A Homegrown Recipe

{Roasted Cauliflower and Crouton Salad}

The past few weeks have been very full, and I have failed to let any of it slip out here. I'm not going to recap the month for you. I promise I have more respect for you than that. I know you would rather I just shared a recipe with you. And that is what I will do.

Today was a cleaning out day of sorts. I had to scrape wax off the floor and a table following a near-horrific accident with a candle and a baby last evening. The Baby Boy needed his clothing size rotated. The basil plant badly needed pruning and winterizing. When it came to making dinner, I was planning on a simple pesto and chicken pasta dish because The Man left for a week-long trip this morning and I wanted something simple. This dish is simple because it is made from a packet, and is like a bourgeois version of mac n' cheese. 

Then there was all that half-shriveled basil sitting there. And a head of cauliflower I had failed to use from earlier in the week. Let me just say here and now that roasted cauliflower is my new obsession. It is so, so very good and typically I make it tossed with olive oil, curry powder, red onions, and salt and pepper. But then tonight I thought of roasting the cauliflower and throwing it in with the pesto (minus the curry powder obviously). Then I thought of how I usually have caesar salad with pesto but I didn't have lettuce tonight... and yet, oh how I love those crunchy croutons mixing in with the pasta. And hey, I had some hearty whole wheat bread that was getting a little too dry for sandwiches...and then when I opened the fridge there stood staring at me a near empty jar of homemade sun-dried tomatoes I had made a couple months ago. Lo and behold... a new recipe started forming...

Roasted Cauliflower and Crouton Salad

~1 head of cauliflower, broken into bite size pieces

~couple Tbsp olive oil

~1/4 red onion, sliced into strips

~3-5 garlic cloves, sliced in thick chunks

~dried basil (optional) 

~salt and pepper

{toss all the above ingredients together and spread on a baking sheet, sprinkling with salt and pepper, then roast for about 30 minutes at a high temp... mine was around 425F, watching until it is browned and crispy on top}

~homemade croutons: cut bread slices into bite size squares. toss with olive oil, seasoning like oregano or italian, add some grated parm if you like. toast in oven at 425 until golden and crispy.

~sun-dried tomatoes (couple Tbsp.) chopped into chunky pieces

~fresh basil, roughly chopped

{toss above ingredients with roasted cauliflower and serve}

I eyed the kids as we were eating and they gobbled it up without a word of dissent. Well, Scout did hand me all her onions like she'd scraped worms off the sidewalk or something. Anyway- I thought it was good. Let me know if you try it!

we went away

The trip was, as we had brashly decided it would be, delightfully Worth It. The train ride to get there was perfect. We had beds in our own tiny, secluded cabin where we could hide from curious eyes and stretch out, resting with books or letting the baby sleep. We watched the countryside go by, blanketed by gray clouds and gloomy raindrops, each station filled with umbrellas shuffling past down below our window.

Our host was a friend of ours who had traveled home this past week to be with his family over the Mid Autumn Festival and National holiday. He grew up in this small village; a forty five minute bus ride out of the city we had trained to, over the Yangtze river and then a short walk to his home. 

We were somewhat self conscious, landing in this friend's home with our six people strong and tactfully forgetting our large bag of delicious fruits and treats we had intended to give as a gift to our hosts. But they were of course exceedingly gracious and seemed genuinely pleased to have us along for the ride. It was after all, a festive time for them as well and each meal had family members from all over the neighborhood congregating around the deliciously prepared food.

Our kids did remarkably well, trying most of the food and though skirting their way around some of it, found enough to munch on that they stayed full and happy and did not grumble about hunger (we had packed stashes of Snickers and noodles just in case). We explored the nearby streets and fields, and followed the train tracks to the local market. It was wet and drizzling most of the time we were there, so a few things we had looked forward to, like touring his Aunt's organic farm across the way, and going up into the Juzi Orchard behind the house that his grandfather had cultivated all his life, could not be done because of mud sloshed roads and our unprepared attire. Nonetheless, we managed to climb around and get dirty and happily fresh-aired as it was.

We spent the train ride home on hard seats, in the stuffy car with 120 other people. Seven hours of people following your every move, asking you repeatedly what country you are from and all manner of similar questions, and trying to manage six people on four seats with very limited activities is a daunting task. But happily, our troupe again did remarkably well. I was so proud of my little ones and their adaptability, patience, and creativity. Actually, I was proud of and incredibly thankful for my Man in this regard as well. He held children, made up little games, played cards, entertained the {slightly} irritating little friend that kept spitting her candy out at our feet, never complained or got tired and kept everyone laughing and smiling until the bitter end. Though it wasn't bitter at all. In fact, despite the hiccups and strains that inevitably come with traveling in China, and that with many small children, we are already thinking of doing it again.

the Panda post

We did it. We went and saw the pandas. 

