Living. Lovely. ~ Savor Slow Food

Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well.

Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food

as you devote to your appearance.

Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress.

~Charles Pierre Monselet, French author (1825-1888), Letters to Emily

Did you

Savor Slow Food

this past week?

Tell me all about it. Pictures! Recipes! Do share!

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I was in bread mood. Really in a bread mood.

[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony.

It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells...

there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel,

that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.

~M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating

I love bread in all forms.
French baguettes. Whole grain toast... buttered, of course. Corn bread.
Biscuits. Banana bread. Scones. Fresh tortillas. Focaccia. Croissants. Shall I go on?
Swedish Limpa (more about that in a couple days).
Orange Cardamom Bread with Cardamom butter (be still my beating heart...).

I had fresh cranberries on hand this week. My mouth was watering for Cranberry Orange Bread.
My dear mother brought me her Pillsbury's Bake Off Breads Cook Book she has used since first married (40 years ago!!).
I thumbed through the pages, remembering various breads she has baked for our family over the years.
I'm pitifully sentimental. I think the Cranberry Orange Bread tastes so much better,
just because I got to use Mom's bread cook book....

I always have helpers in the kitchen. Always. Luke and Leif refuse to miss out on the process. Levi joins us here and there.

I'm counting on the fact that the boys will be able to cook and bake on their own in a few years.... (We also made yeast bread this week, but I'll post about that in a day or two.

There is nothing more theraputic than kneeding bread, I tell ya!)

I made a couple batches. The loaves don't last long around here.

This is all that remained when I remembered I needed to get a picture:

Want the recipe? Voila!

Cranberry Orange Bread

4 cups unbleached white flour (I use 3 cups white, 1 cup whole wheat)
2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons grated orange peel
4 Tablespoons (or 1/4 cup) shortening (I use olive oil)
2 eggs
2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped or halved
(1 cup chopped nuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and soda. Stir to mix well.
Add orange juice, orange peel, shortening and egg to dry ingredients. Mix until well blended.
Stir in cranberries (and chopped nuts). Pour into loaf pans.
Bake for 55-65 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool thoroughly.

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Next week's Living. Lovely. challenge:

Be Silly!!



Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans;

it's lovely to be silly at the right moment.

~Horace (Ancient Roman Poet. 65 BC-8 BC)

Honoring Our Veterans...

...At the largest Veterans Day Parade west of the Mississippi.

There Is a Grief That Can't Be Spoken....

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmmm...

I discovered this morning that I've been nominated again for the Homeschool Blog Awards. This time I am up for Best Photos and Artistic Content Blog and (drumroll, please.......) Best Unschooling Blog. I have no idea what to say about that.

Now, I have really no hope of winning. In the photo/artistic content category, I'm up against The Pioneer Woman, Holy Experience, and Simply Vintagegirl. Honestly, even I wouldn't vote for me (I didn't). And the link wasn't working to my blog today, so I'm astounded that I have a few votes already. Thank you, to whomever nominated me and/or voted for me. You're crazy.

And the unschooling category? Well, technically we are (neo)classical, but some days it feels like unschooling (or I should say non-schooling). Unfortunately, those days we aren't exactly the poster children for Unschooling in the best sense, which takes more effort/diligence/creativity/etc. on the part of the parents than I happen to possess on the best of days. So I really hope an awesome unschooling mom (like Soule Mama, cough, cough) wins in that category.

Head on over to check out the nominated homeschooling blogs and start voting for your favorites. It only takes two clicks!!

Field Trip #7 ~ Thompson's Flour Mill

Gorgeous day. Beautiful drive.
An impromptu field trip to a nearby location we had never yet visited: Thompson's Flour Mill.
Oregon's oldest (1858) surviving water-powered mill.
A private tour (just the boys, my mom, and I).
Lots of history, science, and hands-on activities.
Grinding wheat with a millstone. Sifting flour. Operating grain elevators and augers.
Weighing all the boys on a large scale. Turning large gears. Building a wall with wooden pegs.
Our delightful tour guide even powered up the mill for us so we could see the grain elevators and gears in motion!
The Oregon State Parks Department has turned it into a beautifully restored Heritage Site.
I highly recommend visiting if you are in the area!

