A Report From the Cult

The test recipe, in disguise. 

Back when I was in the downward trajectory of my employment bounce and couldn't yet hear the sproing sound that the bounce would make when it started back up, I was worried I wouldn't have enough activities to occupy my time.

As Bugs Bunny would observe, it is to laugh.

Bugs Bunny Laugh GIF from Bugsbunny GIFs

Being  part of the gig economy means I'm plenty busy with jobs, nearly all of which have found me rather than me having to look for them. But it's also meant I've had time to volunteer for positions that will never pay the rent but which I find absolutely delightful. Maybe my favorite of these is my "job" as a recipe tester for America's Test Kitchen. 

As I've blogged before, I am a fully vested member of the cult of ATK.  I subscribe to their magazine, I read their newsletter, I search their website for recipes, and heaven  forbid I should buy a spatula that hasn't been thoroughly vetted by their equipment testers. Husband has suggested that perhaps I should stop buying the odd spices they suggest (duukah, anyone?) until I've used up enough old spices that the cupboard closes again.

I'm also one of the hundreds of home cooks who try out America's Test Kitchens' unpublished recipes.

Now before you get all googly-eyed with admiration that your very own friend (yes, I consider you my friend even if we're only acquainted through the computer) was actually selected by this prestigious institution to advise them on their recipes, a disclaimer is necessary. It was less a selection process than clicking on a "Hey, want to sign up for this?" link on their website, and I'm pretty sure they were seeking out people like myself who are mediocre-at-best cooks so that they can find the weak spots in recipes real cooks would sail past but which leave us m-a-b's weeping salty tears into batter.

Every few weeks I get an email that contains an as-yet-unpublished recipe. I can either try it then fill out an online evaluation of the results, or I can ignore it and wait for the next one. ATK has explained that at least 80% of their in-home testers must answer positively to the question "I would make this again" to move the recipe to the next stage of development.

The offerings tend to be fairly typical ATK fare--they use every pot and pan I have, are significantly more fiddly than the thrown-together fare I usually serve, and the time investment is significant. And the results have ranged from "That is WAY too much work for a pizza" and "Seriously? I'm going  to chop up an expensive cut of meat and put it in a taco?" to  "Hey! I'm a pretty good cook!" and "Whoa, where did that come from?"

A few weeks ago my inbox held instructions for a dessert that was popular back when I started grade school. That was a long, long time ago, in an era that was best known for Jello "salads" and meatballs made with grape jelly, so I wasn't optimistic. I had been tagged to bring a dessert to a friends' lunch, though, and professional chefs had developed this food, so I pulled out all the pans and measuring cups I owned and got started. Two hours later I flipped the cake seen above onto a vintage Fiesta place.

Friends, this thing was on the far end of the "Whoa, where did  that  come from?" scale. Yummy, yummy, yummy. And even though we recipe testers agree to not disclose what we're testing, I don't think I'll be turned out of the cult for saying that the caramel sauce was one I would drink from a pitcher.

It was a totally unexpected result, and while it may be a stretch to compare this dessert to the hodgepodge of gigs I currently juggle, it is a reminder that some faith and taking a step at a time can result in something so much better than what we expect.

It's a delicious reminder, and it was covered in caramel.

Deep Winter

It is deep winter in the House on the Corner.

Last Saturday we woke up to find the corner blanketed in wet, heavy snow. I peeked out the window as soon as I opened my eyes, then pulled the covers over my ears and went back to sleep. My friend J, though, woke up, grabbed her camera, and plunged into the snowfall. Later the day she sent me the picture above, a shot of the House on the Corner taken from across the street.

It is pure magic.

I love the way she framed our cast iron birdbath in the exact center of the stone gate that marks the entry to the college across the street. I marvel at the glow of the streetlamp in the snow, its harsh yellow glare softened to pink. I smile at the sculptures formed by wet flakes on bushes that will bloom in a few months.

And I am delighted by the image, even though I am in the throes of deep winter, the post-Christmas dark that feels just a degree or two off plumb. I knew that within hours our predictably unpredictable Kansas weather would melt that snow and my snow day excuses for sloth.

