Join a CSA!

This week the talk is all about snow and ice and wintry mix and single digit temps, but instead I'm thinking about fresh vegetables.


As frozen as it may be out there, this is actually a good time of year to think about a Community Supported Agriculture program. The farmers are thinking of it, of course, getting ready for the season already. I put in my deposit for my CSA in December and I'm already looking forward to fresh veggies in May.

I love my CSA and feel like I've become CSA evangelist, telling anyone who'll listen about the marvels of local, organic vegetables every week. About new recipes and new vegetables. About finding out that I actually love tomatoes. About getting to know "my" farmers - heroes in my world.

This year the KC CSA Coalition is hosting a CSA Open House on Saturday, February 12 - an opportunity to meet CSA farmers directly, find out about their CSA programs and - hopefully - join! It'll be a great opportunity to secure a spot in a CSA program. You'll be glad you did when May rolls around and the weekly freshness starts flowing in.

2011 CSA Open House
Saturday, February 12, 2011
10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
600 Broadway, 4th floor, KCMO

click for more info, a map, and details on parking

• Meet your local CSA farmers ALL IN ONE PLACE!
• Find out how Community Supported Agriculture works with your life!
• Feed your family FRESH, LOCAL, ORGANICALLY-RAISED
veggies, fruits, meats, eggs, and more!
• Invest your hard-earned money in our local economy!
• Enhance your farm-to-plate connection!

KC Symphony: Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody, Plus Shostakovich

Last night we went to the symphony for the first time this season, having been otherwise occupied last fall. We called on Sergio's sister to watch Julia for us; to have a trusted family member near by who can watch our baby while we enjoy some live music is, I realize, a priceless opportunity. But priceless though it may be, we tried to offer some payment for her generosity by bringing dinner over before hand to say thanks. And so together we enjoyed delicious take out from Cupini's and some nice dinnertime conversation, including the most recent escapades of Emilio the Great, our 15-month old nephew who (like many his age) has a penchant for trouble. Recently he managed to pull down a lamp, paint a small space of wall with Vaseline, and ruin an alarm clock with milk - all in the space of five minutes and all from the comfort of his crib.

It was precisely this destructive but hilarious mini-rampage that I was imagining during the brief, rambunctious first piece of the evening - the Interlude from La boda de Luis Alonso, a zarzuela by Jerónimo Giménez - which was six minutes of delightfully raucous and rowdy music that seemed like a fitting soundtrack to Emilio's adorable tirade, as I imagined it.

Adding to the energy of the evening was Giancarlo Guerrero, a memorable return guest conductor, whose excitement and charisma evoked rollicking giggles from the man in the seat next to me.

After Sinfonía No. 4 by Roberto Sierra, a curious but very new piece, it was time for intermission and I was disappointed to discover that after 31 minutes of symphonic works, the music playing in my head was the tinny little song from the frog toy hanging in Julia's carseat. Go figure. I couldn't get her off my mind so I called Christy to check in. I got the feeding/diaper/sleep report just as the end-of-intermission bell was ringing and we scuttled back to our seats to prepare for Alisa Weilerstein on Cello playing Shostakovich's Concerto No. 2 in G Major for Cello and Orchestra.

As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of Shostakovich, but I try to be open-minded and so I started reading about the piece in the program. It went a little something like this - "... at the center of the Concerto stands a cheeky scherzo in the sardonic and bitingly witty vein - let's see, if Julia had a new diaper at 7:30 then I guess she wouldn't need a new diaper until - a wistful, limpid motive in rocking 6/8 meter; a martial theme in leaping intervals; and a hymnal phrase in slower tempo - so if she's asleep right now and she just ate she'll probably be fine until--wait , what time do we get out here?" So on and so forth. So I gave up reading and decided just to listen instead.

The Shostakovich was ... how shall I put it? Just really, really sad. I'm not just saying that because I managed to read just enough of his bio to learn about his failing health and his time in a sanatorium. The whole thing was just all mournful and sort of defiant. I'm not complaining, mind you. An evening of live orchestral music - no matter how mournful - is a welcome break from the constant hum of Julia's blow dryer white noise and 24/7 NPR (my own comforting white noise, I guess).

Ms. Weilerstein, interpreted this mournful concerto adeptly and passionately. I decided to focus on her performance and let my mind go - instead of letting the emotion of the piece get to me and send me to all the anxious places in my imagination - and I found myself wondering if it's hard to play the cello if you are nine months pregnant which Ms. Weilerstein is not but - what can I say? - I still have baby on the brain.

The evening ended with a bit more wild rumpus in the form of Rapsodie Espagnole, written by Maurice Ravel while he was living hermit-like on a boat, which somehow seems relevant when you hear the piece, especially the part at the beginning that he described at "voluptuously drowsy." This Spanish rhapsody was a nice book end to the zarzuela that started the evening and by the time we left, right on time to pick up Miss Julia, the tinny little toy frog music was - at last - looooong gone.

