Second grade homework, found in backpack today.

Making a pie crust may be simple for our Aunt Joyce — but for the rest of us, getting the flour and fat to just the right consistency is still a challenge that creates a great deal of tension. And, as delicious as a flaky floured pie crust is, it’s not all that good for you.

Yet, I love pie. I just love it. I would eat it breakfast lunch and dinner if I could… and now, I think I will. I was reading the Raw cookbook, and stumbled across her pie crust, that uses nuts as the flour. Of course, I thought, this would definitely work. So, I adapted her recipe just a bit, and came up with this no flour, low-GI pie crust:

• 2 cups nuts (you can use almond, walnuts… whatever you have on hand)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed (this is optional… I always have this in my freezer and use it in everything I bake — very nutritious and loaded with omega 3s — and really adds no flavor, but lots of fiber — so if you don’t have it, I hope you’ll ge some.)
• 1/2 olive oil, coconut oil or grapeseed oil
• Salt to taste
• 

That’s it! No ice cubes, no patting and sifting — this is it. And these are all the things I’m sure you love anyway — so just add them to your pie. The raisins add a sweetness and stickiness that just brings the whole crust together. Just put them all into your food processor and pulse away.

Push the mixture into your pie shell… and you are ready.

What’s not to love about a teacher who takes the time to make a “before the end of the year list,” and then does what’s on the list?

It sounded a bit like a Little Rascals episode downstairs. I could picture the little people in the kitchen trying to get the skillet right over the top burner. There were lots of clanking noises. This reminded me of that Katharine Hepburn movie where she cooks pancakes… making a huge mess. That was enough to put a smile on my face. They worked quietly, being careful not to fight and squabble. The fridge opened quite a bit. Dad’s flight wasn’t coming in until later that day, and the teenagers, of course, were sleeping, so it was up to these little guys, the real heavyweights, to pull off this “Breakfast in Bed,” bit.

I learned later that it went like this: The older of the two had already strategized and planned ahead. He had asked another grownup “how to cook an egg.” He rubbed the butter all over the pan – although he worried that he had used too much butter. (He didn’t.) He was fascinated at how quickly the egg “turned white.” While the egg cooked, he made the toast, leaving off the butter (to make up for using too much on the skillet). Then, he made the tea.

Meanwhile, the youngest, the baby, was watching all of this big kitchen production, wondering what he could do. “I mean – eggs, toast – and even her favorite tea?! What is left for me?! Never mind the fact that I just made her a life-size origami dress (more on that later), I have to come up with something to serve her.”

So, he remembered that tuna salad I had brought him at Whole Foods yesterday. So, he pulled, what else – but tuna salad out of the fridge. Who doesn’t think of having a tuna salad sandwich, along with their egg, for breakfast? Working parallel alongside of his brother, he proceeded to make me a tuna fish sandwich. As the final flourish, there just happened to be a bit of leftover fried kale, so he threw that on the side of the plate, like potato chips.

Throughout all of this, I did not move or stir in my bed. I just stayed put and imagined their little hands, with bodies, barely tall enough to reach the counter, cooking away.

Then, they began the migration up to the bedroom. This was quite a challenge. Our bedroom is on the third floor, which includes two landings. They walked slowly. They stumbled.  The kale, as airy as it is, had slid off the plate and left a trail of powdered dust all over the stairs. Fairy dust, I like to think of it. None of this even fazed them. They continued and tarried on upstairs.

By the time they made it to the top, I had, maybe, a tablespoon of tea left in my cup.

They jumped on the bed and stared over me while I ate. They gave me the “play-by-play” of all the events that happened in the kitchen…”Then, I got out the tea bag… and I put water in the tea kettle.” This was a very big deal to them. And it was — and I showed them how big of a deal I thought it was too.

I did finally catch them working on their cards.

They presented me with their cards, handmade, with teabags glued on top,

and told me all about how they had “planned this for over two weeks.”

Please notice the little drawing of “Susiej”

Then, the littlest one sighed, and said, “Why can’t there be a kid’s day?”

They kept waiting, watching me eat… and then, they announced that they were hungry too. Soon, I was downstairs, cleaning up their mess in the kitchen and making them pancakes. I got the kitchen cleaned just in time to make room for Daddy, who came in with my favorite goat cheeses, and wine, and made dinner for all of us.

