06 Tuesday Mar 2012
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I can’t eat this last butternut squash.
It reminds me of my four sisters.
We’re like butternuts.
Different sizes and shapes; tough on the outside;
wondrous on the insides; increasing in richness and color
the older we get.
And life’s mashed, roasted, toasted, and pureed us all a bit
differently.
But still–we’re a good source of nutrition for each other.
Keepers.
21 Friday Oct 2011
But, as Dorothy says, there’s no place like home. And hearth.
Friday night pizza is a tradition around here for my caperingly cheerful Chef and me. For years and years. So, what’s new? My Little Joy Bank.
It’s a MiniZo, a happy machine that makes proper lush bread…and more.
In addition to an endless variety of breads, my MiniZo turns out binge-worthy coffee cakes, sublime sweet breads and delumptious pretzels. It makes muffins, foccacia, rolls, buns and breadsticks – palate-pleasers all.
And. The. Best. Pizza. Dough. Ever.
In no time at all, we go from this…
…………
to this ~ one divine cheeky chew.
Whatever kind of pizza we make, the result is an exquisite combination of texture and taste. Soft but crispy, tender but chewy. It’s the antidote to a rainy day, crackling good fun to eat and is, in short, a slice of paradise.
Here’s the recipe for the perfect pizza dough. The only one you’ll ever need. Honest.
1 cup water
1 TBSP Olive Oil
2 1/2 cups King Arthur bread flour
1TBSP sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
Toni 10/21/11
18 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in writing
Tags
Agnes McCourt, Baking and Confections, Business, cooking, first grade teacher, Frozen, Home, Ice cream, if I die marry Miss McCourt, Marriage, Mickey Mouse, school stories about great teachers, unconditional love from a teacher, what's essential for teaching and learning: love your kids
If I die, marry Miss McCourt.
Tomorrow was Mum’s big operation and she’d just read a Mississippi-sized MUST DO list.
Feed the dog. Do homework first. Don’t let Susie play near the cellar stairs. Keep the cellar door locked. Eat all the colors. Burn trash. Use oldest apples first. Rinse the diapers before washing them. Remember the goldfish.
The Marry Miss McCourt item stopped Dad from dishing out the ice cream and froze our spoons on their way to our mouths.
Dad raises his eyebrow at Mum. That’s when she says, If I DIE, marry Miss McCourt.
For a second a golden mist seems to waft over us. I know my sibs and I were all thinking the same thing: Wow…Miss McCourt for a mother!
And it wasn’t because we didn’t love the one we had that this shocking thought entered our heads. It was because we adored Miss McCourt, our first grade teacher.
And she adored us.
Tiny, quilted, dimpled, sweet-smelling, soft-edged, low-voiced, she worked her 5 rows of 8 kids with gentle hugs and twinkling eyes. I was in first grade with her this year. So far she’d put a Mickey Mouse Bandaid on an old booboo I’d scratched the scab off of. She’d given me a special sparkle pencil. I had a battery-powered reading lamp for my desk to help me with small print books. I got to go to these modern bean bag chairs for reading group. I had a shell-shaped sponge to wash my desk. Just yesterday she gave out M and M treats in tiny Halloween bags even though it was only September. I ate them while I did my arithmetic seat work. She kept extra boots and sneakers so you wouldn’t miss recess or gym if you’d forgotten yours.
And hugs. She was always hugging us, even when we were naughty.
Miss McCourt loved us unconditionally. No matter what, she’d smile and say, “let’s figure this out.” She had a tiny chair and would move kid to kid teaching us. Whatever I was stuck on she knew exactly the right thing to do. Or so it seemed. We had lots of reading groups and she was always switching us around. No one was stuck in the Grackles Group–no offense to Grackles, but who would want to stay there while the Eagles soared and the Cardinals lorded it over all of us? Miss McCourt’s groups were based on what we were interested in she told us. I have no idea what I was interested in, but, hey, it worked. My Kindergarten teacher had called me a reader and a writer, but Miss McCourt made it real with lots of honey mixed in.
So, when Mom read Marry Miss McCourt my sibs and I–give us slack here, we were little kids–we nod in agreement until Dad waves his ice cream scoop More ice cream kids? and the golden mist wafts off.
Patty 8/18/11
