My Seussical Life for 2004 January 8

Now that I have my sourdough starter from Aunt Frances, I am anxious to use it. Last night I made a black bean chili recipe from a Deborah Madison cookbook I checked out from the library. To accompany, I made Great Aunt LeJeune's sourdough cornbread. I felt like the little red hen in some way, but instead of no help with my work, Atticus' eagerly followed me around the kitchen volunteering out the wazoo. Unfortunately, the prep work on this meal was not the most child friendly. Instead, I put him to the task of making orange juice. He had fun with that.

The chili recipe was too fussy for everyday eating--steps like toasting cumin seeds in a skillet, adding additional herbs, and then grinding all of the seasonings using a mortar and pestle. But the outcome was delicious, especially the cornbread. I worried about that because the batter was about the consistency of a runny pancake batter. But it came out of the oven firm, moist, delicious, and ready to be gobbled up. In Atticus' words, "MMmmmm, Mama, this dinner is 'elicous!"

Tonight's venture is to bake bread with the new mixer Betty and Tom gave me for Christmas. Mmmmmm.

Ahh--to have the power to heal all ills with a kiss. One of the great gifts of motherhood, I presume.

Another day, another bedtime. I love the peaceful moments that come after the children are tucked asleep in their beds. I've taken two Ibuprofen, and I think I'll scratch the idea of baking bread tonight. Too drained. This is the second day Dave has been gone all day until after bedtime doing normal GRA work and then ethics training stuff in Kansas City for the county commission and some other local government group I can't recall at the moment. We thought that responsibility was going away after teaching ethics classes to civic personel last semester, but it turns out that the manager Dave was working with has been called to active duty in Iraq. Since the only other person involved is lecturing at Balliol College of Oxford University (Dave's advisor), guess who is next in line to pick up the duties. So, needless to say, this semester will be an interesting one with all that Dave has on his plate.

I'd like to be in Oxford right now.