satisfied

Lately it’s seemed as though time together around the table has been scarce. But a breezy fall-ish weekend has put everything back into perspective for me. You see, I had fallen into the very traps I write about here and try to help you avoid.

I was putting a strict definition on “family meal,” instead of taking what I could get and being happy with it. (Searching for a title for this post, I kept thinking of Gordon Gekko ... "Greed is good. Greed works." Nuh-uh! Not for me. I'd rather be satisfied with what I have.)

Coming up on the anniversary of starting this blog, my kids are another year older and I, after eight years, am once again a mom who works outside the home. Volunteer commitments seem to have increased, despite my time constraints, and the kids’ commitments have certainly doubled, what with their involvement in school activities and the ever mounting pile of homework. My love of cooking has dwindled as the price of ingredients has grown and dinner has become less of a celebration and more of a chore. The kids have gotten persnickity and vocal. Grrr.

But I was forgetting my own advice. Family meal time doesn’t have to be dinner.

It doesn’t have to be homemade.

And if it is homemade, it doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to be a family sharing food.

We eat breakfast together almost every morning. Weekend lunches are another time when we sit down together. It all counts … because we laugh so much and learn so much while sharing those meals. So I’m taking what I can get and it’s making me all warm and fuzzy inside.

As for the food itself, I and many other moms were thrilled to feel the Crock-Pot weather come on last week, only to have another St. Louis Steamer roll into the forecast this week. My Tuscan Vegetable Soup still sounds good, but it’s going to be almost 90 degrees today! And the strategies for getting together continue to prove themselves. I started making the soup yesterday … make it ahead. And last weekend I made chicken enchiladas and prepped too much chicken, so there’s a casserole in the freezer we can pull out some night ... cook once, eat twice. Be sure you eat it with someone you love.

with gratitude

My efforts here have been nothing short of underwhelming the past few weeks. The kids really did take over my computer as the summer wore on and they searched for ways to pass the 110-degree days. Then I started a new job and so have invested little on the writing front, though inspiration has been abundant. Perhaps budgeting myself a certain number of minutes on certain days will get me back to getting the job done. I have loads of stuff I've learned these past weeks if only I could sit down and type it and share it.

So much thanks to those who have so loyally stopped by in my long silence. I promise more soon. After all, we're right on the cusp of Crock-Pot season, one of the easiest of easy ways to gather people around a table. Can't wait to hear what you're cooking in yours ... and who you share it with.

confessions

It’s been summer. Full of nothingness. Full of busyness. Full of planning. At the same time that I have celebrated many meals with friends and family my own nuclear group seems to be wandering farther and farther from the tabletop gatherings I cherish.

“Where did you learn to eat?” my husband scolded the sloppy 6-year-old last night, just as I was mourning in my head. No sooner had I thought … “Man this feels strange to sit with all of them at the table,” Mr. 6 was scolded for eating with his fingers rather than his silverware. I got sassy.

“In front of the TV,” I said somewhat snappily.

“That’s not true,” my husband retorted. Always less idealistic, he accepts that our days of nightly meals around the table together are done. If karate isn’t on the schedule, something else will be, so I need to just loosen up a bit.

And that’s how it’s gone this summer. We’ve shared many meals, just not the regular five-of-us-for-dinner kind.

With the scrapbooking gang we always sit down twice. Everyone arrives and we snack our way through a lunch. (The kids have learned that there will always be fresh veggies and fruit, so eat the sweets first! This cracks up the moms, who could care less that the kids each suck down a pile of cookies because then they actually DO eat the strawberries, carrots, etc.) Then, at the end of the day, we put the kids around the table and serve them something fun and they eat and laugh and then … OHMAGOSH! … clear their places when they’re finished.

At family get-togethers my guys can fill their own plates and it’s not a mess of chips and cake. There actually are veggies and dip next to the chips (Even Mr. 6 gets fruit and veggies!) and all three always try the entrée, sometimes going back for seconds.

So, while I confess to falling out of the habit a bit in the looseness of the summer season, in typing this I’ve discovered that my years of making them sit at the table have paid off with their healthy eating habits; their willingness to try new things; and their ability to sit at a table of 10 kids and clean their plates. Top that off with the conversation and laughter that rises from those little faces when they are together and I don’t suppose I should have been mourning last night.

(OK, I really hate it when I come around to seeing things the husband’s way!)

I also confess to being neglectful in this space. As I have allowed the kids time to play games on my computer I have allowed the fragments of several posts to run from my head without hitting any keys. I simply must do better.

