Never Seen a Pomegranate?

Wow.....today was a reality check for me.  You see, I grew up in the Bay Area.  Even though my parents were depression babies and my Mom went through a TV dinner phase.....we really cooked in my parents house.  My Mom made most things that we ate from scratch.......even better, we ate from my Father's fly fishing pole and my Mother's garden.

Today at work, a young woman walked into my kitchen and said that one of our teens wanted a pomegranate. Did I know where she could get one?  I pointed at the long wooden table that always houses at least five kinds of fresh, mostly local and organic fruit all year long.  She stood there for three or four minutes staring at the fruit.  Then, she looked up at me with a confusion on her face and asked which fruit was a pomegranate.  I thought for a minute that she was kidding, then I saw that her eyes showed complete innocence.  

I walked over smiling and picked up a large red globe and handed it to her.  Then I walked over with her an got a compostable knife so that the teen could open the fruit and enjoy it.  She thanked me profusely....and I handed her a handful of napkins before she left the dining room, letting her know that pomegranates can be really messy.

This whole experience threw me for a loop, and as I got back to work, setting up dinner for my kids at work.....I thought again about how fortunate I am and how important my job is.  

This is a well educated staff person.  All people who work at Seneca need to have at least a  BA and some life experience behind them to work with our kids.  Yet, this is obviously an area of their life experience that needs expansion.  How lucky am I that I can be the one to expose them to the wonders of the culinary world?   

I once read a book called, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"......about how enlightenment in life often can involve re-experiencing things in life in a new way, with new eyes.  I thought of that teaching today, and realized how lucky indeed I am.

Autumn

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I love the brisk air and the sunny skies.  It is at this time of year that I find myself really missing Providence RI where I went to school.  The scenery is magical there right now.  Gorgeous blue water all around, skies streaked with white and the leaves on the trees.....truly amazing.  But I think that the thing that I miss most is the smell of Fall and Winter coming.  There is a certain musky Fall smell that happens when the leaves change color and if you have never lived back East or where it gets really cold in the Wintertime, maybe you will think that I am crazy....but it is true.  I miss the smell the most.

Back here in Berkeley, I am kicking into "nesting" and making soups.  Saturday , after the market, I went with our neighbors Karen and Rich to their Church Without Walls Harvest Festival and it was really fun.  Since Lucia is being an angel for Halloween....and we dont want her to look like a fallen angel with a tarnished halo, we opted to rummage through her dress up box to come up with another costume.   Glinda the Good Witch, from the Wizard of Oz is what we named it, and she looked pretty cute, I must admit....with the perfect funky Berkeley touch...white sparkly sneakers!

Karen had arranged a harvest food tasting table for the event and recruited me to help serve.  Of the four fabulous soups that we served and one great roasted vegetable salad...the Thai Carrot Soup won the hearts of everyone who tasted it....so I am shamelessly going to steal the recipe and make it at work! It was different than most soups that I crave at this time of year but delicious.

Lucia, Erica and Josh had lots of fun running around and getting candy prizes for the games that they played and the watermelon eating contest proved to be the hit of the night with teenagers sticking their whole faces into huge wedges of the last melons of the season, and eating their way into watery pink bliss!

On Sunday, Lucia and Troy sat down in our backyard to carve our own pumpkin which Lucia has dubbed "Mr Smiley".  It was great fun to watch and thusly we have Mr Smiley proudly displayed in our front window to smile down on Allston Way. Afterwards, we sat down to a dinner of Pulled Pork, Roasted Butternut Squash and White Bean soup that had been cooking all day long.  It was delicious with Lucia and Troy both eating two bowls.

I love this time of year!

Teaching Children About the Circle of Life

Occasionally I get to be the parent that my parents were at their best. The parent that all parents want to be. That time happened recently around one of my favorite and most heart-felt subjects... food and where it comes from.

Children are natural foragers. Their curiosity and sense of adventure allow an ability to taste, smell, see and feel things in ways that are already ruined for us adults. Life sometimes jades us into beliefs, especially about food….and often our tastes and preferences become our child’s, because they are such apt little mimics. But what happens when we are aware (brief gifts from above for moments at a time) of standing in our child’s (and our own) way? They are allowed to come to their own decisions about what they like and don’t like, about what is good and not, about whether they are okay with something.

My daughter Lucia, is an old soul. She is a spitfire and emotional, fun to be around, a trial when she is overwhelmed and tired and bossy. In fact, she is a lot like her mother. I have made a conscious effort to expose her to much, especially around food, which my life seems to revolve deliciously around.

We have planted three years of backyard gardens together. We have tasted our way through the farmer’s market every Saturday of her little life. By and large, I don’t make “kid food”…I make real food. She puts it best when she sees a fast food commercial, “Mama! They are lying when they say THAT food is good! It is fast food! It is BAD for you! People shouldn’t eat fast food!  They should eat SLOW FOOD”. Not bad for my little disciple…but even then, I have tried to show her why I make the choices for our family (and my work family) that I do, and let her come to her own ideas and ideals. So far so good.

So when it comes to letting kids know where their food comes from it is pretty simple isn’t it? We have planted gardens, know the farmers at the farmers markets better than most….easy to see and tell where our fruits and vegetables come from. Especially easy for a mother and a kid who both are animal people because trees and shrubs don’t scream when you pick their fruit.

