Snarfable (grown local)

(The picture: blueberries; my feet; one-half of my summer garden (a potted parsley plant-- the other one is basil); and parts of two Pothos plants, all hanging out on the balcony at my parents' house, because inside there isn't enough light for my camera to want to take a picture without a flash, and fruit this gorgeous deserves to be photographed in 100% natural light anyway.)

Today, a meditation on the snarfable fruits of summer.

You know how to pick a watermelon, right? You go around thunking on them (some people flip them with their fingers, but that hurts my fingers, so I just knock and it works fine for me) and listen for one with a nice, low tone. I personally feel that my success in the field of watermelon picking is partially due to my years playing cello under a strict teacher who made me listen carefully to the pitch I was making; it isn't so hard to transfer the skill to a pitch played on melons instead of strings.

Then you take it home and wash it off and cut it in half and then cut off an entire circular slice and cut off the rind and snarf it. Then, unless you were foolish and already ate some other kind of lunch, you eat another entire slice. (Also, please forgive the junior-high-ness of this, but part of the joy of this experience comes from the fact that watermelon burps are some of the best.)

This sort of event (specifically, melon-snarfing) has been repeated throughout my childhood, teenager-hood, and adulthood. I have also experienced heaven in the form of peaches the size of grapefruit, grown on the tree next to our front door, with skin so thick and sturdy and unattached that you just peel it off with a knife. Also, of course, are the lazy summer days when you wake up and think, "I'm starving and I just don't feel like fixing breakfast," and then you remember that the apricots are on, so you stumble out to the apricot tree (it's between the front and back yards, so it's a little further than the peach tree) and pick four or five ripe ones, and take them inside and rinse them off (just in case of-- um, diseased ants walking on them, or something) and by the time you are done eating them, you feel quite human.

And what has put me in mind of all these things? Well, a few weeks ago a woman from church emailed people at church and said that her family gets fresh blueberries from an Amish farm nearby every year-- $35 for a 20 pound box-- and if anyone wanted the same deal, she would be happy to pick them up for us. Long story short, the process ended up being more frustrating than I was expecting, and by the end of it I felt like it just wasn't worth the trouble. Not that I'm going to even be in the area next year.

However. I then TRIED the blueberries. Now, I knew that I liked blueberries, because I am willing to pay exorbitant prices for them (frozen, usually-- fresh are too expensive to be worth it) in Utah now and again. However. These blueberries turn out to be on a different existential plane than any I had ever tried in Utah, or even out here for that matter. They were picked-- all of them-- at the peak of ripeness. The first few seem perfectly normal, but then after a bit you realize that there aren't any sour or moldy surprises; they are ALL delicious, and that is when you end up snarfing two colanderfuls of blueberries within the space of half an hour. And this is also when you start thinking to yourself: maybe there really is something to this "eat local" schtick. I realized as I thought about it that probably all of the watermelons I have snarfed in Utah were grown in Utah, and that most of the blueberries I have eaten before now have traveled hundreds, if not thousands of miles to get to me.

The funny part about all this is that my parents-- and I can say this with absolute certainty-- did not intend to raise me as a food snob. When they grew their own tomatoes and ground their whole wheat as they needed the flour and planted fruit trees, they were following the teachings of the latter-day prophets to be self-sufficient-- they weren't even thinking about how things tasted. I have been a student for so long, SO long, that I only daydream about having hundreds of pounds of wheat in storage and being able to grow a little garden patch, let alone being in one spot long enough to plant a fruit tree (or bush) and being around to harvest it the next year. But as I look forward to a new, slightly more stable, slightly less poor phase of my life, I have motivation for doing as my parents did from two sources: one, my devotion to following the teachings of the prophets; and, two, my ever-growing epicurean streak. Well, that, and blueberry burps.

And That's What We Think of Them

Last night for Family Home Evening, my younger sister, Patent Office Babe, volunteered to teach us how to use Access, a computer program for managing databases. For the opening song we sang "For Thy Bounteous Blessings," which is nice and slow and easy to follow for my not-as-musically-trained father. It also happens to be in a minor key.

