Please Read This One

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that the vast, vast majority of the 1,145 posts that have gone up in this space are fluff. With the exception of the times I talk about how I have won life's lottery in every way that counts, they are instantly (and deservedly) forgotten. I try hard to avoid injecting my political views into this safe space.

Today I'm making an exception because I want to make a point. That point it this:

The legitimate news media is not your enemy. 

I would never have believed I'd ever have to write that sentence when I graduated from college with a journalism degree just after the Watergate era. Remember those days? When Woodward and Bernstein were heroes to all Americans, not just to me?

But then this happened:

And this:

Of all the ways I have been shocked by this president (and there have been many), this may be the worst because it demonstrates such a blatant ignorance of the purpose of journalism:

"The purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing." 

I didn't come up with that--it's the thesis of the classic textbook written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel that was used in the introductory course in journalism I led at Small College last year. Kovachs and Rosenstiel went on to identify the essential elements and practices of journalism.  I won't list all of them here, but the very first is that journalism's primary obligation is to the truth, and the profession's first loyalty is to citizens.

Did you get that?

Journalists, true journalists, have a responsibility to tell the truth so that people can be free and self-governing, and their first loyalty is to citizens. Not to any political party, not to any politician, not to any corporation or special interest group, and certainly not to themselves.

The essence of journalism, Kovachs and Rosenstiel added, is a discipline of verification. Journalists absolutely must find legitimate sources and verifiable background for the stories they produce.

That's why I re-posted the placard shown above on my Facebook page over the weekend. While I would have worded it a bit more elegantly ("ick" to the non-agreement between subjects and verbs) its sentiment is spot on. And it almost immediately provoked this response:

"Not too many good journalists left."

I wanted to cry.

The response was from a dear woman in my church, one who's kind and thoughtful. One who believes there are not many good journalists left, because she has been told that in uninformed and dangerous tweets.

Journalists, real journalists, are committed to the truth in the same way doctors are committed to healing. What if the president had decided to turn his platform toward doctors? Would his followers give up modern medicine? Or if he'd decided to belittle pilots, would they quit flying?

Of course, I know that what may appear to be legitimate sources of news often are not. Just as there are quack doctors in the medical profession, there are irresponsible journalists in the media who need to be weeded out. Also, social media was a truth-killer even before the Russians got involved. But there are legitimate journalistic sources of truth that can help us be free and self-governing.

I am linking here a chart that is helpful in finding legitimate news sources, journalists who seek out verifiable truths. It is copyrighted, so I can't embed it, but please, please, please click over and find out if what you are reading is someone's opinion or real journalism. Not only does it analyze which media base their reporting on facts backed up by legitimate sources and information rather than relying on commentaries and opinions, it lists which news outlets skew conservative and which skew liberal so you can look for sources that don't make your blood pressure rise. (Husband is a Wall Street Journal guy and I am BBC and NPR so we have some interesting discussions, but they are based on truth.)

There was a reason the founders of our nation included freedom of the press among the most crucial elements of their constitution. They knew that power is seductive, and that speaking truth to power is the only way to keep freedom alive. They knew that the first thing potential dictators do is attempt to take control of the media. (One of the measures of a democracy is whether it has freedom of the press.) 

I can only imagine they would be aghast to see what we've come to:



It is sad.

It is scary.

And it is dangerous.

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation

My Mother of the Groom Dress (Oh, settle down. Not really.)

Over the weekend one of my oldest and dearest friends sent me a picture of herself with two hiking buddies. They live in Alaska so the picture was gorgeous, shot in a field of wildflowers with mountains rising in the background.

"I went hiking this week with friends, ALL older than me.  The woman in the middle of our threesome in the photo turned 77 years old this week!  She kept up with all of us, and in fact on a boulder field I had trouble keeping up with her as we stretched, leaned, shifted weight, balanced, etc.  She is amazing. What a role model as this summer I find myself making age excuses for why I might be doing less…"

Well.

Where should I start about my summer? Outside of our Boston adventure I have been...well, shall we describe my lifestyle as "focused"?

Yes, that word works. Except the entire focus has been on me, me, me. Here's what I replied to O&D Friend:

Holy cow! That's amazing. Congratulations on finding the most picturesque spot in North America to take a shot AND coordinating your friends and outfits to match. 

