Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’ve been meaning to share this recipe for long enough now that I made it again tonight.  Sad, right? What’s even sadder is that I MADE it, but we didn’t actually get to EAT it.  This is what happens when you don’t get the chicken out to thaw earlier, and then you try and avoid your mid-size crockpot because you got it for your wedding in 1998 and it has no removable inner pot, making it a bear to wash.  (I may or may not have left it to soak on the floor of a student apartment with no counter space for SO long that a mouse drowned in it, but that’s another story.)  You instead use your smallest crockpot, and because the chicken is still mostly frozen it doesn’t squish down, and so the breasts on top aren’t done in time for dinner, and so you make waffles instead.

On the other hand, I now have this Crockpot BBQ Chicken in my fridge, just waiting for dinner tomorrow, and it’s awfully tasty.  (All of my kids devoured it the first time I tried it, and I was right there with them.)  I also have an actual pot of trimmed but still raw broccoli in my fridge, because I hadn’t started to cook it yet, and broccoli with waffles would be seriously weird.  (We had clementines instead.) I could say that the consequences of being lazy are the failure of one dinner plan, making a hasty back-up necessary; then again, I could point out that those same consequences are, essentially, unexpected waffles and an incredibly easy meal plan for tomorrow.  And really, what’s not to love about that?

(Disclaimer:  I realize that I switch from I to you to I again in these two paragraphs; I’m just over it.)

This year’s Pie Night was one for the record books, folks.  We had a record-breaking number of pies (18!), I made four for the first time, and TWO pies were finished ON PIE NIGHT.  (A Cream Puff Pie and a Biscoff Cookie Butter Cream Pie, to be exact.  We’ve never finished one before–having one more family than usual definitely made a difference.)  Here are OUR offerings for the night, in no particular order…

1)Chocolate & Peanut Butter Pudding Pie with Bananas.  My hubby picked this one (but of course, if you know us, you already guessed that).  He and I actually agreed on it–it was pretty good, but we would have preferred more chocolate and less peanut butter in the chocolate-and-peanut-butter layer.  And frankly, I would have preferred an Oreo crust, instead of the chocolate graham cracker one (since I could NOT find chocolate wafers at my grocery store).

2)Spiced Peach Pie.  I was underwhelmed by this one.  It was neither peachy enough nor spicy enough, and the cream cheese/butter/nutmeg layer–in my opinion–wanted a bit of sugar.  I wouldn’t make this again.

3)Strawberry Custard Pie.  I actually made this with raspberries and raspberry gelatin, and it was pretty good.  It would have been better with more raspberries, but mine had been in the fridge a bit long and some weren’t usable; it also would have been better with a homemade crust.  Lastly, the recipe called, essentially, for half a box of gelatin per pie; I would have preferred the flavor with the whole box, I think. (I like strong flavors.)  This one is worth revisiting.

4)Pineapple Pie with Coconut Cream.  I admit, I was a bit peeved that my daughter picked something that looked like a bit of a pain to make; it turned out, however, to be my favorite pie.  I tried my best to pick a pineapple that would be ripe–but not TOO ripe–at just the right time, and I lucked out.  It was a lovely one, and its beautiful freshness made a big difference.  The coconut cookie crust was delicious (I’d totally try it with the previous pie, actually) and the cheesecake layer made my mouth happy.  I didn’t love the coconut cream, I confess, but it would probably be different with fresh coconut milk.  (Since that’s not going to happen in Utah, I’d whip up some real cream and add a touch of coconut extract instead.)  This was a keeper.

And there you have it!  I wish I could remember all of the pies; all I can say is that it was an awfully good year.  What pies are YOU making for the holidays?

Dear Target:

Why does the Our Generation doll my daughter wants for Christmas have an online item number, an online price, and NO DISCERNIBLE WAY TO ORDER IT ONLINE?  Why is it also (apparently) not available ANYWHERE ALONG THE WASATCH FRONT?  It’s not like there aren’t, say, MORE CHILDREN HERE THAN PRETTY MUCH ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY!

Seriously.  Any ideas are welcome at this point, because I am one frustrated parent.  All I want to do is spend money on something you purport to sell.  How does this not work for you?

