Tag: rituals

Spring garden, part 1: the herbs

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, gardening, health
Chives

In honor of National Herb Week (first week of May) we’re starting to get our herb garden into shape for this year. A quick tour of the raised bed revealed a nice surprise: some of last years perennial herbs have greened up already and are looking pretty edible.

The first ones I noticed were the chives. As Stephen King says in the story “A Good Marriage” in his book Full Dark, No Stars, they are “upright and sniffin’ the air”. 🙂 Makes you want to cook something, doesn’t it?

The lemon thyme is just as beautiful, but currently is pretty flush with the ground so is not as readily visible. One of the prettiest plants in there right now is the lamb’s ears. Just one is up right now…so my husband asked me if it could hear me okay since it had only one ear…ha ha.

There were a few varieties of strawberries tucked in there last year, and I can see they are starting to send out some shoots; more shoots means more strawberries for me. Yay!

I’ve already got my annual rosemary plant waiting to go into the garden, but it’s not looking too healthy (as of this writing) so I’m hoping she hangs in there for a few more weeks on the kitchen counter.

Any of you have herb gardens? What are you growing this year?

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Addendum: Rosemary is dead. Oh well. Off to buy a new one!

Post Easter Post

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Holidays, tweens
The baskets

Easter is one of my favorite holidays, having somehow escaped the drama and bad memories with which  many of the other major holidays are fraught  for me.

Although the bunny is now known to be Mom and Dad by both kids, we continue the traditions that we started when they were little. We fill a basket (or receptacle of some sort) for each  one and have an egg hunt. In the leaner years we used chocolate pirate coins to fill the plastic eggs for the hunt, otherwise we filled them with cash.

In the baskets? Candy, of course, gum, Tic Tacs, beef jerky (for the boy), lip gloss (for the girl), gift cards…things like that. What was not in the baskets? The dreaded plastic Easter grass, banned after the year that Dad was still finding it in various household crevices in December. 🙂

We were lucky to have a nice day weather-wise: sunny and in the low 70’s. The day before and after Easter it snowed! We had dinner with family, got to visit Dad at work and bring him some dinner, and still got home early enough for a normal bedtime for the tween (it was, after all, a “school night”).

Hope you all had a nice day too!

Lunch on the lam

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Life in the cube, quest for the best, restaurants

Sometimes life in the cube can get overwhelming. Have you ever been at work and just wanted to take a break? I mean, really, take a break. Change the scenery for a half an hour? Not make small talk? Not force positivity for just a little while?

This is when an audio book can come in handy; it’s particularly conducive to hands-free eating. Okay, so the price of gas is prohibitive, I know. You wouldn’t want to sit in your car with it running for 20+ minutes every day (especially in the winter when you need to have the heat on, but once in a while it can be very restorative).

If you brought your lunch you will gain extra precious minutes of solitude in  your car (read: oasis of calm); just grab your lunch bag and go. Otherwise, try to choose a place from which to buy that is not known for its lunch time crowds. Standing in line for 10 minutes can make a serious dent in your alone time.

If you have to purchase your meal and you have any control over the timing of your lunch break, that’s even better. Choose a time that is off-peak: perhaps 11:00am or 2:00pm. This ought to get you out of the store and into your car more quickly. Don’t forget extra napkins. Eating in the car can be fraught with peril, what with the gear shift and the steering wheel to navigate and all. Also your choice of meal can make things more tricky (hel-lo, meatball sub?).

On this day I chose soup from Kamasouptra in Portland. The curried Pumpkin Bisque Soup won out over the other five options (so okay, maybe it’s winter-almost-spring, but it feels like fall-almost-winter). The real draw for me (even though the soup is excellent) is the bread, still warm from the oven. What can I say? The value of comfort food cannot be overstated.

Especially during the work day.

🙂

Expanding the flock~(revised)

by Karen, posted in chicks, family, local fun, raising chickens

…is proving to be no easy task this spring. My husband anxiously anticipated the arrival of the chick catalogues, nad contacted some new (to us) hatcheries for their catalogues, and planned to get some chicks from New Mexico in March and from Texas in June. At the end of February they wouldn’t accept the March order; they wanted to send them the next day, but we learned last year (the hard way) that February in Maine is too early to get the chicks. When he called back in March (two weeks later), there were no chicks to be had…until June. He made some more calls to other vendors and was given the same verdict.

Bummer.

