Bread, Wine, Salt

A quick car-less update: I have walked fourteen miles in the past three days. The vests are very reflective, so are the straps on big boy's backpack. On Wednesday, when dance classes were over, I picked up the small boy and said "Are you ready to walk home?" "Yes!" he answered with great enthusiasm. "Mommy, will you carry me?"  His enthusiasm wavered when I explained that I would not be carrying him all the way home. The reflective vests were the source of much excitement, and might have kept the boys cheerful all the way home despite the pouring rain, but big boy slipped on the wet pavement and banged up his head and his knee. Neither was serious, but they did away with all sense of adventure. It's been better since then, because it hasn't rained and there's been less walking. Walking means we can stop at the signs and trace the letters. And we can use parking lots to practice balancing. I have  a dinner meeting t...

No play-group lunches this week. My boys and I are stuck at home with what I thought was three cases of Coxsackie virus but might be something else. Regardless I've decided to keep us all home until we're not blistered/exhausted/super cranky all the time. (Not everyone has all of the listed symptoms, but we all have at least one of them. Well, not Husband. He's fine. Nothing wrong with him at all. Of course.) But the show must go on, so here's a meal that's quick to the table if you put a bit of time in the night before. We ate it for breakfast, but it works any time of the day, it's a whole grain and it's versatile. Polenta can be served with any sauce you'd use for pasta, or simply as a side the same way you'd serve rice or potatoes. If you have an Italian Nonna, she might have stirred her polenta in a special copper pot reserved for the purpose (so says my friend MF.) But I have no Nonna and no patience for things that require c...

Another potluck, another dish shared and this time Husband was so pleased with it that he requested it again. (I would say that he even went to the store to pick up a missing ingredient, but he loves going to the store, so that doesn't signify.) Once you've decided to take the plunge and cook some beans, you may find yourself wondering how to turn them into to chili, and then you'll remember that the crazy woman who talked you into cooking dried beans in the first place promised you a recipe. And then you'll come looking for it, and so I figured I'd better get it up here. This is a great potluck recipe, because it comes together quickly once the beans are cooked (and if you use canned I promise not to tell, just be sure to rinse them well.) the cornbread topping makes it easy to transport without any sloshing and dribbling, and it's easy for folks to serve themselves so they don't hold up the line. The chili itself is vegan, and you could easily s...

If I could only take one thing with me to a desert island it would probably be my cast iron skillet. It would be useful for bashing the local fauna on the head and for cooking said fauna over an open fire.*  Though I am not on a desert island my cast iron skillet is still in daily use, and has developed such a lovely patina that I don't need to grease it to cook an egg so long as I have properly preheated it first. There are a few tricks to cast iron, and anyone who loves their cast iron will tell you what they are and they'll all be different and you'll get confused. Here's what I do with mine: cook with it often, scrub with hot water and a plastic scrub brush, heat it dry on the stove-top, repeat. It is a frying pan. Its ancestors helped tame the West. You don't need to coddle it. My favorite (right now) use of my cast iron is cornbread. There are two basic forms of cornbread: Southern and Yankee. Southern cornbread does not have sugar in it. Yankee...