Everything that was postpone-able during the holidays is now coming due: The closet that desperately needs cleaning. The resolution to return to healthy eating. The start of the spring fundraising project. The writing project I promised myself I'd begin "as soon as I have time."

Of course, all of these are good and virtuous and I will be so delighted with myself when I have jumped into them. Until I take that jump I will feel guilty that I'm dithering here on the diving board.

Nevertheless, more snow is predicted for this weekend so I think I will live one more day in J's snow-covered House on the Corner. It's a place where I can pull the covers over my ears and sleep a few more minutes, then finish the socks I'm knitting and watch an episode of The Good Place.

Next week the the days will be just a little longer and I will dive in, but right now it's the deep of the winter and this is where I burrow.

Happy Holidays (Blink Blink)!

So, happy new year! We're three days into 2019--have you gotten used to writing that date on your checks yet?

Hahahaha! I jest, of course. The first few days of a new reality are not the days in which we absent-mindedly fill in a form with a previous name. (I had been Mrs. Husband for several years when I realized I had just signed a check with my maiden name. I blame that slip on the toddlers who were biting at my ankles. My subconscious obviously was fondly remembering the placid days of spinsterhood.) Also, who writes checks these days? Besides me, I mean? No one.

Anyway, it was a lovely, lovely holiday at the House on the Corner. We missed the #2's, of course. We had spent intense days together in October at the wedding so the newlyweds decided to use their accumulated vacation days on a honeymoon in Portugal rather than on a hectic, cold, travel-fraught weekend in Small Town Kansas. I know! Can you believe that choice?

During last weekend, though,  the remaining Boys and Lovely Girl#1 were here to celebrate Christmas/New Years/Three's Birthday and it was another reminder that being the mother of grown-ups is worth every single bout of norovirus I endured during their childhoods. (They may have hosted that virus in their digestive systems, but the smell has never left my nostrils.)

In fact, that appreciation for grown-up offspring was underscored and outlined in sparklers when I woke up during the holiday week with my left eye feeling itchy.

You know where this is going, right? Yup. A quick photographic text consult with our in-family opthalmologist (feel free to bill me, Lovely Girl #2) confirmed that I have apparently returned to my toddler roots.

 I had pinkeye.

Here are the bad things about having pinkeye as an adult: It looks really terrible, and people who see you recoil in horror. It feels as if you've been standing outside in a sandstorm. It is highly contagious.

Here are the good things about having pinkeye as an adult, especially as an adult who has been slightly buffeted by the holiday season: Except for that icky eye, you feel perfectly fine, but have societal permission--nay ENCOURAGEMENT--to hibernate and knit, read, do All The Things that are healing and energy-restoring.

Dr. Lovely Girl emphasized that I should wash-wash-wash my hands, then wash them again, and  head to urgent care if the redness worsened. Other than that, though, there weren't any restrictions.

With a house full of family, though, my first concern was whether mah bay-bees would starve to death if I wasn't there to poke food into their mouths every time they opened their beaks. Dr. LG gave a qualified okay to cooking--"If you wash your hands really thoroughly first and clean all the countertops before you start you should be okay," she texted.

The guys were having none of that, though. Five minutes later they'd planned meals for the rest of the week and I had handed over a debit card for shopping.

See the picture above? On the left is Boy#3. He hooked his own extruder to my KitchenAid mixer and made homemade pasta. On the right is Boy#4, shown mincing garlic for Chana Masala, a spicy Indian chickpea dish he served with naan. Other meals included chili (secret ingredient: brown sugar to counter the extra jalapeno) and spaghetti carbonara, and I lifted not one finger to help.

I'm taking away two lessons from this:

Lesson Number One is that I did not permanently scar the Boys by neglecting to teach them to cook. Seriously, I was a terrible, terrible mother in this respect. Cooking with kids made me edgy and irritable, and they left home knowing how to make chocolate chip cookies and not much else. All four have become excellent and adventuresome cooks, and two have married excellent and adventuresome cooks. It is another reminder that parenthood boils down to keeping them vaccinated and teaching them to look both ways when they cross streets, and they pick up almost everything else on their own.