This is the first time this has ever happened since we first started raising chicks in 2006. Next, my husband hit the road to see what the stores in our area were offering.

We were hopeful as we entered Tractor Supply Company in Sanford…but alas, the only “peeps” they had on Monday were the marshmallow kind, just to the right of the door as you enter the store, and the stuffed kind (the ones that actually “peep” when you press on their stomachs~too cute!). On the plus side, this gave me a nudge to get going with my Easter Basket planning. Note to self: go back to Tractor Supply alone (read: without husband who doesn’t get the whole “Easter Basket” concept) to shop for the baskets.

Longhorn? They’ll have them on Monday. Tractor Supply? Has some now, but not any that we want.

The idea of hatching our own is starting to look more appealing…

Anyway, the stage is set (warming lights on, tiny waterers at the ready) in our home-made brooder (which is a 4×4 wooden box). If and when the chicks arrive, we are ready!

The ides of March~Grieving my dead relatives part 5

by Karen, posted in family, good grief
John

I always liked the sound of “The Ides of March” from when I’d first come upon the phrase in my reading of Shakespeare.

In 1998, it took on a new meaning: the day that my father died. He was on hospice so his death was no surprise. My mother’s (who had died 2 years and 2 weeks earlier) birthday was March 13. He hadn’t been eating or drinking much for several days before her birthday, but on that day, he perked up. He was laughing and joking, almost his old self. He sat up in his hospital bed (that was in the middle of the living room) and asked for a fried clam dinner with french fries and cole slaw and dinner rolls and God only knows what else.

So, my brother ran out to get his requested meal, which (as you probably guessed by now) turned out to be not only his last supper, but also his last lucid day. We didn’t think it was any coincidence that it was my mother’s birthday that he chose to perk up, or that 2 days later he followed her and died.

I like to have a fried clam dinner on or around March 15th in honor of my dad, like I buy primrose around February 29th in honor of my mother. The only problem now is…where to get it!

 

“You are my sunshine” (Grieving my dead relatives, continued)

by Karen, posted in family, good grief, health
Mary

So, it’s that time of year again; when the anniversary of the day a relative died rolls around and you try to remember without being too sad.

This is my mother. At the time this picture was taken, she was a sister, a daughter. At the time this picture was taken, she was not yet a wife, a mother.

She was graduating from high school then, and her life was ahead of her. Too soon, it was over.

My husband took me for a ride a few days after she died with no particular destination in mind. We ended up at a local market with an attached greenhouse. As I walked around the store clutching my Kleenex, I was drawn to some colorful plants that my husband told me were primroses. For a moment, I actually felt happy looking at the little faces of the flowers, so on impulse I purchased one. I took it home and placed it on the little shelf above my kitchen sink.

Every time I looked at it, I remembered my mother’s death with a pang that was then tempered with a little bit of calm. In the spring, my husband planted it in the back yard.

Each year that followed, I brought home another little primrose plant and in the spring we planted it outside. Over time, all of these plants thrived and soon, without specifically intending to do so, I’d created an entire garden of  primroses, which became sort of a tribute to my mother. I was very sad to leave it behind when we moved.

This year when I was browsing at Trader Joe’s I spotted some primroses which (of course) immediately evoked thoughts of my mother, so I bought one. This spring I intend to plant it in my kitchen herb garden to revive my mother’s tribute garden from years past.

I chose yellow for the first plant because when I was growing up, she bought me an outfit that I refused to wear: yellow pants and a yellow shirt. “Who wears that color pants?” I complained. She ended up returning the outfit which I wouldn’t  have been caught dead wearing. Years later though, I recall this incident and wonder, “Why couldn’t I just wear it? Give her what she wanted?”

It’s ironic that yellow is now my favorite color.

Also, “You Are My Sunshine” was a song she loved and sang to us frequently when we were kids.

She died on leap day, February 29. We joked afterward that she chose that day purposely, so we would only have to feel sad about the day she died once every years. She was nice like that. 🙂

National Homemade Soup Day

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, tweens

This year, it’s this week (yesterday, actually) but hey, soup is forgiving! So….here’s some reasons to dive in:

Top 5 reasons to make some homemade soup:

  1. You’ve got some leftover turkey (or chicken)  bones from your Thanksgiving (or Christmas or New Year’s Day) dinner in your freezer.
  2. You are living in New England, it’s winter, and you are freezing your butt off.
  3. You are dealing with a head/sinus/chest cold (in which case, get someone else to make it for you).
  4. You picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and want to get one another meal from it.
  5. You have a crock pot. Give it something to do.

