That first blush

Just before 7:30pm, on a Friday night two Decembers ago, Jack and I convinced Tom to let us adopt Nutmeg. I will never forget the amazed expression on J's face when I said, "We did it! Get your shoes on, and let's go get that cat!" 

Not only was it way past bedtime, and not only were we both stunned that T agreed to house yet another living creature, but it was also such a wonderfully unorthodox way for J and me to spend a Friday night that we buzzed on a giddy high the whole way to PetSmart. 

One of the tactics we employed to sway Tom's opinion was Jack's saying, with dreamy eyes and in a slightly dramatic, clutching-pearls way, "Dad, Nutmeg is my soulmate. We need to have him."

Although that was largely untrue then, J and I love the Nut so dearly and deeply now, that in retrospect, his claim seems totally honest and reasonable. 

More recently, one of Jack's girl friends, X, adopted a gray tabby named Sugar. She loves Sugar in the borderline-obsessive way we love Nutmeg, and she and J bond over their cat-adoration on a regular basis. J went to her house for an after-school play date a couple weeks ago, ostensibly to meet Sugar and share photos of Nutmeg, and later regaled me with the grand time they'd had.

"Sugar doesn't really like boys, but X and I still had a lot of fun!"

"What did y'all do, honey?"

"Well, we mostly just fought."

"What?? Were you mad or just playing?"

"Just playing. We just threw things at each other. That kind of fighting..." And he smiled.

I'd noticed, as this conversation progressed, the slightest tinge of red creeping into Jack's cheeks. By the end, his porcelain skin was positively aglow, and although he couldn't have articulated why, I certainly could. And I smiled.

"It begins," I told Tom that night over dinner. 

"Oh Em, I don't know. He's only in third grade."

"Yes, but even if he's completely unaware of romance or crushes or the ways people interact when they flirt, it is still a nascent dawn of a new era." And I smiled again.

I wish you could have seen the upward curve at each corner of his mouth as Jack relayed this story to me. I wish I could more accurately describe just how innocent and sweet he looked and sounded when describing the way he and X "fought." I wish I had a photograph of him in that moment so that the image of my little boy feeling something new and exciting would never fade in the way that memories are wont to; the pencil-eraser-smudging over time of what was once sharp and crystal clear.

Jack has always had such a delightfully clueless aura about him. He was never remotely vexed about his passion for all things pink as it didn't occur to him that anyone would care (and of course, they shouldn't have). He wore his pink shirts and slept in his pink and white sheets and rode his magenta bike with its white seat and streamers and butterfly decals with all the unadulterated confidence in the world.

He has never expressed an inkling of concern about not much liking or being terribly good at most sports, and he didn't notice that (until he shot up like a beanstalk in second grade) he was one of the shortest boys in the grade. Even burgeoning social dynamics and divides haven't much phased him. It took a bully to get his attention to those sorts of challenges, and even then, his primary reaction was simply one of sadness: "Why would anyone act like this?" 

Oliver is much more attuned to societal dynamics, norms and expectations, and although his awareness arguably means he's more prepared for the realities of the world, it still makes me sad for him because he doesn't experience childhood with the same blissful ignorance as has Jack.

In that regard, I can only describe Jack as angelic, an attribute that made witnessing that first blush especially dear. With the knowledge of what's to come, I basked in the utter innocence of his experience. Perhaps he's not even thought about it since. But I have. And it still makes me smile. 

Wiping away the sleep

The end of winter wore hard on me. In the chilly gloom of March, I felt myself withering, drying up, losing elasticity. Like my garden, I need light and warmth to thrive. 

This is just the way I'm built. Some may consider my intolerance of long winters a weakness, as I once did, but as I age, I'm trying to cast off unnecessary self-judgment. It seems reasonable to believe that becoming deeply glum after four months in darkness and cold is not the worst personal flaw. 

See, I'm a bustling, bubbly, merry extrovert but also a sensitive, stormy introvert. I have long walked that line.

I've worked hard to push my innate pessimism to the curb, harder still to quiet the anxieties that cause me to over-think, over-worry, overdo. The oppressive shroud of too-much-winter amplifies the noise from my tumultuous interior and makes tranquility elusive.

