The girl’s mother had been so busy with applesauce and cucumbers and green beans that she had mostly been ignoring the girl. So one summer evening the girl decided to surprise her mother with a tea party.

She got all the wine bottles out of the fridge and lined them up on the table. She filled an old glass bottle with water and stuck a cork in it. She got two wine glasses out of the cupboard. She got the pan of leftover gingerbread and set it on the table, too. And then she showed her mother.

The mother paused for a minute, thinking (and internally sighing, just a bit), and then said, “There’s whipped cream in the fridge,” and she poured herself a glass of wine and sat down.

They ate their cake and sipped their drinks. The mother asked the girl what the best part of her day had been and the girl asked the mother what the best part of her day had been.

They chattered about This and That, and all was most pleasant. But then, as she is wont to do, the girl announced she didn’t want to take her allergy medicine anymore and the mother said she still had to, and of course the girl squawked and moaned most dramatically.

But then she mostly got over it and they cleared their dishes and went out onto the porch to snap the green beans.

The end.

This same time, years previous: classic bran muffins, banana bran muffins, spicy Indian potatoes, blackberry cobbler

The boy had a couple of loose teeth. Maybe even three. He begged his mother to pull them, but it gave his mother The Queasies to even think about tugging out a still fairly-firmly attached tooth.

But the boy was persistent.

So the mother compromised. She said she would hit his tooth out with the telephone.

Oddly enough, the boy thought that was a great idea.

So the mother thwacked the tooth.

The method wasn’t very effective, however. Probably because they were both laughing so hard.

Over the next few days, the tooth grew looser as loose teeth are wont to do, until one morning at breakfast the boy exclaimed that he could lay the tooth down in all directions.

The mother, fed up with all the loose-tooth chatter, grabbed the dish cloth off the counter and said, “Fine, I’ll pull it. Open up.”

The first few tugs were tentative (The Queasies, though suppressed, were present), but finally she gripped the tooth and yanked hard. And out popped the tooth.

There was much cheering and high-fiving and only a bit of blood.

The boy’s mother put the tooth in a mini tart pan and set it on the windowsill. It would go under the boy’s pillow that night.
 
And just like that, the little boy was all grown up.

Amazing.

(Actually, the final picture was taken before the other two, so the order isn’t exactly honest. But the mother declares that the final picture illustrates exactly how she feels about the little boy. So in that regards, everything is truetrue.)

The end.

This same time, years previous: roasted corn with lime and feta

Sometimes, writing feels like an insurmountably difficult task. I have the ideas and the thoughts in my head, and I know how the finished words ought to feel on the page, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to line the words up to get to where I want to go.

Bugger.

When I’m in this holding place, this dead zone (but with tons of ideas ricocheting around in my head), I feel depleted and empty, tense and anxious. So I tap out a few sentences before scrapping that project in favor of trying an altogether different story, and then, when that doesn’t work either, skipping out on that one too and writing a blog post instead. Because writing a blog post is the equivalent of walking around in my underwear: relaxing, free, fun.

Notice I didn’t say “walking around naked.” I reserve that analogy for private journaling.

I’ve been doing a lot of stuff with food: reading about it, preserving it, cooking it, eating it. These days, I’m inspired in the kitchen, energized and productive. I’m having fun.

However, kitchen tasks extend into my evenings, that sacred time when I like to read or watch movies. Some nights, come 10 o’clock, I’m still standing at the sink blanching beans or washing up dishes. Mornings, my other sacred time (in other words, any time the kids are sleeping is considered sacred time), I find myself again in the kitchen, mixing up bread dough, pouring boiling water over the cucumbers, checking the seal on the latest batch of canning.

And then, in the heat of the day, I end up in the garden picking more cucumbers, a few zucchinis, a tomato or two. I check on the basil, and, oh dear, it’s time to make more pesto.

Because pesto is awesome and you can never have too much of it. Can I get an amen?

Which reminds me. I have a new pesto recipe. A friend told me that she uses pumpkin seeds in place of nuts, so I tried it and loved it. The resulting pesto is just like normal pesto (no one will notice a difference if you don’t say anything) (also, I have no picture because it looks just like my other pesto recipes), but it has a deeper, nuttier flavor. I love it, and the last time I went to the grocery store, I bought two more bags of pumpkin seeds.

Basil baby, you are going DOWN.

Pumpkin Seed Pesto
With inspiration from Laurel

I no longer measure my pesto ingredients, but I’ll give it a go. Just to be accommodating.

2 packed cups basil leaves
½ cup salted pumpkin seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 medium cloves garlic
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup olive oil

Blend up the first seven ingredients in the food processor. With the processor still running, pour the oil through the feed tube.

Eat pronto or freeze for later.

The end.

I just realized this wasn’t the post I wanted to write at all, but since it’s what came out when I sat down (and now the dog got sprayed by the skunk and the kids and my husband are melting down and I need to get a shower), I’m going to call it quits. Hopefully I’ll have a better writing day tomorrow.

This same time, years previous: mint chocolate birthday cake, limeade concentrate, brown sugar granola, Dutch puff