cooking

Sky Blue Eyes

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of agency. One of the things I’ve struggled with the most since I lost Ken is my own agency. At first, after he died, I lived within the construct that was already established, long established, during and by our relationship. 

Over time, though, that construct started to crumble. I’ve mentioned before that a few months after Ken died, a doorknob fell off a door. (Apparently, Ken tightened doorknobs regularly and I just didn’t know or didn’t notice.) Instead of reacting as things happened to me, I needed to start acting — making choices and decisions about where to spend time, where to spend money. 

Maybe that’s a big DUH moment for all of you but for me it was both endlessly freeing and terrifying. Children in abusive households choose their survival strategies … stay with me here. I’m saying that, as a child, I had to decide whether to capitulate or fight. That wasn’t a conscious choice obviously and it wasn’t a single event. I usually chose to fight, which is probably not a surprise at all to people who know me well. And it’s not some bullshit humble brag either. Choosing violence in a violent household is a survival strategy, not a Tiktok video made to gain followers.

Anyway, the point is that AGENCY, the ability to act independently and to choose freely, is not something emphasized in abusive households. Since my husband was also raised in an abusive household, I think we probably unconsciously just leaned into each other’s survival strategies. Therefore, I didn’t have to learn to think and act independently until my husband died. GULP.

So, here I am, older than sliced bread, learning to make decisions for myself. I am living proof that old bitches (I will not call myself a dog and I will own the use of bitch as applied to myself and it’s amusing that it’s a bit of wordplay — HA!) …  can learn new tricks.

I’ve been sitting on the porch steps, listening to the baby birds in the nest above our back door. The parents were so discreet that we didn’t even realize we had bird neighbors until we heard the babies yelling at dad — more food please! — yesterday morning. Now, there’s a cardinal calling. I can’t see it — it’s perched in our enormous honeysuckle — but its call is loud and clear, standing out from the cacophony of early morning tweets and chirrups and cackles. 

The gift of our little backyard — watching a bird slip into its nest in the neighbor’s eaves, listening to the squirrel scolding the dog barking next door, sitting in the silent peace of a sunny afternoon — is a pleasure that makes me hope fall never comes. 

Yesterday, the sky was so intensely blue that looking up was like looking directly into my mother’s eyes (I looked up into my mother’s eyes the depth of the morning sky). My daughter was snoozing in the shade. My neighbors sat under their umbrella listening to pop music in another language. I could tell that it wasn’t English but I don’t hear well enough to know what language it was. They’re Scottish and Syrian so it really could be anything, including Donna Summer, Five For Fighting (yes, even THAT song which is a little surreal), classical, opera, folk music (mostly middle eastern). 

A couple weeks ago, they were listening to French pop music, deliberately loud in order to drown out my other-side neighbor who is also HOH but does not use headphones for her Zoom calls. Until Isla and Dan put on the French pop, we were all listening to a very explicit discussion of treatment options for a high-risk pregnancy. 

I wouldn’t say that I like listening to French pop but I like it a lot better than listening to analyses of transvaginal ultrasounds. Nothing against transvaginal ultrasounds other than that they’re extremely uncomfortable to receive (speaking from experience) but it does seem intrusive to listen to doctors talking about someone else’s. You know?

In other news, this week, we’ve been exploring lavender — lavender sugar, lavender lemon cake, lavender cream (in coffee). I don’t drink coffee so I can’t comment on that but the lavender lemon cake was delicious. And there’s an added bonus that the whole house smells great.

My saucy protagonists found something disturbing on their walk yesterday. They’re still processing it (and so am I) but it seems likely that they’re going to need to be very clever to get out of this situation. I left them in the middle of the woods, panicking, so I think I should get back to terrifying those teenagers now ….

Be kind today. 

Unclench your jaw. Relax your shoulders. Take a deep, SLOW breath. Find something to laugh about … if nothing else, here’s a mental image for you of my 10 year old Maine Coon learning to wear a collar with two very loud bells. He hates it but the birds and I are very happy that he jingles with every step he takes. 

Much love.

Sky Blue Eyes

Sea Turtles, Butterflies, and Brownies

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Years ago, my husband replaced our key locks with keypads. It was a convenience thing mostly. We didn’t want to leave the ubiquitous key under the doormat for our kids in case they forgot their keys and we didn’t want to give out keys to people who inevitably need to get into the house. The keypad unlock codes are easy to create and just as easy to delete. It was one of those true perfect systems. 