Sincerely,

Irritated Mother of a 9-year-old girl

I honestly can’t remember why I had no dinner plan for today–maybe yesterday’s church party lulled me into complacency?  (Or maybe it was how many times I was up last night.)  Whatever the reason, at lunchtime today I still had no definite plan for dinner; thankfully, our favorite kind of breakfast sausage was on sale on Monday, and the package I’d grabbed was hanging out in the fridge.  (Yes, we did have breakfast for dinner at last night’s party, but that sausage was too spicy for my kids.  Completely different, right?  Hey, on the amount of sleep I got last night, it totally worked for me.)

So.  We had sausages, and we had fruit; all we needed was some sort of breakfast bread that was relatively low maintenance.  To Pinterest I went, and these Banana and Peanut Butter Muffins were the result.  And how were they?

Hmm.  They were crumbly, but I did substitute butter for the Country Crock and some wheat flour for some of the white; I’m not going to knock the recipe for something I may well have caused.  I was more ambivalent about the taste, actually.  They weren’t terribly sweet, and I didn’t think they were fabulous with butter; on the other hand, when I spread one with some Hershey’s chocolate almond spread? Mmmm.  (The kiddos didn’t see me, by the way.)  Adding the suggested chocolate chips would have been nice, but two of my kids have trouble sleeping when they have chocolate at dinnertime.

Bottom line?  Not necessarily a great dinner option, but for breakfast…with the chocolate spread…that’s possibly a different story.  If you like peanut butter–especially not-too-sweet peanut butter–they’re worth trying.  If you don’t?  Skip them.

It’s up to you.

As soon as I read the plot summary for Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, I mentioned it to my sister, because her twelve-year-old has her own saga of dental trauma involving her two front teeth.  Sadly, she’s still waiting for it at her library, while my oldest and I have both read it and are sending it back to ours.  (In fact, I picked up Telgemeier’s latest graphic novel at the library today.)  Happily (on the other hand), it’s my favorite–so far–of the graphic novels I picked up for genre report options for my newly-minted nine-year-old.

Here’s the thing.  Sunny Side Up was partly autobiographical, and it was good; it felt a bit younger, however, and the lesson it taught, while perfect for its audience, is one I learned long ago.  Smile is more of a straight autobiography, written less to teach and more to share experiences.  Both work for their target audiences; the latter, however, has more appeal for an adult reader.  I cringed at some of the twists and turns on poor Raina’s dental journey, and I cheered for her as she made changes in her life that had a lasting impact on her happiness and well-being.  Graphic novels will never be my thing, but I’m still glad I read this one.  It’s worth reading.

For a Newbery, that is.  Of course, I haven’t read many of the year’s brand-new books, so I’m not familiar with the competition; on the other hand, Katherine Applegate already has a Newbery Medal to her name, and previous winners sometimes have an edge.  (Or so it seems.  Certainly some authors become Newbery darlings…Jacqueline Woodson comes to mind, yes?)

The kiddos and I were talking about what we were thankful for tonight, and it was wonderful to see what they thought of to say.  Yesterday was all about spending time with family–lots of cousin time, especially for the girlies, and card games and fun for the adults–and family, of course, is a great deal of what we are most thankful for this weekend.  I hope everyone out there had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don’t worry–a pie night report is coming soon!

Interestingly enough, the second graphic novel I read (from the stack she’s considering for her genre report) was also by Jennifer L. Holm and her brother.  My carpool friend mentioned that her daughter enjoyed the Babymouse books in 3rd grade or so, and so I put Babymouse:  Queen of the World! on hold with the others.  My oldest complained that it wasn’t “exciting” (she likes mysteries), and I have to say that I didn’t find it so either.  It’s not, however, that it’s a bad book; it’s just a better fit for my six-year-old in a lot of ways.  (Although I have to confess that the simplicity might not have bothered me if the plot hadn’t been one that I can’t relate to.  It’s a perfectly relevant plot for middle grade readers, mind you–it’s just that some characters do things that I can understand intellectually but cannot relate to emotionally.)

Bottom line?  My six-year-old is interested in more, despite the challenge the vocabulary poses for her, but not so much my newly-minted nine-year-old.

Or myself.

I’ve had Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie floating around my house for years; I got the ARC free at Borders when the book was first coming out.  When I mentioned it to my friend Britt, she noted that it was on her list and she’d actually started it once before realizing that she didn’t have the time for it then.  She said it was darkly amusing and she was expecting it to be thoroughly enjoyable when she finally got another chance at it.

She was right.

