It is raining outside right now. The grass is turning brilliantly emerald green, the trees are starting to blossom, and there are some daffodils on the table that the kids have picked. I look out the back door and I see one of our sheep chasing the chickens around in the field. I see birds again. In the sky there is heavy gray fog that makes me think of a massive comforter being thrown down on the world.

I feel warm and cozy inside my house, sitting on the couch under a blanket while spilling my guts for a story like this one. I look behind myself, out the window, and see a tree getting covered in moss. I feel a massive bubble of joy in my body, a turbulence, a tornado, a twisting, laughing voice saying it is spring. I want to leap and shout for joy. SPRING IS HERE!!

Summer awaits me. A whole life is calling my name. I feel the urge to move, escape, run free of this house. See the world. See the world. I want to see the world. I want to roam until the dust, water, and air of the four corners of the world are in my skin, my eyes, and my hair.

This same time, years previous: oatmeal raisin cookies, answers, the quotidian (4.9.12), asparagus with lemon and butter, and the kind of day.  

If you’re anything like me, you occasionally buy unusual ingredients for a specific recipe, use what you need, and then shove the remainder of the bag into the freezer where it rattles around till kingdom come. (Confession: my freezers are a mess.) But sometimes bad habits pay off! For instance, these millet muffins.

I discovered the recipe on Ruth Reichl’s blog and immediately noted that it called for three-quarters cup of millet. Just one batch of muffins would make a serious dent on my millet stash! So I rummaged up my ancient bag of millet and whipped those muffins up.

And they were good! Kind of like corn muffins, a friend suggested, but—and this is the best part—with grains that crackle and pop between your teeth.

Ruth calls for partially crushing the millet in the blender, but I found that the cooled muffins had a mildly unpleasant sandy texture. So I made them again, this time with the millet intact (and with some whole wheat). The resulting muffins were better: fluffier and even more delightfully crackly.
 

I’ve taken to eating two each morning: the first one with coffee and the second one a couple hours later with a giant mug of tea.

Millet Muffins 
Adapted from Ruth Reichl’s blog.

1 egg
¾ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sour milk or buttermilk
¾ cup millet

Cream together the egg and sugar. Beat in the melted butter.

In a separate bowl, combine the flours, baking powder and baking soda, and salt.

Briefly stir the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture. Stir in the sour milk and then the millet.

Promptly (if you let the batter sit, the millet will lose its crunch) divide the batter between 12 muffin tins and bake the muffins at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch. Serve warm. Leftover muffins freeze well.

This same time, years previous: this slow, wet day, Easter 2010, and homemade Parmesan.

Yesterday I finished up Yes Please by Amy Poehler. I read the majority of the book on Saturday, curled up on the sofa with the computer by my side so I could Google names and watch key SNL sketches. And then I discovered that season six of Parks and Rec is finally available for streaming on Netflix and so I watched the first episode before going to bed. That night I dreamed about Amy all night long. Talk about a total immersion experience.

Despite the above paragraph, I’m not actually an Amy fan—I’m more of a Leslie Knope fan (I’m over-the-moon happy that I get to veg out with her for a whole string of evenings)—but I did enjoy the book. However, the real reason I’m bringing all this up is because of a section of the book in which Amy talked about how every mother needs a wife.

In her words, more or less, she says that every mother needs a person to cook her a meal, ask her how her day went, take care of the kids, free her up to work, help her be a better parent, etc. And she calls this person a wife.

To which I said, “No, Amy. That person is called a partner, not a wife. Gender, my dear, is irrelevant.”

It’s ironic to have to explain this, especially to someone as supposedly forward-thinking and open-minded as Amy, but when it comes to raising kids and running a household, wives are not for give-give-giving. And neither are husbands! Wives are partners, not at-your-beck-and-call servants. To talk about them as such just furthers the demeaning stereotype of women as superhuman (and, consequently, not fully human). If you need a servant/nanny, get one, but don’t call her your wife.

Now granted, Amy probably meant that every mother needs to be taken care of. And she’s right! If the spouse isn’t able to help carry the load, then good friends, relatives, and hired help make up the support team.

But not wives, Amy. Please, not wives.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.7.14), yellow cake, cardamom orange buns, writing it out, and an effort.