Banana buying in my tribe works out similarly to the chip to salsa ratio theory — it never seems to get the right balance. One week I buy 6 bananas and they are gone within three hours. The next week, I buy six bananas and four of them will ripen to that dark brown “I won’t even touch it to throw it away” color.
So – finding a great Banana Bread recipe was just my frugal way to make my mother proud and not let good food go to waste! I started using this recipe years ago from the Stahl Mennonite Church cookbook, and found a few important tweaks to make an already AMAZING recipe my own.
The recipe already had sour cream as a secret ingredient, which I believe really makes this bread stand out from other recipes. Personally, I am a HUGE fan of Daisy brand due to it’s clean and simple ingredients – cultured skim milk, cream and salt. My tribe is not crazy about nuts in any baked goods, so I leave those out.
MY personal twist which we think really kicks this up a notch is using frozen bananas. I just take those ugly brown ones from the counter that the rest of my crew ignore and throw them in the freezer. When there are four or six in there, I will take them out, thaw them in their skin on the counter, and make giant batch of this recipe I have learned the hard way if I only make one batch it would be gone in less than 30 minutes after baking (really – I am not exaggerating — I have watched each one of my kiddos chop off half a loaf and walk off with it in hand to devour)! Freezing and thawing seems to really bring out the banana’s natural sweetness, as well as help to get the banana truly distributed throughout the batter. They look pretty ugly, but they taste amazing!
These loaves also freeze quite well, or make mini loaves to distribute to neighbors during our new coronormal. ENJOY!
In the midst of uncertainty and turmoil, sometimes it does the soul some good to return to our roots. On Thursday, I had the good fortune to have a medical appointment in the home of my caregiver due to COVID-19. I happened to notice her garden in the back yard, with a large beautiful grape vine arbor ---- and being my Mom's daughter, of course asked to gather a few dozen leaves for dinner!
This recipe originates from my Mom’s St. Mary’s Orthodox Church cookbook, which is our ancestral church. Really — my Dad’s family and a dozen other Lebanese families started this church. Mom added a few of her own tweaks, which are lovingly written in her handwriting in the margins.
As a kid, grape leaves were always my favorite of all the Lebanese dishes (my brother’s favorite was kibbee). They were the ultimate finger food, as I would swoop in between our gathering family, grab one, and rush off to continue playing, It wasn’t uncommon to see one of us kids holding it like a cigar as we would take a bite to resemble all of our Dads and Uncles in their after dinner smoking habit.
Mom had an amazingly keen eye for spotting grape vines from what seemed miles away at great speeds – not exaggerating! Many family voyages driving the mountainsides of Pennsylvania were interrupted when Mom would tell Dad to stop the car and turn around because of a grape vine on the road side. Knowing the delicious delicacy that would be the fruits of his compliance, he ALWAYS turned around.
There is an art to picking grape leaves. You want to pinch off the leaf stem right where it comes off the vine. The earlier in the spring/summer season you pick them the better, and you want leaves that are a lighter green and slightly larger than your hand. If you use older or darker green leaves, they a noticeably tougher.
When cooking the grape leaves, you need to make sure the plate you place on top of the layers is heavy enough to hold the rolled leaves securely in place or the may unravel. I have been known to go find a heavy rock to weigh down my plate if needed (and yes – I make sure to wash and clean the rock first!)
This election cycle has truly been one for the record books - and seems to dovetail perfectly with this Twilight Zone of a year we call 2020. Several Saturdays ago, like many nights since the COVID pandemic took hold here in the US, I was out on the couch trying to get at least four hours of sleep - a luxury in 2020 that I cannot seem to get in my room (I might get two hours there at the most on a good night). With Planet Earthlaying its soft media glow across the room in the night, the steady soothing voice of the British narrator gently wafting to my tired and 2020-war-torn ears, laying under the warm green comforter that is always like a comforting hug of my childhood from my Mom and her best friend Aggie although both are so very far away - I could often lull off for at least an hour or two surrounded by my furry pack.
It was the weekend Ruth Bader Ginsburgpassed away. I must have dozed for at least a little while, with my brain in overdrive, as I literally rolled over while opening my eyes to the dat, grabbed the notebook app on my phone, and began talking/typing the thoughts below (unedited from that morning's mind musings):
So many of life's most important lessons are taught to us through childhood stories and children's literature. In fact, entire scholarly careers have been built around understanding the correlation between children's stories and cultural literacy, and that many eupahmisms used in news media are lost if one does not know the childhood textual reference. But I digress as this is much more intense than intended for this musing ...
