Æbleskiver Day 2011

Grandma was a pioneer in
Enterostomal Therapy Nursing

Happy Æbleskiver Day! Today would've been my Grandma's 90th birthday, and every year we make Æbleskivers to celebrate. Æbleskivers are a Dutch pancake, made in a special cast iron pan and my Grandma loved 'em. I told you all about my Grandma Cat two years ago on her birthday. She was born in 1921 and lived a tough life before she settled in as the Enterostomal Therapy Nurse I knew her as. Both of her parents died before she was 10 years old, she lived through the Great Depression, was a nurse in WWII, and became a widow at 48, just when the post-child-rearing fun was about to begin. She volunteered tirelessly for the Cancer Society, and till the day she died was making friends and we have hundreds of photos and Christmas cards to prove it. She saved every photo and letter I sent her, and now I only wish I'd written her more. There's something about writing your grandma a letter; you know she wants to know everything you have to say, no matter how trivial. And she loved my handwriting, which also encouraged me to write. If you are reading this, do yourself a favor and find a grandma to write letters to.

This year, since we are making Gluten-free Æbleskivers, I figured I'd not only post the recipe, but I'd do it food-blogger style. I want to start making my own GF all-purpose flour mix, but I haven't reached that level of gluten-free baking preparedness yet, so it's good ol' Bob and his Red Mill to the rescue.

Here's what you'll need:

2 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour
1/2 tsp plus 1/8tsp (or about 2/3tsp) Xanthan Gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups buttermilk (or like I do, 2Tbs lemon juice and milk to make 2 cups)
2 eggs, separated -- BEAT the egg whites and set aside
3 Tbs butter, melted

Sift all the dry ingredients together. GF flours seem to be more dense than wheat flour, and when sifted, seem to be a little more than what I measured. I can't spare any stress for these things; if it's too thick, I'll add milk later.

 Beat the egg yolks and add to the milk. Stir into the dry mixture.

 Stir in the melted butter.

Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Heat the pan on medium and drizzle a little melted butter into the holes. I suppose you could use some low-cal spray, but where's the fun in that?

Do as I say, not as I do: fill the holes with batter to the top, or you won't end up with nice round kugels.

When they start to puff up and rise a little, and look like they are starting to set --oh, who am I kidding? I don't know how to tell you when they're ready. I cook entirely by feel. Just feel it, baby. You'll know when it's time to flip. Just slide that knitting needle down the side and around the bottom of the hole until you've flipped the darn thing. It might take some practice...

...and as you can see, I use a fork to help things along.

 Once again, if you fill them up all the way, you'll have nice, round kugeln (that would be German for "balls" because I didn't want to say "nice round balls," I'm not ...sure ...why ...maybe because there's an eternal twelve-year old living in my head? Anyway, kugeln reminds me of how my friends and I ordered ice cream in Switzerland, c.1994).

This takes some time, seven kugeln every seven minutes or so... so meanwhile, send your kids out to gather blackberries. Because it's August, and they're ready!

And because it's tradition to pick wild berries with Aunt Renee. The minute we know she's coming, our mouths start watering and we grab our gathering bowls.

 Dust on a snowstorm of powdered sugar...

...don't forget a smattering of jams, and if you're from my Grandma's side of the family, Key Lime Curd...

....and yell, "HAPPY ÆBLESKIVER DAY!"

And by the way, this was my Grandma in WWII:

Sharp, yes?

And her husband, whom I never got to meet, but whose middle name I share:

Hello, James Dean!He looks like a pretty cool cat, don'tcha think? I wish I could have known him, and known he and my grandma together. Willard 'n Janet. I hear they had a lot of fun, in their own little way. :)

Bicycle Dating

For the record --because that's what this is for-- thanks to my mom carting four of the kids away to have hotel room/jumping on the bed/swimming pool fun for the night, David and I got to go on a little bike ride date! Noble babbled away in his little bike seat, yelling "HI-EEE!" at everyone we passed. We took the scenic route and had dinner at some food carts. Bummer, Scoop was out of Salted Caramel (the flavor you'll dream about), but that's okay. Riding home to the tune of cotton candy skies and white sliver-of-a-moon and the singing chatter of an ice-creamed toddler, we are feelin' the Portlandia. We are feeling blessed to spend this time together, refreshing our Selves....

Preserved...For Preserves!

We found this crazy wire contraption in the eves of our attic the other day, and didn't know what it was. But you guys did! You were right: it holds Mason Jars for canning, and I did indeed have it upside-down in my last post.