My sister commented, as she was starting in on the lesson, that "I guess it's appropriate to start a lesson about a Microsoft product with a dirge-like song of thanks."

P.S.: My younger sister, Patent Office Babe, has told me that she is "not sure about" being called Patent Office Babe. Quite frankly, I'm not sure how I would feel about it if I were in her place. However, we are both fresh out of ideas. Suggestions?

List of ESL classes I've taught

I had to do this for a job application. I thought it was interesting and informative-- a little more detailed than my resume about what kind of professional work I've done. OK, well, it was interesting and informative for ME, anyway, to have to write it out like this. Of course, the resume lists the tutoring job and the TA job and the test-question-writing job, but my main Chosen Profession at the moment is being a classroom teacher, so here is the list (just in case you wanted to know):

All courses were taught at Brigham Young University’s English Language Center.

TTTC (TESOL Teacher Training Class, also called student teaching)—community-based, team-taught English class. After four weeks teaching one class, teachers were switched so that they could have experience teaching at two different levels. The students remained in the classes in which they had been assigned; it was just the teachers who changed. During the first half, I taught BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills), or “survival English” (e.g. how to do job interviews; how to write checks; how to make reservations). For the second half, I was assigned to the highest-proficiency-level class and we focused more on CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency); in particular, on developing writing skills and cultural understanding of more academic subjects, such as American History and Economics.

After student teaching, I was invited to teach at the ELC proper, where there were five levels. Level 1 was the very lowest level, though it was rare for us to get any true beginners; level 5 was the highest level, in which courses paralleled University courses and were taught in a specially supported ESL environment. Students sometimes left for University studies straight from Level 4; other students decided to study at level 5 before going on to University. Each of these courses ran for 13 weeks.

Grammar 4—Students learned skills from the text Grammar Dimensions 3, by Stephen H. Thewlis and supervised by Diane Larson Freeman. At this level, many students mostly know the rules, but need help remembering to apply them consistently. Because of this, after a skill had been introduced or reviewed, we spent a lot of class time practicing in pairs or small groups and discussing student-generated questions.

Reading 4— Class time was divided evenly between working on intensive and extensive reading skills. For intensive reading skills, we relied largely on Neil Anderson’s ACTIVE Skills for Reading. For extensive reading, we read the campus newspaper during class time, then discussed it; and we read, then discussed novels written mainly for children or young adults. These novels were: Amos Fortune Free Man, by Elizabeth Yates; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis; Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech; The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho; and one book which the students got to choose themselves from a list of acceptable alternatives.

Grammar 1— Taught skills from Focus on Grammar, by Irene E. Schoenberg. Because of the limited vocabulary of these students, as well as their newness to the city we lived in, I linked our lessons as much as possible to what was immediately relevant to their lives. For instance, in teaching and testing about place prepositions and giving directions, I used a map of the city we were in. When we needed to learn about count and non-count nouns, I brought in many pictures of individual food items, and the next week when we were learning about asking for things, I used the same pictures.

I LOVE lentilburgers!

Truth be told, I'm not really sure why. I used to hate lentils, and I think I kept that one up a lot longer than I kept up the hatred of onions.

So. Normally I try to only blog about recipes that I have tried on multiple people, on multiple occasions, which said people on said occasions liked well enough that I had confidence that my culinary offering would be at least palatable to the general public. Lentilburgers, however, I just made up (my version of) last week-- but I love them so much that I just had to share. I'll try to blog something better soon, but meanwhile you can just shake your head and chuckle at my craziness, and, if you've lost your job recently and are living on food storage, TRY them. Or even if you haven't and aren't, you could do it so that you can call me up and tell me you loved me so much that you tried this recipe, despite the fact that its main ingredient is lentils.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of dehydrated onions, covered with
1/4 cup of water (let it soak while you measure the other stuff)
1/2 cup of cooked lentils (I forgot to mention their "cooked-ness" to my sister the first time I gave her the recipe, and about the time I said to put the burgers in the skillet, she asked, "Uh, is there a point at which we soften these lentils up with some water? And I said, "Oh, yes. Before you begin.")
1/4 cup of bread crumbs or cracker crumbs
1 squirt (about a tablespoon?) of ketchup
a few drops of Worstchestershire sauce (not sure how much of a difference for taste this makes, but it makes me feel fancy and we have it on hand, so I do it)
1 egg

