Peanut Butter Crisscross Cookies

Peanut Butter Crisscross Cookies

2  1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 C. butter (at room temperature)
1 C. peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
1 C. brown sugar (packed)
3/4 C. sugar
2 large eggs
**extra sugar for rolling the cookies in

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Working with a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for a minute or two, until smooth and creamy.  Add the peanut butter and beat for another minute.  Add the sugars and beat for 3 minutes more.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating for a minute after each addition.  Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl.

Add baking soda, baking powder and salt on low speed.  Add the flour mixing till all blended.  

Working with the dough, I use an ice cream scoop to make my balls.  On a large cookie sheet place 9 balls.  Dip the tines of a fork in the sugar and press into the dough to make crisscross marks.

Bake for 12 minutes.  When done the cookies will be lightly colored and still a little soft.  Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for a minute before removing to cooling racks.  Cool to room temperature.

Celluloid

    She and I are walking towards the building with multipane widows
       covered in green curtains that do not let me know what is behind them

     We walk inside a door, like the kind at any store up and down
        the town we live in, glass which you push firmly to open

    The room has young adults sitting on vinyl couches and chairs
        it feels like a time long ago when drive-ins and soda fountains were around

     They look at us, the mother tall and proud, the child meek and timid,
         they look at us as we walk past the desks off to the side of a room that feels too long

     The man has a grey hair with a white short beard, I sense kindness 
         the polite greeting of my mom and he while I stand mute and lost

     The room is emptied, just us three, and I am taller, she is older and less of presence
         the question and answer begin and I am getting taller and stronger

     My voice builds with longing of what I missed
        "I missed you mom.  I missed you wanting me when I got older".

      She has become rigid and uncomfortable, her words I can not hear
         only her lips and mouth open and close, tightness when pressed together.

      "I couldn't be me, I had to be what you wanted.  You wouldn't let me breathe".
          Words fall from my mouth like alphabet soup letters, forming sentences and phrases.

       I see around me the slow fading in of the young adults that have begun to appear.
           Their faces supporting me as they become clearer, eyes on me not her

       The scene like a celluloid movie, that flickers and displays a scene of us
            "I am your mother, I know what is best for you"

       The man speaks to her, "She is not for you to keep tucked in a drawer".
             I am growing and she is aging as the film continues on the reel.

        Is it dark or light,  the colors are faded,  flashes of brightness and the room
            is real once more,  the young adults are smiling 

         My mother is old and weak, she is sad at her loss of control over me
             "You are wrong, she needs me" her words are desperate

         The man talks gently to her even though she repels his words
               For once I am forgiven for being me, by a man who listened


          The room of young adults has come to life, the child I was walks towards the door
                 her pure white ankle socks on chubby legs runs


          I push through to bright sunlight
                  the sound of the reel clicks, clicks, clicks


            

        * I had a dream last night of this.  So oddly it floated to my head.  We had watched a show on PBS of film making where I think the flash of celluloid came from.  The ankle socks from my friend Lori who shared a photo from her childhood wearing while ankle socks.  The constant theme of my mom and I and my struggle to be loved by her unconditionally.   The man represented the therapist we went to back in 2004.  He did not help "us" during that time but thankfully in my dream he did.

          So relieved to have written this down before it was lost on the day.  I did not turn on music knowing that the sound of songs would erase my thoughts.
     

Get thee to the Farmer's Market and make this!

                   

        Apricots are ripe and ready to do any number of delicious things with.  I already made jam and decided to use the last ones to make an Apricot Crisp.  This was heaven....so go to your nearest Farmers Market and buy some deep orange Apricots and make this...you will not be disappointed.
        Have you tried the new Black Velvet variety of Apricots yet?  They are dark purple black on the outside with a variegated orange with red inside.  The ones I found were not big but they were yummy!


                              Apricot Crisp

1 pound fresh apricots
3 T. sugar
1 T. flour
a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of cardomon

Crisp topping:
1/2 stick butter, melted
4 T. turbinado sugar
1/2 C. old fashion oatmeal
1/2 C. all purpose flour
pinch of salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Wash, pat dry and cut apricots in half and remove pit (no need to peel).  Slice into chunks (I did 1/2 inch size chunks).  Spray a small baking dish (8 x 8) and place cut apricots in.  Add sugar, flour and spices and stir in.