Recently, I have had something in the back of my mind that was troubling me. How could I tell this kid who kisses chickens and cows when she meets them and gives a hug to the merry go round horses after they let her ride, that we kill animals for food? I know about this sensitivity because I have always been an animal person. Shoot, I even cried when my parents cut down real trees for Christmas and I watched them die a slow death in our living room! My daughter is me times twenty, and though I am slowly getting over my own squeamishness on the subject….I desperately wanted to make it easier for her to understand.

This past summer gave me my opportunity. Lucia and I volunteered at Slow Food Berkeley’s pig roast. Surrounded by like minded folks, we arrived when the pig was already buried in the Caja China box over slow coals….and would be there most of the day.

While we waited, along with about fifty other hungry folks, I talked to my daughter about how sometimes animals give their lives so that we can live to be strong and healthy. She listened intently, and she nodded, seeming to get it with little fan fare or drama. If you know my daughter at all, you know that this is rare!

We talked about how plants are living too and that they do the same for us, give us the fruit that they grown to feed us and make us strong. I told her about how her Papa, that she never knew, took me fishing when I was her age. How we baited the flies that Papa made especially and caught fish to eat. We likened that to the wonderful fish mongers at Monterey Fish, who take at least thirty minutes out each time we visit to show Lucia the lobsters or crabs or big mouthed fish in ice in the window…they answer her questions focusing only on her (never mind that they have other customers and a business to run!), they let her touch them and she is happy as a clam each time we visit.

When it came time for the piggy to be taken out of the box, we talked again about how “this piggy gave his life so that we all could share him and be healthy and strong”. That, “yes, the piggy is cooked and yes, again, we are going to eat him with all our friends”. I must admit, as the Slow Food people parted so that my little girl could watch as the man who roasted the pig could bring him up from the coals, face and all, I had knots in my stomach. Was my animal loving little girl really going to be okay with this?

For a moment, after the pig was on the carving table, LuLu turned to look back at me, I was nervous. I must have hid it well though, because I smiled at her questioning little face….and then a miracle happened! She smiled easily back. It was going to be okay. She “got” it. The circle of life made sense and she got it!

She watched him cut up the pig, as he gave away the ears and feet. Still no drama. No problem. We waited in line to get our share of fresh roasted pork on our favorite Acme rolls with homemade salsas and a bounty of potluck items that everyone had brought from home.

I still almost cry when I think back on this amazing day. It was a day when I am certain that my own dear parents were smiling down on me.  The day I "got it". It was the day that I was a good mother, the one that I am meant to be.

Rainy Day Fantasy

Saturday morning, Lucia and I awoke to the unthinkable in the Bay Area in September.

Rain!  Wow!  My heart automatically started yearning for the crunch of Fall colors beneath

my feet and the smell of Autumn coming on.

I love the rain.  Especially when I don't have to drive in it! Though it was no where close to 

being cold or even "brisk", we quickly decided to dress quickly and hop on Bart to go to the

Ferry Plaza Farmer's market.  As Lucia commented on the Oakland roof tops and the other 

Bart trains whizzing by, I let my mind wander, thinking that our trip to the market today 

might be blessed with less tourists because of the rain, and that after my business was done,

we might be able to endulge the moody day by sitting under the eaves, watching the grey

clouds dart around the newly reopened Bay Bridge, and sip the amazingly thick, and not 

too sweet warm chocolate from a cup, dolluped with just whipped, not to sweet cream.

Happy Rainy Day!!

Note:  There were less tourists, but the Ferry Plaza is always crowded, and after actually getting

our warm chocolate and watching the clouds, we met up with our friend Alice Waters.  Lucia and

Alice love each other and hugged ardently and with great enthusiasm!  Truly great day!

PS.....Boulette's larder also makes AMAZING English Muffins on Saturday!

Kindergarden in the garden!

Today was the realization of a dream for me.  Our daughter Lucia, started kindergarden in Berkeley.  Two years ago, we started looking to move to Berkeley.  It became evident that we probably would not be able to afford a home of our own in the hot real

estate market that is Berkeley, but we are renting a really beautiful home with room to have a vegetable garden, great neighbors,

walkable to Acme Bread, 900 Grayson, the new Berkeley Bowl, great parks, good local coffee, Cafe Fanny, 4th Street shops, and of course, LuLu's school.  

When I started researching schools, I found out that while many school districts are suffering under budget cuts and recession, the folks that are lucky enough to own homes in this area, keep voting to send a large portion of property tax revenue to support school programs.  For their money, our children get arts, music, sports, good after school care, locally grown scratch meals, libraries and computer labs at all schools, organic gardens and cooking programs and science labs.  For the garden/cooking  and school lunch program alone I would count my child lucky to be in a Berkeley school. For a Mom and a Slow Food Chef,  I just can't imagine it gets any better than this for my child and for all children.

Thank you Alice Waters, for having the vision that Berkeley schools could be special and so much more, thank you to all the parents, staff,  and the administrators who have taken these innovative ideas and the tax payers hard earned cash and made 

this happen.  My child and so many others will be excited to be at school everyday, challenged and inspired.