Let me preface this by saying that I LOVE rice pudding.  Love it.  I know a lot of people who don’t, but I’ve always been a big fan.  (Provided, of course, that there are no raisins involved, because in my world, that’s just wrong.)  My Dad used to make it when I was growing up, and I was always excited about it.  Which is why I decided to try this Quinoa Pudding, because really, I was hoping I’d get what I love in rice pudding and more protein as well.

Yeah.  It didn’t work.

I should admit that my feelings on quinoa are mixed; I’ve made things I liked with it, but I often don’t enjoy the strong taste of the leftovers; I also sometimes struggle with the smell of it cooking.  (There was a quinoa/stomach flu incident a year and a half ago as well; it’s not something you want to be throwing up.)  What this recipe taught me, however, is that I probably shouldn’t try to eat quinoa in sweet recipes.  In my opinion, the stronger flavor lends itself much better to savory flavor profiles (although that strong flavor just increases when you’re eating leftovers, and I don’t love that for savory, either).  As for this specific recipe, well–if you like rice pudding and the taste of quinoa itself (a lot!), this might be the perfect recipe for you.  I, on the other hand, will not be making it again.

We went to Sunday dinner at my in-laws’ house tonight, so I opted to bring banana bread and dessert.  (Everyone else lives pretty close, and we have a 45 minute drive, so volunteering for the soup seemed impractical.  And why bring rolls when I made TWELVE DEAD BANANAS into banana bread yesterday?  Besides, it worked out–there was enough of everything.)  I looked up desserts last night, and I opted to go with these Fudgy Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, because what’s not to love about THAT description?  And let me tell you–nothing.  There’s nothing not to love.

(Unless, of course, you count the crumbliness of the crust.  Do not be tempted to melt the butter in the pan in the pre-heating oven and toss the graham cracker crumbs in to mix them there.  It didn’t affect the taste, but they needed to be eaten on plates.  With forks.)

I do have to warn you, though.  They are totally delicious, and perfect for a get-together, but before you make them for just your family and have them sitting around your house all day, take a good look at the ingredients.  Because the bars have three layers, it’s easy not to realize just how much TOTAL there is of, well, many very delicious things that rack up the calories disturbingly quickly.  Then again, they’re pretty darn good–they got a thumbs up from the vast majority of the crowd–so do it if you want to.  Like I said–at least you’ll die happy!

I love fresh peaches.  Love them.  And my husband?  He does not.  (Neither does the boy, actually.)  For this reason, mostly, I’ve never gotten into the habit of doing much with them when they’re in season–after all, it’s dangerous to make a dessert that I’m going to eat the vast majority of, and I’ve yet to acquire a canner and do any actual canning myself.  (I do freeze tomatoes and applesauce–separately, you understand–and I have hopes of canning once I’m out of the toddler stage.  I don’t do well undertaking prolonged projects when the danger of interruption is high.)  My neighbor, however, has a couple of peach trees in his yard, and this year he had a bumper crop.  I haven’t done as much with them as I’d like (although when my parents were visiting, we consumed rather a lot of them with Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream), but I was looking through recipes the other night for a new breakfast bread to try for dinner (it was that kind of day), and I saw this recipe for Peach Streusel Muffins. Normally I would have had to pass it by regretfully, wishing I had  peaches on hand, but this time I thought–hey!  I know a guy!  I know a guy who’s actually trying to get rid of fresh peaches!  SCORE!

And so we had peach streusel muffins for dinner that night.  I pretty much followed the recipe, too, if you don’t count being casual about things like salted/unsalted butter.  I did sub in some wheat flour–I looked at the ingredients and decided that was the only way I could justify serving those muffins for dinner–but that’s pretty much it.  (They would have been lighter and fluffier without it, certainly, but I needed there to be a bit more substance to them.  Ah, well.)  The girlies were definitely fans, no doubt about it.  The boy, on the other hand, picked each and every peach out of his muffin before he ate it and refused to touch them, no matter what inducements were offered.  (Grrrr.)  My hubby said they were okay, which was probably high praise.