Whether you were a fan of the Grinch or Horton, they both have something in common - Whos in Whoville. In both stories- down in Whoville, at critical times in their life stories, they lifted their voices and were heard.
In How Grinch that Stole Christmas,it was a chorus singing as the sun rose on a new day. Despite arising to find all they owned gone - their voices rose up and they were heard all the way up to the top is the distant mountain- Mount Crumpit. It was such a shock to the Grinch at his perch on Mount Crumpit because the Grinch thought he had beaten them. He wanted their spirits to be broken, yet they joined hands and sang out - and they were heard.
In Horton Hears a Who, no one but Horton believed The Whos existed. The Whos entire world was about to be plummeted into nonexistence- a vat of boiling oil. The Whos tried everything so they could to be heard. Despite all their yelling and hollering and hooting and banging and clanging - their voices still were not heard. And then- one final Who- a young Who who always felt he couldn’t make a difference, finally lifted his voice to join the cacophony and be heard. ONE TINY YOP - a yop that reverberated and broke through all the barriers- barriers that could not be broken until that single final voice joined in - and SAVED THEM ALL.
It saved the nonbelievers in Horton's from taking millions of lives unknowingly, riddling them with guilt and shame when they realized the errors of their ways. It saved all The Who’s in Whoville that didn’t think they needed to speak up and be heard - that they could just go on living their lives ignorant of the world beyond themselves. That ONE YOP made all the difference in their life and death, and SAVED THEM ALL.
To all of you who have given up in things changing. To the younger generation that feels like whatever you do it’s not going to make a difference so why bother. To all of you that say you are not crazy about either candidate so you will just sit this one out and see what happens. To those of you thinking, “I am just one person. The odds are stacked against me - my ONE VOTE can’t make a difference .... “
Remember!
Remember that single YOP.
YOU can BE THAT YOP.
YOU can BE THE DIFFERENCE- the one that changed how this story we are currently living ends.
Vote.
Vote early.
VOTE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT because IT DOES.
Learn more on how you can get out to vote here and here.
Monday, March 15, 2021
Things I’ve Learned from COVID-19 Social Distancing/Shelter-in-Place
ONE – It’s easier to teach somebody else’s kids than your own.
For my tribe, the beginning of our COVID-19 reality started March 13, when Virginia announced public PK-12 schools would be closed for two weeks, which then blossomed to the rest of the school year. By the last week of March, I was working from home. This really translates to “do everything you normally do at work in a day AND make sure the Grinch and Littlest Man are still learning at the same time, AKA the “Ultimate Multitasking Home-school Challenge.” I started off those first few days with delusions of grandeur – posting my pretty little well planned lists on Facebook, embracing this opportunity to help my boys learn areas of self interest. Having been a fairly decent public school teacher in a past life, I was SO confident that I was up for the challenge. By Day Three, the lists were gone, the learning vs. sleeping in/video game battle began, and every positive Facebook “see how well my child and I are rocking this learning from home thing” post made me beat myself up for my own failures as a working-from-home-while-pandemic-homeschooling-Mom.
TWO – We all deal with stressors differently.
Straight shooting here – the first two to three weeks were more than just rough. About every three days I would have an emotional meltdown, with anger, yelling, and then loads of tears. MackDaddy had a few temper flares in those first few weeks as well. Social media memes were joking about loads of babies nine months from now named Rona; meanwhile I was thinking the opposite – this shelter-in-place is going to lead to more divorces!
The boys were having their own hurdles trying to figure out this new world of shelter-in-place. Our Grinch, mourning the loss of his friends, the reality that his 16th birthday was now in lock down, not to mention the music camp he loves and looks forward to all year may now be cancelled – slept… I mean ALOT! His days and nights became flipped. He totally became part bat, I swear! On the other hand was Littlest Man. Overhearing the news and adult conversations, he became afraid to leave the house because the virus might get him.
Top all of this off with the stress of the unknown, and a side order of expecting everyone else to be dealing with all these uncontrollable changes with a new twist every day – it was a recipe for disaster. Once MackDaddy and I stepped back and realized we all just needed some space to deal with this in our own way – things have been much more – peaceful.
