Mabon

Yes, I know that Mabon and the Autumn Equinox is on Friday night. I understand that I am a full two days early to talk about it, but we celebrate on the 21st, generally, speaking, because Lucia died on the 21st. Part of the reason we mark the seasons and began celebrating the pagan rituals associated with Mabon, Yule, Ostara and Litha is because we honor the passing of another season without Lulu while welcoming and celebrating the change and beginning of a new season. As the earth changes, our grief changes, adapts to the weather, or contrary to it. But still, everything moves.

Raising our children in an earth-based spirituality is one of the things my husband and I can wholeheartedly agree upon. We agree with almost all the other stuff, like discipline and bedtime and all that stuff except religion. I take the children to Mass here and there, but my husband is decidedly anti- organized religion. Having an earth-based spirituality together helps ground us in what we share spiritually and what we truly both believe in important for our children to learn ethically, morally and spiritually. We are part of something larger--a system of life and death. We like to teach the children to experience the world as something to be respected and alive with change. We teach compassion and nurturing love. The earth is our mother. She will take care of us. We will take care of her. You know, just like the song says.

Mabon is my favorite celebration, I think. I love autumn and celebrating the cooler weather. The coming of winter is something I particularly love. I am definitely a child of the winter. There is a lot to do to honor this change of season. We wake excited. All of us. First thing Beezus said this morning was "It is FALL!" She thought all the leaves were going to fall overnight, which kind of cracked me up. I keep forgetting that she doesn't remember being three totally. Only little snippets of memory.

Anyway, our rituals on this day are really ones shared by the kids and I. Sam traditionally works all day, so he comes home to a clean house, smelling of stew and baked apples, and all kinds of beauty and deliciousness. First thing we do throughout the day is clean. Clean, clean, clean. We call it Fall Cleaning. And we clean so we can cleanse. Sage smudge to cleanse our spirits and our house.

We usually spend the afternoon gathering things for our evening feast. Mabon celebrates the harvest, as well as the autumn and change.  And it celebrates the balance of darkness and light. I make a big batch of lentil stew, and some corn, and some pumpkin. Apples are a big part of our day. But first, we gather. We gather wildflowers to make an arrangement. I beg my husband not to weed our lawn from about August on. Not that we are good at weeding any time of the year, but I love goldenrod and the other crazy wildflowers from this area. My husband and I get into screaming matches about weeds. In my opinion, weeds are a term of abuse. It is simply a matter of perspective. Last weekend, I was horrified and angry that my husband pulled out all the goldenrod in our backyard despite me specifically asking him not to. Angry, I tell you.

It rained today. Almost all day, so we decided to tramp about in our rainboots with a basket (my childhood Easter basket, actually) and some scissors, and go a-gathering anyway.We found a lot, including two matted down goldenrods, which look just fine in the pitcher.

 We also bought some Indian corn on our way home and two little pumpkins for our centerpiece.

We start with a wooden plate my husband made many moons ago, and besides the flowers, we gather leaves, acorns, things that remind us that autumn in coming.

We then line it with grape leaves. I shared about my huge grape vine in the back. We have been thinking about making a grape vine wreath this year, even though we have one my stepfather made us. It is the vine that keeps on giving.

Then we put three candles in the center. For autumn we put the brown ones, at Yule we will exchange them with red ones, and at Ostara, we will put white ones there. We don't light candles at our dinner table in the summer, because it is still light.

Then the kids and I add leaves, and acorns around the edges.

 The little pumpkins and one ear of Indian corn, with the husk taken off. (We bought three with their husks.)

I added sunflowers my mother bought me from the Farmer's Market last week to our wildflower bouquet. We put the bouquet on the sideboard most days, but on Mabon, we leave both on one end of the table, since we always eat at the other end.

With the husk from the Indian corn we used in the center piece, we make a little Harvest Goddess figure. It is so easy. You simply tie a piece of yarn or string or twine as a head, then pull two husks out of each side for arms, and tie them up, and then tie a little lower for a skirt. We added it to Lucy's altar as a part of the autumn remembrance.

We tied the other two ears of Indian corn together for our interior door decoration.

When Sam got home, we ate our feast--lentil stew, arepas made out of corn, and rice. We always start our meal talking about how the day is in perfect balance of light and dark and we are moving to the time when the air gets colder and the days shorter. Then we say how grateful we are for our food and family and sharing this time. Then we chow down.

 For dessert, I baked some apples stuffed with walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and brown sugar.

After dinner we light the first fire of the season. It was a small one, because it is actually humid here. We throw in bay leaf and salt as symbols of protection for our home and family, and we do a little sage smudge and pass the talking stick. All in all, it is just a beautiful day. Blessed Mabon, my loves.

concord grape jelly

A few years ago, I bought a stick from the Home Depot with a label that said "Concord Grape" on it.