The Last Year and The New Year

Perhaps it's a little late in January for a 2010 retrospective, but I have spent most of this month pondering the course of the last twelve months, so a gathering of these thoughts three weeks into the new year doesn't feel too late to me.

I rang in the new year this year feeling completely awash in the reality of Julia; on New Year's Eve, a few minutes before midnight, I pulled her out of the pack and play so she'd be with us at the stroke of midnight. As soon as I had her in my arms it dawned on me that she had been with us at the stroke of midnight last year, and that at that same moment a year ago, I was already pregnant with her and didn't know it yet. And suddenly the miracle of life in all its magnitude blew me away all over again while Julia just kept sleeping in my arms, oblivious and swaddled, looking like a burrito.

Last weekend, on the Martin Luther King, Jr holiday, I celebrated our one-year 'preg-iversary' (as one friend dubbed it) remembering that day last January that Sergio and I found out we were having a baby. That milestone being so close to the new year triggered lots of memories and so, like a rolling snowball or a pregnant belly that steadily increases in size, I have been recalling every stage of the pregnancy, the miraculous progression, the full range and spectrum of emotions, each season of the year, each "babymoon," each step along the way - step over step, step over step - that has brought us to today.

December marked the end of the phenomenal year of the baby. It also marked the end of the "fourth trimester," as it's known, and the start of January was roughly the half-way point in my gloriously long six-month maternity leave. So since the year began, I have slowly started thinking about work again. I am prepping myself to go back, reminding myself of the things I love about my job even though I know I'll spend the first days (weeks? months?) thinking only about Julia's every wiggle, giggle, and smell.

tummy time

Which are the things that have filled up this long leave - they are the tiny, minute details that I spend the day collecting - sometimes with my camera, always with my head and heart. We have our daily activities and routines, which I will miss ... or to spin it more optimistically, our daily activities and routines which I am going to savor, relish, and wallow in for the next two months until I turn her over to Sergio for six months of quality time with Daddy.

morning tea and teether routine

Not just routines and activities but developments, too. Everyday it's something new. Learning to hold the teether and bring it to her mouth (if only for a second before she flails her arm out and sends the teether flying), learning new chatting and chirping and squealing and gurgling sounds, learning to grab and bat at the rattles hanging above her on the play mat.

There isn't a moment to lose with this little girl.

Julia having a lengthy conversation with herself in the mirror, reminiscent of that one scene in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Four Months

4 months old • 12 pounds, 11 ounces • 24 inches long • 100% delightful

Junior Milk Monster Association

Julia's initials or Junior Milk Monster Association

I'm gettin' a little crafty here on my maternity leave! I was inspired by the fantastic onesies that our friends and coworkers made for our shower last summer and I had some left over fabric samples, so I had this great idea to do a onesie with Julia's initials. So when my mom was in town for the baptism, she helped me get this project going. It took a tad bit longer than I thought it would and if we were to sell these puppies on Etsy we figured we'd want to charge about 50 bucks for them. Which is why this one is and will remain a one of a kind.

Sergio helped with the font. I should have let him do all the blanket stitching, too, instead of me - it would have come out a little less, um, homey-looking had his penchant for precision played a part. At any rate - I'm so stinkin' proud of this. And when she out grows it (in no time at all, I'm sure!), I'm making it into a pillow or something with a little more longevity than a 3-6 month onesie. It's too good to put away.

2011 - Year of the Soup

We've been eating a lot of soup so far this year. And while I don't think we'll actually spend the entire year on a soup diet, we have at least sustained it for nearly two weeks and it's been a blast planning out our menus.

On a regular basis, we make a lot of soups and stews that are terribly similar and formulaic (this one, this one, and this one, for example) and so I was looking to diversify our repertoire with a few new and different soups. Plus, I wanted to take advantage of my being home all day thus allowing for 6-hour soups in the crock pot. So, I've been reading Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker each night before bed, picking out some recipes and trying not to get distracted by the complicated and delicious-sounding non-soup recipes.

We've had a couple of chunky soups or stews, a chili, some smooth pureed soups, some with a tomato base and some without. Each one different, all of them vegan, and most of them as locally sourced as possible. A trip to Badseed's winter market last Friday boosted our ingredient list for the second week of soup and beyond.

So here's what we've had...

Monday: Lentil Soup with Ribbons of Kale - I made this for some friends who had a baby right before Christmas; I'd been craving it ever since, so it was first on the list. An oldie but a goodie.

Tuesday: Creamy Tomato Soup with Israeli Couscous (see the recipe below) - our beloved Cosentino's, alas, did not have Israeli Couscous. But we made do with a charming tiny shell pasta. This was a very fun soup that I intend to add to our regular repertoire.