Thankful Each Day

It seems I'm always a day (or week, or month...) late these days, but I finally finished my leaf calendar for my mantel. It all started with a handful of leaves I picked up while walking with Shannon one morning last week. I picked up a few more at church yesterday. Yes, it works best if you dry and press them for a few days.... but patience isn't one of my virtues. I think the leaves are quite charming with a little curl, don't you? (Please say yes.)

I used my large corkboard (which is covered with black paper, but one could easily paint the surface as well), added 30 craft tags (I'm glad November has only 30 days) and leaves with silver push pins, and wrote 1-30 on the leaves with a large black pen. Each day we'll be writing on a tag (with a smaller black pen) something for which we are thankful. This morning we got to think up 9 things...

Jane! Jane! Jane!...I am Coming!

(Susan, this one's for you. Grin.)

I have distant memories of Jane Eyre from my first time through the book years and years (and years) ago. I will here confess that I wasn't completely eager to dive in a second time and was fairly certain that I would find it unendurably dark and haunting. In fact, 75 pages into the book, I constructed a scathing review in my mind while still determined to plow through for the sake of book club.

The first 10 chapters of Jane Eyre filled me with passionate dislike. Certainly the writing is exquisite, but it only served to swell in me an exquisite hatred for all but a couple of characters, for whom I felt only ache and pity. No hope, no beauty, not even a love for Jane herself. Is it because I already knew (or thought I knew) Jane's future that I despaired?

Along came Rochester: the quintessential dark and brooding romantic lead. Except that this time around I found him irresistibly engaging, passionate, larger-than-life, and Jane's ultimate match. They both were able to be themselves, their whole selves, more than themselves, when they were together. Their witty, quirky conversations thrilled me. I loved that Rochester called her an elf and a sprite, that Jane amused and enchanted him. There was none of the restrained and proper Austen-esque dialogue. It was edgy and loaded. I loved the interchange when Jane was leaving to visit her dying aunt, and Rochester gave her money (and then asked her to return it). I find it fascinating that Jane herself did not charm me until she had Rochester to draw out her spunk.

Still, though, I waited for the despair to come. And come, indeed, it did. More ache. More hopelessness. I knew already the mystery, but had completely forgotten what happened between the discovery and the very end of the book (parts of which were seared in my memory). I thought to myself, I should only read the middle of this book if ever I visit Jane again.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered a little story completely forgotten. Tragic desolation melted into a home, friendships, a position, and eventually family. St. John was a consummate illustration of righteousness without grace, making way for a sublime conclusion of grace, redemption, and a love that frees rather than imprisons.

The 'let us be desperate and hopeless together' ending for which I was steeling myself seemed foreshadowed by these words earlier in the novel:

pg 223

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut tree: it stood up black and riven; the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed--the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth. As yet, however, they might be said to form one tree--a ruin, but an entire ruin.

"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said, as if the monster splinters were living things and could hear me. "I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots. You will never have green leaves more--never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate; each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay." As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure. Her disk was blood-red and half overcast: she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glace, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

And yet, and yet.... Grace abounds. Contented sigh.

pp 361-362

"I am no better than the old lighting-struck chestunt-tree in Thornfield orchard," he remarked ere long. "And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"

"You are no ruin, sir--no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop."

Read it. You must.

Shannon and I spent two evenings together watching all four hours of the Masterpiece Theater version of Jane Eyre (wahoo, Netflix) after reading the book. The movie was quite faithful to the story. Mr. Rochester was perhaps more handsome in the movie than as described in the book (no complaints from me, however), there was possibly one or two passionate scenes in the movie that weren't completely faithful to the original story (again, no complaints here...), and they reduced the first 10 chapters of the book to about 10 minutes (NO COMPLAINTS!), but overall a very good representation. I am not positive I would have loved it so much had I not just read the book (not so much as Pride & Prejudice or North & South), but I would still highly recommend it. (Advocating, of course, that one read the book first, if at all possible...)