At some point, we got a little sloppy with the code distribution and one day, unfortunately, my daughter woke up to someone in her room. I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about what could have happened but the person who came in was a friend. My daughter had overslept. When she didn’t answer her friend’s call, the friend was understandably concerned and entered the house by a keycode we didn’t realize she even remembered/knew. Still, it was a big wake-up call for me and I deleted all the codes, created new codes for us and swore to never let that happen again!

Anyway, earlier this year, the keypads started to fail. I reset them, fiddled with them, replaced their batteries, took them apart, etc. They’d start working again temporarily, only to fail after a few days or a couple weeks. One evening, Haley and I came home a bit late from an outing. We were trying to solve a particular home repair problem … hours walking the hard floors of DIY big box stores, UGH. We had drive-through Wendy’s in the car and a few small packages of screws and bolts and … you know, STUFF. 

You saw it coming, didn’t you? Both keypads had failed again. We were locked out of the house. The temperature was below freezing. Ian wasn’t answering his phone. What could we do? 

Eat ALL the Wendy’s … no, no, that isn’t the answer. 

Break a window … wait, break a 125 year old window? Are you crazy? Those are irreplaceable. That wasn’t the answer.

Get the ladder out of its storage spot and climb onto the second floor …. NO. First, the ladder isn’t even tall enough to reach the roof. Second, that’s exactly the kind of thinking that leads to broken bones and hospitalizations.

So, what did we do? We banged on the door until we (or perhaps the hysterically barking dogs) woke Ian up and he let us in. A simple, noisy solution but it worked. And Ian got a share of the Wendy’s too.

Oh, and I’ve replaced the keypads. The hardest parts: finding keypads in the right colors and waiting for a somewhat warm day so I could work with the door open. The job took me about 45 minutes but mostly because I made a couple false starts, nearly removing stuff that didn’t need to go and … possibly … putting something on upside down. Anyway, they work great! 

Ian had a birthday recently. Since we’re not 100% vaccinated, it was another quiet one. As the birthday boy, he chose the meal — chicken fried rice with my own chocolate syrup brownies for dessert. Ian said that we weren’t allowed to sing so I did a brief spoken word birthday poem that made him say, “MOM.” Haley sang an aria and Tristan said, “Sorry, bud” and patted him on the shoulder. You’d think, after 15 years on this planet, he could have seen our responses coming.

Ian and Haley played a beautiful game of chess as part of the birthday entertainment. It’s the kind of game he excels at because, like his father, he’s actually good at playing three or four moves ahead. Haley is new but she’s also very good, especially at the end game. The outcome was inevitable because Ian has much more experience but it was a pleasure to watch. And the trap Ian set for Haley was one that Ken would have been proud of.

The recent cold spell delayed our butterfly release. Today is the big day! It reminds me of a trip we took in 2014 to Padre Island, a National Seashore, completely natural, with — literally — no phone service, and facilities only at the visitor center. We camped a mile from the access road, on an empty stretch of beach. It was quiet, windy, and amazing. Poor Ken, who hated being warm, hated sweating, and hated sand, was pretty miserable but he endured it for our sakes.

It was so hot on the beach that we got up at sunrise, not just because it was beautiful but also because the tents became unbearable within about 40 minutes after the sun came up. The water was so warm you could walk right in. Dolphins — and sharks — made regular appearances, following the schools of fish. They never came close enough to scare us out of the water, though small tropical fish sometimes tried to nibble my pink bathing suit. 

Anyway, one morning, we got up even earlier than usual in order to attend a turtle release. The Park Service has an extensive volunteer program to identify nests and ensure that the eggs are protected until it’s time for the hatchlings to be released. Because the island is deliberately untouched, there are many turtle predators — we had frequent close encounters with snakes, coyotes, and lizards. Alligators are also common in the marshes though we didn’t see any, not even from our kayaks. 

Sea turtle babies walk into the ocean toward the sun as it rises above the horizon so you have to be at the beach early to watch a hatchling release. We stood there for over an hour, as the temperature climbed from the chilly 60s into the 90s, watching turtle hatchlings about the size of a silver dollar crawl slowly toward the water, eventually getting picked up by the tide and swept out of sight. 

As we prepare to release these nine butterflies, I’m thinking about those turtle babies. Did any of them make it? Did they return as adults (many do) to lay their eggs on Padre Island? Will our butterfly hatchlings lay eggs in our butterfly garden? Will we see future generations of the butterfly cycle at work? At a minimum, we’ll give these little ones a fighting chance by releasing them when our pets are inside the house! 

Time to get back to work:  My protagonist has added another wrinkle. She still has feelings for an ex-boyfriend from high school. He’s a cutie with dark eyes and a teasing grin. What’s a girl to do? What’s the author to do? She needs to do some healing, focus on some self-care, not get involved or re-involved with someone. But will she listen to me or herself? She’s a teenager, so that seems unlikely.