To make topping, melt butter.  In a small bowl add sugar, flour, oats, and salt.  Stir in melted butter.  Sprinkle mixture over the apricots.  Bake for about 30 minutes or until just lightly browned. 

*note:  I did reduce the sugar amount in the topping from 6 T. to 4 since I thought that seemed a bit much.  Also I would check it to make sure it it not over browning.

Mothering

Mothering, what does it mean mothering? 

To be a mother is the most important unselfish act a woman can do.  It is the most terrifying, fear ridden, heart stopping, nail biting, demanding, sleepless journey.  It is the most absorbing, life-altering, soul searching, moving, love fest ever.


I am in transition.  Like in giving birth I feel I am in transition.  I thought when I gave birth that stage was unyeilding and overwhelming but now in my fifties this transition seems to put me in that state of confusion and fear of going forward.  I can't stop going forward to my next stage of being a woman, I have to go with confidence knowing that on the other side of this step will be a calm or an acceptance of my new stage in life.  The contractions of my mothering now is to allow myself to let my grown children be.  To understand that they are no longer in need of my protection like when they were children.  They need to make the mistakes that I tried to shield them from because I knew what the outcome would be.  No, now I must watch their highs in life and their lows.  I must be constant and supportive.  I must learn to hold my tongue yet hold my arms open and let them discover their own journey in life.  If I fight this, I can feel the beat in my heart thump faster and fear sets in.  The mother warning lights begin to flash.  My arms, my wings want to gather and hold them though I know this to be unwise.  Did I not teach my children while young, of life?  Did I not share daily as we played, read, lived what to understand of life they might encounter?  Hold my hand while we cross the street, careful how high you climb because you will need to climb down without falling but I am here to catch you if you do fall, knives are sharp and scissors are too. 

In giving birth to my babies, that stage of transition was what appeared to be an insurmountable wave that kept getting higher and higher.  Each contraction brought more instability and undermined my true faith in giving birth.   Just when I felt I couldn't go on, that I couldn't let my body do what it knew how to because I thought it was too hard, too painful, it was "too" everything, the shift came.  The calm of being at last over the wave, into the calm, brought back to the shore.  The next wave I knew I could handle because my babes tiny sphere of their crowning heads came to view and played with my heartstrings as they would appear and disappear, each contraction more closer to my arms, to my sense of smell and taste.  With a whoosh their emergence to welcome cries and a swift flow to my open arms.  That first kiss sealed our bond.  While their umbilical cord was cut and ceased to nourish them, my breasts inside called out for my mother's milk to flow.  That cry of a babe to begin the let down reflex, the tingle in my breasts,  where we once again were held together, no longer in utero, but our skin touching linking us forever.  I became the mother I was born to be.  As in love and fiercely protective as one could be.


Yet I had to let go of the babes.  I had to let them test their wings though it was hard.  My invisible hand and arm stretched out to hold on but I couldn't let them see that I wanted so much to hold them.  I wanted to sing my lullabies and rock them to and fro, the rhythm of the rocker that would became the beat of our hearts.  I had to let go with a smile and trusting knowledge that they could and would handle whatever obstacle that came to them.  My Love and I sometimes held each other with tears trickling down from our eyes to fall on our bed, the bed they were conceived upon, as we soothed ourselves knowing that those years of parenting were a gift that was of unimaginable measure.  Whatever would be, we all would ride the swells of waves in storm and calm.  


Now I am facing the ascension of age.  I find myself confused at times in observation of my relationship with my mother.  The woman who now openly talks of loving me in her limited way.  The woman who did not do this with conviction or my comprehension of feeling this.  I find myself mothering her.  How can this be?  It happens so naturally to do.  As though automatically my inner mothering emotion to care comes forth.  To be calming, gentle, loving to this failing woman, my mom.  The rise of fear to know that I am not on the threshold of youth but on the threshold of elderhood does not escape me.  I am not willing to step over yet to see the possibility of my being like my mother.  I do not want this.   And so I am thrust with transitional trepidation.  I fear to see her die, I fear to see the continuing progression of aging though I know I should not be.  It is all a part of that circle of life.  I cannot stop this circle but only ride it like the pangs of labor.  Not to always think of the difficult times but think of the blithesome times.  Perhaps not to even try to define this time but let it be.