Finally, I confess to still not knowing the future of Ready, Set, Relax. I know officials have been working to find a date and hope to report something soon.

So, those are the things I’ve let go as a rigid routine morphed into the ebb and flow of summer. But, maybe that’s why I’ve learned to love summer so much … we get to just be. Just be un-busy. Just be outside. Just be. Hope you and yours are savoring summer. It’s time for a bike ride ….

Catching up

We spent yesterday morning at the outpatient surgery unit of a local hospital. A year of ear and sinus infections came to it's seemingly inevitable conclusion when Mr. First Grade got tubes put in his ears and adenoids taken out of his head. He's already hearing better and slept like a log last night. He spent the rest of yesterday and will spend most of today building puzzles, coloring and watching movies. Don't wanna bump that nose on anything. It reminded me of something I wrote around his fifth birthday, when the roller coaster ride of infections kicked into high gear, kitty was still alive and I was very thankful for a little discovery called penicillin.

This is the smile … the smirk … the kiss I wouldn’t have each day if life went “according to plan.” This is the place where new ideas are voiced, where passion is expressed, and where vegetables shall never trespass.

This is the smile of a boy who will now be known as Mr. 5, whose smile greets me each morning over the top of a Pop Tart box and whose lips each day utter the words “Oh, Mommy, I just love you!”

This is also the place where the amoxicillin began its attack on the double ear infection that felled him. He’s back from the 102-degree brink, so many, many thanks to the scientist who figured out mold can kill more than cheese.

These same scientists should be thanked for keeping kitty from peeing everywhere except the litter box. Poor little furry witch. Born on a farm, she has little use for people, except Hubby, who feeds her. And she especially dislikes me as I am the one who administers her antibiotic, which has killed the urinary tract infection. If you have never given a pill to a cat, there is no way to describe to you the noises that emanate from deep within her. They are lion-sized! Fur flies. Claws flail, but I love her and I stay until the pill is down. Sometimes this takes three or four tries, but how do I explain not helping kitty to that sweet-smiled boy?

So, life didn’t go exactly according to plan last week, but that’s OK. Even with modern science there's no planning the moment when a child will enter your life, no planning when he will get sick or when he will get better. There's just great joy when he arrives safely and great relief when he feels better. Besides, if life didn’t happen while I was planning other things I might run out of steamed vegetables at dinner each night and eat the Pop Tarts myself each morning.

So yes, great joy when he arrived safely from surgery ... I've never been through anything like that nor had any of my kids and I don't like anesthesia. And I'm also finding great relief in his comments about things being too loud.

In other news, the first full weeks of summer vacation have been eventfully uneventful. There's been the pool, the water gun fights, the barbecues the scrapbooking days with friends. In other words, full days of relaxation. I love summer break. Big Big news for Mr. Third Grade ... He's off on that two-wheeler and no one can stop him! He has the scabbed knees to prove the hard work he's put in these few weeks and is champing at the bit to stretch my apron strings.

Now, an update on Ready, Set, Relax. Calendars in a place as enormous as a school district begin to come together well before I'm thinking about buying notebooks and new jeans. The board has been working hard to find a date that will work for the upcoming school year, and I might know something more concrete this week. I've been spurred on by the support of one of the assistant superintendents and by the the board's efforts to make something work in the upcoming school year instead of putting it off until 2008-2009. I'll update as soon as I know more.

One last thing ... The Lady Fourth Grade and I together selected a cook book at the end-of-the-year book fair and the kids are having a blast. I've had to up the output of all the recipes because they've been cooking these snacky recipes as family night dinners so Daddy can try them, too. I'll put the homemade chicken fingers in sometime this week. But the following is such an amazing thirst quencher I have to share it for this roasty weekend. Make it with a short person you love and Enjoy!

Party Punch

(From Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack!)
2 cups cherry juice blend (we used Juicy Juice)
1 6-oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
3 11-oz. bottles cherry flavored sparkling water
Ice

Combine the juice and water and chill until just before serving. Stir in sparkling water and enjoy!

"Whaddaya gonna do?"

I’ve never seen an episode, but I am fascinated by the buzz. Of course, I’m especially fascinated by the unrelenting presence of family tables in popular culture. I think perhaps the truest portrayal in most recent television was the Barone family, where the kids almost never ate with the adults, but were set to the side (except in the finale). Even TV families struggle to find a way to get together for dinner. :)

When they want to show the “regular people” side of a character or group of characters, screenwriters seem to lean on the table: The Sopranos, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, Friends, Seinfeld, Happy Days, the Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver.