Take a deep, slow breath: in through your nose, out through your mouth. 

Stay safe. Wear your mask. Get BOTH of your shots (unless you got the J&J, in which case, please only get one shot!).

Much love.

Sea Turtles, Butterflies, and Brownies

Painted Ladies

Deb Zuroski, , , , , Leave a comment

I have poison ivy … again. Thankfully, this time it’s only a small spot in the crook of my elbow. Yes, it’s tremendously itchy but I have all the necessary defenses to keep myself from scratching this itch. In particular, I have memory. 

So, let’s go back, briefly, to another spring and another case of poison ivy. Eight years ago, I spent a lovely spring weekend digging in the dirt. I pulled weeds, raked leaves; you know the drill. Two days later, I noticed a little spot on my left arm. By that Friday, my arms and legs were covered with red, itchy poison ivy sores. It became badly infected and I made multiple trips to the doctor for treatment. It was my first encounter with poison ivy and it was a great teacher. 

That experience also gifted me with an amazing memory. Someone — no, I am not telling — recommended a foolproof treatment for poison ivy: gasoline. Yes, you read that correctly. To treat poison ivy, this individual told me to pour gasoline all over the affected area(s). I love everything about that recommendation: that it was said with such purity, with a great desire to be helpful; that it involved covering over half of my body with a highly toxic and flammable liquid; and that the individual had absolutely done that to their own person (I know for a certainty because I asked).

To this day, I remain convinced that pouring gasoline on my poison ivy would have killed it. It would likely have killed me too. Sometimes the host has to die in order to remove the infestation, right?

The weather has been very spring-like here: sunny, then cold, then rainy, then windy, then sunny again. Today looks to be one of the sunny days but later this week we are expecting temperatures to drop below freezing. Those of us who live in the freeze zone can thank me personally. I brought the freeze to us by anticipating summer and seeding our newly dug wildflower bed. I knew that it was too soon but I did it anyway. And I enjoyed it so much that I’m not even sorry, though I might be when I have to do it again after the freeze….actually, no, I won’t be sorry even then because I’ll still be digging in the dirt.

We have 10 butterfly chrysalides hatching today. Four butterflies are currently perched on the side of the habitat while their wings dry. We got to watch the fourth one emerge, sliding slowly out of the chrysalis and landing in a heap on the habitat floor, wings crumbled. It doesn’t take long for their wings to straighten, and now each of them is resting. We’ll have to let them go over the next several days but the weather here is going to turn chilly again. I hope they don’t have to move in with us. 

Watching the butterflies makes me think about how closely our own transformations match theirs. Perhaps we should take a lesson from them and be a little more gentle with ourselves as we emerge and stretch our damp and wrinkled wings.

Over the weekend, Haley made paneer masala, a homemade cheese in a fragrant tomato-based sauce with chili powder, whole cinnamon sticks, ginger, cardamom, fennel, and garlic. The house smelled amazing. This one can be a multi-day project since the cheese should rest overnight. I’ve included the link below in case you are interested. 

This week’s recipes are yogurt cake and the latest internet sensation: deep-fried pasta. I’ll report back on the results for sure. 

In case you are wondering how the real work goes, my YA protagonist has taken matters into her own hands. She has a crush on TWINS. What’s a girl to do? More importantly in this case, what’s an author to do?!  

My MG verse novel is half-finished and on a brief hiatus. My protagonist is so angry and sad that I’m afraid she might kill herself. I don’t want that ending for her so I need to take a break and think about how she can save herself. I’ve killed off a protagonist before but I’ve never had a protagonist commit suicide. That might be too close to home for me to write and too dark for a MG audience to read. 

Back to work on that romance. One of the twins wears a talisman ring. I wonder what it symbolizes for him?

Stay safe.

Here’s the paneer masala recipe. Enjoy!