And I?  Well, my hubby liked them because “they weren’t strong peach,” and that was exactly my problem.  I LOVE FRESH PEACHES.  If I’m going to go to the trouble of peeling and chopping them, not to mention the trouble of making and adding both a streusel and a glaze on top of the muffins, I want the muffins to TASTE like peaches.  They were good muffins, yes, but the streusel and the glaze were the best part about them.  The peaches were a background note, and I wanted them to shine.

Of course, if you have your own peach tree and peaches are coming out your ears, so to speak, it’s worth it.  I mean, they were yummy.  But if peaches are a bit more of a treat to you, I’d look for a recipe that showcases them more.  Then again, it’s always up to you!

I actually have two new recipes to share, but I felt like being opinionated tonight instead.  (I know, I know, that sounds nothing like me, right?) The recipes will come, I promise.  In the meantime, I keep seeing articles and opinions on Facebook about the new ‘date rape drug detector nail polish,’ and (shockingly) I have some thoughts on the subject I can’t help sharing.

1)  Can we just thank the guys who invented the nail polish?  They had an idea they thought might help and they did what I can only presume are cool scientific things in order to bring it to pass.  It’s a good invention, not a bad invention.  Let’s just thank them.  Buy the nail polish if you want to; don’t if you don’t.  Can’t we just leave it at that?

2)Yes, I think there are many appalling things about how rape is treated in this country.  I agree that writing about star athletes whose “lives fell apart” is ridiculous.  How about “kids with potential who threw it away because they felt that their personal desires took precedence over someone else’s”?  How about “violent criminals who had a community fooled”?  Isn’t that–essentially–what they are?

3)While I’m not disagreeing with the idea of a “rape culture,” I also think it’s a term that fails to fully communicate all aspects of the problem of rape in our society.  It’s hard to hear people espouse the idea of casual sex while agreeing that rape is always a violent and violating crime.  I agree that rape is always a violent and violating crime; I don’t agree that sex can actually be as casual as our society prefers to think it is.  I just think we disassociate the consequences from the act.

4)UNTIL we have successfully taught every man and boy (and, I suppose, woman and girl; I’m sure there’s a small percentage of those, too) that rape is a criminal, despicable act with severe consequences, WHAT, I ask you, is wrong with ALSO encouraging women to make safe decisions?  I lock my door because I know theft exists.  I teach my children to be careful of strangers because I know predators exist.  Ignoring the potential victims to try and prevent perpetrators isn’t going to solve the problem, either.

5)Until many, many more people in our society are outraged over the flagrant objectification of women in the media–Carl’s Jr., I ‘m talking about you–we are not going to eradicate rape.  When we encourage people to see women as sexual objects, how can we be surprised that there are people who treat them as such?  Let’s portray men and women as sexual beings, not sexual objects.  In order to do that, we need to see both men and women as PEOPLE first.  With brains and emotions.  (In order to portray them that way, you generally have to have them do more than some scantily clad cavorting while onscreen.)

6)And on that note, every photoshopped model in a magazine should just have a big, red PHOTOSHOPPED stamp on it.  How is it not false advertising to Photoshop away a woman’s rib cage?

That concludes my opinionated blog post for the week.  Tune in next time for peach streussel muffins!

