In case you were wondering what a bagel weekend looked like:

Still sick, but we managed to have some fun nonetheless.

we're a sick house...

... and I'll see you when I feel healthy again.  Just Spring colds, not to worry!

Koulourakia

There I was in the middle of my kitchen, rolling Koulourakia (my family's namesake cookie, our family name being Koulouris) with my daughter.  Suddenly I was not in my kitchen, but was sitting late at night around the kitchen table of my Thea Leni.  My Yiayia and mother were there, and I was quietly doing the pre-Easter work of rolling the little subtlety sweet butter cookies sitting between my elders.  There was the typical Greek bickering between Yiayia & Thea Leni, so typical of sisters.  Yet there I was in my own kitchen, not on Cape Cod, not in Wakefield, Mass, but in Eastport, Maine; and I felt a distinctive feeling inside me.  It was an urging in me, telling me how important it was to keep these traditions alive.  I don't have the luxury of sitting with my mother day after day learning the ins and outs of each of her recipes, so I am left to my own devices.  I am charting a course through memory and my chef know-how to learn the recipes of my family.

Koulourakia are a distinctive cookie with an egg wash and a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top; they are also traditionally made only for Easter.  You can make some in rounds to hold your red eggs for the egg cracking game, others you make into a simple twist.  I always recall as a child not caring for the cookie as much as the Kourabeides, a round sugar cookie coated in powdered sugar, but as I sat after a lamb dinner and bit into my little twist I found that it was delicious, tasty and delicate.  Such a treat.

I talked with my brother Nick after dinner and we recounted memories of family gatherings, and shared a longing to ask questions to the generation of our Papou, Yiayia & Thea Leni, but alas they are all gone now.  There are so many stories lost, and I find myself wanting to hold on tight to everything I can remember.  I also find myself wanting to gather information and relocate my Greek roots.  I know that connecting to my ancestors through food will be an important step for me, learning those recipes and teaching myself new ones.  This helps the grief to create new pathways of deeper connection within myself.

Spring Sweater

It started out as a desire for a little vest, and use for that lovely purple yarn my mother had left behind. I searched far and wide across Ravelry and went from a very functional, utilitarian pattern to this lovely number:






It knit up really very quickly, was a lovely seamless pattern and I think has just enough intrigue with it's sweet garter stitch edging. All in all I'm quite pleased; my husband even told me the neckline was sexy! Sexy handknits, now there's a concept. You can find my ravelry notes here. (Ce's sweater is a hand-me-down, it even has a sweet little pocket.)

Around & About

From away in the mid-west....

with lattes
and sunglasses
and bubbles
and dates.

To home again....
with friends
and bread-making
and cashing in change for single malt
and finishing spring sweaters!

I Still Miss Her You Know

It never seems to end, by the time Cecilia turns 2 she will have been gone for 5 months. That's long enough to learn new habits, but not long enough to create new traditions. I'm angry that she's dead. I'm mournful that she's gone. I regret not having spent more time with her. I'm sad that I never get to check-in with her again. I miss her soft tiny hands, holding little bits of things. I miss her launching hugs around my neck, and I long her little drunken giggle. What I would do for one of her silly little packages! What I would do to have her tease me once more! What I would give to cook vasilopita, spanikopita, apple pie, kourumbeides, koulourakia, potatoes, that celariac dish with her, or to dye eggs red for Easter together. To stand on the beach with her, to walk to Race Point, to hug The Old Elm together. I'd love to eat some ginger ice cream with my mumma.

I long to do things together that hadn't happened yet. To have her play with Cecilia. To talk with her, to hold her hand as she learned. To watch them draw together. To watch them build fairy houses. I know she had so many plans for Cecilia. I long to watch her grow old, to help her walk as she begins to stoop over. To help her into bed and brush her teeth. To keep her company while she's dying. To hold her hand again. To feed her broth. To have final words with one another, to tell one another we love one another, and know it to be true because of the sparkles in our eyes.