My children, my darling children whom I adore, treasure, I only ask your patience to me while I take baby steps right now.  I am in no hurry as I was to see you learn to roll over, sit up, to walk then run.  I am in no hurry whatsoever.  Let me take my time and breathe in the wonders I let escape my view before.  Let me run my fingers, slowly over the petals of a rose, so soft like the feel of your baby skin so long ago.  Let me linger over a walk in the woods, to inhale the denseness of the wood there.  Watch the way the light falls between the limbs and leaves, to see the shadow play.  It is only now that I at last see such beauty with it's purity.  Before I would watch and listen as you each would run over the padded forest floor and hear your voices echo off the trees.  Now let me be.  Share this time with me.  All I ask is for you to hold my hand, let me feel your presence beside me, let me grow up because I am still doing this just as you are.  

Let me birth this woman inside me.

Being alone...is lonely

           I am on day three of being alone.

     I am not use to this at all.

     I have been married for almost 34 years (this July!) and my Love and I have almost, except for the two weeks he went to Mexico (who he and R. are with right now near Joshua Trees) but I had M. and R. at home at that time, so I really wasn't alone.  Now I am alone...A. L. O. N. E.....

     What have I been up to?  Oh much.  Let's see...on Thursday I went shopping.  Girl stuff.  Shoes...didn't find any.  I hate shoe shopping.  I did find some cute capris though.

     Thursday night I had it all planned to try a new recipe.  Oh I bought everything I needed at Whole Foods, stuff like Garbanza flour...what is garbanza flour?

 Garbanzo Flour is a protein-rich flour made from dried chick-peas (garbanzo beans). Oh...

     I came home and read the recipe at 6:00 PM and realized I couldn't fix that recipe tonight.  I saw it in Sunset Magazine called "Chickpea Cakes with Fava Leaves and Arugula Salad".  Sounded good and healthy and I wanted to make something I knew the boys wouldn't eat.  I couldn't find Fava Leaves so I substituted spinach leaves which was an option.  I decided since it would need to chill for awhile that I would start the recipe and have it the next night.  This is what it looked like before I put it in the fridge to chill.  I have to say I sampled the "dough" of chickpea flour and it tasted yucky.  I was hoping that once it was cooked it would taste wonderful.

    This put the other Sunset recipe up for dinner called "Spiced Lemon Quinoa".  I made some changes and would still make some other changes now that I have tried it.  It presented well and I enjoyed the flavor though it seemed dry.  

     I sat outside with the poochies as it was a lovely evening.  


     Friday found me off to visit my mom and then to do some errands afterwords.  Mission accomplished!  Did laundry and managed to change all the beds and wash Annie (my Golden poochie).  


     I was excited to try the Chickpea thing and took it out of the fridge.  The recipe told me to invert it onto a cutting board, where once inverted I am to slice into triangles and then I will lightly fry in olive oil.  My inverting went PLOP!  It did not firm up and was just disgusting.  I felt like I was cleaning up doggie vomit.  (Sorry for the graphic word.)  Dinner became fresh eggs from our hens, scrambled with toast and homemade strawberry jam.  Yeah!  I really wanted the eggs anyway.  Forget that recipe!


     I watched "So You Think You Can Dance" that we had on the DVR and then crawled into bed with Stewie.  It was breezy and the house was creaky.  I couldn't sleep and I kept seeing Stewie with his ears all perked up like he was hearing something.  Finally after a half hour I fell to sleep and Stewie went to his own bed.


    Today cleaned house.  I also realized I am not talking much.  Is this what happens when you are all alone?  I find myself (I do this anyway) talking to the dogs about what I am doing..."I'm going to vacuum the kitchen", "I'm going to clean the bathroom"...on and on...and I don't like that I have no "person" to talk to.  I miss my boys....   :(


     I decide that I am going to take out the old home movies and watch them.  The really old ones.  This is my desk and all my movie stuff out:

       I found that the bulb to the projector is out and find the replacement one we have stored.  Low and behold it too is out.  Bummer.   I have an editing machine and thankfully the bulb in it works!