It was actually just a lovely day; a low mist hanging on the horizon and groves of bamboo shrouding the pathways, big goofy looking bears munching on bamboo and lying about lazily, little red pandas scampering down the steps behind us (eek!), the kids running, always running, flowers reminding you that indeed those colors still exist in nature, and the comfortable presence of family. 

And of course there were the throngs of Chinese who indeed you would have thought were mistaking us foreigners for pandas, what with all the picture taking and oohing and ahhing. There were times when we felt like we needed our own little bio sign, explaining how often we breed (four children!!), our diet (red meat! that's why they don't dress very warmly!), and why we are so tall. Really though, it's just awkward to be stared and laughed at and photographed when in our culture that is considered extremely rude. But here such is not usually the case, and I know that they are just interested, as well as generous in their compliments and friendliness.

Tomorrow we embark on our short,  three day journey to a village where we know very little of what to expect, except that there are not toilets... only holes in the ground, and we were told today by our host to remember to bring bug spray. So far, sounds delightful! But nonetheless, we are all excited for the adventure. 

to the trains

{heading out early}

A couple legs to the trip... walking, pedi cab, cab, walking... to get to the train station where I planned to buy tickets for a trip south in the next couple days. I say "planned" because I had never done this before and was a little nervous how it all would go, not to mention if there would even be any tickets left seeing as how it is one of the craziest, busiest holiday seasons of the year right now. 

{getting it done}

This man was perched on a bamboo ladder amid a throng of what appeared to be very confusing wire chaos, as well as a throng of a billion busy people bustling at the base of his perch. It made me nervous to say the least.

{like ducks in a row, or kind of}

There we all were... hoping, waiting, sweating it out and praying we walked away with the tickets we needed.

{looking them over}

I watched every.single.person. around me do this several times throughout the wait... look over their I.D. card, their money, their ticket options. And then look them over again.

{in hand}

we got them! 

{aftermath}

The maze of people and vendors continued after the tickets were purchased. I ended up on the backseat of some stranger's scooter, agreeing for a fee that he would get me back home through the traffic jammed streets. And he did.

A fountain. A freezer.

*

School let out and we came across this fountain spewing it's goodness as we walked home through the apartment complex. Cousins were there so of course we had to stop, and one thing led to another. Zhong Qiu Jie (Mid-Autumn festival) is on Sunday and Guo Qing Jie (National Holiday- like our Independence Day) is the very next day so everyone gets the entire week off school and work. It's a party!

*

We might be traveling to the hometown village of a friend of ours, which I am pretty excited about, along with wondering how all that will go with my four kids under seven and all. But we have declared that it is Worth It to go, and so it will be grand.

*

Also, I bought a deep freezer online and it arrived today. I am stoked about three things:

1. I bought a freezer online and it arrived. Success on many levels (communicating online, communicating on the phone, not getting scammed)

2. I have a deep freezer. This will solve so many problems and make my life infinitely more worth living. 

3. Freeze the living daylights out of all my food to keep away the nasty bugs. Gross.

Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai le!

cluck. cluck.

*
I am not sure entirely how this came about, but I've been feeling the need to be more involved in circles outside of myself. I think circles are good, the ones that you naturally revolve around and within, but after we moved to this city last year, I found myself feeling circle-less, and in the end I wonder if it was a good thing. I think too that with the Man's move into an administrative position within our company, there comes a certain need to have friends who don't have any opinions about said administrator husband is doing.

*
My upstairs neighbor, Fang Jie, is forever stopping by with fruit in her hands for the children, or perhaps a freshly baked platter of sweet potatoes, or jiaozi she had just finished making. She has one daughter who is in university and a husband who seems to rarely ever be at home. She is retired, and owns a shop but doesn't need to work. I think she is rather lonely sometimes. Most Chinese women, especially older ones, are quite opinionated and bossy about... well, everything and especially things having to do with your children. Sometimes this can be off putting, but it doesn't bother me for the most part. I think it is just a generations old way of passing along information. Fang Jie does her fair share of scolding and finger shaking, but she seems to have a sensitivity about her at the same time. She'll tell me I shouldn't give them too many sweet snacks (a rice cracker was too sweet in her opinion), and that my baby shouldn't chew on that toy because it is dirty (it was a toy specifically designed for teething), but she genuinely tries to help me when she sees I have my hands full, and I feel a motherly care from her even though our communication is often tiring and leaves me with a headache.