It’s always a gamble when an author you’ve liked in the past goes someplace you don’t usually go, right?  Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is perhaps the best example of this I can think of; I had to start it twice before I got into it, because I just don’t usually do vampire novels.  On the other hand, once I was truly into it, it did captivate me in the way that only Robin McKinley can, which is impressive.  (A warning, though–it’s not YA, or at least, it’s not my definition of it.  There are 3 or 4 sexually explicit references.  We’re talking maybe a sentence or two long each time, but still.)  Eileen Spinelli’s Another Day As Emily wasn’t so much a departure from her usual style, but–like Sunshine–it went somewhere I don’t usually opt to go.  The Emily in the title is Emily Dickinson, a poet I give credit to (because really, I think the line ‘because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me’ is kind of incredible) but don’t necessarily love.  (I admit, a lot of my problem is the dashes.  I respect her right to them as a writer–I was actually appalled at a published book of her poems that took them out–but they bug me.  I’d rather read Robert Frost.) The narrator is going through a rough patch, in a very normal 12-year-old way, and decides to call herself Emily, acting out the famous poet’s life of isolation from the world.  Reading about the poet herself isn’t something I would prefer to do; there are a few too many people I care about who struggle with anxiety for that to be terribly enjoyable.  On the other hand, reading about a girl who tries to deal with problems by identifying with a famous writer for a time?  That I could do.  (I might still not have opted for it, except that it’s a verse novel.  It’s easier to gamble on a book that isn’t going to take much time to read.)

AND–to make a long story short (too late!)–I was glad I did.  Spinelli’s poetry is less lyrical and more comfortable (I enjoy both, but the two certainly have different feels), which makes it really easy to identify with Suzy.  Her family and friends are all likable people, and yet you can see how she’s feeling the need to remove herself for a while.  How she connects with her world again is an enjoyable story that can easily be read in an hour or so, making it well worth your time.  Give this one a try today!

And, in honor of Emily:

And I’m not actually talking about cable, internet, and phone, here.  What I mean is that you have a period of time when not much is going on, and then BAM! comes the week from you-know-where.  Except that you don’t want to wish it away, because none of the things involved are bad things; it’s just that oh, my, couldn’t I have a break somewhere?  Somehow?  (Is there a place for us?)

Behold my week of things to do.  (Admittedly, a lot of the trouble here lies with the combination of evening things plus already tired children and school nights.)

Three days ago:  The middle’s first day of kindergarten, coming after an evening BBQ the night before (held 45 minutes away).

Two days ago:  The middle’s first day of dance, which completely messed up the nap of an already exhausted 2-year-old.

Yesterday:  My oldest’s first evening of dance, which resulted in a later night for the kiddos.  And my parents arrived, which is happy, but that meant all the adults went to bed late as well.

Today:  School skate night.  It wasn’t a late night, but the effort involved in making that happen was kind of exhausting.

Tomorrow:  Doctor in the morning, church dinner and outside games in the evening, which will probably result in a late night for kiddos.

Saturday:  Baby blessing (sort of like a christening) and lunch in the late morning and a family baby shower in the afternoon.

Sunday:  I must play the piano for the women in church.  I am not a good pianist, so I’m always stressed about how I’ll do.  Some weeks go better than others.

Monday:  Extended family party on the other side of the valley.  It starts at 6:30–on a school night.  This is worse because the venue changed this year.  It used to be 10 minutes away and involve negligible traffic for us.

Tuesday:  Dance for the middle again.

And etc.

I know a lot of people have it a lot worse, but adding an extra-curricular like dance is a new step for us.  And the late nights?  My children DO NOT SLEEP IN.  Which means that after staying up an hour or two past their bedtimes, they wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 and become weepy/angry/petulant/argumentative/aggressive and other unpleasant things long before bedtime.  You cannot make up this sleep with extra naps, because naps just mean the children won’t fall asleep at their usual time.  The only thing that works is to carefully rearrange your evening so that the bedtime routine starts earlier and ends earlier.  (And that only works because I finally took numerous people’s suggestions, including my pediatrician’s, and started giving my oldest melatonin.)

Anyway.  I’m done whining now (maybe).  That IS my explanation for why no book or recipe reviews happened today, though.  I’ve been “almost done” with a really, really short book for a few days now.  This drives me insane.

Here’s hoping I’ll finish before the process becomes irreversible…

We have now officially survived the first day of second grade, the first day of kindergarten, AND the middle’s first day of dance (those last two happened to coincide).  My oldest starts dance tomorrow, and then we should be officially done with the firsts!  Of course, we still have to acquire three pairs of shoes, read the various “these-are-the-rules” packets in depth, and return various things to various people.  All the same, I think the end might be in sight.

