Heirloom Peace

One of the gifts of being able to write well about food is that sometimes you inspire people to make something from your past and then they give you a unit as a thank you! oh, wha-hoo!

This happened with the tomato jam… recipe to follow. jes’ sayin…

My beloved California roommate, Jennifer June the Cowboy Boot Queen, took the recipe and improved it. She made it with Brandywines… my very favorite Heirloom tomato. Although I’m easy. My landlord’s favorite are the purple and the black, whose wonderful names I’ve forgotten. I don’t mind slicing one of those up with fresh mozzarella and some basil one little bit. (Heaven in a warm tomato, yes!)

But whoever decided to draw Heirloom tomatoes back to the present did a lovely thing. Tomatoes (apparently along with marijuana) are our most tinkered with plants. As we decided that all fruits must be available to us at every moment, people started trying to figure out how to deliver a winter tomato. Unfortunately, one of the by-products of shipability was taste. They’ve recently figured out that some move they made took the gene with taste out of the ‘mater. Hence those square, whitish tasteless tomatoes. “This is the best thing ever” said no one ever.

Seasonal, local eating is really best for the world, but it demands a lot of concentration. It helps, if you want tasty goodies in the dead of winter if you can. Otherwise, you eat what grows as long as it does and adjust. My CSA farmer reminded me that it’s summer until it frosts and that when you’re loading in tomatoes like this, it’s high summer. So you just enjoy summer and tomatoes in abundance. But here (and this won’t happen often!) is my Mom’s Tomato Jam recipe, clipped from a newspaper many, many years ago, coming to you from General Food’s Kitchen. They were married in 1943 and this came from the newspaper in Philadelphia where they lived where they were married. If anyone wants the recipe for Mayhaw Jam, do let me know.

Mom always made it without the spice, but the lemon (the more the better) is crucial. She always added some very thin quarter slices in as well. She certainly made this for as long as Deb or I can remember. It’s great on toast… it’s great on an open-faced toasted cheese sandwich. Tomato Peace to you, my friends.

2 1/4 pounds tomatoes 2 lemons.
Prepared Fruit: 3 cups or 1 1/2 lbs.
Sure-Gel: 1 box
Sugar: 4 1/2 cups or 2 lbs
Cup Yields: 5 1/2
Scald, peel and chop tomatoes. Simmer 10 minutes. Measure. Ad 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon rind, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon each: allspice and cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves.

Tomato Sandwich Peace

It’s a day of turmoil and sorrow over here in Bloomsburg… and so I’m leaning on the small, sweet things to get me through the day. Part of what’s odd about letting your sister go is realizing that the traditions you’ve always kept you’ll now be keeping alone.

So, take Peace where you find it, my friends. And make it everywhere you can. When you sorrow, it’s perhaps even clearer that there is no place for separation. The love pouring in from Face Book and email is amazing… love from people I do not know and that my sister does not know. People are walking these journeys everywhere. I think of people in war zones who need desperately to know that we understand their sorrow. Reaching out hands and hearts around grief is a very sweet gift. I thank you for the love. I reach out my heart to you, and I rejoice in your prayers for our well-being.

And now… i think I need a tomato sandwich…

Sun-Gold Peace

Tomato season. It’s always been a favorite. When they were fresh from the garden, there was always a plate of them on the table. Daddy always grew both yellow (which were maybe really orange, but tastier than most of the orange ones I find recently) and red. Mom never dressed them, just sliced them and put them out.

We all always waited until the meal was over to dive in, er, pass the plate. It was one of the few times that gluttony was encouraged at our house!

To this day, my favorite dinner is corn on the cob with tomatoes sliced onto the buttery plate. It’s a delightful indulgence, throughout which I can be heard murmuring, “mmm, mmm, mmm.” It’s both grace and a paean of praise and gratitude. “Blessed be the Earth that grows the food!” And the hands that till the soil and the hands that serve it and the energy the food imparts to the work of the world.

I think tomatoes taste like life. They taste like the sun and the soil and the rain that grows them. And those little sun-gold varieties? oh, yeah! Rub off the dirt and go, giving thanks all the way!

Cabbage Peace

Cabbage is one of those things that goes in and out of favor. In this country I suspect there were periods when we didn’t want to eat cabbage because it is “poor” food. Exactly. That’s one of the things that makes it extraordinary. Wherever you come from, whatever variety you grow, it can fill you up. If more of us ate it and ate more of it, there might be more food for others.

And it’s good for us. Another sturdy vegetable that can deliver health-giving properties all year long. It’s back in vogue at the moment, fermented foods are surging in popularity. What ferments better than cabbage. Although cabbage is one of those places that I surprise myself with my limitations. I don’t think i want kraut with jalepeno nor do i particularly want it with eggs for breakfast.