Sustainable Consumerism

Sometimes I feel like a fraud. I'm eating locally, but by no means am I homesteading, or being self sufficient. Our family consumes other people's labors constantly. It take a fair amount of labor to transform those raw products into our consumption, but when I make hot sauce, I do not grow the tomatoes, nor the hot pepper, nor the vinegar. It is rare that I am bringing something "farm to table" myself. There are so many farmers getting their hands much dirtier that I, putting their families on the line financially, hoping for the best themselves. If one person doesn't grow enough tomatoes, I simply get them from someone else, we still eat tomato sauce whether or not my personal tomatoes succeed or not. What I don't do is go to the grocery store and buy canned tomatoes if I don't have them in my own cupboard. However I do get to rest on my laurels in some senses.

I've traded in a piece of the process. Instead of working on the farm, I work on the computer, I work in the community, and I work in my own kitchen. I've become a distributor, an advocate and a chef. It's an interesting "middle man" position. I've become an educated consumer; a person living by example of how to support the farmers in our region. I have a code of ethics of what I bring into my home, of what I strive to cook with and there's a sense of satisfaction that comes from that.

When I look with longing at a homestead along the shore, I think of myself barefoot and doing chores, dirty and self satisfied. And then I look out my window, of my home, which I own; and I see other people's yards, pavement, street lights. That is my reality, we are a social family which thrives on the energy of a community at our fingertips. When I look at where I live, the pleasures in my life and my "city-girl" history, this residential living makes sense. There's something sustainable to it, when I consider living a modern lifestyle, there are so many advantages to being compacted onto this little island.

I'm living a different dream, and perhaps I'm not farming, but I am serving farmers and community in a vital way. I'm creating access. I'm spreading awareness. I'm holding it down. So what if I get dirty on the computer? If my work involves tallying orders, breaking down those orders and serving consumers? I am capable of doing that efficiently, joyfully and with enthusiasm, and that is just as important, it gives the farmer more time, and it makes life easier for the consumer. And that I love.

See You Soon!

Like next Thursday... we're off on a family trip to Central Illinois!

Seedlings/Gardens/Planning

In a few days the kale has sprouted to attention! Upward and outward those little leaves are coming, and it's an absolute joy to watch them grow each and every day. The scene at home looked like this only last week:



We've been slowly plodding along on vegetable garden prep this year... moving manure here and there, and lots and lots of planning. The neat thing about having a garden for many years running is I'm actually starting to learn something. (I know, unbelievable right?) I'm learning about which seedlings to start myself, which to direct seed (and when), which to purchase as seedling sets and which to let somebody else grow! I've also learned which vegetables our family loves to harvest lots of, fresh, and which we like to just have a taste of each year. Also which vegetables are hard to come by, for example, I love daikon radish, but it's hard to find, so I'm growing it myself this year. Also I love cutting lots of fresh herbs from the garden for fresh use as well as drying for winter so I'll be cultivating my perennial herb bed a bit more this year! This year I'm concentrating on greens and veggies for preservation.

We'll be planting delicata and buttercup squash (and popping corn!) in our cow manure pile. A whole bed of cucumbers for making fermented pickles from and the bed of garlic is just beginning to sprout out from under the seaweed placed on it last fall. I've just planted an entire bed of shelling peas, we find those are amongst our very favorites to pull out of the freezer, they freeze well and are just too delectable to eat plain or inside a fried rice.

In terms of what I'm planning on preserving this year, I'm going to pair back considerably. With the 2 greenhouses Eat Local Eastport now has access to we were eating fresh greens and carrots the better part of the winter. I'll also be doing less pestos as we don't seem to eat as much pasta as we once did. I think I'd like to try my hand at tomato paste and ketchup this year. I'm learning so much more about storage crops and that is creating less of a need for the frozen and canned items.

Of course fermenting is becoming my favorite form of preservation. It requires minimal time and you don't have to be over a hot stove in the middle of summer, just a bit of chopping, some layering of salt and occasional mold removal and you're good! I think I'd like to set up a more sanitary area in the basement to use as a "fermentation station" I think that could be really very nice! It's a bit cooler down there so things would work slower, it also wouldn't stink up our kitchen and take up all the counter space we have. Plus the health benefits!

It's exciting, thinking of this new season of gardening and eating coming to us!

Our Creative Girl

Wants to paint, draw and cut. Though she'll tell you it's a need, just like most everything in her life!