly pie ought to be like. There have been many an intense conversation (but I’ll wager nobody’s come to blows over it because it’s not generally our custom to knock the daylights out of each other) over whether or not the pie ought to be wet or dry, dark or light. I hail from the wet-and-dark (but not too dark) camp. I like my pies to have noteworthy goo levels, as well as a pronounced molasses flavor. But those are just my preferences—I’ll eat and enjoy any shoofly pie.

    My husband, Catholic that he is (or rather, was), does not like shoofly. This mortifies me, but I’ve tried to play it cool. I don’t bake shoofly pie all that often, and when I do and he only takes a small piece (shame! shame!), I try not to burn him at the stake for it. (Like his ancestors did to my ancestors, I might add.) (Though I don’t think they were being burned for eating too much shoofly pie.) But now we have children and I’ve discovered that if I don’t train my children up in the way of shoofly pie, nobody will. It is my duty to cultivate their Mennonite taste buds.


    Here’s how the molasses training has gone down so far. We’ve got ginger cookies down pat. They like them in any form, soft and chewy, crisp and crinkly. But Mr. Handsome likes those, too, so the cookies don’t really count. Gingerbread is trickier; almost everyone will eat it, but they’re not crazy about it. But shoofly pie? Here’s where it gets dicey. Yo-Yo will eat it, Miss Beccaboo kind of will, Sweetsie won’t, and The Baby Nickel positively adores it (that’s my baby).

    This past week I decided it was time to buckle down and solve the problem once and for all. I decided to approach the problem from a different angle—instead of shoofly pie, I’d try to snucker them in with shoofly cake. I made one recipe that touted itself as a shoofly cake but was nothing of the sort—it was just a gingerbread with crumbs on top. Good, but not the cake I was looking for. Then I called my brother, a shoofly afficionado, and after a bit of discussion involving two recipes he had in his files, plus some tweaking of my own, I created The Shoofly Cake Of My Dreams: buttery bottom crust that turns soft in spots and chewy crispy in others, a supremely gooey middle, and a moist, cake-y top.


    Since the recipe makes a big pan, it’s the perfect recipe for molasses indoctrination. My methods are rather traditional, with a touch of charismatic flair. I serve the cake after meals, with lots of whipped cream (that’s the traditional part). I make no fuss if they don’t like it, but I do allow for seconds (that’s still traditional, I think). I eat it voraciously, sighing and moaning with pleasure and smiling most favorably upon the other appreciative eaters (that’s the flair part).

    So far my ploy hasn’t worked, but fear not, I am not dismayed. Opportunities for making and eating shoofly cake abound. I may gain a little extra padding in the process, but really, what’s a couple pounds when I’m winning souls for shoofly? In these cases, it’s important to keep my priorities straight.

    And she shall rise up, a shoofly cake in one hand and a bowl of whipped cream in the other! And verily, they shall say to each other, We best partake of the cake, lest this woman stuff it in our faces. And they shall eat and be satisfied. And she shall show them mercy and make apple pie for a change of pace.

    The end, and amen.


    One further note, or rather, a question (or two or five):
    *Are there any Mennonites out there who don’t like shoofly?
    *Are there any non-Mennonites out there who grew up with shoofly?
    *Is there anyone out there (Mennonite, Hindu, or otherwise) who did not grow up with shoofly and liked it the first time they tasted it?
    *Is anyone even out there???

    If you’ve never tasted shoofly, then you know what to do: make the cake, find out what you think, and check back in with your response. Pretty please? The curiosity is killing me. (If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the cake, just halve it. The only tricky part is the one egg bit, but if you turn the egg on its side and whack it quick with a sharp knife, it splits evenly down the middle—it’s an old Mennonite trick.)


    Shoofly Cake
    Adapted from two recipes my brother had in his recipe box

    A note about the syrups: The recipe calls for two cups of syrup; I use half molasses and half of some other thick syrup. You can use different proportions—less molasses and more thick syrup, or the other way around—depending on how much of a love relationship you have with molasses. Do not use blackstrap molasses (unless you’re sure you want to).

    2 1/4 cups brown sugar
    2 sticks butter
    2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    1 cup molasses
    1 cup King syrup (or light corn syrup)
    1 egg, beaten
    2 cups boiling water
    2 teaspoons baking soda
    1 teaspoon salt
    accompaniment: whipped cream

    Using your hands, blend together the butter, brown sugar, and flours till you have a sandy, crumbly mixture. Set aside two cups of the crumbs to use for the topping. Press the remaining crumbs firmly (but not too firmly—I pressed mine down fairly hard, then raked the uppermost part of the crust with a fork to loosen the crumbs back up and then lightly pressed them down again) into the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 pan.

    Thoroughly combine the molasses, syrup, and beaten egg. Add the boiling water, salt, and baking soda and stir well. Pour the liquid mixture over the crust. Sprinkle the reserved crumbs over top.

    Bake the cake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Because the bottom part remains gooey, it does no good to check it with a toothpick—you’ll know it’s done when the top is set and the cake is pulling away from the edges of the pan just a bit.

    Serve warm or at room temperature, with plenty of whipped cream.

    About one year ago: Nana’s Anise Biscotti