I say I bought a stick, because I couldn't really believe it was going to turn into a grape vine. I planted it in the sandiest, crappiest part of our yard, which was behind our basketball goal, and in the two feet between the driveway and the neighbor's fence. I gave it the best start in life that I could as the possessor of the Black Thumb of Death. Anything that grows for me dies a slow death either from too much water, or not enough, from neglect or obsessive love. From ambitious plans in subpar soil. It reminds me of when I showed my friend Sid my bonzai. "I think it is dying, Sid."  She looked at it, the branch she gently touch crumbled beneath her fingers. "Oh, honey, I think your bonzai is already dead."

I don't know why I thought the grapes would be different, but I think it is my ultimately optimistic view of the universe, like Sisyphus, I imagine the rock might stay the next time. One must imagine me happy. I hoped that we could have a fenceline of concord grapes, which rank a solid two in my favorite fruits of all time. (Strawberries win it.) And in the end, somehow Dionysus took pity.

This year, imagine my surprise when the grapes actually friggin' grew. I was surprised at least. I actually like grapes. The grape vine exploded. I have no idea what I am doing, but I asked Sam to make some kind of fancy fency, and string them up.

Layers and layers of concord grapes. It looks like someone who knows what they are doing, even though by all rights they should be dead.

Last year, I had some grapes that grew ripe. I ate one off the vine and vowed to pick them all the next day, but when I went outside the next morning, they were all gone. It was like some clever crow heard my braggardly and lazy ways and alerts the swarms of crows that descended. This year, I tried desperately hard to stay on top of it. Concord grapes are one of the few fruits that stop ripening off the plant, so you must pick them when ripe and beat the birds.



Friday, my mother and I went outside with some buckets and the kids and picked, and picked, and picked and picked. Then posed the children in this very unnatural way with the bowls of grapes in front of them, because don't you always let your kids hang out on the floor with the dog and his Kong ball and play with grapes?








 I poured myself a large tall iced coffee and got to work. I got this recipe from my sister for a small batch of concord grape jam or jelly or preserves. I don't know which is which, but the ingredients are literally grapes and sugar, so maybe someone can help me figure out which I made.

 Started with four cups of concord grapes. (Or one quart from the market if you aren't fortunate enough to have your own grape stick.)

 You then get an 8"x8" casserole (or two quart) Put one layer of grapes down, covering the bottom.

Smoosh (sp?) them up with a potato masher. Squish them. Release the hounds juices.

 It gets soupy. Then you add the remaining grapes on top of it. Cover it and microwave it on high for three minutes. My understanding is that microwaving is recommended over cooking for fruits with a lot of pectin, which apparently concord grapes have. You then uncover and microwave for another four minutes.

 Your house smells amazing at this point. I mean, totally amazing.

 Set up a strainer with a pouring bowl underneath it. Now, remember, we started with four cups of grapes, you pour that four cups of cooked down grapes into this strainer, over a bowl. You want all the seeds out.

 Immediately, it looks like this. You push the swollen grapes through, releasing the liquid and keeping the skins and seed in the strainer.

 All said and done, it looks like this. It took a lot of squishing to get the liquid. It seemed like I wouldn't have enough, but I did.

 Grape juice looks a lot like blood.

 Four cups of grapes turned into two cups of grape juice. You then put that in a half quart saucepan. You add equal amounts of sugar to your liquid--so two cups of sugar for this batch, but it will entirely depend on how much liquid comes out of your grapes.

 Put on the stove for a quick boil, not quick as in for a minute, but quick as in a rapid boil for fifteen minutes.

They tell you to do the gel test (put a spoonful on a plate, let cool, see if it hardens.) after fifteen minutes to make sure it is turning into jelly, but that didn't work for me. It just seemed like really good grape liquid. It was delicious warm on freshly made yogurt. I was contented, even though it didn't gel. I made a stick turn into something sweet and yummy. I put it in the fridge and the next day...

It was definitely jelly.

YUM! It tastes amazing, everyone loves it, and it goes with everything. Hope you can make your own concord grape jelly/jam/preserves.  I will probably have a few more grape related recipes coming your way.

rainy thursday

I love rainy days where my kids get caught up in playing and I get to tweet and blog, catch up on some stuff, like the giveaway and news post I did on still life with circles. We actually have had a thunderstorm-y, humid day where I still haven't put on the air. I love the windows open. But Beezus' bangs are sticking straight up in the air and are all wet. It is so sad.

We have an absolutely incredible farmer's market in town here on Saturdays. It is part of the reason we moved here, because of the farmer's market and festivals they have every month or so. We ride our bikes up there and buy our veggies. One thing I love about farmer's markets is some of the veggies that are only there. One I love love love to cook with are squash blossoms. I just went outside to see if our zucchini plants, which had zucchini, which then died, had any blossoms. Only a few. And none of them ready to harvest. At the market, they have six blossoms rubberbanded together for a buck, so I bought four bucks worth. This is what I do with them--I saute a little olive oil, garlic and shallot, then toss in cherry tomatoes. We get a whole s-load of volunteer cherry tomatoes every year. They migrate and move locations based on where the wind blew in the fall, but we eat them and they are delicious. This year they are next to my rose bush. So I salt and pepper them, and toss in the destemmed squash blossom. I drizzle a wee bit of balsamic vinegar in the last moments of cooking. I sometimes put spinach in too for a warm salad in September or October. For this particular batch, I served it over some spinach leaves. It was delicious.