Painted Ladies

Not Authentic 15-min Chix Fried Rice

Deb Zuroski, , 3 Comments
  • Raw boneless chicken, chopped into bite-sized pieces (I use a couple boneless breasts to feed 3)
  • Frozen peas & carrots (of course you can use fresh but frozen is FAST). We like lots.
  • Leftover rice (freshly cooked is TOO sticky). 2 cooked cups of rice will easily feed 3 with leftovers
  • Onion, chopped into nice chunks, maybe a cup but you can choose your quantity. We like more.
  • 1 or 2 eggs
  • Sesame oil – optional but tasty
  • Veg oil
  • Soy sauce
  1. This is a pretty fast process so if you can chop your chicken and onions ahead, that’s great. I usually pants it TBH
  2. This is the cook your egg(s) step. Heat a skillet with a little butter. While it’s heating, crack your eggs into a bowl and stir, stir, stir them into a nice scramble. Now, turn your heat down to like 2, pour your eggs in the pan and leave them alone. They’ll cook slowly into a nice crepe-ish shape while you are working on the rest of the meal.
  3. Heat your wok (or griddle or cast iron skillet) with a little — enough to coat the sides and bottom — veg oil
  4. While your wok is heating, take the quantity you want of your frozen pea/carrot mix out of the freezer and let it defrost a bit.
  5. If you haven’t chopped up the chicken yet, also do that while your wok heats. If it takes more than 2-3 minutes to chop your chicken, you are worrying too much about it. This is NO RULES cooking. Love yourself.
  6. You can test your wok temp by flicking a drop of water onto the surface. It should sizzle and dry FAST. If your wok passes the hot test, throw the chicken. Stir occasionally. If it’s sticking, add a drizzle of sesame or veg oil.
  7. Chop your onion while the chicken cooks.
  8. When the chicken is nearly cooked through (3-4 minutes-ish), throw that onion in.
  9. When the onion is translucent, add the peas and carrots. If you need more oil, add a little sesame or veg.
  10. Check your egg. If it’s done, slide that egg onto a cutting surface and give it a quick chop up. I usually roll it up and then chop, because FAST. Leave it there, all chopped.
  11. Now, add your rice to the wok. Stir, stir, stir. If you need a little oil, add it now.
  12. Add your soy sauce. I use a couple good glugs. It’s probably about a half cup but I’ve never measured. Stir, stir, stir. It’s thoroughly mixed when there are no rice clumps or white rice.
  13. Turn off the burner. Add your chopped egg in and stir, stir, stir.
  14. Enjoy. It’s really delicious leftover too.

You can do a lot with this recipe: add chopped peppers, garlic, shallots. Make it veg only by increasing your veggies and leaving out the chicken. NO RULES. Love yourself.

Unclench your jaw. Take a deep breath. Stay safe.

Not Authentic 15-min Chix Fried Rice

Did You Just Sacrifice Your Queen?

Deb Zuroski, , , , 1 Comment

Today my daughter challenged me to a “quick” game of chess. Of course I said yes. We sat on our patio in the late afternoon sun, her dad’s chessboard set up between us. 

Ken taught me to play many years ago. As with most things he committed to, he was a remarkably good chess player and I never came close to beating him. Both of our sons played in chess clubs in school and participated in tournaments. My youngest, especially, loved the game. He and I used to play regularly and were evenly matched (when he was 9!). 

My daughter, though, had no interest in chess as a child so I was surprised when she recently started studying the game. Today, as she set the board up, Haley confessed that, while she understands the rules, this would be her first actual game. 

No worries, I thought. We’ll have a nice, easy game, test her knowledge of the way the pieces move, have fun so she’ll want to play again. Right? Yeah. She kicked my butt. We played for more than 3 hours and ended in a draw. It was fantastic. 

And yes, I did sacrifice my queen so I wouldn’t lose the game. It wasn’t pretty.

Moments like today are the reason we endure all the rest.

We are still doing lots of cooking, by the way. Yesterday, I used the overripe bananas to make chocolate chip, peanut butter, banana bread (and muffins). It’s my own recipe. If you want it, let me know and I’ll write it up for you. Tonight, because I spent three hours playing chess, we used some leftover rice to make a quick chicken fried rice. It was delicious — also no recipe but I’m happy to provide details if you haven’t tried to make it before.

Tomorrow, back to work on the novel.

Stay safe.

Did You Just Sacrifice Your Queen?

Fauci and Focaccia

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On a recent morning, I was working in my writing room (aka my bedroom) because it was still too chilly to write outside. The windows were open, though, and as I worked on a poem, I heard the beautiful trilling call of a young cowbird perched on the magnolia outside. I slipped quietly to the open window and watched as he puffed up his wings and trilled again and again. “Welcome, spring,” he called. “Welcome.”

That night, the kids and I ate dinner outside: grilled marinated chicken, fingerling potatoes, and crisp, raw baby carrots. While we ate, we watched, and were occasionally splashed by, the house finches cleaning themselves in the bird bath on the roof patio above us. They like to stand on the edge of the roof and shake their wings, sending droplets onto the deck below. Do they know that they splash us? I like to think so.