Lesson Number Two is that I spend way too much mental bandwidth worrying about food when my family is home. When I'm the cook in charge I eat one meal already thinking about the next meal and what ingredients I need for that next meal and what time I need to start cooking that meal. No one was nearly as concerned about our eating this vacation, I was much more present in each moment--and the food was better.

So, summing up: My family is the best, and having grown-up offspring is still the best stage of life.

Also, I'm voting for pinkeye as the best virus to host. It has norovirus beat by a landslide.

Hose for the Holidays

If you are feeling stressed by the countdown to Christmas, and the wide-eyed wonder of the season has morphed into wild-eyed panic, don't feel alone. I see you. I am you. And may I recommend an antidote?

There is nothing more effective than a pair of festive candy cane socks to help the inner Cindy Lou Who achieve a full body slam on the inner Grinch. Fortunately, festive candy cane socks are now made in support styles for those of us in the peri-geriatric age range.

Yes, those are my chubby ankles in today's shot. (And by the way, do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a picture of your own ankles? If you are ever in need this particular pose, I highly recommend the timer function of your phone's camera and a banister against which to prop that phone.)

I love the holiday season truly and dearly. The beloved carols. The antique angels handed down from our dear German neighbor, and from Husband's mother. The permission to bake All The Things that are not on the usual peri-geriatric eating plan. (These! And these! And also these! And of course, bags and bags of these.)

But as an introvert who pretends to not be an introvert, I must confess: The holidays are also exhausting.

I've spent the past week complaining to Husband about how I felt...off. Achy. Tired. Draggy. Not quite sick, but not quite well, either.

This morning he asked me at breakfast if I was feeling better. To my amazement, I was. I woke up energetic and ready to get tackle the final wrapping and Big Day preps.

"Yeah, you must be done with parties," he observed.

He's a smart man.

This week, in addition to my regular toil in the gig economy, I've had four Christmas parties. Each of these parties brought me together with people I truly enjoy. I love spending time with friends, co-workers, fellow volunteers, and eighth-grade caroling groups. I'm re-filled by the laughter and love, and oh, my, the joy when the carolers' kindergarten audience included two tiny immigrants who spoke no English and I was able to connect with them in Spanish.

Getting myself to these events, though, required effort both physical and mental. That paragraph about being an introvert? I wasn't exaggerating. I needed the energy of those green socks and my peppermint stick earrings to push me out the door, no matter how much I basked in delight once I was at the parties.

Today I'm still in my work-out clothes at mid-morning. I'm watching a cardinal perched in the branches outside the window next to my desk, knowing that the only thing on my calendar for the day is a meal to be taken to a friend who had surgery this week, and some knitting on a pattern I'm beta testing for a designer. While I do those things I'm processing this week's memories, and smiling at how blessed I am to have these people who enjoy each other and the holidays together.

And, honestly, I'm thanking my socks.

There Will Be Rolls

I've been thinking a lot about traditions in the past few weeks. After all, it's Christmas, and nothing says "We will do it the way we've always done it, and we will be HAPPY!" quite like this second-most sacred of holidays.

Unlike Easter, which occupies the top spot in the sacred holiday list, this is the sacred holiday we're allowed to glom up with commercialism and stress. Don't believe me? Count how many times you've said to yourself "I really have to..." during the past week, multiply by pi(e), add number of ugly sweaters, give that number the exponent of days remaining until Christmas, then feel your blood pressure rising in an unhealthy way.

My personal antidote for holiday stress has always been unbending tradition. That way I don't have to make decisions--"Of course we're opening stockings before presents. It's tradition." "No, we're not having  fajitas for Christmas dinner, we're having ham. It's tradition." "How can we not put out the dueling Santas? It's tradition."

The traditions themselves, of course, evolve from stories. And what are our memories, really, except stories we tell ourselves?

"Remember that year Grandma got us the second dueling Santa because she forgot she had given us one the year before?"

"My mom always made peppernuts--it just wouldn't be Christmas without them."