I am doing way less strenuous work than that: I haven't started my accompanying gig yet so I'm taking advantage of a true summer vacation by knitting and binge-ing Netflix. So far I've finished a shawl and the entire "Midsomer Murders" series. (So very sad about finishing MM--each episode felt like spending a day or two in England and whenever I think of that possibility the angels sing, although Midsomer seems like a very dangerous place to live. So many options of how to be dispatched.)

Oh, and I've spent an inordinate amount trying to become beautiful. Our part in the Wedding of the Century Part Deux is obviously limited, since we're (a) not the parents of the bride, and (b) not there. So we sent a check ("Spend it any way you want!") and our best wishes, and I've channeled all other impulses into personal primping.

So far I've found a dress (finally, after having four different options lined up and hanging from the closet door), had custom trays made for teeth whitening, tried out a new pedicure technique, and spent several hours net-shopping and muttering "Hat or fascinator? Hat or fascinator?" before having the groom tell me that probably "neither" was the correct option. 

(A side note: I am a little concerned about whether I have made the right choice of dresses. You know that I hate, hate, hate shopping. Husband took me to the mall last week and after two hours I was walking the dangerous line between cranky and catatonic. The love of my life observed that his mother was a better shopper than I am up until about three weeks before her death at age 92. And yes, we are still married, but only because he then bought me an expensive dress.)  

Because much of my dress shopping was done online my search engine now defaults to "Mother of the Bride Dresses" and a few days ago today's beauty shot was the first result. I think Google has me pegged. Do I wear that with a hat or a fascinator? 

Anyway, I am absolutely sincere when I say I am so proud of you, O&D. That friend who's 77 has nothing on you--you just haven't lived that long yet. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a trip to the yarn store planned and those British crime procedurals aren't going to watch themselves. 

I believe I'll put on my Mother of the Groom dress and be comfy. 

Ta-ta, and watch out for butlers bearing Roman swords!

QUACK-QUACK!

(Yup. It's still Boston.)

I have done a fair amount of travel in my life, from the days when my parents took their five children to the edges of the United States in a 1948 school bus that had been converted into a camper (and now you know why they're my heroes), to my stint in the Peace Corps, to the dozen years we spent herding the Boys through any museum near where we'd set up the pop-up camper. (Little known fact: Any space can be called a museum, and many of these "museums" are strangely mesmerizing. Barbed wire anyone?)

But because I was often traveling with a tribe, travel activities tended to be limited to the low-cost option--the self-guided tours, the campgrounds, the historic sites.

I had never been on a Duck Tour.

Now, though, I can cross that off my bucket list. Our recent trip to Boston included a city/water tour on one of these amphibious buses, and it was a hoot. To know why this was so much fun, though, you need to know that a primary reason for this Boston vacation was to meet Boy#2's future in-laws.

We have known Two's Lovely Girl for some time now, and she is enchanting. Smart, funny, beautiful, she is the perfect other half to our smart, funny, handsome son. In fact, she is so wonderful that it was a little intimidating to meet her parents. What kind of human beings raise the kind of daughter who can not only fit in at TWO Ivy League colleges but also in the House on the Corner?

That Tuesday when we met J. and L. we found the answer to that question. Her energy? Her intelligence? Her effervescence? Turns out they're genetic.

So when her mom suggested we go on a Duck Tour, then made that event happen, it wasn't surprising but it was delightful. It was so much fun, in fact, that the only picture I remembered to take was a shot of the Lovely Girl herself taking a picture of our replica World War II landing craft.

Today's beauty shot was taken right before we piled on the bus/boat and joined what seemed like dozens of other Ducks rolling through Boston. It was the perfect getting-to-know-you activity, even though the sheer volume of the tour and the fact we were sitting on different bus benches meant the parents of the groom didn't talk much to the parents of the bride. But we gawked at the Boston sights together, and laughed at the corny conDucktor (tm), and screamed QUACK-QUACK at the other Ducks when we passed on the streets.

When we piled back off North End Norma at the end of the tour, it felt as if we were one joyful, raucous, face-splittingly corny shared experience deep into this new world of shared family, and joyful, raucous, and corny are among my favorite descriptors of any family.

Quack-quack, everyone. This is going to be fun.