Yesterday was stormy, wind driving the rain into the window panes and throwing tree limbs to the ground like a child angry with a favorite toy. A good baking day. I made focaccia bread … twice. I decided that the first result (is focaccia a loaf? An edible plate?)  wasn’t spongy enough so I made a second. Both tasted great but the second was definitely spongier. 

I’m still not quite satisfied but the clock said it was too late to make a third. I’ll share the recipe below in case you have an urge to try it. Because our kitchen tends to be very cold (62F is the norm during the winter), I let my bread machine do the rise but if it were summer, hand-kneading the dough and a rise on the counter would be my preference.  Also, because we like rosemary, I sprinkled the top with rosemary and a little sea salt before baking. 

Today is catch up on writing projects day … which is why I’m procrastinating by writing a blog entry. HA. I have a couple stories by critique partners to review. I also have a pre-publication book to review. It’s a YA romance and I’m super-excited to read it. I’ll share details later.

I got my first vaccine dose last week. It was a remarkable experience. There were hundreds of people at the location I used, some in line, some volunteering. After a year of sorrow and death and anxiety and isolation, the mood was joyful. People were smiling. Strangers were talking about what they’ve missed and “when I get my next shot, I’m going to ….” For me, hearing — over and over — I’m going to hug my mom, sibling, grandmother, child, friend, was the most emotional part of the experience. I really do think, if we can get the mutations under control, we’re going to have another “roaring twenties.”   However, the pandemic isn’t under control. Only 28% of the US population is vaccinated. That’s a lot of people but not nearly enough. 

Be safe. 

Keep wearing your mask. 

Don’t be John Jefferson Williams. 

Much love.

Enjoy the focaccia bread.

Fauci and Focaccia

Want to Play a Game?

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When I was a little girl, my mom used to call herself “attractive.” One day, when I was in school,  I got into a fight with another 7 or 8 year old. She said something mean to me. To get back at her, I said, in my little-girl voice full of little-girl spite, “yeah, well, you’re ATTRACTIVE” because I knew that word meant ugly.  The teacher corrected my definition but I didn’t understand for a long time that what I was actually parroting was my mom’s own self-hatred. Hurting yourself hurts more than yourself, though she really never understood that. 

Mom wasn’t a conventionally pretty woman at a time when a woman’s value was equated even more closely than today to her appearance and she could never see herself as having worth. She’s been gone for 24 years now but I remember how artistic she was and how loving and that her eyes were the color of the early morning sky.

On Saturday, I will quietly mark the fourth anniversary of my husband’s death. Four years of birthdays and holidays and Wednesdays, of photographs and adventures and catastrophes, of dinners and breakfasts, of midnight popcorn and freezer pops and pop tarts (brown sugar), of cookouts and drive-ins …. Are we okay? Are we grieving? To answer, I’ll just tell you this little story: Earlier this month, someone asked my youngest son where his dad is and Ian answered, “if there’s a heaven, he’s in it.”  

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Although I don’t talk about it much, I am a gamer, though I’m not a fan of first-person shooter games. I have a Wii, a WiiU, a Switch, an Oculus VR headset, a Steam account … and yes, I’ve played games like Portal and Terraria, Animal Crossing and Age of Calamity, and, of course, hundreds of hours of Minecraft. My unchallenged favorite, however, is BOTW (Breath of the Wild for you non-gaming folk). I’m even listening to a BOTW playlist right now, as I work. 

For people like me, BOTW is kind of a perfect game. I can meander anywhere my mood takes me, fight monsters or look for treasure or ride my motorcycle (or my horse) or catch bugs or do quests or just explore. I’ve beaten the game on the WiiU and the Switch 3 or 4 times. Playing is a little like rewatching a favorite movie or reading a book so loved that it is beginning to fall apart in your hands. 

We had leftover dough from skillet pizza night last week so we made chicken bake sandwiches a couple days later. They were so delicious that I am thinking about making them again this week, if we have a rainy day. It’s warm enough that we’re grilling out on nice evenings, though I think we’re going to have to invest in a new grill. Ours is over 10 years old and just crumbling to pieces. We like grilling far too much to put up with failing tools — how can you make a good grilled flank steak if only two of your grill burners consistently work?! 

We also made some great cookies last week. I’ll include the recipe below in case you are interested in trying a cookie made with cake mix and cream cheese. Weird, right? But trust me; they’re so tasty.

The results of last year’s pandemic poetry contest will be announced next month. There were more than 750 entries which seems to have surprised the wonderful folks at publicpoetry.net who hosted the contest. Honestly, what else did we have to do all of last summer but compose poetry about our human condition?! Anyway, I have two entries (the maximum allowed per person) so keep your fingers crossed for me. Wouldn’t it be an honor to be included in their anthology marking one of the most significant events of our lives?