"You can have anything you want for Christmas dinner as long as you make rolls."

But the empty nest does funny things to traditions. The very best changes also bring complications as wonderful new family configurations require our children to have the wisdom of Solomon in deciding when and where they're celebrating with whom. We don't want to cut that baby in half so this year we won't see Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 at all; Boy#1 and Lovely Girl #1 might be able to meet us for New Year's, or maybe not.

The tradition of opening our presents on Christmas Day goes out the window when Christmas Day might be celebrated Dec. 31, so this year we'll be opening stocking on actual Christmas with whomever is in the actual house. Everything else is up in the air.

The dueling Santas are already in place, and I've thought of my mother as I rolled out peppernuts. Sometime during the calendar year end we'll declare the day of the Christmas dinner, and then there will be dinner rolls.

We will do Christmas however we do Christmas, and whatever we do, we will be HAPPY.

It's tradition.

Big Red Barn: Two Well-Moisturized Thumbs Way Up

Big Red Barn corporate headquarters

Today we continue the trend of the last couple months, in which I claim I never sell anything on this blog then go on to give my opinion on a product or service. I don't know the eShakti people or the Pioneer Women personally, though, so I wasn't able to vouch for the folks behind these products. The person behind this endorsement is a total delight and was a heck of a candlelighter in the 1983 version of the Wedding of the Century.

People, if you only one read one endorsement here make it this one. This is a product I never thought I would like but instead it's going to be the 2018 Gift of the Year in the House on the Corner. And it all starts in the big red barn behind the window where Husband was checking the weather in 2014. That's where the most important component of our niece's new business is produced: Goat milk.

It turns out this naturally-homogenized liquid is the not-so-secret ingredient in soaps and lotions that moisturize without being greasy, are gentle for dry or aging skin, and are packed with healing vitamins. I've seen claims that they're excellent options for people who have acne or eczema.

And fortunately for me, it turns out that having a goat herd had been on the bucket list of our oldest niece, Shanna. (She says her husband is wary of what else might be in this bucket.) Shanna has been busy since she lit candles at our wedding 35 years ago. She and her husband have raised and homeschooled a family of eight  kids, including a sibling group of four they adopted after fostering. She gives piano lessons and raises exotic chickens, and has assembled a menagerie of horses, cats, dogs, and assorted animals on the farm where they live.

Last week she sent me a Christmas gift of Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap. Several years I'd had to quit using body soap. My usually-good skin had turned flaky and itchy and on the advice of my dermatologist I gave away all of the yummy-smelling shower gels I'd accumulated. But a shower of plain water never feels cleansing, so yesterday I gingerly rubbed some of BRB's apple-scented bar into a scrubbie and really washed. I was surprised that the round disk not only produced beautiful suds, but that this bar was clearly more moisturizing than the gold Dial the rest of the family uses.

I was late for church and didn't have time to use the lotion until I sneaked it out of my purse during the sermon. I am a lotion snob by nature, and have no patience for greasy splotches on computer keys or the paper I use to write notes. But Thanksgiving pretty much destroyed my hands, what with the dozens of hand-washings required during cooking, so they were super dry with cuticles that would make a manicurist cry into the soaking bath. I didn't use much of the BRB lotion (maybe half a teaspoon) but it was amazing. No grease, and even my terrible nails suddenly looked respectable.

To be perfectly honest, though, I wouldn't have even tried this stuff if it wasn't Shanna behind it. By nature I am a better-living-through-chemistry person and all-natural products aren't necessary my jam; I don't seek them out and won't pay extra to buy them. But these soaps and lotions? Are my jam.

Maybe they're my jam because except for the soap-making lye, you probably can eat or at least pronounce everything that's in them--ingredients listed on the label of my red apple soap are olive oil, goat milk, palm oil, coconut oil, red apple scent and colorants. The almond biscotti lotion is also basically food (avocado oil, almond oil, shea butter, etc.) plus emulsifying wax. Heck, I'd eat any of that.

