Thinking – Stephanie Sicore

January 3, 2010January 3, 2010

Fresh Starts, and an Aebelskivver Recipe

It’s a new year! I can hardly believe the difference I feel in its arrival. There is some magic behind those numbers, I don’t care how illogical this sounds; I already know this year will be different. And like all fresh starts, we’ve been making complete breakfasts (oh my goodness! As in, not cereal from a box!) during our mellow holiday, and let me tell you: this makes all the difference in the world. I will be awakening earlier once school starts again *just* so we can enjoy sitting down together to eat our breakfast. What a concept!

Check out how YELLOW our hen’s eggs are! Here’s the difference between store-bought eggs and home-grown:

This morning we made aebelskivvers. You know, the treat-filled Scandinavian pancake that requires that special pan with the little holes? These have become Chas’ favorite breakfast item, along with bacon. If he could have his way, he would get pancakes or waffles alongside (more accurately, underneath) his aebelskivvers, but this mama has only *so* much energy behind one cup of coffee. Not to mention the redundancy? And the sugar highs? Oh my!

This recipe is the best I’ve come up with, after some experimenting:

Basic Ebelskivver Batter

4 eggs, whipped up nice and bubbly

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 T melted butter, for oiling the pan

Preheat the pan, mix up the wet and dry ingredients separately, then fold together gently until all floury gobs are gone. Let sit for five minutes (as the pan raises to a medium-high heat). Baste the pan holes with butter, then fill each hole in the pan 2/3 full with the batter. Next, top each dollop with a morsel of something yummy (our favorite? Nutella!) and then cover the morsel with enough batter to completely fill the hole.

When each pancake turns slightly drier around the sides, you will know to turn them over. Taking two chopsticks, use one to push the tip of each pancake down into the hole while using the other chopstick to assist the opposite end of the pancake up and over to complete the flip. In a matter of a few minutes, they will be done (the bottom–as well as the top–should look golden).

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So I got a lot of work done today! It really pays to start the day off right with a good breakfast. Well, I actually had cream of wheat and orange juice but you get the point. I moved EARTH! (Well, a lot of earth for this little lady)

We have this sloping, southwest-facing backyard, well-suited for gardening. When they cut the Monterey Pine tree (the tire swing tree) down last year, the hill became filled with the mulch from the tree. I built raised beds at the top of the hill last spring (now topped with the chicken tractors!), but as with all projects I begin I had to take the entire garden build and break it down into steps, season-by-season. Well, it’s time for a new terrace, so that’s what I continued working on.

By sheet mulching (lasagna gardening) I added first a layer of chicken manure, then a layer of newspapers, then a layer of leaves, then cardboard sheets from broken-down boxes, and finally another 3-4 inches of bark mulch atop that. I’m sore already. It felt so completely wonderful being outside in the warm sun today. The boys later would come out and join me for a little conversation while I worked, but I was mostly alone with the cats and Seti, who would occasionally help me dig.

And then there were the chickens and the leftover aebelskivvers!

I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as all of us!

October 10, 2009July 2, 2010

School Days

firstdayofschool1

School. The nourishing routine began. They needed this. And Chas started kindergarten.

With this came new friendships, early mornings slicing carrots, spreading jam, checking homework. Chas is eager to please his teacher; he often reminds me of the one important thing to do when I am bogged down in these daily details.

“Mommy, are you staying with me at school today?”

I volunteer now, like many other parents at our school. On Mondays I spend the entire day in the school garden, raking, mulching, planting, weeding, thinning, harvesting, my handiwork echoed sixfold by eager little kindergarten helpers. They take turns. When teacher Kathy isn’t looking, I let the most dexterous child handle the pruning shears to collect rosemary sprigs. He is ready, despite the rules.

Chas plays alongside us in the garden, with no interest in garden maintenance. There are bridges to build and battles to fight under the live oak canopy. He steps back into the sunlight occasionally and his flaxen halo glows in the bright morning light.

It is the little school up in the mountain. We love it here.

Ford is in a classroom with seventeen other children, mostly girls, and, according to his teacher, he is raising his hand at every question, jumping at each opportunity. In the whole-school music class, he volunteers to sing solo. At the same time he is navigating new social ground. He made two close friends on the first day of school, a magnetic, spinning connection over goofy faces, animated gestures and general silliness. And he has discovered the comic book.

In the car on the way to Santa Cruz, on a golden Friday afternoon, Ford sits in the backseat of the car with a stack of paper and a pencil. He draws. By the time the sun has set and I lay the board back atop the car, I look into the backseat to find a stack full of comics that he has drawn. They include page upon page of alien species on lush, fruity topography choosing flowers to eat, introducing themselves to other species. There is no war, no battles, no conflict other than which flowers to eat. There are so many, after all, from which to choose.

firstdayofschool2

October 14, 2008October 14, 2008

Showing Up

baked Lassen

Words, captive in my head, vibrate like freshly-trapped squirrels in a dark, hollow crate. Spinning ceaseless, going nowhere, all in a panic. I can barely construct what I want to write, but I’m free to demonstrate my difficulty doing so.

My days are this: thin. Spread taut between nails, rapidly drying out at sunrise and split by the rising full moon. There is no honeycomb for thoughts, and very little time for guesswork. Each mark feels indelible: a pursed lip at the first grade classroom door, extracted by Ford’s exhausted teacher; the moment I yell at Chas for screaming joyfully into my ear (quite by his accident); the angular tension between my eyebrows.

Some people more in tune with their bodies and minds would suggest I can’t think straight because I am trying to do too much. I say I am fumbling while trying to live on my own terms.

True, I could focus on one thing or another. I could scour books tonight about childhood development to find a possible cause of Ford’s intense participatory excitement in school, or I could shrug it off to an active boy trying to live life on his own terms, as well.

I could say one hundred Hail Mary’s for the trauma I inflicted on Chas, who was just as angry with me for shrieking as I was for his screaming in my ear. How insane it is to expect a 4 year-old to ignore the power of his own ego: “Give it up, world! I’m the shit in this beeping, light-up Ben 10 Omnitrix watch!” You can’t hold in that kind of joy.

Who’s to blame, really? The energy within this house bounds, unmitigated, through each and every one of us within its walls in completely different ways. Some of us channel it better than others, that’s all. I think Damon rides this force on his bike all the way to work, through his day and back home again, for example. At the other extreme, I grab it by the throat, wrestle it into the box within my head, and let it vibrate for a couple of hours each night.

That probably explains the exhaustion.