I have a couple things out to agents right now and am working, as I noted recently, on finalizing a STEAM project. I’ve got my agent query list ready and am tweaking the poems and text with the goal of querying the first week in April. It can take weeks to get responses back so I’ll be getting to work on a project I’ve been planning in my creative down time. It’s a YA romance!

So much work goes into writing a novel before the actual writing begins. I’m a little bit of a pantser (meaning I craft by the “seat of my pants” rather than plan out my whole story) but that’s only because I’m not actually world-building like SF/F authors do. Imagine trying to create a magical world like Hogwarts without planning in advance. It would require so much rework/rewriting to fix all the problems created along the way and — believe me — there’s already LOTS of revision involved in writing a book. 

Okay, so if you are interested, here’s the chicken bake recipe I used. Instead of the dressing called for in the recipe, we used homemade ranch because we like it better. 

And here’s the cookie recipe. I have no idea if these freeze well because we ate them all. 

Thanks for spending some of your day with me. 

Stay safe. Wear your mask. Get a vaccine. If you think the vaccine isn’t safe, consult your doctor, not your neighbor, not that youtube video, not fox news entertainment.

Much love.

Want to Play a Game?

If You Can’t Be Nice …

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 5 Comments

My daughter and I were out doing the food shopping recently and we stopped at the Dunkin Donuts drive-through. (Haley likes their coffee.) She wanted a doughnut but they didn’t have any. So, she asked for hash browns and the voice, a young person, said “I’m sorry. We’re really short-staffed and we can’t cook anything.” 

I said, just casually, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. That must be making your day really hard.” She told the manager. Get this. They comped Haley’s coffee because we were the only people who had been nice to them that whole day. 

And that’s all I’ll say about that.

If you live in the eastern US, you may be feeling a little down today because Phil has doomed us to another six weeks of winter. Here in Pittsburgh it has been a shockingly snowy winter; already this year we’ve more than doubled last winter’s total snowfall.  It feels some days like we’re hibernating, settled in our winter nests, awaiting the warming breezes of spring.

After a disastrous four months of virtual learning, Ian and I decided to begin a new journey. In January, we moved to homeschooling for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year. I mean no disrespect to any of his teachers or the administrators trying to figure out how to help students learn this school year. We simply came to the realization that Ian could not be successful in the current learning construct. 

It has been a remarkably positive experience for both of us thus far. We’re lucky to be living in interesting times, as they say; so our civics lessons always run over. We both dislike math so we bless Khan Academy for helping us over the hurdle of geometry. The Khan Academy site has also supported Ian’s science requirements gracefully. 

Ian wants to stop talking about sentence structure (hehe) but we’re really enjoying our literature discussions.  This week, we’re reading books that have been re-told as movies. He’s reading Stardust. I’m reading Chocolat. We’ll be discussing them next week and picking out our next books from the stack I’ve already put together. 

Having far too many books has been helpful on this journey. We’ve pulled from the shelves for our civil war/confederacy discussions, our review of sentence structure and the roles of passive/active language, our early budget creation, even our discussions about propaganda.

We had our first conflict when I tried to do a combined civics/poetry lesson using the inaugural poems by Jericho Brown (in the NYT) and Amanda Gorman. We watched the inauguration live, including Ms Gorman’s moving reading of The Hill We Climb; but when I planned to review the role of poetry and those poems in particular, Ian staged a protest, stating emphatically that he has no particular love for poetry and no desire to review either the messages in those poems or the means by which those poets communicated their thoughts. He was both more direct and less polite than I’m being. It made me think again that we don’t pay teachers even half what they deserve for their efforts.

As we sit together every morning, however, I watch his eyes light up before he laughs and I listen to him sing softly to himself while he works on a problem and I am thankful for all of the decisions that brought us to this particular moment, to this opportunity to be here, now, embracing the slower pace of our lives and the strengthening bond of our relationship. 

Writing has been more of a challenge, as I expected. I carve out some time every day to work on my current WIP but teaching is intellectually and emotionally draining which means less daily progress on the WIP! I used to complete four full verses daily for the book but now I’m happy to get one *mostly* done each day. Mary Oliver’s exploration of grief has helped a lot and has inspired me to do some exploring myself. 

We continue to cook. Last week, for National Chocolate Cake day, I made half of a dark chocolate layer cake (it’s made with boiling water — MOIST!) with chocolate buttercream frosting and shared half of that with our next door neighbors. 