Or maybe they're my jam because I purely love the videos Shanna posts on her Facebook page. I spent a good half hour of my life watching her cut soap, and seriously, after watching her milk her nannies last night I'm pretty sure I want a goat for Christmas. (Moms, your kids would love these videos, but be warned that they also might decide they want kids of their own.)

Husband isn't such a fan of the goats-as-gift idea, though, so I'm settling for soaps and lotions for everyone I know for Christmas. And hey, you can do the same thing!

Teacher gifts? Some give-back pampering for your hairdresser or manicurist? Heck, something nice for the guy who delivers all those Amazon boxes? Visit Shanna's Etsy shop. She has the most delicious scents I can imagine, and at $21 a gift assortment already packed in a pretty container is just the right price point. Non-fattening, too, so a good alternative to homemade goodies. Don't tell them, but I'm getting 2-ounce lotions ($3 each) for everyone in my Wednesday night study group--I'll put an assortment in a pretty basket and let each person choose the scent she prefers.

If you're into essential oils, soaps and  lotions that incorporate these oils are available at slightly higher prices.

Right now Shanna is running a December special on soaps--buy four, get one free--and there is a rumor that if you mention you're a friend of MomQueenBee, or read this blog, or have ever heard of Empty Nest Feathers, you might get a discount. Be sure to mention it when you order!

Turn-around is only a day or two, but they're mailed from the farm in Iowa so to make sure they're delivered by Christmas, order by Dec. 18.

So. To summarize this too-long post: I, to my utter surprise, love goat milk soap. Much less surprisingly, I love my niece, and hope you will give her products a try.

Your skin, and your friends' skin, will thank you.

Still the Best

One of these years I'm going to post here a few days after Thanksgiving and begin the post, "Well, that was...okay."

This is not that year.

Would you look at that mostly-smiling collection of tryptophan-stuffed beauties? (Yes, I almost wrote tryptophan-stuffed turkeys, but that was too obvious even for me.) They are beautiful, and if our newlyweds had not blown all their vacation days on a honeymoon in Portugal we would have had almost all of my dad's descendants here. I don't understand why Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 would choose to have a few days of privacy and quiet in an Iberian paradise rather than a raucous, carb-loaded day in Kansas, but I guess to each their own.

If you count carefully, you'll see that there are 39 human beings in this photo who are related to each other. You will count three times and say to yourself "MomQueenBee, there are only 38 humans there," but you will be wrong because my photo-averse brother-in-law managed to be in the picture while revealing only his legs. Well  played,  photo-averse brother-in-law.

This photo also doesn't include the seven friends I managed to coerce into joining us--I love this day and these people so much that I can't help but herd everyone I know toward the church fellowship hall where our celebration now happens. There's plenty of room, I tell them, and plates for everyone.  Of course, there's plenty of laughter and a fair share of yelling and more hugs than you can count.

And there are words. Words, words, words. With ages ranging from five months to 92 years, we talk about everything from the  newest trend in toddler footwear ("I love your light-up sneakers!") to the freaky November weather. Only a few topics are out of bounds by unspoken agreement, because we have Many Opinions and we love these people too much for those conversations on this day. 

This is the biggest group to ever attend the Best Day of the Year celebration, and I wildly overestimated the appetites of a group that is made up largely of toddlers and geriatrics. (Did we really need four turkeys? We did not.) Even that was a plus, though: I loved being able to put a box of ZipLoc bags on the table and urge everyone to take some Thanksgiving home for supper.

The over-production also led to the second best day of the year when this was my breakfast:

Leftover sweet potatoes topped with leftover cranberry sauce. In  my defense, that's a bowl of Vitamin A topped with antioxidants, so it's practically health food, especially compared to the next night when  I fed my family turkey and noodles ladled over mashed potatoes and partnered with a basket of dinner rolls.

Carbs on top of carbs with a side of carbs are a sure sign that the curtain should be drawn on the Best Day of the Year, so the rest of the un-freezable left-overs left with the garbage truck and our diets have returned to their normal healthy goals.

If your Best Day of the Year was not this wonderful, please join us next year. We have hugs and plates and food for everyone.

Come, ye thankful people, come.