Wednesday: Red Bean and Quinoa Chili - my "award-winning" chili ... okay, it's not really mine (it's Cynthia Lair's from Feeding the Whole Family) and it really only won second place (out of three chilis) ... but it's delicious nonetheless.

Thursday: Lentil Soup with Ribbons of Kale Redux - I added Field Roast Sausage to spruce up our left overs.

Friday: Dinner out at Eden Alley where we had soup! Potato Dill to be exact.

Saturday: ¡Pozole! Sergio found this super simple and delicious recipe. It's traditionally made with meat, but what ours lacked in traditional ingredients, it made up for in traditional garnishes: radish, red onion, cilantro, lime, and tostadas.

Some fancy smoked salts that Sergio got for Christmas made a nice addition to our other traditional garnishes.

Sunday: On the seventh day, we rested from our soup fest and had a special lunch at Blue Bird Bistro in honor of Julia's baptism.

Monday: Winter Squash Soup (see recipe below) - one giant butternut squash from the Badseed winter market was the star of this show.

Tuesday: Two Mushroom Barley (see recipe below) - if you love mushrooms, you'll love this soup. Funny thing, though - I don't love mushrooms. In fact, I was preparing to eat left over winter squash soup if this little number was going to come out as mushroomy as it smelled all day. But eventually the pearled barley plumped and took a prominent place among the mushrooms and, lo and behold, I actually like it!

Wednesday: Left over Winter Squash (for me) and Two Mushroom Barley (for Sergio)

Thursday: Golden Summer Squash Soup - I know - a weird thing to eat in the winter, right? But it's one of the soups I made in September, before Julia was born, and it's been hanging out in the freezer all this while. It was just as delicious four months later.

Golden Summer Soup with salsa and tostadas

The following recipes are from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

Creamy Tomato Soup with Israeli Couscous
Israeli couscous is distinctly different from regular couscous in appearance and flavor. About the size of peppercorns, Israeli couscous can be found in well-stocked supermarkets and gourmet grocers. If unavailable, substitute acini de pepe (peppercorn) pasta, or another small soup pasta such as orzo or ditalini.

Slow cooker size: 4 quart
Cook time: 6-8 hours (ours was done in 6)
Setting: Low
Serves: 4

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
(I added about 1 cup of chopped red peppers)
3 cups vegetable broth
one 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes (or one quart of local canned tomato halves!)
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
pinch of sugar or a natural sweetener
2 bay leaves
(I added a teaspoon each of basil and oregano; I also added a 1/2 teaspoon of tamari soy sauce)
salt and pepper
1 cup cooked Israeli couscous
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves for garnish

Heat the oil in a medium-size skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, cover, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. (You can leave this step out and just but the onion and garlic straight in.)

Transfer the vegetables to a 4-quart slow cooker, add the stock, tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, and bay leaves (and basil and oregano and soy sauce); season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on Low for 6-8 hours. Remove the bay leaves and purée the soup in a food processor or blender or use an immersion blender to purée it in the slow cooker. Adjust the seasonings.

To serve, spoon about 1/4 cup of cooked couscous into the bottom of each bowl, ladle the hot soup on top, and serve sprinkled with the basil.

Winter Squash and Sweet Potato Soup
This soup is a great way to begin Thanksgiving dinner. Best of all, when made in a slow cooker, it frees up the already-crowded stovetop and keeps the soup at a good serving temperature while everyone gathers at the table.

Slow Cooker Size: 4 to 6 quart
Cook Time: 6 hours
Setting: Low
Serves 4-6

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
2 medium-size sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced (I had a huge squash so I used all squash and no sweet potatoes)
4 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, and celery, cover, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

Transfer the cooked vegetables to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Add the sweet potatoes, squash, stock, thyme, and sage; season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook on Low for 6 hours.

Purée the soup in a blender or food processor, working in batches, or directly in the slow cooker using an immersion blender. Taste to adjust the seasonings, and serve hot.

Two-Mushroom Barley Soup
Both dried and fresh mushrooms are used in this satisfying soup popular throughout Eastern Europe. Any kind of dried mushroom is fine for this soup - I especially like the woodsy flavor of porcini. Pearl barley can be found in most supermarket or health food stores.

Slow Cooker Size: 4-6 quart
Cook Time: 6 hours
Setting: Low
Serves 4-6

1 ounce dried mushrooms
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 celery rib chopped
1 cup pearl barley
8 ounces white mushrooms, sliced (we got ours from Paul and Judy at Badseed!)
6 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons minced fresh chives

Place the dried mushrooms in a heatproof measuring cup and cover with hot water. Let sit until softened. Drain, straining and reserving 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid, thinly slice the mushrooms, and set aside.

Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery, cover, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

Transfer the cooked vegetables to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Add the barley, both kinds of mushrooms, the stock, the reserved mushroom liquid, and thyme and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Taste to adjust the seasonings before serving. If a thinner soup is desired, add more broth.

Serve garnished with the chives.

Julia's Baptism / Bautizo de Julia (A Photo Essay)

Julia, excited about her big day

For the occasion, Julia wore a gorgeous baptism gown knitted by our dear friend and talented knitter Jieun. There was as much ooing and ahhing over the beautiful dress as there was over our beautiful Julia. Thank you, Jieun!

Here she is at the baptismal font, reprising the winning smile with which she wowed Canon Sue during the ceremony.

We are very proud of our Julita and are grateful to everyone who was able to be there to make her day special - Honey and Papa; her padrinos, Christy and Armando; and lots of loving folk at the church.

The Holidays

This year it was back to our old holiday travel routine - a few days in OKC and a week in Mexico and then ringing in the new year on a plane - only this year we had our newest little travel buddy along for the ride. She was quite a trooper - a good little traveler.

Little Christmas Munchkin

Duendecita de Navidad

But before we left home we had a little bit of Christmas on our own, including a Christmas Tree! With a ton of generous help from Christy and Armando, I was able to pick up my native (but invasive!) eastern red cedar (from Laura at Blue Door Farm) at Badseed market. I do love a free-spirited Christmas Tree; Sergio calls it a Christmas Bush.

The Christmas "Bush"

Another little bit of Christmas, new this year - I finally made it back to the Messiah Singalong at church. I haven't been in 6 years, but I've wanted to go back all this while. So while Jujube hung out with her dad and her tio Armando and learned all about Pink Floyd, Mommy spent three lovely hours trying to remember all the alto parts from Freshman Choir in college. The singalong is a great Christmas tradition and I hope I can go next year.

Christmas candles with a bowl of torn construction paper Christmas ornaments that my brother and I made when we were kids.

our lil flower

A few days before Christmas, we crammed our luggage full of gifts and flew off, first to OKC, then to Mexico. I'm afraid there was no white Christmas for us this year - not like last year's unbelievable weather. But there were other treats to be had this year - getting to see family (quality time with Mema, Jujube getting to finally meet her Uncle Danny) and some long-awaited edible treats, too (tacos and quesadillas and atole and ponche).

eating her hands at Honey and Papa's

Julia's "boot" in Mexico (literal translation for the Spanish word for stocking)

And at the end of the whole trip, we even made it home in time to go to Spin! Neapolitan Pizza - one of the only places open on New Years Day! - to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary.

3 months

sweet little girl

Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, ThanksVegan

Catching up on the last holiday before the next one kicks in!

Our Lil Turkey (thanks, Erin, for the awesome duds!)

So grateful...

Julia was a jet setter for her first Thanksgiving, traveling first to Nashville then to Greensboro to see - and to meet for the first time - lots of family on both sides.

Cousins!

After two Thanksgivings, we went to Tulsa for Thanksvegan - it was Mommy and Daddy's 7th Thanksvegan - but Julia's 1st Thanksvegan! And she's got the onesie to prove it.

Lentil Loaf - Who needs turkey!?

Mmmmmm - one of the best meals of the year, every year!

Two Months Old

Two wonderful, wonderful months...

two months, too cute

Now she smiles, particularly every time I stick my tongue out at her; she coos, oohs, and gurgles; and she stares at her mobiles and the ceiling fan for long stretches of time.

She's getting big, but she's still tiny enough to snuggle up in the Moby wrap and sleep. And make perfect strangers say "Awwww."

Namesakes

It's hard to believe that we picked our baby names back in January (and agreed on them so quickly!) and then spent a good 8 months not knowing whether we were having a Julia or a Sergio. Now that we have our Julia Minerva, I am thinking a lot about where we got those names that we chose so many months (eons!) ago ...

Our Julia is named after two Julias in my family. The first was my great grandmother - Julia Wesson Taylor - my Mema's mother.

Julia #1 - she had red hair - her nickname was "Pet" - Mema says she made the best pickles

"Mama Taylor," as she is commonly known, died in 1971, but her memory is very strong in our family even today. My Mema loves to quote her still ("Anything that you do, do with all your might. Things done by halves are never done right.") and we all frequently recount the most famous story of her dogged determination: when her husband died in 1929 and left Mama Taylor with her 7 children to raise, someone came to take some of the kids away, assuming she couldn't provide for them herself; she told them that no one was taking her children and firmly encouraged them to get off her property. We love that story of the strong-willed matriarch of the family.

The second Julia is the one I know best - Julia Ophelia Akins (née Gandy) - my mother.