BFFs

Family photos of our BFFs!
Char and I have been the best of friends for 20 years!
John and Russ... even longer.
How lucky are we to have them living just down the road from us?
McKinnon and Monet are the same ages as Levi and Luke,
and they are also homeschooling.
Yep. Lucky!!

Field Trip #6 ~ Bauman Farm

I forgot I hadn't posted any photos of our field trip last week to Bauman Farm!
We went with Christina, Jake, and Ivy.
There are so many things to do at this farm!
A barn with huge tube slides, swings hung from the rafters, and a large covered 'box' with hazelnuts to play in (who needs a ball pit!).
A dark maze made out of hay bales spanning 3 greenhouses. Took us about 45 minutes to find our way out. Luckily Christina brought a couple small flashlights.
An open hay bale maze ending in a long slide.
An extensive obstacle course covering 2 greenhouses.
An animal barn. Two newborn baby goats...born that day!
A castle made out of hay bales.
And much more. (We were there on a weekday when a few other activities were closed.)
We taste-tested fresh apple cider in the cider-making barn.
Ate hot cider donuts from the large produce/bakery shop (and bought fresh cider!).
All-told, four hours of fun!

What a busy weekend! I had book club the night before (glorious),
and after Bauman farm, we dressed up and headed to our friends' house for a costume party which was loads of fun (thanks Char and John!!!),
went trick-or-treating the next evening to various grandmothers' and aunts' houses,
and attended a birthday party the next day. Whew!! I was TIRED by Sunday evening!

POP!

I love art books for children!!

Andy Warhol: Paintings for Children contains a surprising amount of information, paintings, photographs, questions about the art to get children thinking, and more. (And age appropriate, considering the artist...) I was really pleased with this library book!

We have several of the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists books.

Andy Warhol is a wonderful addition to our collection, with information about the artist from birth until his death, large easy-to-read font for younger children, a bit about the Pop Art movement and examples of other art during the period, and cartoon drawings. (Again, nothing inappropriate or controversial.)

My favorite board books are the Mini Masters series (probably the only ones we will continue to look at when the boys have completely outgrown that stage...), and I was excited to find an Andy Warhol board book in another series. Leif loves it. He has been carrying it around everywhere and fell asleep with it a couple nights ago. Very fun and bright!! (Because of its simplicity and bright colors, this board book would make a great baby gift...)

After reading Andy Warhol: Paintings for Children, the inspiration hit me to have an impromptu painting project:
Rorschach paintings a la Warhol.

And, well, that put me in the mood to make a fun art display in the hallway.
I was thinking I needed more Pop Art.
Will this work?
I made matching collages for each of the boys.

Living. Lovely. ~ Out of Context Lovely

"It's not that bad. I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer home here,
but the trees are actually quite lovely."

(Quick... what's that from? Grin.)

Did you

Discover Out-of-Context or Unexpected Lovely

this week?

If you didn't, watch this video and it will have you smiling all day long.

(I apparently have a fondness for train stations this week.)

(Thanks, Debi, for sharing this on Facebook!)

Or, we could go with one of my all-time favorites (moment and song):

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I shared photos, yesterday, of the glorious morning Shannon and I had on Tuesday for our walk/run.

Most mornings have been dark, foggy, and/or raining, so this unexpected brilliance was bliss.

(I promise to move on and share something other than sunrise photos tomorrow. Grin.)

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Next week's Living. Lovely. challenge:

Savor Slow Food

As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine.

Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy.

It's time to start making soup again.

~Leslie Newman

Slow food will be different for each person (at least for this challenge).

For some of us, a can of soup and Bisquick biscuits will be slow(er than normal).

Skip the drive-through and savor some slow food this week!

Or go for the gusto... simmer a pot of applesauce,

get your hands dirty and kneed some bread dough,

make your own hummus and dip fresh veggies,

challenge yourself with a new recipe,

put some time into a beautiful dessert...