America's Test Kitchen Is My New Happy Place

(These posts about our week in Boston are in no particular order--kind of like my life right now.)

When I was in labor with our first Boy, Husband was my labor coach. At one point, in an effort to help me relax and save the fingers on his right hand (which I was in the process of crushing) he urged me to think of a happy place. "Vermont!" he told me. "Think of Vermont!" And the thought of the  cow-dotted New England landscape did help, although not as much as the epidural that came a bit later.

Anyway, after 32 years I have a new happy place: America's Test Kitchen.

Since this is my true confession medium, I admit that I am not one of those who have watched every episode of this public television show since it started in 2001. I didn't discover ATK (as we groupies call it) until Boy#3 found the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, and even then I skirted around the edges of devotion. But then I discovered Cook's Illustrated magazine (one of ATK's publications), which may be the most beautifully practical magazine ever, and...well, I haven't been such a fan-girl of anything since Here Come the Brides. 

With the exception of my dinner rolls and chocolate sheetcake I have always been been a mediocre-at-best cook and sadly, one does not live on bread and cake alone. America's Test Kitchen made me not only feel like I could be a good cook, they made me feel like I wanted to cook.

So when I knew we were going to Boston, and knew ATK would be so close that I could practically wake up and smell the (scientifically engineered, perfectly brewed) coffee, I really, really, really wanted to tour that facility. Sadly, they do not give public tours. But I'd had occasion to be in contact with the lovely Kelsey, one of the moderators of the the ATK Facebook group, so I messaged her to ask if there was any chance we could come peek through the windows.

"Sure!" she wrote back "I have some time Thursday afternoon. Would that work?"

Commence fan-girl squealing.

The rest of this post is going to have a lot of pictures, so if you don't have the time to look at everything I found fascinating, this is the bottom line: America's Test Kitchen lived up to every hope and expectation I had. Kelsey and her sidekick, Sarah, were the perfect ambassadors for ATK, and along with every person we met there made me want to go live in that building on the seaward side of Boston.

I mean, check out today's beauty shot. That is Kelsey (in the pink) and Sarah beside the Take-Home Fridge. After recipes are tested and rated, leftovers are put in this refrigerator and anyone who works there can TAKE THAT WONDERFUL FOOD HOME. I used to take the stub end of notebooks home for scrap paper when there were no longer enough pages for story notetaking--imagine if those notebooks had been crab cakes, or brownies, or Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. Aaaaaah.

Or there's this:

The recipe development area is a huge room with the kinds of equipment you'd expect to find in a test kitchen--walls lined with refrigerators, individual work stations--except this huge room had something not found in other test kitchens. Lan Lam.

Yes. This cooking star was RIGHT THERE developing a recipe for a better French toast! And as she saw our little group coming around the corner, she stopped and told us about her process. It involves finding five or so "old" recipes, trying them out to see what she likes and doesn't like about those recipes, modifying, cooking, comparing to previous versions, modifying some more, cooking again, comparing, repeat, repeat, repeat. The newest iteration was almost there--she liked its texture and taste, but she wasn't satisfied.

"Want to try some?" she asked. Uh, yes, we believe we would!

Those are my teeth-marks in the toast.

For the record, Lan's going in the right direction. Husband, Boy#2, Lovely Girl, and I agreed that the improved version is fluffier and richer-tasting, even though Lan didn't think it was perfect yet. When she gets done, she'll not only know the new recipe is better, she'll know why. Test kitchens, folks. It's science.

But all of our drooling at ATK was not over the lovely food. If you're a foodie yourself, take a look at this:

An entire rack of Le Creuset Dutch ovens. This piece of equipment won its category in the ATK equipment review, but is pricier than my occasional use would justify. I was delighted to see a more familiar friend:

Cuisinart 14-cup food processor. 

Just last week Amazon had delivered my new food processor, which replaced one I'd had for decades and finally pushed too far into a broken chopping blade. The one I ordered had been the top one in the ATK equipment review, and was far from the most expensive.

"We use the same equipment here that we recommend to home cooks," Kelsey told us. "We want them to be able to duplicate what we do and they can't do that if all we're using are commercial products."