Julia #2 (a.k.a. Judy) with Julia #3 (a.k.a. Jujube) on day #1

She was named after her grandmother (the first Julia) though she's most commonly known as Judy. Just as my Mema wanted to name her daughter after her mother, I wanted to name my daughter after my mother ... my mother who is strong and warm, smart and insightful, humble and wise. Truly one of the wisest people I know.

Which brings us to the next namesake, another figure who embodies wisdom - Minerva.

The mosaic of Minerva in the Library of Congress in Washington DC during family vacation 2009 - if we'd known we would eventually have a baby and use that name, we'd have taken a better photo.

Minerva was the Roman goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, weaving, crafts, magic, music - or, as we like to tell people, the goddess of all the best stuff. She was the Roman corollary to the Greek goddess Athena, also the goddess of wisdom, and both were represented by owls, symbols of wisdom. (And, as luck would have it, Julia Minerva's mother already had an obsession with owls resulting in two charming owl pillows and an owl onesie for the baby, long before we knew who this baby was.) I have to give credit where it's due here; it was Sergio who suggested that we use this name. I had some misgivings at first, the nature of which I can hardly recall now, now that our aptly named Julia Minerva is here.

Last week at church, we told Canon Sue that our baby's name was "Julia Minerva" and she remarked on the legacy of wisdom that we've bestowed on her. I know Canon Sue was referring to the Minerva name, but I think we've laid it on thick with the two Julias in her history, too. Not just an ancient goddess, but some real life strong, wise women in my family, too. Hope it's not too much to live up to, Julia, but is just enough to inspire.

Calabaza en Tacha

In honor of the holiday today, I'm sharing a recipe for a dish that I've never actually made. But it's one I tasted last night for the first time and loved. My sister-in-law made it and (thankfully!) brought some over to share.

Calabaza en Tacha

Calabaza en Tacha (also called "candied pumpkin" in English, which is way less fun to say) is a Day of the Dead recipe, which, I think, makes it translate well to a Halloween recipe. But it would also be a nice substitute for those cloyingly sweet yams with the marshmallows on top at Thanksgiving. (And, in fact, I am told you can make this with sweet potatoes, too - Camote en Tacha - which, to someone who likes a little sweet potato with her brown sugar, as Sergio used to joke, sounds divine.)

piloncillo (photo from LatinMerchant.com)

It's a simple recipe - pumpkin cooked with cinnamon, orange juice and zest, water and piloncillo, a Mexican brown sugar with molasses that comes in a lovely shaped cone. Piloncillo isn't usually hard to find these days and, if it is, it's worth the effort to get; it has such a distinct flavor. In a pinch, you can substitute brown sugar and molasses for the piloncillo, but only if you must. Christy said that the traditional preparation method is to pierce the pumpkin with several large holes and to cook it whole. But there are simpler and faster cooking recipes than that. Here are links to a few ...

How to Make Day of the Dead Calabaza en Tacha
Calabaza en Tacha Day of the Dead Recipes
Candied Pumpkin

Earlier today, I asked Sergio what Calabaza en Tacha meant. He said, "Well, calabaza means pumpkin," - um, yeah, I know that already, Sergio: I did take Spanish 1 back in high school - "and en tacha ... I don't know what that means." We debated it further tonight at dinner with Christy and family - but never arrived at an answer - while enjoying our calabaza the traditional way: served cold in a bowl of milk. I thought that was a strange-sounding combo at first, but the creamy milk balances out the super sweet syrup ... it's definitely not strange. It's perfect.

con leche

Happy Halloween!

Book Shower + Fall Break (a photo essay)

The third weekend of October, we went to OKC for a Book Shower for Julia and for my cousin's wedding...

our little bookworm received over 50 books at her book shower - and no two were the same! Thanks everybody!

the beautiful bride in the gritty out doors - a beautiful wedding

Julia got to meet Mema (and her great aunts, not pictured) ...

... and her cousins, Ling and Minli (and her aunt Tyler, not pictured).

four generations

Then at the end of that week, Tyler and the girls came to spend their Fall Break in KC with me and Julia! Sergio was out of town, so he missed out on our craft activities and sweets-eating...

artwork by Ling, created at Kaleidoscope
(Minli made a sign for Julia that says 'I'm Hungry')

dozing at Latté Land

Minli at Latté Land

Glacé!

frowning over our very-difficult-to-make Paper Source poppies

Since Snow Cone season is over, thank goodness for Fresher than Fresh Snow Pops at Hammerpress letterpress studio!

One Month Old Today

Julia Minerva, one month old

I can't believe it's been one month. This has been the longest and shortest month of my life. She is totally different now than she was one month ago today - and yet she is still so precious, so small, and so sweet.

And just as much as I did that day that I first laid eyes on her, I love her more than I could have imagined.