      So here I have sat and gone through a gazillion home movies.  Not as easy to watch as this is an editing unit and the clarity is how fast you are turning the wheel.  Too fast and it is a blur, to slow and the film comes off the gear wheel.  Movie magic happens as I spin away.....


      I thought I would look up the price of a replacement bulb.  ebay....$50!!!!  Crazy!!!!  Note the price of this bulb on the box.  I wonder what year that was?

     I realize it is getting late and the poochies are looking at me wondering "when is she going to feed us?".


    I feed the critters, get the fresh eggs from the hens for today and grab a bottle of vino from the wine cellar.  Hey, no reason I can't have a nice glass of wine!  I pick this out...my Papa use to buy BV ...seems like a good choice.

     I had marinated a chicken breast simply in soy sauce and thought I would grill it on our panini grill.  I rarely use this and I know why.  Cleaning is a pain.  Still the chicken breast came out lovely!  I toasted a slice of rustic wheat bread, brushed a bit of mayo on it, added sliced avocado on top of the chicken breast and sliced some tomatoes with a little kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  Voila!

     Simple and utterly perfect for me tonight.  The poochies kept me company on the deck for another lovely evening....by ourselves....   :(  (miss the boys)


     So here are my companions...Annie

     And Mr. Stewie.....

     I mean, really...aren't they just the cutest...dinner companions?


     Let's see...I have two more dinners alone...thank goodness E. and I will go see a movie tomorrow!  I will have a real live human being to be with!  I get to go to my sister by marriage for breakfast tomorrow for Father's Day...not with my honey...but waffles!  Hhhhhmmmm.  And people!!!!


     Miss my boys....did I say that already?   Guess I better clean up the movie stuff....I was going to watch Toy Story 3 but it is getting late and I was woken up this morning by Luna (our kitty) purging somewhere near the bedroom.  Lovely...

Storytelling....

A fine storyteller died last weekend.  Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama and later moved to Selma, Alabama, my mom and dad's home town.  I learned a little about Kathryn on a visit to Selma back in the 1990's.  My mom had taken me on a grand tour of spots that she wanted to share with me of her town, one of which was Sturdivant Hall.  A grand old home that has been restored.  There was a gift shop in the old detached kitchen and cook's quarters out back where I found Kathryn's books on ghosts of Alabama.  I brought back a book for my girls then realized I already had some of her books from other times my mom had visited Selma and brought them back.  

My girls loved a good ghost story and Kathyrn's filled a spot with her collected stories.    She was a storyteller, who learned this from her father.  No TV or high tech gadgets to interfere with sitting by her father as he wove a tale.  Thus was her beginnings of collecting and sharing stories from others that their parents or family had told them, passed on to any that would hear them.  She has many books and up until her death at 93 was still receiving more stories.  If one gives up the gift of storytelling and sharing of them, how many stories will die?  How many will go unsaid?  I guess that is why I write. 

 

Maybe my family have too much to do than sit and ask me to tell them a story of when I was growing up or about their ancestors.  Maybe I don't know how to share a story that makes them want to listen.  Storytelling has to be drawn out and said slowly and clearly. I just know that the older I become the more that I wish I had my Nan to have shared some stories of her life.  I wish I had any of my grandparents to have told me about their lives.  Something that would let me understand who my ancestors were, what they did, who they married, who their children were and so on.  I have fragments.

So the photos I have here are from another decrepit photo album of an old home in a box from my mom's house.  I am not sure if this is the home my Grandfather wrote of that burned down that is in Marion Junction or this is the old homestead of Mud Hall between Marion and Marion Junction, though even that home doesn't exist any longer.  Both homes have been replaced and my mom lived in the rebuilt one in Marion Junction till her father died.   I just know that looking at these photos I am absorbed by the unknown.  The old photo quality that doesn't have the sharpness of digital, let alone color, but what it has is a story.  I don't know who the people are in the photo on the bales of cotton but I am sure they are relatives.  Unknown but they are not forgotton...not by me.

Hearing Kathyrn's voice in the video brings up memories of the voices of Selma I have heard.  I think of my Nan and her Southern voice...it calls me...I am sitting waiting for my story...

I don't understand the evolution of time in my life...

Since when did looking at family photographs cause me to ache with the passage of time?  How dare that happen!