As this rack of burned bread indicates, toasters are in the current test cycle. And what happens to the test equipment after the ratings are done? It goes into the Christmas party raffle, and whether you're a star or a dishwasher you could take home a high-end mixer or espresso machine. Ho, ho, ho!

Personally, I'd rather take home the staff. Three full-time dishwashers are responsible for keeping the pots and pans and other cooking accoutrements clean and organized. Also, full-time shoppers make sure all ingredients are purchased, bagged, and sorted for distribution to each tester.

Is this heaven?

"You can sometimes tell what they're working on by what's in the baskets," Kelsey told us.

And of course, the recipe and equipment testing is only background material for the real product--information distributed in three magazines (America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated, Cooks's Country), on television and YouTube, and in dozens of cookbooks.

We were practically still licking our chops from the delicious French toast when Lan was already preparing for a live question-and-answer session for online subscribers.

There were rooms filled with equipment and photo props, much the same equipment and photo props I have at home albeit not in the same multiples.

There were homey-looking studios and pristine pantries.

Better than the facilities or the food, though was the pride everyone we met seemed to take in their work. Kelsey will be transitioning to a different part of the company soon (she'll be working with a new initiative for kids) but it was obvious that she delighted in this work, including going out of her way to give these Kansas tourists a Boston highlight. Soon ATK hopes to make public tours a regular event, she said.

And when we left, she congratulated Two and Lovely Girl on their upcoming wedding--and handed them something for their new life together.

A week later Husband and I are still marveling at the people, the kindness, the calm, the beauty, the food of America's Test Kitchen.

It's my new happy place.

Where in the World Are MomQueenBee and Husband?

You'll never guess where Husband and I were last week.

Let me give you a hint: It's somewhere you can take a duck tour, so there's water. It's famous for its beans, so it automatically rates an A+ in my gastronomic rating system. (See also: MomQueenBee's Favorite Foods, a post I have yet to write but one that will focus strongly on beans.) It rather puffed-upped-ly calls itself The Hub, short for The Hub of the Universe, and also Titletown, so we know that it is far, far from Kansas and the Sunflower State's mealy-mouthed, cringing self-effacing self-image. (Seriously! They call themselves that!)

Give up? Need one more hint?

Boston! We were in Boston!

I may have mentioned once or twice or forty-eleven times that Boy#2 and his Lovely Girl are getting married this fall. Because the Parents of the Bride are energetic, generous, and well-organized, the planning of the Wedding of the Century Redux is mostly complete, but some final decisions were still to be made, including nailing down the menu for the wedding dinner. Tax season was over and my middle school accompanying gig is on summer break, so Two asked if we would please come to Boston for the tasting.

(All of you dear reader(s) of my general age group are now humming along with Dave Loggins. I'm not sorry, because this song was practically the anthem of my teenage years and I still love it.)

Anyway, a trip to America's Walking City would also be a chance to meet Lovely Girl's father. We had already met the Mother of the Bride, who is as lovely and energetic and gracious as you could wish the future mother-in-law of your son to be. And we could check out the matrimonial venues, and help with a move to a new apartment.

So off we went. I prepared as if we were getting ready to join a wagon train rather than boarding Southwest Airlines. Don't believe me? I have photographic proof:

Yes. That was what I carried onto the flight, which was scheduled to be five hours from Kansas check-in to pick-up at the airport in The Athens of America. I may have died from measles, snakebite, dysentery, cholera, or exhaustion, but I would never have been the one who starved to death on the Oregon Trail.

We were in The City on a Hill for eight days, and rather than try to cram everything into one post, I'm going to stretch this out interminably. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Also, have a pretzel, or a Rice Krispy treat, or a Fiber One bar, or a Wheat Thin, or a piece of fruit.

We've had plenty.

Happy Birthday, Trailblazer

I came across this picture the other day as I was cleaning out a drawer. I remembered the moment it was snapped, on a non-phone camera that was loaded with film, and had thought of it often. In the intervening 14 years, though, I had lost track of the print, and seeing it again brought back a flood of memories.

This was the moment before we drove off and left our first son at college, and I was a hot mess.

It was taken at the end of a long day of orientation, a day at which I had Held It Together with sheer force of will, keeping busy by arranging the first dorm room, fiercely chomping on a piece of gum so that I wouldn't weep during farewell chapel, waving wildly as I watched Boy#1 take his place in the freshman class march around the Quad.