Put everything in a bowl. Mix it up. It will sort of be like super gloppy pancake mixture, or like Haroset with egg in it, if you've ever made Haroset. (I'll get around to blogging that recipe some time). Heat up your skillet, put a little bit of oil or butter or nonstick spray in it-- whatever you fancy-- and cook up some LENTILBURGERS! Yum!

For whatever weird reason, lentilburger on a toasted sandwich with a thin slice of tomato and some dijon mustard fills the spot in my cravings which used to be reserved for McDonald's Hamburgers. Of course, you may be thinking, the very fact that I even HAD a spot reserved for McDonald's Hamburgers might explain why I would like something as weird as lentilburgers, and I may agree with you. However, I will be that much richer, or at least less poor, because while McDonald's Hamburgers cost 89 cents a pop, lentils, UNcooked, are about $2.00 a pound (I just looked it up online and saw some that were organic for $2.51), and the rest of the ingredients aren't exactly expensive either.

I would like to do and see more of this

This is in Pasadena, California.

I've wanted to participate in something like it for a long time.

http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/multimedia/lds-muslims-aid-iraq.html

A Few Good Books (For Grownups and Mostly-Grownups)

You have heard of L.M. Montgomery because of Anne of Green Gables, and I admit that the work everyone knows her for is perfectly fine; however, Anne's House of Dreams is the best book she ever wrote. It is, incidentally, the fifth book of the Anne series (which series L. M. Montgomery had not wanted to write even book two of, but had to because of popular demand). My theory is that maybe she had learned her craft well by the time she got to book five? I dunno. But it is truly her best, in my opinion and that of my old cello teacher, and you believe us, don't you?

For very nice romantic comedy fiction, you don't get much better than The Blue Castle, also by the esteemed Ms. Montgomery. I warn you that the romance doesn't start until literally half way through the book, but it is still very rewarding.

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, had a profound influence on me when I was in high school, and even now I think about its themes a lot. Set in 1940's Brooklyn, it's about a friendship between an orthodox Jewish boy and an ultra-orthodox one. The ultra-orthodox kid is not super easy to be friends with, but the other kid's dad encourages the friendship, so he tries, but he doesn't really get why it's so important at the time. But who does, in high school? Or even later, sometimes. The time period this book covers includes the end of WWII and the holocaust, and a major question which crops up is about what it means to be "chosen" and how much pain can be involved with that. Along with some possibilities for redemption. I can't say that I have read almost all of Dr. Potok's other work, as I have with L.M. Montgomery's, but so far in my opinion The Chosen was his best (which is a little scary to me as an aspiring writer, since it was also his first).

A brief warning about Terry Pratchett: PLEASE beware of picking up stray British swear words that seem oh-so-innocent to you as an American but which really are deeply offensive in a number of principalities (which speak British English). But. Mr. Pratchett is really, really good at writing fiction which is: 1) deeply, profoundly silly; and 2) deeply profound. I may have higher needs for zaniness in my intellectual diet than other people do; I haven't done a comparative study; but I really do think that these books are lovely and worth trying.

Reaper Man-- perhaps my favorite Terry Pratchett of all time. About when Death (the anthropomorphic personification; the guy who is a skeleton and walks around with a scythe) looses his job.

Night Watch-- about good police work versus bad, and about-- oh, sheesh. I don't know how to describe it. Also about how to be true to what is true when it is for sure going to cost you your job and might just cost you your life. Also, just to drive the point home, it is profoundly silly, at least in spots.