It grows well in cold climates, and it stores well, so, people eat it in soups and stews all year long. Certainly borscht, that wonderful adventure in beets, owes almost as much to cabbage as to beets. Apparently there are some versions that grow well in tropical climates as well… It’s got a long growing season wherever it lives and will keep delivering bounty and vitamins and minerals to your door. Hooray for cabbage!

Around here, you eat cabbage with onions and noodles and call it tasty. My mother used to sauté it with onion and apples when we were having pork or sausage. I like it in stir fries, I’ve eaten, and am not sure I’m in love with kim chee. But it’s a great vegetable.

And I love the silly references to finding babies under cabbage leaves (those that aren’t left under the gooseberry bushes or brought by storks.). It didn’t teach great physiology, but it’s sweet. There’s a painting from 1820 of a “maiden” discovering a baby under a cabbage leaf you can see here. This was early in Queen Victoria’s reign (like year 2). Good to know she didn’t invent prudishness, she merely popularized it. That Mother Nature doesn’t merely feed you, she brings you babies!

But here’s today’s paean to good and responsible eating: the cabbage! Cabbages for Peace, across cultures and socio-economic divides.

Pavilion Peace

OK, I admit it. I have Pavilion Envy. Why I believe they hold the secret to happiness, I’m not exactly sure. But I’ve been to family picnics, church picnics, company picnics, Girl Scout picnics, reunion picnics, friend picnics under their Civilian Conservation Corps eaves for as long as I’ve been around.

Driving down the road around here I see country church after country church with their pavilions off to the side (usually on the side away from the graveyard, but not always. Sometimes they overlook the graveyard and the spirits of the Beloved Dead are often invoked. I confess my head always turns.

Is it the idea of a simpler time when generations gathered together? Is it the eating out-of-doors? Or is it simply the wide variety of potato salads? I don’t know. But I like them. And don’t even get me started on the ones with the fireplaces at the end where you can have winter picnics! My friends who knew me as a city girl might be surprised to hear of this delight in rural fun, but, ooh. I’m calling my friends Sonia and Sara this morning and setting up a picnic date at our local park.

Peace gets made over potato Salad… I’m absolutely convinced of it.

Helping Peace

Writing about the Three Sisters made me remember other helping plants. You wonder, when thinking about the bold Marigolds, who discovered that they worked well together, or did the plants just make their way to one another in some garden?

It’s pretty much the same for Peace, isn’t it? We want to do Very Important Work with Peace, but much of the work that’s really needed is leveraging Peace, making it better where we’re able. Some people’s gifts are big and splashy (just like the red hot tomato!). The rest of us are best suited to be sturdy soldiers in the garden of Peace.

And that, my friends, is not nuthin’!

“All we are saying, is give Peace a chance.” The chorus may have started with a sit in, but it needs to continue with concrete, consistent (hard) work for Peace.

The Peace of Three Sisters

I was late yesterday getting to my musing. It had been a challenging day. Off to the cancer doc with my sister in the morning and the news is not good. We’re working and waiting to understand what hope will look like as the situation develops. Strange how a limbo changes from hell to a large and hopeful plane… At the same time I was needing to focus to write a funeral for a member’s beloved father. Focus wasn’t coming easily and all the hours at the doc made me aware of a low level panic in the back of my mind.

I’m actually not much of a procrastinator and perfectionist. I’m more of a mediocre and done and then exhale and polish kinda girl. So finishing the night before is difficult for me and feels disrespectful to the family, but then you do what you can. And Deb has been very sick. And she is very sick. Although a short-term treatment may have helped her feel better and may allow her to have more options… whatever your choices, options are what you want. Choosing is powerful.

Her short-term treatment was a vast relief for those of us who love her who have seen her plummet down hill in the past week. By last evening she was walking without the walker and had color in her face. And I had a bit of space and relief to write.

But having finished the funeral, there was the musing. I could skip a day I suppose. In these instances, people would understand. But I find the writing fulfilling and completing. But what to write about? I’d had corn for dinner… did I write about corn? I’d started to, but then I thought wait, what were the Three Sisters? These three plants were the staples in a Mezzo-American Agricultural. It spread over much of North America with a few changes.

In addition to making a full protein and giving us lots of essential vitamins and minerals, they care for one another. OK, that’s a bit of anthropomorphism… But they give one another what they need. It was an important message for me as I consider how to care tenderly for my sister, whom i love, giving her what she needs not what I and a thousand of her well-meaning friends believe she needs. So there are three sisters teaching me what they know… do what you do best. Thanks, Sacred Girls. It helps to have mentors and role-models.

Peace Chard!