This was the moment when I gave him a last hug before we went our separate ways, and there was no more Holding It Together. Husband snapped this shot and was laughing at my full-out sobs, with me knowing I looked ridiculous but also knowing how much I would miss this smart, funny, tender, nerdy kid.

One was laughing, too, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

He may have been laughing because he realized he had met his future wife just a few hours earlier, even though they wouldn't have their first date for several more years. He may have been laughing because my tear-stained face had just left a big damp print on his shoulder. Or he may have been laughing at sheer relief that this day had come and mostly gone and now he could get on with his life. Whatever the reason, I see that laughter again and it makes me laugh at both of us.

How could I not have known he was more than ready for that day? He had always been the trailblazer, the one who went off to kindergarten first, rode his bike first, jumped off the high board first, got the first driver's license. He was the cow-catcher on the train of boys, opening new paths and adventures for the brothers who followed. He continually reminded us that this (whatever "this" was) was not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be.

He could handle it, is what I'm saying. Whether it was the first research paper or the semester abroad in Hong Kong, he could take a deep breath and dive in. (Although, frankly, the thought of his hard sleeper train trip through China still makes me shudder with ALL THE WHAT IF'S.)

Today this trailblazer is the first one to turn 32 years old. I remember the moment he was born, a tiny (4 lb. 14 oz.), purple (seriously--purple) morsel who instantly transformed us from a couple to a family.

Maybe that's why he's laughing in this picture: He had survived those inexperienced, often inept parents, and was ready to take on the world.

Today he's a grown-up and a professional, married to his Lovely Girl and possessor of his own retirement plan. He's often the one who picks up the role as the logistical (and emotional) organizer of his siblings. And when his mom is discombobulated and overemotional, he's still often the one who offers a t-shirt-clad shoulder for mopping up tears.

Happy birthday, Boy#1. You could not have been a better trailblazer, and I'm laughing in your honor.

After Club

Last night was my turn to have club at our house.

That's what my mother always called it, whether it was her women's study club, the educational philanthropic club, or the music club. And when she said she was having club at our house, hooo-boy! My siblings and I needed to be ready to work hard without talking back.

We vacuumed and dusted and washed windows and hid everything that made the house look like actual people lived there, while Mom whipped up cream puffs and petit fours and all manner of delectable desserts. The dessert plates (with the special indentation for a coffee cup with a uselessly tiny handle) were pulled down from storage and washed.

Then we either disappeared upstairs when the ladies arrived, or (when we were old enough) we served desserts and refilled those ridiculous coffee cups.

These days hosting club is much less formal. When groups meet at the House on the Corner, I try to beat back some of the dust but there's no deep cleaning or window washing involved. Most of the time my friends get their dessert on a paper plate, and likely as not the dessert is purchased from the local coffee shop.

Last night, though, I tried a new recipe (justification for buying a springform pan) and served it on antique plates. I started collecting this pattern shortly after we got married, but my habit of buying a piece here and a piece there when I had an extra $15 for a goblet meant I had never accumulated enough to actually use them. Then a couple of weeks ago Husband and I were roaming around an antique store when I stumbled on a cabinet full of plates, tumblers, dozens of pieces I didn't even know existed. I carried a couple to the front counter.

"You know, there's no call at all these days for that pattern," the store owner said genially. "I'll give you as much as you want for a dollar a piece."*

At that price, even knowing that in the not-too-distant future an auctioneer will be yelling "SOLD" to a bid of pennies per piece, we came home with two boxes of the special dishware. It felt like a moment of elegance to serve club dessert to my friends on these plates, even though the coffee was served in regular mugs because we may be elegant but we are not idiots.

This morning I'm feeling a bit like the alstroemeria on the dessert table that suddenly and inexplicably folded halfway through the meeting. Tired, but still blooming in the lingering echo of laughter from a house full of delightful women.

My mom would know just what I mean.



*To my delightful women who were here last night: Yes, I know I told you they were a quarter a piece. In my self-congratulatory memory of the purchase they were, but when Husband asked me (in a slightly horrified tone) if I had admitted they were only a dollar a piece, my memory almost audibly corrected itself. And I informed him that women are much more impressed by a bargain than by the actual purchase.