I recharge in solitude, in the quiet company of cooking and gardening, ideas and myself. I didn't realize just how true that was until I had children, nor did I understand the ways in which introversion can make being a parent that much more challenging. Especially if your children are not silent wallflowers. Especially when winter persists and solitude and time in the yard are harder to come by.

When darkness falls, outside and in, maintaining stasis in the delightful circus that is parenting my two spirited boys can feel Sisyphean. At times I lose perspective, fail to see their bright inner lights, struggle. The fear of being unable to meet multiple demands correctly and in a timely fashion teases up the anxiety lurking within; the two build on each other into a pulsing swarm.

It is unpleasant, tiring and disappointing, but fortunately, with time and spring, a wave of renewal comes and brings a soft cloth with which I wipe my cloudy eyes.

I spent most of yesterday and much of this morning clearing the detritus from my yard. It's dirty, sweaty work, and I never wish to be anywhere else. Out there, I thought again about what a powerful concept rebirth is. Of how parents sometimes need a reset to see both children and selves clearly. Of how the warm light of spring provides just that.
 

Pie crust is so personal

You know how people often preference the climate in and traditions with which they grew up? Take me, for example. I was raised in the tropics of Louisiana and to this day prefer to be in the warm-hot sun, while others, from more northern climes, enjoy (or at least don't mind) wearing sweaters and cords on a regular basis. I like the way my family celebrated Christmas (gifts on Christmas Eve, Santa comes overnight, stockings in the morning, a big family lunch) versus those who wait to do everything on the 25th. Personal preferences honed over a lifetime of experience.

The same is true, I believe, for pie crust.

My family pie crust is an oil-based one with a confident measure of salt that incorporates neither butter nor lard. Nanny picked the recipe up at the Wesson Oil booth at one of the restaurant conventions she and Papa used to attend when they had their place, Frank & Bob's. Those conventions were in the 1940s and '50s, in places like Chicago, and I remember Nanny telling me how she and Papa would take the overnight train to them from Louisiana. Those conventions always sounded so grand.

my food historian pal, Laura, found this old wesson ad. see the pie crust recipe in the text. my family has always called the pie crust our "stir and roll." here's why!

Anyway, once that pie crust recipe made its way into our family, all others fell out of favor. I don't think I had one pie growing up -those made by folks in my family- whose base wasn't that simple, four-ingredient shell. Not one.

It really spoiled me, frankly, in the way that getting used to great food does. I could taste a sub-par or store-bought pie crust in a second flat. And it wasn't until I was an adult that I remember tasting butter-crust pies.

Butter-based doughs are so wonderfully pliable. They roll out like a dream and can be cut into whimsical shapes that are easy to transfer and mend. Butter crusts cook to a gorgeous golden-brown hue, and they are sturdy. I love them for savory pies and tarts, for gougères and anything that requires pâte à choux, like éclairs and cream puffs.

But I simply cannot abide by butter crusts buttressing dessert pies. In my opinion, fruit and other sweet pies need a foil, something to cut and thereby enhance their sugary insides. Butter has no bite. It is sweet and creamy, two elements that are inherently part of any sweet pie. And so the whole always tastes less to me than its discrete parts.

Surrounding a rich filling of sugar-encrusted blackberries, pecans swimming in Caro and brown sugar, chocolate, and even lemon meringue, the butter crust tastes flaccid and weak. It is beautiful but it disappoints. It is a flabby distraction rather than a critically important partner in the dance. 

An oil crust, like my family's Wesson one, lacks some of the butter crust's pros. It really cannot be rolled out more than twice, you can't double the recipe or even make it in advance.

But oh how it flakes! How its salty underpinning perfectly offsets even the sweetest of fillings and in doing so makes everything taste that much more alive! How the whole is always more than the parts, as each lifts the pie to greater heights!

I made a butter crust for the sour cherry pie yesterday because I wanted to try yet again to make one I like and also I wanted to maximize the aesthetics. It was beautiful, but the crust again left me cold.

Lard does a better job than butter in the flakiness department, but I still prefer the flavor and crunch of that oil + salt impart. And so, henceforth, I'm swearing off the old butter crust and know I'll never look back.