• the quotidian (4.27.15)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace



    It’s stinky pee season!

    Tuna melts to go with.

    Against my better (and apparently not very good) judgement: a worthless experiment.

    Melting.

    Brain Games and a snacky lunch. 
    (Explanation for all the tuna: Costco.)

    Fancy ankles.

    Soap beard.

    Bye-bye winter woolens.
    Confusion: they spent the evening trying to find each other.

    The transport vehicle: they soiled it reeeeeal good.
    Still eating: just the males.

    This same time, years previous: the newest addition, mango banana helados, beware the bedsheets, drama trauma, roasted carrot and red lentil soup, Monday rambles, and creamed asparagus on toast.

  • taking off

    My younger daughter is beginning to read.

    Technically, she’s been able to read for a couple years now, but I don’t count a child as “reading” until they’re zipping through chapter books for fun. And actually, by my standards, my daughter is not quite there just yet. But she’s getting close!

    I recently noticed that, for the first time ever, she was actually reading the picture books we lugged home from the library. And then, for her daily reading, I assigned her the book The One and Only Ivan and she sank into the story.

    As luck would have it, Ivan was a perfect starter book. It’s thick, so it feels important, but the line spacing is wide and the chapters are short. There are simple drawings to help the story along, and the writing is nuanced and compelling. Each day she’d read a chapter or two out loud to me before reading to herself for another 20 minutes or so. At one point, she put the book down and refused to read anymore because the story was too sad. I was thrilled that the story was affecting her so deeply—nothing screams reading comprehension success louder than falling into a funk because of a book—so I sat with her while she read the rough spots. Once over the hump, she sailed through to the end.

    She enjoys the American Girl series, but they’re not quite fast-paced enough for her. Harry Potter is a little too taxing yet. Magic Tree House books (which I hate) are a huge hit. I can’t keep enough on hand. Right now we’re reading Flora and Ulysses out loud together—I read one page and she reads the next—but the vocabulary (obfuscation! malfeasance! surreptitious! etc) is above her level. In retrospect, it was not the best choice.

    By conventional standards, my younger daughter is a fairly late reader, but because her elementary skills are due to a lack of interest rather than a lack of ability (her older sister’s situation was reversed), and because her desire to read is steadily increasing, I am completely at ease with letting her learn at her own level. Her process feels natural and organic. The only thing I’m struggling with is finding entertaining and well-written books that take into account both her (older) age and lower skill level. Ideas, anyone?

    P.S. My younger son (age 9) is also starting to take off. He’s a couple steps behind my younger daughter, but he’s in love with the Magic Treehouse series (gah). His main problem is zero patience to sound anything out.

    This same time, years previous: Sally Fallon’s pancakes, out and about, the quotidian (4.23.12), cauliflower potato soup, me and you, and the radishes, the perils of homemade chicken broth, and shoofly pie.  

  • creamed honey

    When we were in Pennsylvania a few weeks back, we (our family plus my parents) stayed in a little cottage belonging to some long-time friends of my parents. It was cozy and perfect, and, what with the tighter-than-normal quarters and the being-on-an-adventure feeling, it brought back heart-tugging memories of traveling around Central America. What a special year that was.

    Anyway, my mother and I had made plans to bring breakfast foods and snacks, but then we received word that we weren’t supposed to bring any food—they would stock the kitchen for us. Which was super sweet and made the little getaway that much more exotic. Blue corn chips! Ostrich-sized (practically) farm eggs! Hot chocolate! Creamed honey!

    I’m not a huge fan of honey, preferring jams and jellies on my morning toast, but this honey was totally different. It was like cold butter and tasted of honey, but deeper and richer without the back-of-the-throat burn that I get from regular honey.

    Once home, I poked around the web, trying to learn more about this wondrous oddity. Apparently, creamed honey is just honey with a different crystalline structure. To make the change, simply beat a little creamed honey into regular honey, wait a week, and there you have it. In other words, it’s like making homemade yogurt, but sweeter.

    To locate some plain creamed honey (some of the creamed honeys are flavored with weird things like lavender), I called around to a bunch of stores. It’s hard to come by in these parts, but I finally found some and my husband picked it up. Using my brand new immersion blender (DON’T DO THIS—I think I may have burned it up), I beat in the starter. For the next several days, every time I tipped the jar to see if the honey had solidified, it slumped to one side most disappointingly. Finally, I despaired. But then, a week later, I tilted the honey jar and there was no movement. Solid honey! Success!

    Like yogurt, my homemade creamed honey is not as thick as the commercial variety. It’s more like a reallyreallyreally thick caramel sauce, or, conversely, like a softened chewy-hard caramel. It’s delicious on toast, millet muffins, oatcakes, in peanut butter sandwiches, and stirred into hot tea. It’s also fantastic straight off the spoon for a lazy afternoon pick-me-up.

    Creamed Honey 

    10 parts regular, not-grainy honey
    1-2 parts creamed honey

    Before starting: if your honey is grainy, set the jar in a pan of very hot water until the honey has returned to its original liquid state.

    Put both honeys into a stand mixer—do not use an immersion blender—and beat until thoroughly mixed. (I’m assuming this will work but have yet to try it for myself.) Pour the honey into jars, lid tightly, and store at room temperature for one week. At this point the honey should be solid. Creamed honey will last indefinitely and will never, miraculously enough, get grainy.

    This same time, years previous: out of character, ailments, and rhubarb crunch.