In the kitchen

This morning:

black beans with fresh garlic, canned green chiles, cumin, salt, pepper and cayenne (to go with the rice flour tortillas I picked up at Trader Joe's the other day which weren't half bad...the beans were yummy :-)

Gem made some onigiri (rice balls wrapped with seaweed)

I had to have some umeboshi (salted plum) and shiso (beefsteak leaves) with some white rice...it was a hankering...

I insisted during the heatwave we had last week that we get an air conditioner for the kitchen. I cook way too much and tolerate sticky summer weather not very well at all...

Soaking pots and pans a constant during this last surge of festive and nurturing cooking.

Finally went to Trader Joe's the other day. This tea is synonymous with Karen though it is not quite the same when it isn't brewed in their lovely glass teapot and handed over by Brent ;-)

Tonight was all about Cap and his Father's Day supper. He gets scallops on Father's Day and on his birthday. These were baked with waffle crumbs, a simple and completely comforting GF alternative to Ritz cracker crumbs---thanks Gluten-Free Goddess!

Another GF-Goddess treasure for dessert---dark chocolate brownies. Thanks to Kelly for turning me onto the goddess :-)

Oh the scape are back!

In my excitement to head out to the first farmer's market of the season, I left the camera at home.

Gem and I were aquiver as we walked from stall to stall in anticipation and awe. There were a lot of happy folks buying veggies, fruit, cheese, fish, meat, flowers, and plants.

I was wrong to think it would be slim pickings. John, the organic farmer whose CSA we belonged to last year, had much more than I thought he would. From him we bought scallions, beets, sugar snap peas, carrots, and what I was SO excited to see again after all these long months...

garlic scape! I'm making pesto out of this green gold to bring over to Sandy's tonight.

This is what's left of the raspberries that Gem picked out. He was munching with great delight as we walked and in the car. He was sad to realize that we won't be making it to Massachusetts this month because Pops had promised him a raspberry plant next time we visited.

Wouldn't you have been tempted to take a bite, too? Gem couldn't resist. These are going into the bean bake I'm making for Felicia and family. The yummy recipe Kate turned me onto to.

And these luscious basil leaves are from our garden. Can't decide whether to try a combo basil-scape pesto or make a small batch of just basil.

I hope you're enjoying local, farm fresh flavors where you are, too.

Gem(ini) turns 8

[I'm changing the kids' blog nicknames. Using their corresponding grade levels has been obsolete in my mind, for awhile. First = Gem(ini) and Kinder = Sag(ittarius).]

Gem turned 8 this week. Here are some pictures. (I took very few pictures during his party. I was too busy beaming and soaking in and floating around :-)

Thank you for celebrating him and supporting us as we raise him. From near and far. Every bit is felt and appreciated.

Gem opted for a small party this year and though I missed certain friends, it was a very mellow and low-key gathering. And, he was really happy.

The birthday banner Sag and I made which didn't make it up onto the wall until the morning after his birthday because I can be so damn forgetful.

The Ben 10 cakes. One was chocolate, the other yellow. Because Jay doesn't like chocolate :-)

I loved the golden hue of these GFCF cookies that Momoko baked. They were yummy.

We had delicious coconut CF ice cream at Julie and Mike's recently and Cap made a batch for the party. Gem requested that pineapple and lemon be added to the mix which resulted in a subtly sophisticated ice cream.

My mom was the sushi chef extraordinaire rolling maki after maki. Salmon, tunafish(with mayo), Tings, avocado, cucumber, shiso-umeboshi, olivada-cuke, fluke-shiso-ume...

Sag getting lost in the cakes and all that they promised.

Ellie and Baba amidst knees, legs and feet...

Auntie Sandy excited about cake :-) Loved her dress...

Lukas being a trooper and letting me snap a pic.

Auntie Lisa creating an oasis amidst the hubbub...

Ellie and Theo.

Lilja.

Cap and Theo. The boy keeps growing and growing!

Paprika

Cap and I watched a great, incredibly trippy, movie tonight. It's called "Paprika" and is a Japanese (beautifully, fantastically) animated film. It would be worth trying to see on the big screen, but in the meantime check it out on a small screen.

Shockment

Kinder was describing something to Owen yesterday as they drew. Lines coming out of a person's head to show "shockment".

"Shockment? What's that?," asked Owen.

"When something happens that makes someone go, (insert gasp sound), you know, shockment."

"Oh yeah...shockment," replied Owen.

Excess heat in my little boy

(No paparazzi!)

Kinder's fiery to start with.

But, in the last few weeks, he has had a number of bloody noses. He's also had some molluscum warts pop up on his arm (on the inside of his elbow). The heat seems to be finding spots of vulnerability and forcing itself out.

There has been an elevated intensity in his protests over injustices, a quick and fast banshee-like shriek. And there has been hitting.

This has coincided with lots of busy-ness at home (since returning from the homeschooling conference), which for him, has probably felt like chaos. I've been playing around with lifting limits on tv and computer time, bedtime is later than it has ever been for the boys, I dealt with GI issues for a week, a slew of activity around First's birthday, and then, a heatwave.