At the same farmer's market, we bought some peaches and nectarines, and looks like they grew some fruitflies by today. Anyway, I'm sure y'all know what to do, but if not, I thought I would share what we do with fruit flies. I get a mason jar. Put the offending fruit in the bottom. Make a paper cone. Literally, paper rolled up and taped with a wee hole. Stuff it in the top of the jar. And you catch fruit flies. I think you can use balsamic vinegar if you have no fruit left. Then you take them outside and release them.

In other news, our concord grapes are freaking out of control. They are monsters. I am just anxious about the whole deal. I mean, last year, they were ready. I said to Sam. Tomorrow, I will go out and pick them, came outside the next day and the birds wiped our grapes out. This year, I have been eating ripe ones. I read that concord grapes do not ripen off the vines, so you basically HAVE to leave them on there until they are ready. Man, I want to pick them.

 

Also, we came down from dressing upstairs, and went to let Jack in, and he was proudly displaying the baby rabbit he killed in his mouth. Then Ride of the Valkyries popped into my head, and I felt like a shit. It was a very somber moment for Beezus and for me. I don't like my dog killing things, though he is getting quite adept at it. He has killed a squirrel and a groundhog and now, a bunny. Beezus asked to see it, and she said, "She was very little, mama. Her sister will be sad." And yes, I think her sister will be sad. So, we decided to bury the baby rabbit. Beezus made a stone for her grave. I said some words, like "In your next life, may you find a dog-free yard." And "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, may there be many carrots in the afterlife." We said the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary," tossed some dirt onto it and said good bye.

Sorry to end on such a somber note. Have an amazing weekend.

making staples

Lately, I have been trying to make more pantry staples at home. Well, maybe not lately, this is sort of a morphing process over the last few years. I wrote about making yogurt a few weeks ago, and I have been doing that for a few years.

For example, Saturday, I ran out of mayonnaise, looked in my cook's companion book, and saw that it was incredibly easy to make mayo. And eh, voila, in a few minutes (literally less than ten), I had a whole terrine full of mayo. I will post a how-to make mayo next batch, if anyone is interested, I know some people get nauseated just looking at a dang picture of mayonnaise, but I don't. LOVE. MAYO. I only have a finished product picture.

Honestly, I think it is a combination of the fall-like lack of humidity, the open windows and the fact that the baby is not quite a baby anymore, and running and playing. I have time to do some extra weekly things. Most weeks, I hit the market, come home and make a sort of weekly batch of staples. I make yogurt every second week or so. But I get home with fresh eggs, I hard boil a dozen of them while I am unloading the market bags. I eat eggs, but no meat, so it serves as a quick protein source for me during the day. I also roast eggplant at the same time for baba ghanoush. It lasts, perhaps, two days in this house, since it is a favorite of mine. Maybe in the next few weeks, I will post my baba ghanoush recipe, since it is so delicious it will blow your freakin' mind, like this video.

One day, I popped over to my sister's house and she was making butter. She picked up a dairy cookbook--like how to make cheeses, sour cream, butter, etc. We ate gluten-free toast and homemade butter, and then another, and then another. Fresh butter is amazing. So, even though I don't have a standing mixer, or a blender (smoothies killed my blender and I am searching for a new one), today, I decided to give it a whirl. I figured it would only cost me the pint of organic heavy cream. The price differential between heavy cream and butter isn't significant, but the taste is worth it.

Making butter is so incredibly easy, I am a little embarrassed that I am writing about it, but I thought that for people out there like me, who thought it was magic, would like to know that it is easy and how to go about making it.

First, one pint of heavy cream in a bowl, like so.  (Yes, I bit the pint of heavy cream open, because I am such a bad ass mother...shut your mouth.)

And you just start mixing it. This is hand mixer, but apparently standing mixers are easy, less fussy. I took my netbook into the kitchen and read some blogs while it was going.

It passes through a stage where it kind of looks like whipped cream, which I suppose it technically is, and then it gets a little lumpier. At this point, I was doubting it would ever be butter,

I'm still there. I forgot to mention NPR was on, so that helped. Alice Waters is going to be on Fresh Air today. Awesome. It was not too long, but I should have been better at timing it. I think this was about ten to fifteen minutes.

 AND THEN ALL OF THE SUDDEN...

my wet heavy cream turned into butter with buttermilk pooling in the middle. I mixed it a little longer. Apparently, this whole process would have taken less time if I had let the cream come to almost room temperature. Whoops.

 No worries. I strained it. In the bowl is fresh buttermilk. As in the expensive milk you can bake crap with, yes. You have to knead the butter at this point. You get slightly slimey, but in the name of butter, so it is totally worth it. I also cut in some salt, because I also love salt. It helps the liquid come out.

One pint of heavy cream made 3/4ths of a crock of butter. Yum.

Final product. Wee bit of buttermilk and a crock of butter. Perfection.










Hope you liked this. My next staple piece will be about making sofrito, which is a staple of Latin American cooking and is so friggin' awesome you will want to roll in it.