The Tiffany Aching Series: Wee Free Men; A Hat Full of Sky; and Wintersmith. These combine a coming-of-age story with a very clear explication of what Relief Society is all about (if we were witches, living on Discworld). Also, as with the other Terry Pratchett books that I like so much, about death in one way or another.

Stir Fried Broccoli: A More Than Completely Edible Vegetable

Note: I got this technique from one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, called The Complete Illustrated Step-by-Step Cookbook, by Judith Ferguson. My copy came from a thrift store, years ago; I bought it because it has full-color, full-page pictures EVERY OTHER PAGE (which I was impressed with because I had long since given in to the Alice-in-wonderland philosophy: '...what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'), but I soon began to appreciate it for its other qualities. These include extremely clear directions, not too expensive ingredients (er, at least, not for the recipes I choose to cook), and of course consistently yummy end results. The sort of book, in short, that I would like to write some day.

The recipe is part of a larger recipe for Broccoli-Beef stir fry, but several years ago I realized that it could be fixed, with satisfyingly delicious results, on its own. It is not a knock-you-socks-off, people-beg-you-for-the-recipe, fix-for-Thanksgiving-for-sure kind of food, which in my personal rating system would count as "quite good;" it is, however, the sort of recipe that makes people say, "Gosh, I didn't know that I liked stir-fried broccoli this much," and that counts as "More than Completely Edible." In fact, I myself do not normally fix broccoli in any other way, and when I am fixing dinner and think to myself: crud! I forgot to plan a vegetable! this recipe often comes to my rescue. Try it. You'll like it. Really.

One head of broccoli
Some vegetable oil (a tablespoon or so)

Wash the broccoli and cut it in to "even sized pieces." They should be the size of pieces that you would normally see in stir-fry.

Heat the oil in the skillet. For various reasons, I normally use a nine-or-ten-inch cast iron skillet, so I put the skillet on to heat (medium high heat) approximately ten minutes before I put the broccoli in to it. I think it's ten minutes. I'll check this week and get back to you, because even though I am sure our stoves will be different, it is good to know this sort of thing. Five minutes definitely works when you have a gas stove, but I'm working with an electric these days, which heats more slowly. The reason why I am going on and on about this, besides the fact that I have difficulty ceasing speech in general, is that the hotness of the skillet when the broccoli hits it so happens to be the only thing which is fiddly about this recipe, and if you get it wrong, you may incorrectly believe that there was something wrong with the recipe itself. (Just below, I'll tell you how I use the oil in the skillet to tell how hot it is.)

So. Put a tablespoon or two of oil in to the skillet. I always use olive oil, but corn oil or canola oil or whatever it is you like to use are also perfectly acceptable. Now, for judging hotness: if, when you pour it in, it sort of spreads out slowly, then the skillet isn't hot enough; if this is the case, then do something else for a minute or so, then come back and tilt the skillet to see how things are coming along. If it spreads out quickly/ runs quickly, it is probably just right. A very little smoke is OK (but throw in the broccoli IMMEDIATELY), but a lot of smoke means that the skillet is too hot, and you should let it cool down a bit and clean it out so that you don't get the carcinogenic (=cancer causing) effect of burnt oil in your diet. This on top of the fact that it doesn't taste great. N.B.: different oils spread in different ways, but I'm not familiar with all of the variations (nor did you really want to read about them this very moment, did you?), so I'll just have to say get to know your skillet, your stove, and your preferred oil well enough to gauge this accurately. The basic principles remain the same.

Once the skillet is hot enough but not too hot, throw in your broccoli and start stirring. Especially if the broccoli hasn't drained all the way from when you washed it, the oil has the potential to spatter, so be careful. I either use a wooden spoon or a spatula to push the broccoli around. You can leave the skillet for long enough to go set a timer for two minutes, but you probably shouldn't be gone much longer; you should keep stirring pretty much constantly until it is done. Once it is bright green, which may take as long as two and a half minutes, it is ready. Sometimes you will get a little bit of browning on the edges, which is PERFECT. Serve hot, if you can.