Thank heavens.

On the other hand, I made a first attempt at a hashbrown casserole–the breakfast kind, not funeral potatoes–on Sunday, and unlike all of the rest of the firsts lately, this one just made the need for a second attempt abundantly clear.  It wasn’t bad or anything, mind you.  In fact, it was this Potato Bacon Casserole, and you should try it sometime.  My problem was that it wasn’t what I was expecting, and that’s entirely my own fault. (Okay, the other problem was that some of the ham I subbed for bacon was freezer-burnt, but that’s a whole different issue.)  I wanted a breakfast casserole, which meant, to me, that I wanted an egg-y base for the potatoes and meat (I substituted ham because you can’t get bacon to stay crispy inside a casserole, and this bothers me; the ham was delightful, or would have been if some of it hadn’t been, you know, freezer-burnt).  I should have looked at the recipe and realized that this wasn’t going to get me there, but it was my first attempt, and it seemed worth trying. The base, however, had a definitely milky taste and feel to it–duh.  (Again, I should have looked at the proportions and figured this out.)  That made the casserole more of a scalloped-potatoes-with-ham flavor profile.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The thing is, though, that’s not what I was going for, and so it just didn’t do it for me.  My sister-in-law made an awesome example of what I want at our last family reunion, and she very nicely sent me the recipe; the problem there is that it calls for a cup of butter, 4 cups of cheese, 2 cups of meat, and 2 cups of half and half.  It tasted amazing, and was perfect for a family party; I’m just not sure I want to go there for a regular dinner at home.

So here’s my plea.  Does anybody out there know of a recipe that will taste more or less like it has those ingredients in it without being, um, death to my genetically high cholesterol?

Anybody?

Bueller?

(OH, and by the way.  I also sauteed the onions in a bit of butter and canola oil, because raw onions have trouble cooking in that kind of a setting, and I did NOT want to taste raw onions.  It worked out perfectly well that way.)

I can’t remember if I’ve talked much about my time at Borders or not…have I mentioned that I worked there for ten years?  I loved it, too.  I was part-time, then full-time for quite a while, and then part-time again, and I still get melancholy about its demise.  I’m not saying it wasn’t brought about by some poor business decisions, mind you–I’m just saying that the world lost a good thing when it died.  Anyway, during the course of that ten years, I brought home quite a few freebies.  I have a killer Christmas cd collection (this is what happens when you’re pretty much the only member of the staff who loves Christmas music so much she doesn’t get sick of it when it’s in the overhead 24-7), my food storage is displayed rather neatly on surplus bookshelves, and I have a box of book promos that filled my husband with dismay when we were cleaning out the room my girlies are now sharing.  He was thinking I’d be okay to get rid of most of them; the problem with that is that I brought them home because they looked like books I’d be interested in reading.  On the bright side, I don’t necessarily feel the need to keep them once I’ve read them, and so I’ve been working Borders promos into my fourth book decisions when I can.

Enter How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.  I don’t read a ton of adult fiction, but the title and plot of this one caught my eye. Opal is a senior in high school with an unparalleled academic record (complete with activities–like welding–to make her well-rounded) and her eye (and heart) set on getting into Harvard.  During her early acceptance interview, however, the Dean of Admissions sets aside her achievements for a moment and asks her some unanswerable questions, like ‘what do you do for fun?’ and ‘tell me about your friends.’  Her parents, who love detailed plans with acronyms, respond by coming up with HOWGAL–How Opal Will Get A Life–and thus begins Opal’s roller coaster senior year.  The ups and downs are slightly predictable, but the ending is satisfying, and Opal is a likable heroine.  The writing has faults (it’s a first novel), but I appreciate its refusal to dwell overlong on the bumpiest parts of the ride, and it made me laugh quite a lot.  I grew up on the east coast and I was part of the academic crowd (insofar as a school as small as mine had “crowds”–the lines are pretty fuzzy when there are only 84 seniors in your class).  The Ivy League was a big deal there, and while my school of choice was not Ivy League, I did want rather desperately to get in.  I could thus relate to Opal quite a bit, although I was never clueless in the same areas she was.  (I was also never as smart.)