After all, ya gotta eat. But sometimes I wonder if a bit of the symbolism isn’t lost on viewers, especially when we’re told how few people actually gather at a table regularly with their family. Do you think cultural references to the family table might one day end up as amusing as Gordon Gekko’s Wall Street cell phone?

Kee-Ya!

If the scribbled up mess that is my December calendar page is “the most wonderful time of the year” then May is rapidly becoming the second-most wonderful time of the year. Whew! At last it’s June and we’ve finally been released from the clutches of the classroom, the bus, the homework and are savoring the first day of summer. Really and truly, the three of them haven’t been able to decide what to do all day! I’m ready for some wide open calendar space and they’re ready to just run unscheduled. Together the three of them always find a way to fill the time.

As for May, there was Field Day … there were Graduation Parties … I helped run a Book Fair … and of course there were the last minute thises and thats that make finishing a school year so exciting for a kid. Squeeze in the big party, Mother’s Day, a karate tournament, the regular schedule and some work on our own Ready, Set, Relax program. Then shake it up with a couple of days away on a trip for just the two of us and what you have is a big mess of a calendar page! :)

In between scheduled events I was thinking about posting, lots of time to think about posting but no keys or pens or papers on which to jot anything down.

Mostly, though, I’ve been thinking again about the power of a shared meal … how I feel a difference inside myself when my family lets that power run out of us, skipping time at the table for coming and going as we’re hungry or watching a movie while we eat dinner.

I’ve been thinking a lot about power … it’s a word I’ve been hearing at karate often. “You know what you’re supposed to do,” I’ll be told about what I’m learning. “But you need more power.”

Well, how on Earth do I get that? My body is what it is … there’s no more power in it! Of course it would be disrespectful to say this out loud, but in my head I’m laughing away. Ya, right, a 37-year-old Couch Potato is going to generate pOWer. Then they set us to practicing with a focus here or a focus there … never an all inclusive task of putting more power into every single thing I do, but try this on your punch or that on your block. Just concentrate on that and see what happens.

And I find more power. Right there inside myself. Power I never knew I had.

And so it is with a shared meal. Try something a little different such as sitting at the table or turning off the TV, especially now that it is summer. If you have one of those lovely back yards with a nice table try eating out there with your kids. (An easy way to get no TV!) Focus on one little change and like my punches, you might find more power than you ever knew was at your fingertips.

eeezy, peeezy, lemon squeeezy

One of the things that makes me often consider turning to a catering service, or even bringing trays in from the grocery store deli, is the just the volume of food to be prepared when my goal is to create a memorable, comfortable gathering for 20-30 people. The best example of this comes with the main course we’ve served at the First Communion celebrations. But this recipe, clipped from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch food section last year, comes through. It is easy to do the day before and tastes as good out of the fridge as it does right off the grill.

My daughter just stacked some meat on her plate with veggies and dip. Capt. Kindergarten, of course, ate only dollar rolls and peanuts that day. (Although I do recall some cake on his shirt!) And the guest of honor was spotted with no fewer than five sandwiches. All three kids love buffets because they are given independence for the day.

Hubby and my brother manned the fire. Dad has a slicer he lugged from Chicago (Thanks, Dad!) which made that process quicker and more even than what I served last year, which I sliced by hand. I think we did about nine tenderloins in all. There was only about one-and-a-half left at the end of the day, because I encouraged my house guests to just open the fridge for leftovers when they were hungry later that night. By the meat over time on sale. Defrost on Friday and put in the marinade Friday night or Saturday early. We let them soak between 10 and 12 hours. Grill, slice and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve. Making this recipe ahead is great for any hot summer celebration. And the cook can sit down and eat with the guests. And isn't that what we're hoping for when we make the invitations? Enjoy!

Marinated Pork Tenderloin Dollar Sandwiches
1 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons plus 4 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
4 tablespoons honey
2 (1-1½ pound) pork tenderloins
dollar rolls sliced for sandwiches

For Sauce, combine:
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Place pork in a large, self-sealing plastic bag or in a sealable container. Combine olive oil, soy sauce, garlic powder and honey. Pour over pork. Make sure it is coated completely. Let marinate at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, better if overnight.
Combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, mustard and Worcestershire sauce until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Over a medium fire, grill whole tenderloins about 5 minutes per side until all sides are seared and browned. Remove from grill and slice in one-inch medallions. Grill medallions five minutes on each face. Check for doneness. When completely cooked remove from heat and let stand about 5 minutes. Spread sauce on the inside faces of a dollar roll; place a pork medallion inside each roll and serve.