Greens… not just chard, are a wonderful thing. I grew up eating spinach, but that was about it. I didn’t

A friend wrote the other day that they hadn’t understood when they ate vegetables at their grandma’s that they ate vegetables because the family was poor and the vegetables were cheap. They thought they were so lucky (and, oh, weren’t they!) to be eating vegetables fresh from the garden, each according to its season.

Greens are one of those things that disappeared from a lot of people’s tables because they were poor food and they could afford to buy canned foods. It’s taken two generations to understand what convenience and marketing cost us. Greens do a body good.

And greens and beans and squashes are those foods that the world can afford to eat. I don’t know that I’ll ever give up meat. But I know that at the very least I must change the balance.

When I was in California I learned to make vegetables a much bigger part of my plate. On my move back east when people asked me what I missed, I said “talk NPR and vegetables.” (I hope they knew that I really miss my friends!) But when I think globally, I know that my meat limits the food supply. And yes, I know, it doesn’t do a lot for the animals either. Does my relationship with meat change if I take the Native American blessing ways very seriously. Certainly it makes me feel better. It does at least keep me grateful.

But I feel grateful when I live lightly upon the earth as well. And when I eat lightly. I feel better not just morally, but physically. Greens are good for us. Chard is sweet and delicious and hale and hearty.

One of the ways I learned to eat chard is in what my friend called Persian Eggs. You sauté chard and onions and garlic and tomatoes with cinnamon and cardamom and if you’re lucky summac, and then you make a nest and drop eggs in to poach. I like them still runny, mix ’em all up and that’s a breakfast! oh, yeah.

But back when my niece was a little and mentioned Swiss chard as one of her favorites, I knew that the world was listing toward better eating. I hope we still are. So, eat the chard while the garden is growing. You’ll be glad you did. Eat some chard for a more balanced world. No justice, no Peace… and everything we do has something to do with both of those things.

Cucumber Peace

Cucumbers are coolness personified as far as I’m concerned. I love them in so many ways. yum! They show up in so many different cuisines and with so many different herbs. In Mexico street vendors marry their coolness with mayonnaise and cayenne. Ay Caramba! (and yum!)

And then, still wandering along that coast, I was at a spa that had a whole big vat filled with oranges, mint and cucumbers. It was the most decadent thing I could imagine. Soaking in a hot tub after a mud bath sipping on icy cold cucumber drink. Drink the drink and I’ve got the whole experience!

In Sweden, cucumbers were ubiquitous. That’s the first time I met the “English” seedless, burpless cucumber. All year long, you piled them high on your open-faced cheese sandwich and my mamma often had a bowl of them in a vinegar sugar mixture in the pantry. I don’t make a cheese sandwich that I can’t feel her love.

Back at home, my mom used to slice them up alongside the carrots and celery that often made an appearance on the lunch table. Filling up with fiber and goodness (with just a little salt.) She also made the vinegar/sugar dish from time to time…

When Debbie married into a slavic family I was introduced to the creamy version of cucumber salad… and that was all over New York when I lived there. Then I discovered them chopped finely on my favorite cold sesame noodles. There really is no end to the ways I enjoy my cucumbers.

And so as I was thinking about cucumbers last night, it dawned on me that as hot-headed and blooded people worked to make peace, a cool cucumber drink might go a long way toward soothing the atmosphere. And consider… it’s good for you. All that green vitamin C and no sugar? Yum.

So soothing, cooling cucumbers to you, my dears, and may we all be united in the Peace of a summer afternoon…

Soft-serve Peace

Every summer our kids come to visit. We are so lucky. Me particularly. Not having had kids myself and now getting to add the soft blessing of Grannianni to my list of nicknames is priceless. I’m awkward at the grandmother thing, there are things you learn as a mom, that makes this transition easy. So, I struggle a bit…

But one thing my mom taught me, that I can put to good use with the littles, is the sense of occasion and the building of traditions. And the soft-serve ice-cream place is one of those places. It is magical on a warm summer evening. To sit out under the trees, while the kids are playing and to watch the fireflies light up the soybean field next door, is just lovely. To sit there with a friend or with my Sweet Pea… equally grand.

We don’t do it often, and that makes it even sweeter. But we layer the memories on the same way the soft ice cream piles up in a cup. And then no matter where we eat soft ice cream, it’s piled with the memories of the place where we hold hands to watch the fireflies or our children and our grandchildren. Sacred ground, indeed!

And here in the country, the ice cream reflects the season… strawberry, peach, pumpkin, each in its own seasonally appointed time… and right after pumpkin, it closes down for the season, not to open again until after Easter. Being the country, Easter is proclaimed on their sign. Everyone in the neighborhood now puzzles to figure out how the resurrection, bunnies, eggs and ice cream are related. But they are somehow, and that’s the way it is.

That’s a lot of delight for a small cone to impart! But even a small cone is big enough to carry the memories.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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