MamaPie

Trainberry Trackberry Let's Eat a Blackberry*

We bought a flat of blueberries and a flat of blackberries through Know Thy Food this week, so it's been a week of making berry things.

Besides loads of frozen blueberries in the freezer, Ezra and I made blackberry honey jam using this recipe.

I've been wanting to make a no-sugar jam for a while, given that most conventional jam recipes have a ratio of seven cups of sugar to five cups of berries, but have been kind of intimidated (jam making is already kind of intimidating for me and then when I think about messing with convention, it becomes more stressful) . This recipe was easy and is totally delicious.

I also made some creamy blackberry popsicles.  I pureed blackberries in the VitaMix and then squeezed the puree through cheesecloth to remove the seeds. I then blended the puree with honey and cream. Yum.

The refrigerator is still filled with berries - maybe some more jam will be made, or maybe ice cream or pie...

*Thinking of Jamberry by Bruce Degan, one of my all-time favorite summer kids books.

 

A Morning at the Oaks

One of the many amazing things about where we live (not simply Portland, which is incredible already, but our little neighborhood of Sellwood) is that we are a stone's throw away from Oaks Park. Oaks Park is one of the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the United States.It is nothing like the theme parks I grew up visiting - Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm. It is small, simple, low-key and old-school (and even old "skool", actually). One of the many great things about it's size is that you can go for an hour or two. No need to plan your path through the park, or to employ any sort of "strategy" (besides, of course, the strategies that always need to be in place when you go anywhere with two little ones).

A few mornings a week during the summer, Oaks Park has "preschool morning". They open up just the kiddie rides and you pay $6.75 per child for unilmited rides (parents are free). It is super fun and super sweet. We went yesterday morning and Ezra and Reuben had a ball.

   

 

That's Reuben there, below, to the right of Ezra:

 

And then, just to continue the fun, we headed over to the car wash afterwards:

 

Treasure Hunting

Ezra is a treasure hunter - and a treasure finder. He's always scanning the ground, the grass or the beach for things that catch his eye and, often, his cries of, "Wait Mama! I just have to go see what that is," are followed by the proud display of: a small bees nest, a crystal or a quarter.Quarters are a huge deal over here these days ever since I found Ezra a quarter map at the Goodwill. Not the regular Goodwill, mind you, but the hardcore Goodwill, known to those brave enough to venture there as "The Bins".
The Bins are the Portland Goodwill Outlet Store and they are about a mile from our home, between our house and Ezra's school. They are where I have been doing lots of my own treasure hunting over the past several weeks. Not for the faint of heart (there is lots of lore about the disgusting things people have found while pawing through the bins), the bins is a huge warehouse filled with, well, bins on wheels. Every twenty minutes or so a new bin is wheeled out - people line up and wait for the new bin to be parked in front of them - filled with anything and everything. Things I have seen in bins include sheets, plates, baskets, toys, crayons, scooters, Christmas ornaments, books, towels, bed pans, diapers (unused, although bins mythology reports that people have found used diapers), cameras, electrical cords, a pogo stick, shells, beads, shoes and sunglasses. Of all these things, some are very grungy and some are unbelievably nice. 

It takes patience, creativity and a good eye to find treasures in the bins, but my son has taught me well and, like him, I've been finding treasures in unexpected places.

Hello Old Friend

 

I used to organize events fairly frequently: a concert for Women's History month, an author reading, a kabbalistic Tu B'Shevat dinner, a Take Back the NIght march. I haven't really organized anything bigger than birthday parties and Passover Seders since Ezra was born until a few days ago. Saddened by the photos of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, especially the photos of children, I decided it was time to dust off my activist hat and get going.

In the years that have passed since my earlier activist days, I have become a mama and a baker. It seemed just right, then, to organize a bake sale: a tried and true fundraiser that is usually the territory of mamas and kids. After our local community center agreed to donate space for the sale, I went off to Kinko's to make copies of my hastily made flyer. Then I walked through the rain to the various stores in the neighborhood where families hang out-- the coffee shops, the bakery, the bookstore, the toy store, the supermarket. I talked to shop owners and friends and mamas and babies I encountered on my way. I asked the coffee shop to donate coffee (they did) and the supermarket to donate napkins and plates (they did, too). I took advantage of the incredible power of e-mail and the internet to get the word out. And then I baked alot of cookies.

Then, on Saturday morning, my excited, hard-working son (to whom I had talked about how the people in Haitis needed band-aids and hammers and nails) and I got down to business: we set up tables, taped up signs, organized the many many baked goods brought cheerfully by mamas and papas and kids (and even a few non-parents). We served (carefully, with tongs, as Ezra and I had talked about hygienic food service practices) cookies and cupcakes and gingerbread and coffee for three hours, as friends hung out and helped and the kids played underfoot.

 

We earned four-hundred and fifty-five dollars for Doctors without Borders by harnessing the power of families and community and love and chocolate chips. And, in the process, I was delighted to find the new incarnation of my activist self.

Nature Boy

Ezra was upstairs doing quiet time and came down to tell me this:
Mama, do you know what I just saw that was so beautiful? All these little birds flying about, and in the lead was a red-tailed hawk. She was leading her babies around.