No, this is not whipped cream…

it’s stiff and too soapy. But, if you just happen to have a bar of Ivory Soap in the house, go get it… right now.

Luckily, we have quite a bit of it stashed around in a collection…

Then, stick it in the microwave — two minutes should do it.

Then, surprise!

It grows into this amazing mountain, hollow on the inside. It’s still soap — you can break off pieces to use it to wash your hands.  Go to Our Best Bites, the inventor of this soap miracle, for more ways to transform this concoction — including a way to make “new soap.” Pinterest, of course, was where I saw the soapy mountain.

As much as he loves what happened, he’s hasn’t recovered from the shock of watching this transformation. Too afraid to hardly touch it — and certainly not yet willing to do this to “all of his soap.” not willing to give up any more bars of soap for this… even though it’s still soap.

After attending my first real “story time” at the library with my son, I felt as if I had stumbled upon the great renaissance of my entire life. There were so many amazing stories! For starters,  I had never heard of the book “Goodnight Moon,” until I heard it for the first time at story time, as an adult.  That was a revelation right there and then.  We would check out stacks and stacks of books, and I fell in love with the narratives, just as much as the illustrations. Pumpkin Moonshine, To Market, To Market, Blue Bowl Down, Owl Moon, My Lucky Day… and I found myself sitting on the sofa, opening up the pages just to “see what happened,” long after the boys went to sleep. Treasures, they were.

The bonus was having something to do, together, with the boys, that we both LOVED. We would spend hours going through the stacks of books.

One of my fondest memories is opening up the pages of Arthur Geisert’s “After the Flood,” and watching how Geisert’s imagination unfolded onto the page, re-creating how life was re-born as the waters receded.

If you remember correctly, the Ark landed on the top of a mountain. So, Noah and his family decided to move down the mountain to the fertile land below. To do this, they cut trees and built a

slide to move the ark down the mountain.

Noah, his family, and the animals all worked together.

Why, you might be wondering, would they need to bother with that heavy ark?

The answer is enchanting…

The book illustrates how the roof was removed from the top of the ark, and the ark was turned over to make a shelter. It would become their home!

The ending, like all children’s story books, is just as comforting and reassuring:

At night, stories were read to the children and to the animals…

Of course they were…And, I just checked out a whole stack of Geisert books to read with my kids. What could be a better Mother’s Day present?

For the past two weeks, I have been bombarded with an avalanche of questions.

“What is your favorite candy?”

“Really? You don’t remember? And besides, do you have some for me? Is that why you’re asking?”

No, there were no Smarties.

“What’s your favorite color?”

This is always a tough one… because I never know how to respond. Color needs context. When my oldest was a first grader, I told him how much I loved to wear black. The next “flower” he made for me at school was black. I try to never answer that one… and say something about “all the colors of the rainbow.”

Over the next few days the questions jumped to tea, and then towards, “what time do you wake up?”

Then it dawned on me. It’s Mother’s Day this weekend. Like boys trying to be the first one to score a touchdown goal, they are literally falling all over themselves to be the “one” who will surprise me with the thing I loved the most.

My husband tells me the biggest fight is over the “tea.” Who’s going to make it and who’s serving it to me… in bed. Then, another one, who accepts the loss, thinks he’ll “one-up” the other brother by saying, “But I know which one is their favorite.”

Then, they asked him if they could order Jumbo-Sized Smarties… from Amazon. “You’re going to flip out, dad,” they said. “They’re $24, because you have to buy them in bulk.”

I think I could really throw them if I told them about the old-fashioned soda fountain,  inside of the big-time JCPenny story on Main Street. I was small, so the second thing to greet my senses when I walked in was the chekered brown and tan floor. The first thing to hit me was the smell: a combination of ice cream, caramel, cheeseburgers, new clothes and roasted peanuts. This was heaven. My aunt used to take me there, and it was then and there that I learned it was not “OK” to eat gum found on the bar stools while we sat at the counter.

We sat at the counter and waited for the store-made “Zagnuts.” Remeber those? Roasted peanuts. The man behind the counter would scoop them out of the bin into a paper bag and sent us on our way. The bag was warm from the candy, and soon the bag held grease stains. My aunt had her own bag of Zagnuts, so I didn’t have to share with her. Then, we zipped away in her car. Later, I learned that my aunt  was diabetic. Did she need that candy, or was she cheating?