You will find no shortage of recipes online (and probably in your own collection of seldom used cookbooks) for homemade soup, not to mention on the labels of canned or boxed broth.  Or just go on intuition and taste as you go…it’s hard to mess up soup.

Speaking of leftovers in the fridge, if you have any leftover pasta from another night’s dinner, use that in your soup (I happened to have some linguini). Don’t forget to forage in your crisper drawers for any (perhaps long) forgotten carrots, celery, onions, and other (still recognizable) vegetables to add to your soup.

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The first harbinger of spring

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, local fun, restaurants

I have some  happy news for all of you that live here in southern Maine. Spring is nigh. How do I know this?  Because:

THE DAIRY QUEEN IS OPENING TODAY!!!!

If your family is anything like mine, you’ve been counting the days until the DQ reopened…well count no more.

Now, after Memorial Day weekend and before Labor Day weekend, there is no shortage of places to get your ice cream fix here in southern Maine, but after that, who’s got your back baby? Only DQ; they hang in there until well into December, so it’s hard to begrudge them their little break, but by February 1st, we are SO READY to see them again!!!

Actually, I wonder…maybe with the coming upwards of 2 feet of snow over the next two days…they may reconsider their plan. Probably best to check first. I did call the Wells DQ and they are currently open (today, 11:00AM) but said that tomorrow “is iffy”, depending on what happens with the weather.

You have two from which to choose: Kennebunk (985-3050) or Wells (646-8212). If you get the SuperCoupon mailer (and you didn’t throw it into the recycle already) there’s some good coupons in there so go get ’em!

P.S. Ask what the “Blizzard of the Month” flavor is!

My new year’s word: Part 2

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Holidays, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, writing

I finally did choose my one word for 2011; my word is:  EDIT. I’m loving this word for many reasons.

  1. I can actually remember it! It works its way up from my unconscious with very little effort on my part. Bam! It’s there, remember to ‘edit’!
  2. It applies to my Pantry Project: use the food I have already before going out to buy more food. I’m editing my pantry (and freezer and fridge) contents by using up what’s there already. Today: Chicken Orzo Soup in the crock pot; all ingredients already here in the pantry (orzo, bay leaf, parsley, chicken broth, onions, garlic) and freezer (chicken thighs, end of a block of parm cheese) and fridge (tomato paste, carrots).
  3. It applies to my book: I finished the book and now am working on the editing.
  4. It applies to my (and everyone else’s too, actually) closet. I’m working on whittling the contents of all of them (hint: do the tween’s closet when she’s not at home) so that we have more space. 🙂
  5. It applies to my diet: I’m trying to eat less. Editing the choices that are readily available makes eating better more likely (hel-lo….can’t eat the cookies at 10pm if there aren’t any in the house). Full disclosure: this one is one of those obvious things that my husband pointed out to me.

How’s it going for the rest of you with your new year’s word/resolutions?

My New Year’s Word

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, Holidays

I’m sorry, but I have to ask: is there a more thankless job than deconstructing Christmas? I mean, touring the house, scavenging all the nooks and crannies for the little Santas, Nutcrackers, and whatnots that have been stashed hither and yon, all in the name of festivity, inevitably finding one or two refugees after all of the boxes have been packed away in the closet, back under other things?

Does anyone like taking the decorations off the tree?

And then there’s the back of your mind, New Year’s Resolution thing lurking, lurking… I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions, actually. I make birthday resolutions, a plan for the coming year that begins and ends with, you know, me (as in, “it’s all about me”). When I heard about a twist on the resolution thing, choosing just one word, rather than making one list, to focus on in 2011, I was interested. One word? That seems much easier to remember and actually do than one list. But what word? “Focus” was the first one that came to mind…then about a billion other words joined it. It wasn’t pretty.

One of my goals for 2011 is “REDUCE” … as in CLUTTER (and WEIGHT, too, come to think of it, and TIME-WASTING…). Hmmm, I guess that might be a good word…it just sounds so negative, though.  Guess I’ll think about it some more, maybe try on a few of those billion other words on for size to see which one is the best fit…maybe “DECIDE” should be my word? 🙂

If you’re interested in doing this too, here’s the website: myoneword.org.

I’d love to hear what words any of you choose if you decide to try it this year.