They’re in their 90s and don’t make many treats anymore. The cake was a big hit but Mr Neighbor especially likes it when I share homemade cookies. I gave them a gift bag of Christmas cookies over the holidays — buckeyes, ginger snaps, frosted nutmeg cookies, decorated sugar cookies, etc — and his wife texted me that she didn’t get to eat any! Mrs Neighbor said she was inspired to make Scottish shortbread. She’s from Scotland so when I say that shortbread SMASHED, I suspect you get what I mean. 

My current favorite recipe is heavy cream biscuits. They are tender and flaky, heavenly with the spicy winter stew that simmered on our stove all afternoon today. 

Stay safe. Wear your mask. Be kind.

Update: Here are the recipe details for the foods I mentioned.

Beef Stew — I add approximately 1/4 cup of dark soy sauce and 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce with the beef stock/bouillon/better than bouillon and I simmer it for 2 full hours before adding the veggies. Sometimes, I also add a hearty shake of Penzey’s Black and Red Pepper (a spicy black and cayenne pepper mix).

Heavy Cream Biscuits — After trying a zillion different biscuit recipes, I stumbled on this one in a cooking subreddit. It’s a Kenji sausage gravy and biscuits video. The biscuit recipe is the first five minutes of the video. I’ve never made the sausage gravy but the biscuits have turned out perfectly every time. We cut them in half and ladle the stew on top.

Dark Chocolate Cake — I halve the recipe, making a single 9″ layer that I then cut in half to make a half layer cake.

Buttercream Frosting — This is identical to the Hershey frosting recipe we used when I was little. Still my favorite! Don’t forget to halve this if you’re making a smaller cake.

If You Can’t Be Nice …

Hummingbird

Deb Zuroski, , , , , Leave a comment

As I sat on my little deck in my tiny backyard Friday morning, the early sun shone in a stripe on the bright pink-red flowers of our weigela bush. I looked up as I finished reading aloud a poem I had written about a hummingbird. There, hovering above the flower cups of the weigela in that brief strip of sun, was a little gray hummingbird. I watched as she lingered for a moment, sipping from various flowers, before darting off to parts unknown. 

I can’t share the poem. It’s part of a book that is currently with an agent; fingers crossed, my friends. Most of the work I’m producing right now is for specific projects and I can’t share it … this after setting myself up on Instagram to highlight some of my work, though I did post the hummingbird spoken word below that is not included in the book. 

My name is hummingbird
And I’m here to say
I don’t flap my wings 
In the usual way

I make a figure eight
Which is kinda cool
It helps me fly and hover
Yo tiny birds rule 

Most of my children’s poetry is written in quatrain, some of my more adult stuff too. If you are looking for a brain exercise, I recommend giving it a try. (It’s not hard!) Don’t try to be prophetic or deep. Just pick a subject and give it a go. I like to write poetry that makes me laugh, though, unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I end up writing is pretty sad. I think it’s just the nature of the path my feet tread. 

We had a dog guest for a few days last week. She did not enjoy her stay. My dogs didn’t enjoy her stay either, to be honest, though they accepted our guest much better than our guest accepted us. She went for walks, growled at my dogs, napped on the sofa, and tried to jump onto the kitchen counters/ dinner table. Her efforts to steal food caught me a bit by surprise. My expectation that she would eat the dog food I gave her caught her by surprise so, overall, I think we can call the experience a draw.

Although my plans went awry, I did, initially, expect to make one of my mom’s signature dishes, German potato salad, over the weekend. My kids have never had it but it was a staple growing up. For almost every picnic we ever attended, Mom made German potato salad and lemonade cake. 

In my memory of cutting up the onions for the potato salad (my least favorite childhood job, perhaps tied with grating cabbage for coleslaw), my mom is still younger than I am now, teaching me the difference between onions for meatloaf and onions for potato salad. “Don’t chop,” memory Mom says. “Slice them thin so the warm sauce coats the onions and makes them soft.” 

Saturday, late afternoon, I discovered a tiny bunny who had somehow gotten herself trapped in the window well. The kids took charge and, after putting on gloves, they rescued the baby, who screamed like she was being targeted by a hawk. She has a paw injury so we’re currently keeping her safe in a pet-free area while we await the re-opening of our local wildlife rehab center.  I must say: she has absolutely the best ears I’ve ever seen. 

One last thing: For many of us, today is a day like any other. That, my friends, is privilege.

Stay safe. 

Hummingbird

April Is A Mish-Mosh

Deb Zuroski, , , , 2 Comments

Every morning, generally between 7 and 8, I take the dogs outside, into our tiny, fenced backyard, for their early morning constitutional. They wander aimlessly while I call muted encouragement to them. Occasionally, one of them will look up at me and wag a cheery “hello,” before returning to their completely off-task sniffing. 