I don’t read much mystery anymore, to be honest.  I’ve read a good deal of Agatha Christie, the complete Sherlock Holmes, all of the ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ books, and a few random Mary Higgins Clarks and John Grishams, but that’s about it.  (Except for Dorothy Gilman, come to think of it.)  It isn’t that I don’t enjoy the genre, because I actually do; it’s just that I choose other genres more.  That said, I’m glad I picked up this one.  Being introduced to Flavia de Luce was well worth the month it took me to read it.

(By the way, that month was not at all a reflection of the quality of the book.  After my family’s flu, my New England trip, the time change, and my baby’s sleep issues, well–I can’t stay awake to read more than a few pages a night.  Of ANYTHING.)

Flavia is an 11-year-old after E. L. Konigsburg’s heart–she talks like an adult, thinks like an adult, and (in general) acts like an adult, all while living a child’s life and retaining something of a child’s outlook on the world.  (It’s a style of character I find to be not necessarily impossible, but wildly improbable, and yet so thoroughly enjoyable that it completely works for me.)  She lives at an English country estate (Buckshaw) in 1950, together with two older sisters, a distant philatelist father, and a loyal retainer called Dogger whose odd spells stem from his time as a POW in World War II.  (The whole setting is very Agatha Christie.)  A passionate chemist, Flavia has her own fully equipped laboratory (note:  this book practically begs you to emphasize the second syllable, not the first).  When she finds a dying man in Buckshaw’s cucumber patch, she is fascinated by the entire experience; her fascination (and her father’s eventual arrest for the murder) impel her to investigate the murder herself, using both her chemical and her reasoning skills.  I shan’t give any more details than that, but trust me on this one–you won’t regret spending some time in Flavia’s world.

It’s a darkly delightful place to be.

This year, instead of book reports, my third grader is doing genre reports, which is kind of a fun idea. Her teacher provided a list of eight genres, and they have to do at least two per quarter, although they are welcome to work ahead.  Thus far my girlie has done a fairy tale (Ella Enchanted), a fantasy (Starry River of the Sky), and historical fiction (Number the Stars), all of which I had plenty of suggestions for; after all, I graduated in English teaching and I worked at a bookstore for 10 years.  Three of her five remaining genres will be just as easy for me to suggest books for, and the fourth will at least be doable. (No, I don’t read a ton of sci-fi, but I can always suggest A Wrinkle in Time, right?)  The fifth remaining genre is–comic books.  (Which I’m assuming involves graphic novels as well as the more magazine-y options.)

These are not my thing.

True, I did read El Deafo, but I wasn’t enthralled with the ending, and other than that?  Well, my book club read Binky the Space Cat once.  (I remember nothing about it.)  Luckily for my daughter, however, I have friends whose reading tastes compliment my own–AND I have a friend who is a middle school librarian in Texas.  I messaged her on FB, asking for suggestions, and she gave me a respectable list, to which my carpool friend added a title her kids had enjoyed.  I put a slew of them on hold at the library, and voila! (imagine the accent!) the great comic book project has begun.

My plan is to read them all as well, because hey–it’s not much of a time commitment!  I opted to start with Sunny Side Up, by Jennifer L. (and Matthew) Holm, because, well, the woman wrote THREE Newbery Honor books.  (All of which I’ve read and enjoyed, mind you.)  I may not be terribly into graphic novels, but I’ve got faith in her.

(By the way, my thing with graphic novels isn’t so much about snobbery as it is about the fact that I’ve never been terribly into visual art.  From the very beginning, reading has been about words, more words, and very little other than the words for me–my poor art teacher mother!)

The verdict?  Holm didn’t disappoint.  Sunny Side Up is the story of a girl who spends the summer with her grandfather in Florida; the only other kid around is a boy named Buzz, who introduces her to comic books, golf ball recovery, and the golf course’s resident alligator.  As the book progresses, however, it’s obvious that Sunny’s parents have sent her to Florida for a reason, one which Sunny herself doesn’t fully understand.  How she learns the whole truth–and what she does with it–makes for a good story and a great teaching tool for middle readers.

Bottom line?  Well, to be perfectly honest, I’d have preferred the story in traditional form–I really do love words that much, and Jennifer L. knows how to use them.  On the other hand, this format is going to be accessible to kids in a way that a traditional novel about the subject might not be, and I can see the power of the visual.  It brings something else–something different but valuable–to the table, and I respect that.

It’s just not my thing.