So now I need to find a wacky oval pan and I can make a heckuva lotta jam! (That always makes me think of Monica's Jam Plan to get over her breakup with Magnum P.I. Richard.) Or wouldn't it be a cute holder of containers? I could fill them with silverware and flowers and things at a picnic! Or, I could do THIS.

I spent an hour looking all over the internet for one like it, and I only found small round canning racks, or single-jar holders. I haven't found any that are as large as this one. And by the way, there is a whole world of Mason Jar arts and craftiness that I find super-cool.

So my questions now are these:

• What was this doing in the walls of my attic?!?!
• How the heck old is it??

I should show you some of the other cool stuff we've found in our centurial home.....

So Here's What Happened

Around five o'clock this morning, David and I sat bolt-upright in bed to the most sonorous rumbling we've ever heard. At least... I thought we were sitting up. I think we were just jerked into consciousness and were still laying there, staring into the dark. The traffic on the bridge behind our house is a constant white-noise for us, so we both thought a horrible accident had occurred. A trash truck had driven off and crashed into the park below! The bridge itself was somehow coming undone, cable's ripping out of the ground for sure!

"What. Was. THAT?" We were both sitting up in bed now. We realized it was thunder...and we had just torn a huge hole in our roof. We jumped out of bed and ran willy-nilly around the house; I'm not sure what we were doing. I went to the back door to see if it was raining and a light mist was coming down. I was about to stick my hand out to see how it felt when the air crackled and popped (yes, quite like Rice Crispies) the sky lit up with a flash and then "BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!" Another tremendous rumbling of thunder! Now the dog was running in circles and I beamed like I'd just pulled up to the gates of Disneyland.

I ran to get my shoes on-- we had to get that hole covered; it was really starting to rain! By now 2  kids were in our bed and the dog was underneath it when David informed me we were out of tarps. We laughed at the irony of tearing off the roof because it was leaking, only for it to rain the very next day. We should know by now that when the weather report says sunny and 80's all week (no matter what the weather report says, really) in Portland that means "rain". Our only option seemed to be to haul our backyard canopy up onto the roof.

It was...ridiculous. Even the neighbor, who had thought we were being bombed, saw Dave on the roof in the rain and asked if he could come over and help. We finally got the awkward and useless canopy onto the roof (although Taylor and I feel a little victorious over that) and the rain had stopped! Neighbor-dude got a tarp from his house and he and Dave put it up, letting us know he's ready and willing to help us with anything else we need.

Seriously, we are blessed with the nicest neighbors. I once won an Ice Cream Block Party from Dreyers for an essay I wrote on "Why I Love My Neighborhood". It's just that great. My block, not my writing.

So here we are today, Father-and-Son Demo Team, under shelter of plastic.

Taylor (who's awesome) made these handy-dandy hammer-holders! This is not the best photo, but he was proud of those hammer-holders and I wanted to get them in the picture.

 Nothing fills a boy with a sense of worth and purpose more than some good, hard work.

He spent all day alone with me (at Taco Hell and the grocery store and running errands), and only a couple of hours doing this with Dave. He comes up to me at bedtime and says,

"I had a good day today with Daddy."

(Hm. Chopped liver.)

Where are the other boys, you ask?

I had the settings all wrong for this picture, but I had to take it quick before anything changed. I love finding my little guys just reading away amongst a scattering of literature.

...and all our attic junk.

...and a moose antler.

Alright Thunder & Lightening....bring it on!! Of course, now it will only be hot and sunny for the rest of the week.

Coming up.... the Weird-Wire-Cage-Thing-From-the-Attic-Eves mystery is SOLVED!

Stay tuned. (Riveting, I know....)

What Is It?

We found this in our attic eves today:

Any idea what it is?

Our house was built in 1907, and has been randomly modified in various ways ever since. So there's no telling if this dormer came with the original house, but it's time for this rickety, leaky bad-boy to go.

DEMO-TIME!

Making progress! There was a nasty, fogged-up window here, with no ventilation except for these two wood flaps, through which --legend has it-- the previous owners' three-legged dog would climb out and bark at the neighbors. I also happen to know that racoons will crawl in those flaps and poop in your attic, too.

I am ecstatic to:
a) see the sun
b) smash something with the sledge hammer
c) not be making food for someone
d) all of the above

Seriously, if you know what that cage-thing is, tell us, please!

I'll try and keep y'all up to date on what comes of this massive hole in our roof.