She is amazing.

Rosemary Remembrance Cake

Rosemary for Remembrance

This is an all time favorite of mine. The first time I made it I thought rosemary in a cake was strange. Now, I have made it so often and love it so much, that when I simply smell rosemary, at the farmers market, I immediately think of this cake. Not roasted potatoes or some savory application of the herb, but rather this sweet and sugar-coated cake.

I don't make it without occasion because it's big and I could eat the whole thing myself - but shouldn't. So while Julia's grandparents were visiting and lots of family were over at our place - and since I'd gotten a nice batch of rosemary in our CSA share - I decided to make this last week.

This was my best one yet. Usually I make it with whole wheat flour because that's often all that I have around. But for this one I used local Heartland Mills unbleached, unenriched all purpose flour. And I have to tell you that while there is nothing truly wrong with the whole wheat version, there is definitely something very right about the white flour version. This cake had perfect pound cake density and the crack along the top was just right. It rose well in the oven and each slice held together beautifully.

from Nigella Lawson's Feast
makes approximately 10 slices

1 eating apple (approx. 6oz in weight)
1 small sprig and 2 medium-long sprigs of rosemary (you could just use one long sprig - but I always use two)
1 teaspoon superfine sugar
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon butter

FOR THE CAKE BATTER
2 sticks butter
3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon superfine sugar
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Peel, core, and roughly chop the apple and put into a saucepan with the small sprig of rosemary, the teaspoon of sugar, the lemon zest and juice, and butter. Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for 4-8 minutes until the apple is soft. How long this takes really depends on the variety of apple you're using. Leave to cook, and fish out the rosemary sprig when it is cold.

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a 1 lb loaf pan with a loaf liner, or butter and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Put the cooled apple into a food processor and blitz to a pulp. Then add the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and baking powder and process to a smooth batter. Spoon and scrape into the loaf pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the surface with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and then lay the long sprig(s) of rosemary along the center of the cake. On baking, the rosemary sheds its oil to leave a scented path down the middle of the cake.

Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean, then leave to cool on a rack. Slip the paper-lined cake out of the pan once it is cool.

My Birth Story

As most of you know, I've been reading a LOT of birth stories in the last 9 months. Now that Julia's here, I have written my own. It's a long one - but hey, so was my labor. So here I present, for anyone who's interested and particularly for those of you who have asked for it, my birth story.

Contractions started early on Saturday morning – 8 days before my due date. Since I’d convinced myself that this baby was going to be late, I wasn’t even sure they were real contractions. But they were getting me out of bed every hour. Sergio woke up and we made a plan for the day – eat a lot, stay home, call the family, and make applesauce. I had bought 20 pounds of apples at the market the night before and – thinking I had a full week before the baby would arrive – was planning on making a big batch of apple sauce. Before I could even think about getting the water bath canner down, my contractions got bad enough that I decided I couldn’t handle it and should try to sleep as much as possible. I called my mom and told her to go ahead and come – but told her I wasn’t sure if this was false labor or not. When I got off the phone, Sergio told me, “I don’t think this is false labor – if it were false, you’d be making apple sauce.”

By the time mom arrived, it had already been 15 hours since those first waking pangs. But I couldn’t have told you then how long it’d been. I was trying my hardest to ignore the clock; I thought that knowing how long I’d been laboring would only make it worse. If I could trick myself into collapsing all notions of time, maybe I’d be less prone to fatigue. Maybe that worked; maybe not. But the bathtub worked – for sure. As did the exercise ball. Both of those helped soothe the pain when the contractions had gotten so strong I could no longer rest.

Sergio was all abuzz all day – fixing me breakfast and a smoothie, prepping the bag for the hospital, installing the car seat, helping me with distractions at first, then helping with the contractions when they got stronger. He could hardly sit still.

As the day progressed, the weather turned weird – a storm came through and turned the sky green. I was sitting on the exercise ball in my living room, enduring a contraction while loud claps of thunder echoed outside. It was exactly the surreal backdrop that the day called for. I couldn’t believe it was all really happening. I couldn’t believe I was really living the thing I’d been preparing for so much. I couldn’t believe the baby was coming. I couldn’t believe I was finally going to find out if it’s a boy or girl. I couldn’t believe it was still a week before my due date. I couldn’t believe the pain! There was so much to process…

After one final call to the midwife, we decided it was time to head to the hospital. It was about 10 pm. The downpour of the afternoon and evening had tapered off and we took the chance to make a run for it before the storm picked up again. At the hospital, Sergio signed all the paper work while I worked my way deeper and deeper into the trance that sustained me through the rest of the process. I had already begun heading towards “planet birth” – by the time I was admitted and set up in the labor room, I had fully migrated to this other world and I wasn’t coming back for a long time.