*
Clucking. That's what we women often do. I pass the women in the morning with their small charges waddling around, little pants split right down the backside, bending for a toy only to have ayi right behind, swooping up to offer a drink, a wipe, a helping hand, a bite of some snack. The women sit together, clucking away about the children, their families, the news, the price of vegetables.

I sat in my own little circle group the other morning. We did our own share of the clucking. It ranged from husbands to children to friends to bargains to recipes to burdens and back around again. Later I was struck by this small band of women, and the varying ages and stages of life within it. I love the woman with her newborn sucking away next to me while the Grandma across from us shares about prayers she prayed long ago for her husband.

It has occurred to me before, when I have sat with my young mother friends who seem to have so many questions about how to do things, how to make this baby thing work, that perhaps we have lost a bit of our clucking culture. Nowadays people read everything online by the experts. They want M.D.'s to back up every bit of information they read, and then they walk off armed with articles and statistics and enough information to sink a ship and sterilize an entire universe from harm and infection and (God forbid) the failure to be properly educate, but not enough practical working knowledge to get them through the day.

I guess what I mean is, there is something to be said for one generation handing down "the way it's done" to the next. I am reading a book, "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a novel about a young Chinese girl in the 19th century that tells the story of her life with her laotong, or "old same" which means a bosom friend for life. There is so much about Chinese culture in this story, and one thing it speaks to is the way the women handed down their way of life to the generation that followed them. Often this is was through clucking. They chattered at you, berated you, gave you unwanted advice, told you what you were doing wrong, and all that you ought to be doing. But in the end, you came away knowing something. Not because you merely read it or agreed with it, but because in practice you learned it with the care of a community around you who had done it before and learned from those who came before them.

In this way, we are givers and receivers always, and things that should not be lost or forgotten are kept alive for the good of us all.

The want of that one little thing

*
Last night, our Chinese friend and her husband came over for dinner. They have been married only a few months, and are both in their mid thirties. I know my friend really wants to have a baby. She tells me her husband wants to wait, and is unsure of the disruption and trouble a baby will cause. But I think she feels her biological clock ticking, and is anxious about her one chance to bring a child of her own into the world.

To sit and talk with a Chinese couple about marriage and family life is to be opened into a world vastly different from our own. To have a baby is to provide a child for the grandparents to raise. Your chance comes when you have your own grandchildren. A man's commitment is to his mother first, and then his wife. A wife must please her mother in law. Often the ratio is six adults to one child (one set of parents, two sets of grandparents).

So there we sat, with our four children... and zero grandparents within 10,000 miles. Our chinese friend is used to this, seeing me and the children running in and out of the Man's office on and off throughout the day. But her husband has rarely seen the entire crew in action. His eyes seemed big as saucers as he watched us pull dinner together. Plates flying, silverware getting handed out by a three year old, the Man holding the baby while I fished plates of food from the kitchen. I was proud of the relative smoothness we were able to pull off, but I still think it came off as One Giant Table of Chaos to him.

I'm not sure we helped them towards any decisions about having children.

*
There were more people for dinner tonight. A different group, with different needs. We had soup and bread and sat around telling stories about our most epic cockroach battles.

I feel energized in a way when these evenings are over. I feel good and thankful that we can do something as simple as make a meal, and open our small home with cramped seating, and somehow, hopefully, bring a small bit of peace and the feeling of being cared for into someone's life.

*
I must mention the Baby again because even though you may be rolling your eyes at me, I am just so thankful for him. I know it helps that he coos and giggles and always, always smiles at me, because if he didn't, surely I would be singing a different tune right now. But the fact is that I wasn't quite sure we could handle a fourth, or that we should be having one, and now that he is here I feel like I never enjoyed any of my babies the way I enjoy him. I could sit on the floor and just talk and play with him for hours. And sometimes I do just that. I didn't know I had it in me, to be honest.

*
I often look around here, at the roads hanging heavy with fog and the moisture sitting low in the air, or on a sunny day like today, the blue skies and glistening rooftops that stretch for miles and end in a row of apartment sky-rises, and I think on how all this looked to me just one year ago. I don't know that you can pray for joy and expect that it will be delivered, like something that is outside of your control and must be handed over to you. Do you have control in some way over the joy in your own heart? I'm sure there are many answers to this.

I know I have prayed for joy. And I feel it more often now than I used to. This is likely due to a large maze of events and reasons and dynamics that I don't feel the need to try to decipher or sound like an authority on. Others can say it better. I remember one... surprised by joy. I like that because true joy is not something that can either be either conjured up or dismissed if it is really given. Joy is perhaps one of the signs that this world with all its mishaps and brokenness, is really not all there is.