Naked and Unashamed

He starts off, you know, appropriately dressed...(usually). Like this:

He looks really excited for a fun-filled day at the beach, doesn't he?

But before long, one thing leads to another and this happens.

Emancipation!

When he's naked, he feels no shame.

He has not yet tasted of the tree of

the knowledge of

Good and Evil.

Everything is just...Good.

Oh yeah...I am SO not going back to those days!

To have faith like a child.

To be naked and unashamed.

To not have to cater to the knowledge of evil

...constantly struggling with it's presence.

In heaven we will all be clueless naked babies on the beach.

That's right.

Minus the sunburn.
Burns are for hell.

Remarkability

It is a remarkable woman who sets her table for 10 sloppy little come-and-go pancake eaters who rotate a jar of honey non-stop for the better part of an hour.

It is a remarkable man who shows no fear and even says "bring the dog".

It's a remarkable couple who have room in their hospitable hearts to double their household for a weekend and breathe life into another family of seven.

It is a remarkable thing to have friends who are so remarkable, and we are appropriately humbled and grateful. Nous vous sommes extrêmement reconnaissants, Dennis family!

Dog Days of Summer

Technical Difficulties

I am having a hard time on this blog thingy.

I mean, not only do I not feel like it's a priority in my crazy-busy life, and not only do I question why I need to spill my thoughts onto the whole interwebs (hasn't it all been said before? nothing new under the sun, and all that?) but I also....

CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO UPLOAD A SINGLE DANGED PICTURE.

See, I gots me a laptop, and I gots me some wireless in the house. And I thought this was the perfect recipe for ease and convenience and that the blog-posts would consequently come rolling out prolific, from a cozy spot on the couch, or by the light of the bedside lamp under my heavenly egyptian cotton sheets, or from the backyard summer firepit for that matter. Part of this new convenient laptop is the ability to put the camera's SD card right into the computer which then sucks out the photos and places them directly into a Windows Live Photo Gallery, where I can (theoretically) do some limited photo processing. That's where I keep my photos.

What just happened?

OK, wait. Somehow I fooled around with it, tried one more thing and...did it. Gosh dern, this stuff is so confusing. Because when I click "upload" and "choose files" it automatically sends me to a file on my computer that is not what I'm looking for. And then I can't find what I'm looking for.

But look, I did it. I wrote down the address I need to look for and after a glass and a half of wine (a.k.a. therestofthebottle), I'd better stop typing now, before my backspace button wears out.

Adios muchachos.

Homeboy Fatherz Day, yo

Having a pre-teen in this e-generation makes you do things like this:

[This video played automatically whenever Vonderhaus was pulled up, and I didn't know how to change it! So from now on, you can see it HERE if you need to be reminded of our Father's Day antics. Thanks. Peace out.]

Happy Father's Day, David!

Mother's Day For Me...

David bought me flowers and made me French Press before he left for work.

 Korah spent the morning instant messaging the girl who lives a block away, and the rest of the kids were infatuated with Taylor's new Hex Bugs.

 Which gave me the opportunity to enjoy giving myself the day off from getting all the kids to church.

A Perfect Ten

A ginormous birthday breakfast and a pile o' presents...
what more could a 10-year old want??

The CARD.  The card seems to be very important to these kids.  I'm sure that has nothing to do with the chance that money might fall out of it.  Nothing at all.

Ooo, PJs from Grammy!

 Noble's basking in the fullness of his belly (and diaper, apparently).

I love that my mom sends these random things to the kids, like Popsicle "Craft Sticks" and it turns out they love it.  Taylor dove right in building something.  Later, Noble the toddler broke it.  Story of our lives.  We've learned to be very flexible about it.

Now please allow me a moment to show off,

because that's what this blog is for, right?

 Why yes, that is a pop-up card you see before you!

 Taylor's always begging me for jellybeans at the grocery store and I always say no.

Of course, on birthdays you get lavished with eccentricities and these are ice cream flavored jelly beans!  So ice cream it is!  Seriously, the green ones taste like mint chocolate chip ice cream, it's crazy.  Crazy, I tell you!

I would like to have written out a sonnet about how much I love and adore this decade-old little boy (a decade?!?!  Where, of course, does the time go??) but I am way too tired from planning his big birthday party, in which we will be marching in our little neighborhood parade.

This one, this 10-year old amazing, talented, funny, kind and brilliant kid can get my goat like no one else can.  But he's also wrapped around my heart more than all the goats in the world.

Whatever that means.