I had to switch to some new mantras and visualization techniques as things got harder, faster, more intense (such weak words to describe what I was feeling). I gave up on the gentle, peaceful rowing visual and the kindergarten-ish mantra of “Can’t go under it; can’t go around it; can’t go over it; have to go through it,” that had worked so well at home. I had been doing a great job of focusing on the things that felt good – how relieved I felt in the fading seconds of each contraction, knowing relief was on its way – how good I felt when I could rest and relax between the contractions – how good it felt when my mom or Sergio applied pressure on my back. At first I could work past the pain if I fixated on what felt good. But by the time I got to the hospital, it was a new game and the pain had eclipsed all other sensations. So, I switched to a new visual – each contraction was a big knot and the first half, the rise, of each contraction was me trying to loosen the knot; the second half, the fall, of each contraction was me pulling the knot apart. I began some new moaning and groaning techniques – continued the horse lips or ‘raspberries’ that Ina Mae Gaskin recommends, made some cow noises and low growls, did some sing-song moaning, sometimes singing in tune with the jets of the giant tub, sometimes humming a descending string of notes over and over again. For a while I tried to will the contractions to let go of me – or maybe I was willing myself to let go of the contractions, to let go of my body enough to not feel the pain – I just chanted “let go, let go, let go, let go…” This worked for a while … but eventually I devolved into mantras like “No no no no no…” and “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” When it was time to push the only mantra that was left was very frank, clear-cut, and firm: “Pain equals baby.”

I also devolved into a sort of dark place, which surprised me. At varying points in the hardest times of the night, I took turns hating everyone I know who has had a baby recently – I hated the friends who have done this naturally, the friends who chose to get c-sections, the ones who had no choice but to get a c-section, the one that had no choice but to deliver naturally, the woman whose first labor was only 6 hours, the one who only had to push eight times, the woman who endured a long labor, etc. This feeling was so strange. Prior to my labor, I would have expected that the experiences of others would have been motivating or empowering or encouraging. And maybe they were in the beginning. This was how I’d prepared – I’d sought after everyone else’s birth stories and indiscriminately absorbed every possible scenario, and that was good for me then. But when it came time for my own story, none of those people could help me any more. So maybe it wasn’t that I hated them, it was just that there was nothing left for them to do for me. I had to let them each go – one by one. The deeper I got, the more I had to accept that the only one who could do this was me.

The other thing that surprised me is that I never hated Sergio – he was diligent, firm, and positive in his support and, somehow, not annoying. So much of what I’d read said that you’d likely get frustrated with your support people. Not so with me. I was mostly so far entranced that at certain times I could barely tell who I was reaching out to for help – whose hand I was holding – who was washing my face with a cool rag – who was feeding me ice. It could have been the man from the moon for all I knew. I was nothing but a big writhing sensory receptor by then – very little cognition.

I really wonder if – when I’d begun the contractions at 4 am on Saturday morning – you’d told me it was going to take 28 hours, I’d have been able to go through with it. I’m not sure I could have. Although my mom says I could have. I don’t know if it was the pain that got to me in the end as much as it was the fatigue. I was so desperate for sleep and contractions are a very rude way to wake up, especially when you’ve only been asleep for 5 minutes. By the time I started pushing I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and running on fumes right at the very time I needed to do the hardest work of my life. I was so exhausted during one particularly long break (“long” as in like 7 whole minutes) between contractions that I fell asleep so quickly and deeply that I snored (so they told me later). I was totally wrung dry.

And perhaps literally wrung dry, too, as I had nothing left with which to even cry. I spent about an hour pushing – one hour, approximately 8 separate contractions, 3 different positions, a lot of strange noises, pain like nothing I’d ever imagined, and such slow progress. Or at least it felt slow to me. How could something so excruciating not get the job done? Every push was the hardest, most painful experience of my life and each one was harder than the last. Finally – FINALLY – after what seemed like eons, the head came out. Suddenly, time sped up and in just a sliver of a fraction of a split nanosecond the whole body was out. Sergio caught the baby and with the midwives’ and nurses’ help, put it on my belly. It was writhing and wailing already and with the umbilical cord lying between its legs, I thought it was a boy. Until Sergio investigated and said, “We have a Julia!” And I couldn’t believe it. She was a dream come true.

I wanted to cry buckets from all the relief and joy I felt. But I couldn’t. All I could do was moan and howl with happiness, delight and disbelief. I wanted her close to me and to see her face and to inspect her perfection – as soon as Sergio cut the cord, they brought her up to my chest. When she eventually stopped crying, her eyes were wide open, looking all around as if to say, “What in the world is all this!?” Mom was standing over my shoulder saying that I’d had that same expression when I was born. And I just stared right back at her and said over and over again, I can’t believe you were a girl this whole time.