We have chipmunks, squirrels, and bunnies residing in our yard. The chipmunks are cocky. The squirrels are defiant. The bunnies are timid. My dachshunds, bred to the task of running down and killing animals, are fantastically effective at finding the chipmunk and bunny burrows. They are, thankfully, completely ineffective at tracking or capturing. On several occasions, they have surprised critters in their burrows. The dogs stand, noses next to small tunnels, tails wagging happily. 

Mina, the digger, will attempt to enlarge the tunnel, to what purpose I have not yet discovered. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t either. I usually stand on the brick patio during these early morning raids and watch chipmunks leaving by another exit. Not once, not once, have these fierce warrior dogs noticed that … er, Alvin has left the building. (I’m so sorry.)

As my dad would say, we lowered our ears this weekend. Saturday was warm and sunny, a perfect day for setting up the outdoor barber shop. I trimmed Ian’s hair, teasing him with “oops” and “don’t worry I can fix that.” I definitely took too long though. We had to leave his bangs very long so he could join his discord Pathfinder game. It’s supposed to be sunny here on Saturday so Imma sharpen those scissors for Trimming Round Two. 

I try to walk two or three miles every day, usually late in the afternoon. Since I’m a meanderer by nature, I walk wherever my feet take me. Do I start or end my walk going uphill? Will I visit a park or walk through a neighborhood? Heavy traffic or side streets? It was on one of these little journeys that I had an epiphany for a physically distant, socially connected birthday party for my son. Because we all have good, gaming headsets with microphones, we were able to talk and laugh and tease and play ridiculous party games for about 3 hours with 10 wonderful friends. It was joyful and celebratory and turned a somewhat glum birthday into a wonderful memory. We even made stupid, hilarious tshirts. 

How has your cooking been going? Since my last blog post, we’ve made black bean chili and buttermilk cornbread, chicken with stuffing, garlic chicken breasts, baked chicken wings, and barbecued ham. Someone in the house (my son) has suggested that we may be eating too much chicken but that’s just (stir)crazy talk. 

We’ve also made some treats. When I was a little girl, it was a huge treat to make nutmeg muffins. We only rarely made them and I loved them like flowers love the sun, like early birds love the worm, like Hepburn loved Tracy, like Mina loves digging …. ANYWAY, the muffin top was the queen. After the muffins came out of the oven, the tops were dipped in butter and a cinnamon/nutmeg/sugar mix, making the top slightly chewy, buttery, and a little bit sweet.  The cake was tender with just a scent of nutmeg — you know what I mean; when you bite into the cake, there’s just a whiff of a scent, gentle, enhancing without overwhelming. Heaven. 

They were so fragile that the muffin tops, on occasion, fell off during the dipping. But I’d just plop them right back. Ta da. I always thought that no one knew but it must have been obvious that some of the muffin tops weren’t attached. It is also possible that I ate the majority of those muffins and that no one ever found out because I ate all the muffins with loose tops. 

This week, I was looking for a little breakfast-y treat for my son, who isn’t much of an eater, especially not a breakfast eater. Nutmeg muffins, which I haven’t made in 30+ years, popped into my head. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find Mom’s recipe (though I haven’t given up) so I turned to the internet for help. The second recipe I tried was a beautiful success, so close to my memory of the original that I might even be able to fool Mom. The biggest changes are that I now make mini-muffins instead of the large-ish originals and that I freeze some for later. 

I also made a dairy- and egg-free chocolate cake. It was so easy to make that I was suspicious but it’s delicious and even better on day 2, if you can stop yourself from eating it all on day 1.

My youngest is completing eighth grade next month. Because the school terminates at eighth grade, they have a sort of graduation ceremony for the students. All that will be online this year, of course, but they’ll still have some of the usual rituals, including a slideshow with pictures of each student. He’s assigned me the job of digging through our archives for pictures of him and I’m in hell. It’s already an emotional roller coaster — we’re leaving a school we’ve been at continuously for 19 years. I feel another door closing and I can’t see what’s next. It brings Bell’s quote to mind:  “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

April is poetry month. I wrote a bunch of really bad, sad poetry. I give you, for example, the following in an AB rhyme scheme:

A Sunday In March

I’m watching you dying
Your cheek I caress
The doctors are trying
No news, they confess.

They now need to cath you
Of course I say yes
A vial of blood too
My fear I suppress

This act was you choosing
To end your distress
Your win means we’re losing
Perhaps no redress

There’s no higher being
To comfort or bless 
Can’t bear what I’m seeing
No more happiness

Stay safe. Be well.

April Is A Mish-Mosh