If you can’t relate to any major plot points in this one, it’s not so all-encompassingly amazing that you need to run out and read it anyway; on the other hand, if something in the description strikes a chord, it’s worth the read.  It’s a little fluffy, maybe, but it’s funny and unexpected. Who doesn’t need that from time to time?

Seriously.  Before reading Deborah Wiles’ Revolution, what I knew about the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi basically came from the movie “Ghosts of Mississippi.”  I did know a bit more about the Civil Rights movement in general–we studied MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in school, I’ve watched a few documentaries on the topic, and there are some excellent Newberys about it (think Christopher Paul Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963, and Russell Freedman’s The Voice that Challenged a Nation, among others)–but really, I’m from RI and I live in Utah.  I know quite a bit more about the local history of those two states, but we never made it much past WWII in school.  (Also, when you’re from the Northeast, you can’t really escape the fact that you were squarely on one side during the Civil War, and the South was squarely on the other.  A vestige of “us and them” remains.)

Revolution, then, was a bit of an eye-opener for me.  I knew it had been bad in the South, and worse in the Deep South, and that the Mississippi Delta definitely qualified as Deep South, but I didn’t know as many details of how bad it had been, and I didn’t know much about how it went from that bad to whatever it is now.  (I’ve never lived in Mississippi, so I can’t offer an informed opinion on what it’s like now; I don’t ever expect to live there, either.  My hubby and I hate being hot, and I hate the summer sun, so we’ve pretty much marked off the bottom third of the country as “nowhere we need to live.”  Give me Alaska, Montana, Michigan, or Maine any day.)

Revolution takes place during the summer of 1964, called Freedom Summer; four major civil rights organizations joined forces that summer to try to register the black population of Mississippi to vote.  (At the time, Mississippi was 41% black, but only 5% of that population was registered.)  They worked hard, and people responded, but there was also violence and ugliness (predictably).  The story that best described the climate in Mississippi to me was that of the three civil rights workers who disappeared on the first day of that summer (two white, one black).  The governor suggested that they were just hiding out to cause trouble.  LBJ had to threaten J. Edgar Hoover with indirect political retaliation to get him to investigate; the FBI found the trio’s  burned-out station wagon almost immediately.  It took them 44 days to find the their bodies, but more than a dozen other bodies–all local black citizens–were found during the course of the search.

Like I said.  The more you learn, the more disturbed you get.

At any rate, Wiles takes this incredible backdrop and uses it to help tell the story of a blended family struggling to knit itself together. (Revolution is actually the second book in her “Sixties Trilogy;” the first, Countdown, is about the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It’s also excellent.  Both books are interspersed with pictures, quotes, and documents from the time period.  )  It’s hard to say much more than that–you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

Please do.

It’s amazing.

Today I grabbed a precious few minutes alone with my second grader while Daddy and the littles were out in back; she had mentioned earlier that a girl in her class named ‘Callie’ is her best friend now.  I asked her why, and she considered.  (She always considers before answering questions–even questions like ‘what kind of go-gurt would you like?’–and she rarely considers quickly.  I’d be more frustrated if I weren’t the same way.) “Well, her mom told her that she needed to make one friend, even though she mostly likes to play by herself.  She asked me if I would be her friend.  And I like her, and we have fun doing things together, so I just decided that she’s my best friend.”

Is it just me, or is that a fabulous story?  Kudos to the girl who had the guts to ask someone to be her friend–I certainly didn’t have that variety of courage in school–and kudos to my daughter for responding in such a positive way.  What a lovely story to hear on the second day of school!