In the days after delivery I found those wells of tears that had finally filled up again. I was on a euphoric high for the first 12 hours – then I cried when they took my baby to the NICU. Then I was euphoric again when they let me see her. Then I felt stable again. Then one morning in the NICU, with no prompting whatsoever, I hit a gusher. Something triggered one tear and the next thing I know I’m bawling. All the stored up emotion made manifest at once.

Every day since the delivery my memory of the experience has changed. At first when I thought about it, I felt only fatigue, and when postpartum contractions and cramping would remind me of the pain, I would shudder at the memory, in a post-traumatic stress disorder sort of way. But with each day that passes, I feel more pride, relief, and joy, and I remember less pain. With each day, I find myself wanting to relive every moment of those 28 hours, believe it or not – to relive precisely how Julia came into the world. And with each day that I spend with Julia, I still can’t believe that I did it, and that she’s here, and that she’s ours.

Julia and me, at home

It's a Girl

On September 19 at 8 AM, I delivered a 6-pound, 15-ounce baby girl: Julia Minerva

Julia and me - day one

She is perfect. The delivery was a success (a long, arduous success). And we are so, so happy.

Happy and baffled, I think. I keep trying to find the word to describe how I feel about her. It is like love. Only much more primal, more profound.

And I still can't believe it's a girl. She had everybody fooled. But she was a girl the whole time.

She came a week before her due date or, as I like to call it, right on time. I can't imagine having had to wait another week to meet my Julia.

Do You Know What You're Having?

The second most popular inquiry that I receive on a regular basis now is "Do you know what you're having?" And each time I'm asked, I smile proudly and say "Nope!" and then willingly admit that this wait has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I never doubted my decision to not find out my baby's gender. And it's a decision I could have changed at any point. But I am committed to the surprise. And, apparently, I'm obsessed with the mystery.

a bib for Julia Minerva or Sergio Paulo

Not that I need to know for any practical reason - Sergio and I wouldn't be behaving any differently if we knew it was a boy or a girl. Quite the contrary, it's nice not to know the baby's gender in order to keep polarized gender stereotypes at bay for as long as possible. We are not pink-or-blue type people. And yet I still just reeeeaaaalllly want to know if this kid is a boy or a girl.

There are ... 'alternative' methods of ascertaining (with no certainty) the baby's gender and I have heard of all of them: if it kicks on the left, if it kicks on the right ... if you have a waist, if you don't have a waist ... if you carry it high, if you carry it low, etc. All of these measures - plus the Chinese calendar plus the spoon-or-knife-under-the-cushion test plus the grab-the-napkin-off-the-plate method - point towards this being a boy. But then ... the Facebook poll consensus was girl. And Sergio dreamt it was a girl. My mom called it "she" and "her" exclusively for the first several months. Maddox, my art director's son, who has guessed correctly on a few babies recently, has told me twice it'll be a girl. My editor thinks it's a girl. But then ... most of the farmers I buy from regularly have voted boy. (Although, there was one, farmer, whose name is Paul, who said girl and then the farmer next to him said, "Paul, how many kids you got?" and Paul said, "Two," and the second farmer said, authoritatively, "I have seven. I think it's a boy.") Even a perfect stranger in the hallway at work the other day, who asked me the popular question, said, "I didn't find out what I was having either and everyone told me it'd be a boy, but it was a girl. Don't listen to them." But at this point I am listening to no one and everyone alike.

And what about me? What are mama's predictions? I'm sorry to say I've got nothing. I kept waiting for my own instinct to kick in. A hunch or dream - something - anything. All I got were three dreams which amount to inconclusive results: in one dream it was a girl (and I took a picture of her with my mom, her namesake, and asked Sergio if he'd posted it on Facebook yet), in another dream it was a boy (who was already a toddler in the dream), and in the third dream they told me it was a girl but when they handed her to me she was wearing boy clothing. One vote for each plus a vote for transvestite. Not sure where that leaves me.

The funniest thing about this obsession is that it will absolutely vanish into thin air (I suppose) when the baby arrives and when we begin to fall in love with him/her as the him/her he/she has been all along. The other day, Sergio found a picture of our niece Nina from when she was just a day or so old. She was born five weeks early and even at that premature stage she already looked so Nina-esque. Which means our baby - by now a few weeks past the 35-week mark - already looks like what it's going to look like - and yet we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl.

Right now I feel the need to hold both possibilities in tandem - I have to imagine it both ways simultaneously and I find that difficult. But in just a matter of weeks, one of these parallel realities will shift into obscurity - into a funny footnote about this little being. A footnote like how if Sergio had been a girl he'd be Erica or if I had been a boy I'd be Taylor. Which we are not and which we never were. Just as surely as we are Sergio and Emily, this baby is already a fully formed __?__; we just don't know it yet.