Once we started to realize that these were our reactions to this unknown, there seemed to be a communal sigh of relief and we started working on a new and more healthy “coronormal”. I have let go of trying to control everything; Mackdaddy makes sure to walk away and get some air before letting situations get to him; the Grinch is still sleeping in but his days and nights are not fully flipped; we are limiting the covid news and Littlest Man is feeling better about going out in the yard, or walking the neighborhood with social distancing.
THREE – Even though we’re in the same storm we’re not in the same boat.
There was a post going around social media with this tag line and it really rang true for me. Whether it is because of your family dynamics, your work situation, or your political views – reality truly is relative. It is much easier for me to accept and adhere to sheltering in place when both MackDaddy and I are fully able to work from home and bring in our same paychecks. No one in our immediate tribe works in healthcare, retail, or the food industry, so we are not walking into the healthcare crises side of things each day. I can’t help but believe we would be weathering this whole storm quite differently if: we had no income because of the economic shutdowns; we lost a family member to COVID-19; we had no savings to pay our bills and buy food; or we were furloughed or lost our jobs because our company closed indefinitely.
FOUR – Community counts.
Whether you are in a small town or big city – check on your neighbors and single friends. As crazy as we may be getting cooped up with kids or spouses, there are plenty of people even more isolated and totally alone. With so many families spread across the nation, your elderly neighbor may not have family close by to check in on them. We try to drop off a goody for our elderly neighbors once a week with our phone number so they know we are thinking of them and here if they need anything.
FIVE – Be discriminate on your consumption of media.
For me, this week has been THE WORST! As states begin to look to reopen, I am learning terms such as gaslighting. It seems as the shutdown lingers on, the divergence of opinions and views of reality continue to skew to the right or the left. There are SO many websites and videos out there, on BOTH sides of the political isle, that are built in a way that they appear to be actual news stories, when in reality they are all fictitious, yet are being shared like wildfire. Rather than completely start to question everything we have been living through for the last eight weeks, I have started running every news-looking item in my feeds past the scrutiny of snopes.com and an “is it news” site. I have also given myself permission to take a 30-day break from some of my peeps that consistently want to spread these stories — there is enough stress and anxiety in my life right now. Give yourself permission to do the same.
SIX – Sleep is GOLDEN!
Around week three, my already middle age messed up sleep cycle went haywire. Instead of just getting up for an hour or so in the middle of the night, I started sleeping three hours…TOPS! I was beyond exhausted and just could…not … sleep! Come to find out – pandemics can do that to you! It took about two and a half more weeks and some more self forgiveness, and at least now I am back to my normal bad sleep habits (it is a work in progress…).
SEVEN – It’s hard to be creative under unknown stress.
Yeah – at the beginning of the stay-at-home order, along with delusions of home schooling extraordinaire, I also suffered from thinking with all this home time I would most certainly finish writing my novel I have had going on the back burner for longer than I care to mention. I would get back to blogging at least two or three days a week. Maybe even dust off my guitar and piano and start playing beautiful music again. I mean, at this point we have probably all seen the meme about what Shakespeare and Sir Isaac Newton accomplished while they lived through a pandemic … why not me?!
Ummm.. no, Turns out it was all I have just to get through the day without wanting to lock myself alone in my car in the garage for a few hours. Alas, pandemic stress and lack of sleep don’t really do much for getting my creative juices flowing.
EIGHT – Give grace to yourself.
You are doing the best you can with what you have in uncharted territory. Give yourself some latitude and self-love.
NINE – Give grace to others.
Review #2, #3, and #5.
TEN – Roll with it. — with so much uncertainty, let go and let God.
Now, eight weeks into our ‘coronormal”, the boys are learning at a much more relaxed pace. Littlest Man seems to do best if he comes in my home office by 9am and gets it all done early (reading, writing, and one other area each day) in my reading chair while I am working at my desk next to him. The Grinch sleeps much later, and oversees his own learning (he argued that he has maintained straight A’s despite being in dual enrollment courses AND taking 8 courses instead of 7 like everyone else — and he was right, I couldn’t really argue back). It’s a compromise, but it works. We put in our day’s work, have all of our meals together, and enjoy playing games (Littlest Man is killing us with Monopoly) or watching movies together in the evenings. We celebrate the small stuff, and are learning how to make the best of a situation out of our control. My yarn stash is well stocked, our ebooks replenished, and audible is reloaded. Rather than planning for our vacation, we are figuring out how to give Littlest Man his camp experience this summer in our back yard (you guessed it – his camp was cancelled). I refuse to call this a new normal, but more of our transition to the new normal.