Those warm Zagnuts (not the kind you find in the wrapper at the grocery store) are my favorite. But, I don’t want to overly stress the boys. They’d hunt down a shop that would custom make Zagnuts for me, and serve them to me warm. They quest to be the first one to supply me with a warm Zagnut would create too much competition and strife. I don’t think one exists.

I’m always amazed by their innocence in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day. The boys never seem to be “missing” for extended periods of times (while they’re busy wrapping, inventing verses and rhymes, and shopping) nor do I notice the “mess” of pulled out wrapping paper and ribbons that appear on the “morning.” Their “wrapping station location” must be guarded 24 x 7 — because I have yet to find the spot. I am humbled… I always thought I never everything they were up to.

I think it was Warren Buffet who said, “We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”

A dried bean appears to be dead. Hard as a rock, void of nutrients. Add water, and you can revitalize the bean and transform it into a creamy, nutritious mush. Still, although I love all kinds of beans, beans are still full of starch. However, a sprouted bean is just beginning to create new life — you’ve created a perpetual mini garden in your kitchen to feed your family “fresh food.”

It’s like an “indoor garden” right on your own counter.

I’ve been buried in a bevy of cookbooks lately, Raw Food Cookbooks

touting the benefits and “how-tos” of sprouting beans and grains. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• We’ve all heard that beans are full of nutrients. However, there are amino acids in the bean that binds with calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and zinc, making it hard to impossible for you to absorb those nutrients. When you sprout the beans, you are neutralizing these amino acids — which makes it easier for your body to gain access to these nutrients — especially protein.
• “The process of germination not only produces vitamin C, but also changes the composition of grains and seeds in numerous beneficial ways. Sprouting increases vitamin B content, especially B2, B5, and B6. Carotene increases dramatically-sometimes even eightfold.” Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
• Sprouting activates nutrients that are bound up in the seeds, making more protein available in the food. For example, a grain of wheat, increases its vitamin E content 300% after only 2 days of growth and the B2 vitamin riboflavin jumps from 13 milligrams to 54 mg in the sprout. In general, b vitamins can increase 300% to 1400% depending on the variety.
• Sprouting also makes the bean easier to digest and eliminates the gasses traditionally found in beans.

So, I began the process of bringing my dried beans to life — not just through “rehydration” but actually turning the bean into a plant… live food.  Here’s how I proceeded.

Admittedly, I started with probably the hardest bean to sprout — the garbanzo bean. If you want to try sprouting, pick a softer bean — like a lentil, which can sprout in almost a day. My family loves garbanzo beans, and I’m a very patient person, so I rolled up my sleeves and forged ahead.

I made this sprouting process as simple as possible. I refused to buy any extra “sprouting” equipment.

I simply soaked the garbanzo beans overnight — probably about 36 hours. Garbanzo beans are VERY hard — rocks, really, and required to be soaked longer than most beans. I changed the water at least every 12 hours. (Soaking them in the refrigerator may have eliminated this fresh water changes.)

Then, when the garbanzo beans were done soaking, (just beginning to soften), I rinsed them thoroughly and just set them up in a colander. I rinsed them every few hours. Sprouting took a couple of days. But once they sprouted,

they were beautiful.

Now, here is where I made my mistake.

I immediately began to process the beans in my food processor. I had read too many over-zealous raw cookbooks, who had convinced me that heat destroys all the nutrient value of any food. I added the garlic, salt, the tahini, the lemon juice, and just whizzed away. The soft beans actually did turn into a creamy hummus — without much effort!

The taste, I will admit, was Putrid! I was quite disappointed… and I wouldn’t even let my family taste this raw concoction… for fear that I would turn them off sprouted food forever.

Back to square one, after realizing that I have been eating cooked food my whole life, and I haven’t died yet. A little heat would have done this hummus some good. Besides, what good is a nutritious food is no one is eating it?  So, I’m working on this again — this time, cooking the garbanzo beans after sprouting. Sprouting, they tell me, will cut the cooking time in half. If you’ve ever cooked a garbanzo bean, you know that’s reason enough to sprout.