The Times They Are a Changin'

1990, Medford, Massachusetts: Women Unite, Take Back the NIght!
1992, Washington D.C.: Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Homophobia has Got to Go!*
2009, Portland, Oregon: Sellwood's Nice! Sellwood's Good! Make it Fit Our Neighborhood!

*This one was chanted while I marched topless.

Last Saturday, Ezra led the group of 200 Sellwood residents marching down Tacoma Street and up onto the Sellwood Bridge in our first whole family political march.

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Snow Week

 

Found (or Given)

I love all the yard sales that happen in Sellwood in the Summertime. It's so much fun to stop and browse and chat with neighbors. I'm talking, of course, about the good yard sales (almost wrote "garage sales", which is what we called them in LA when I was growing up), not the ones where people put out their old beat up shoes, stiff purses and unattractive clothes, along with their dirty plastic storage bins. Those ones - always accompanied by lots of signage proclaiming them to be a "HUGE YARD SALE! LOTS of GREAT STUFF!" - are just plain annoying, as I shlep an ergo-riding baby and push a 40+ pound stroller 4 blocks off our path to check out the "great stuff", only to leave after a minute.

But, the good ones? Those are fun. Especially the ones with lots of kid stuff. Today we bought a remote controlled racetrack and cars and a chaise lounge. I've been wanting a lounge chair all summer long - a better place to nurse Ruby than sitting on the ground on the porch, leaning against the house and a comfy place to sit and read while Ezra plays with his trucks or in his pool. The chair is not very stylish, but it will do the trick for the few remaining weeks of summer - and it was only $20. I look forward to initiating it this afternoon.

After we came home from our morning walk that included the yard sale, the Ugly Mug, the toystore and the library, I went for a run. At the end of the run, I found another (good) yard sale. They had a pile of things marked "Free" and it that pile were some boating buoys. Fishing and boating have been big things around here this summer. Andrew and Ezra went fishing on Little Lava Lake on their camping trip and Ezra was practicing casting his fishing rod for days before they left. On our trip to LA, Ezra and Grandma spent an afternoon at the Marina watching boats and fishermen. We've been reading library books about fishing. So I knew that Ezra would be delighted with the buoys. And, I was thinking that they, in his pool, would keep him occupied for a bit while I relaxed in my new lounge chair. So, home they came.

Earlier this summer we had a windfall when our neighbor down the street offered us 5 metal old-school Tonka trucks that she found in her garage (her son started college last year). Ezra has played with those every day since.

Summer is good for so many reasons - swimming, berries, nectarines, so much time outdoors, picnics, concerts - and one of those is all the recycled stuff that comes out with the sunshine.

In my woven basket

This is the second Saturday of the season that the Portland Farmer's Market has been open. I love all the Portland area farmer's markets and can't wait for our neighborhood one to open (May 16th!).

What I bought today/what I plan to do with it:

• broccoli rabe/for dinner tonight, sauteed with garlic, olive oil and lemon and topped with toasted pine nuts
• bok choy/I'll make the "Gingered Bok Choy" recipe from Farmer John's Cookbook
• scallions/for the bok choy recipe
• carrots/for dinner tonight I'm using them as part of a sweet tomato sauce that also has onions, celery, garlic and tomatoes
• Pastaworks rigatoni/for dinner tonight
• Willamette Cheese Company's Creamy Havarti/for snacks, grilled cheese
• Blue Gardenia's Ho Ho's - they got smushed in transport so they were only .50 today/for dessert!
• Two Tarts cookies - a new booth at the market that has beautiful looking small cookies for .50 each. I got a biscotti, a chocolate, a ginger chocolate chip and a peanut butter cream/for eating with tea, of course!

Are your farmer's markets open yet? What are you buying and cooking?

Making

On the 11th it will be four years since A. and my wedding, the aesthetics of which were inspired by the Portland farmer's market at PSU-- a balmy August evening, flowers in milk bottles and canning jars, picnic tables covered in linen cloths, my bridal bouquet bursting with dahlias, cosmos and lavender tied with a simple satin ribbon, salmon, corn, tomatoes, cheese and berries (actually, the cake woman forgot the berries, but there were supposed to be lots and lots of berries).

Over the past four years, my love of, and connection to, Portland farmer's markets has grown and deepened. These days, Ezra and I go to at least 2 farmer's markets each week. I buy cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and corn. Ezra, acting as if the whole market is a giant platter, plucks a strawberry out of basket at one stand (I'll buy that!) and a yellow cherry tomato out a basket at another and walks around eating blueberries out of a basket that totters precariously in his hands. He dances in front of musicians and I give him a dollar to put in their guitar case.  We smile at other mamas and babies. We pet the dogs.

At home, we inspect our little vegetable garden daily, looking for more tomatoes, new zucchini, blueberries and heirloom green beans whose seeds we planted together. We admire the pink dahlias and cosmos growing on the edges. I am inspired to cook colorful dinners inspired by the flavors, smells and colors of our garden and the markets - a tomato, zucchini and cheese tart, marinated cucumbers with dill, tomatoes with basil and mozzarella. I've been canning, too - peaches and blackberry sauce.

On Sundays, we go as a family to the Hillsdale market where we sit on the curb and eat lamb dogs wrapped in dough and freshly baked bagels with dill cream cheese.

I am loving sharing my love for the farmer's markets with Ezra, the fruit of my labor, who (I have no doubt) was there, in some form, on that sweet August night four years ago.