Since when did I know exactly the feel of my children at the age I see in a photograph, and know the smell of their hair , the feel of their soft skin, the silly faces they might make, the tender hugs with not so big arms thrown around my neck in loving embrace?

Since when...did the faces I am looking at...are now gone?  Those faces full of life, friends of my parents, doing silly parties, wearing party hats, or silly outfits for an event...since when did seeing them, remembering them, make me sad?  

Looking at photos always made me feel good.  Always made me smile and laugh.  

I remember that day.  I remember that dinner.  I remember that birthday party.  I remember putting the swing set up with my parents at their home...I was nine months pregnant and round and heavy with child.  I remember that day.

Am I really getting old?  Has the passage of time slipped by in the wink of an eye? 

We use to go to the parents for dinner, now they can't do those dinners we enjoyed so much.  Now my mom can't drive and my Love's parents I don't want driving after dark. 

We use to do more dinners together with the family, casual nights of playing croquet on the lawn on a warm summer evening. Being silly, cheating, laughing, being...just being together.  Our kids, nieces, nephews, grown, some with family of their own, busy, away.  


We use to play games like Trivial Pursuit which I really didn't like but played anyway.  We use to play UNO which I did like and still do.  We use to play Monopoly on vacations playing late into the night, well I did with the kids, my Love long in bed snoozing.  


Vacations...ah vacations.  The time to connect back with the family unit.  No TV.  Just us.  Always asking who wants to come along, always getting a place that can hold a group.  Some of the best times we have had was going to Tahoe when the kids were young.  How I loved having the extended family along to hang out with.  Sitting on the beach being as lazy as possible.  Watching the kids and what they would do or come up with doing.  Looking and listening for bears at night.  Sitting in a hot tub if the place had one as we swatted mosquitoes, looking at the starry night.  Hikes.  Going down the Truckee River, splashing water, laughing, such times were had.


Transitions.  I don't like that all my kids don't live near us.  I miss the times together.  I don't feel needed or thought of.  It sounds selfish, I know.  I just want to rekindle those good times we had.  I just want to sit around and let what ever comes to our heads and talk.  I want to make s'mores.  I want what was to be.  I want the memories to still be important and to create them.  


Transitions.  What happened?  I know the family grew.  So many more little ones now that the kids started having kids.  How can every one fit in a single place anymore?  How can everyone find the time?  The economy has screwed too much up.  Who has the money or time?


Time.  I believe, and will always believe, you have to make the time for memories and good times to have a chance to happen.   You have to be available.  No assumptions, no judgement, no predictions.  You have to see the possibilities and potential.  You have to let it happen.


Such crazy times I have been a part of from the first years of dating my Love and going to or having family events.  Such memories we still can laugh at....


Crazy #1  :   Too cold and windy at the beach in Santa Cruz after we started our BBQ on the beach on a small BBQ grill...bright idea of Uncle Doc to bring the BBQ back to the family cabin (the old cabin) in the back of the truck.  Yep.  Getting on the road back to the cabin with a hot, HOT, BBQ in the bed and the sparks are flying with a bunch of us in the back with it (yep..before it was illegal to let people sit in the back of a open truck)...yep.  BBQ is trying to slide around and how do you hold a hot BBQ?.


Crazy #2  :  My niece and her friend on Lake Tahoe on a simple raft...floating too far away without a paddle.  Yep.  They had to be rescued by a friendly boat.

Crazy #3  :  Finding ourselves lost in London while walking around.  Found our way back to where we could get a Taxi.

Crazy #4  :  Convincing my Love to don a wig, wear a grass hula skirt, and coconut top and perform for his mom's birthday.  It was hysterical!  Of course he has done this before so it wasn't too hard to get him to do. 


Crazy #5  :  Every Halloween Party where we dress up.  R. and my Love making the Wizard come to life for the little ones.  Yep.  My Love dressing up again.


Maybe those memories aren't crazy but they were definitely memorable experiences that would never happen if we didn't get together.


I am feeling melancholy that R. has missed out on so many of those memories, not to mention my great nieces and nephews.  I can't fully explain why.


I am determined to keep trying to present the opportunity for gatherings though.  I am going to believe that there only needs to be a nudge in the right direction.  I am going to believe that our family does want to have this still happen.  


As the saying goes,  "Friends may come and go but family is forever".  I believe this....