My first introduction into gardening was by my mother, of course. I was less than five years old the morning she dedicated a 4×4 square plot of our yard to me. “This was my very own flower garden,” she said. The first plants we planted were Morning Roses. Not really roses, as they had fern-like leaves that looked, at first, as if they might be sharp, but were actually quite soft, yet sturdy.

Morning Roses open only in the morning. Four o’clocks open in the afternoon. Moon flowers bloom at night. Enchantment is the only word to describe the feeling I had about peculiar flowers that followed the tick of a clock.

In 1751, Carolus Linnaeus had a similar vision. He hypothesized a Flower Clock garden plan that would take advantage of several plants that open or close their flowers at particular times of the day to accurately predict the time. He called it the Horologium Florae. Several botanical gardens attempted the idea in the early 19th century, with mixed success.

“Many plants exhibit a strong circadian rhythm, and a few have been observed to open at quite a regular time, but the accuracy of such a clock is diminished because flowering time is affected by weather and seasonal effects.

No one can precisely capture the bloom of a Morning Rose.

During a recent visit to a museum with my son, I stumbled upon this intriguing piece of art, by Brandon Antczak,

who attempted to capture what Linnaeus was also unable to capture in real life, onto paper. The piece exhibited is titled Mr. Linnaeus’ Larks & Owls. Interestingly, Antczak ran into similar challenges.

Brandon compiled images for each specific plant species from herbariums around the world. Using water as a solvent he transferred the ink from each plants’ image onto paper using a printing press. The swelling of the paper, combined with the pressure from the press caused creases to form in the paper, a physical attribute reminiscent of plant roots.

Here, those imperfections of physical life created art. The swelling of the paper creates something texturally beautiful.

What is even more interesting, is the list of plants, along with their bloom times. 

The list has scribbles of modifications and changes — looking surprisingly similar to my own garden list and plans, after real-life invades.

I remember that when it came to my own flower garden, I missed everything. In the mornings, I forgot to check on the roses, as I was occupied with Captain Kangaroo. By afternoon, I was busy climbing a tree, so I missed the Four O’Clocks. When the Moon Flowers came out, I was playing Ghost in the Graveyard. There was a rhythmic mystery going on in my very own flower garden, but I scarcely took the time to participate and watch what was going on.

Visually, I missed the blooms at their appointed times. Yet, the beatings of their appointed bloom times cycled through my memory. I may not have seen the Morning Rose close, but I knew it did. I never forgot the spectacle that my eyes have yet to see.

Apparently, all of us who speak the language of plants, have yet to capture their elusive rhythms.

There were just a few Oreos left, and only one boy in the house, so I offered to make him an Oreo milkshake with the Magic Bullet. I’m just learning to master the MB, even though my brother bought it for me a few years back. I just got it out of the box… and I’m having some fun with.

The Oreo shake was a pretty big hit… made a nice back drop for that elusive bonding moment that only comes once in a blue moon to a mom of four boys. I savored every minute.

Soon, an older brother trickled home… he nodded at the Oreo masterpiece, now a puddle in the bottom of a black-speckled MB plastic mug. Since the Oreos were gone, I offered to make him a Strawberry milkshake. He passed.

Then, the baby came home. Once he got wind of the fact that there were no Oreos left, that his only option was a strawberry shake, he had one big hissy fit. He threw out a few unkind and forbidden words. The strawberry milkshake I had offered was immediately revoked, and he was sent to bed.

Then, he dodged me. And I dodged him back… and soon he had slipped out the back door. Mad as a hornet. He wandered down the driveway and found himself on the street, in the rain, in his barefeet. A puddle started to pool around his feet.  He didn’t know where to go. All the doors to his friend’s house were closed, as it was well past dinner time.

He snuck back to our driveway, and hid along the steps of the patio, thinking that there, he was hidden from his brothers. The brothers? They were sitting in the the kitchen, watching, and laughing. Then, he snuck in through the side-door, trying to slip in unnoticed, to get some relief from the rain. But his brothers knew…they saw it all.

I warned them, “Don’t say a word to him. Not a word. I don’t want him any more upset than he already is.”

They behaved. Instead, they spoke to each other.

• “Well, I get all of his Origami paper.”
• “I guess I’ll take all of his Legos.”
• “And I definitely get his bed.”

Soon, that little Tazmanian Devil came out of hiding and staked his claim on all his stuff. And I immediately countered with, “And just make sure all your homework is done first.”