The instinct to grab hold of him and simply hold him is strong. He is out of balance, his system out of whack. He is getting good sleep, and that is a good thing. Between houseguests and the heatwave, we've been fully co-sleeping, which is truly his preferred mode.

But, he is six and a half now, and I'm finding that it's not so simple as carrying him around with me all day, calming him and recalibrating him, heartbeat to heartbeat, skin to skin. He needs more... He needs to know that he has the power to rebalance himself and he needs to learn how.

So here's a point at which true unschooling doesn't work for me. I need to step in and say "no" to unlimited tv and computer. For this little boy, it heats him up and he is not able, yet, to recognize the signs of overheating and naturally correct the imbalance.

It's not all or nothing though. I am, at 42, dealing with inefficiency in correcting my own imbalances when they happen. And I do think there is a power in unschooling which gives growing minds and bodies the gift of a strong and simple connection between what you want and what you do which is healthy and active.

I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. A time of paying closer attention to my younger one. To help him help himself cool off (eating cucumber, watermelon, mung bean sprouts) and for all of us, to simply slow down and regroup.

Garden green

The garden has one heatwave under its young belt. Here are some of the herbs. Basil, cilantro, thyme, chamomile, rosemary and chives. The cilantro was refreshing in a simple guacamole I made myself for lunch yesterday. A stalk of basil was broken this morning so I will be eating that at lunch, maybe on a piece of leftover pizza from the co-op dinner we hosted last minute, last night.

Here is the corn First planted at his last gardening class.

Here are the cukes I planted from plants, not seeds. Vinny recommended Kinder eat cucumber to cool his system down and said he'd had great success growing them in his garden last year. These are growing very well so far.

One of four bean plants grown from seed (seeds received in gardening class and planted directly into the planter).

One of two (possibly three if that itty bitty sproutlet there to the left is indeed spinach) Malabar spinach plants that have survived (from the original four I picked up off Pat's front stoop).

A summer squash plant First planted at his last gardening class. There is something so "squashy" about the way these leaves look! The color reminiscent of kabocha...

The tomatoes in the foreground are from Pat's front stoop. They are thriving, but many of the leaves have lots of holes, from aphids, I think. Cap released a ladybug we found in the bathroom into the garden for me the other night. On my list of things to do is to buy some ladybugs and release them into the garden some night (we learned in gardening class that ladybugs do not fly at night and will hang around if there is a food supply).

Our tomatoes that First planted from seed in gardening class are in the back pot. They are slower to grow...they are hanging in there, but not thriving in the same way.

A spider hiding in the rosemary. It was skittering around when I pulled the broken basil stem out of the planter. I disrupted its web. Sorry spidey.

First heading back into the house. He's holding his new camera in his left hand. It was a birthday gift from my parents and he has been taking pictures and video nearly non-stop since Sunday night.

P.F. Chang's

We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner tonight. Jamie is visiting and I wanted to do something special. This particular restaurant is a hop from striking river views of Manhattan on the other side. Nice when wanting to impress out-of-town guests.

P.F. Chang's came on our radar because it was a pioneer in carrying printed gluten-free menus back when food labels were not yet required by law to list ingredients containing top allergens. We went to our first P.F. Chang's shortly after moving to Sacramento along with members of the local Celiac support group. The icing on the wonderful cake was that First, who is a pretty picky eater, really liked the food there.

We hadn't been out to one in awhile. It's pricey, and a bit of a trek for us. But, today, we had a collection of P.F. Chang gift cards burning a hole in our pockets and it was the perfect special occasion.

Four years later, it still takes our breath away to watch our oldest chowing down on food he ordered himself, off the menu, while out at a restaurant. (He's enjoying a lettuce wrap with ground chicken, water chestnuts and mushrooms in this pic.)



After dinner we strolled down to the river walk and enjoyed the breeze, birds and boats. No pics of Jamie because she was busy taking her own :-) Kinder shot the one of Cap and me (my shirt was thrifted for $2!)

Rocky gut pass

For the second time since finishing DW, I'm having an involuntary digestive clean-out. Although I am curious about what may have triggered it (a bug? menstrual cycle hormones?), I am not overly so. Just trying to listen to the bod and ride it out and rest. (It's been on and off a week now.)

The next days will be quite busy. Julie, Mike and Cam arrive tomorrow night for a couple of nights (Julie's dropping off her other "baby" to the publishers Friday!), Jamie arrives Saturday for the weekend, and we celebrate First's birthday on Sunday (he turns eight next Tuesday).

All may be quiet on the blog front, but you know, I never know.

A day in the city

Whoa

We spent some time at my mom's yesterday. At the end of the day I stepped into her bathroom to pee before leaving.

First, a chance glance in the mirror made me realize how much of a neck I have these days.

Then, I spied the scale under the sink and decided to go for it and see how much "number" weight I have actually lost the past couple of months. (The scale is from my childhood...they've had it for 40 plus years!)

20 pounds. Whoa.

Mike's knock knock joke

This has been getting a lot of giggles around here lately.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Smell mop.

Smell mop who?

I'd rather not...